Done.

I’m done. I had planned to do 2 more road races this season but I’m on the edge of burning out. I’ve decided that my season is over and it’s time to give my body (and brain) a rest. I feel like doing anything else would just get me closer to burning out.

Next year will be my final collegiate racing season and all of my current focus is on preparing for it. I’ve got lofty goals for next season that will require me to step up the volume and intensity of my training. The preparation begins with recovery from the past season and I’d rather come into training next season with a little too much rest than too little.

To wrap things up, here’s how I feel about my progress:

Time Trialing: I’ve gotten much better. I’ve been practicing on the TT bike and steadily improving my times, but this is still my most significant weakness.

Climbing: My climbing has improved as well, but I don’t feel like I am doing my capabilities justice. My body type favors climbing and I really need to start capitalizing on this advantage.

Sprinting: Sprinting was always a strength for me and it continues to be one. My climbing definitely needs to improve before I’ll have a good chance to use this ability.

Descending: In the past, descending was a serious weakness and on at least one occasion it cost me dearly. I am happy to say that this is no longer true. I am not great at going downhill, but I won’t lose ground anymore.

Time Off

I decided not to train at all while sick.  I’ve spent the past 3 days just sitting around eating, drinking, and sleeping.  It seems like yesterday was the worst of it, since I woke up feeling significantly better this morning.  If I’m feeling even better after work then I will consider going for an easy ride this evening.

Getting sick is really disappointing when training is going so well and you’re feeling stronger than ever.  I had big plans for this week and it takes a good deal of restraint to hold back and stay off the bike.  I can definitely see what motivates people to dig themselves deeper by pushing hard when their body is already suffering, but I’m confident that taking time off was the right decision.

I will be sticking with my training plan; next week will be mostly a rest week.  I think I’ll do a 10mi TT and attempt to set a PR and achieve this month’s TT goal.

Sick

I had two good hard weeks and was about to go into my last one before a recovery week… and now I’m sick.  I had a pretty bad sore throat but now it seems like it’s just going to be a typical cold — hopefully a mild one.

I’m still not quite sure how I feel about training when sick.  A lot of folks say “if it’s above the neck, you can ride,” but I still tend toward believing that more rest is better.  I guess if I’m feeling significantly better after work I will consider riding tonight.

Besides the cold, training is going very well.  I’m increasing my weekly hours and still feeling relatively fresh and I think I’m getting consistently stronger.  I’ve got a crit coming up, a few more road races, and that will be the end of the season.

Tapering

I am in the process of tapering for Elkhorn now, and things seem to be going pretty well.  After a month of feeling progressively more worn out, I am really feeling good now.  I did the race ride last night and while my lungs gave me a little bit of trouble at the beginning, I felt fine once I was warmed up.

My ability to recover from hard efforts seems to have improved a lot.  I usually end up testing this out on the race rides by attacking (knowing full well I’ll only be off for less than a minute) and then trying to get back in for the rest of the sprint.  Early on I usually just exploded and never managed to get back in but lately I’ve been able to stick a wheel and sit in long enough to recover.

I’m excited!

Rest Week!

Finally.  I didn’t plan out my training schedule like I should have and I ended up doing about 4 hard weeks in a row.  After two final rough days on the weekend I took a day off.  My legs were still feeling terrible on my ride to class on Tuesday, so I stayed off the bike another day.  On Wednesday I was going to do the local time trial but a huge design project got in the way.  So now it’s Thursday, I’ve been off the bike for 3 days and I’m going to test the legs out on the race ride this evening.  I hope the hard training and hard resting will pay off :o)

Ideally I would have had only 3 build weeks and made the 4th a rest week instead of 4 slightly less intense build weeks.  Plans don’t always work out just right, but I don’t feel like I dug myself into a hole or anything so it should work out just fine.

Got the afterburners back?

Yup, it really feels like the training is finally coming together.  I’ve been absolutely killing myself on the race rides, getting my time trial rides in, and getting plenty of rest when I’ve needed it.  All season I have been missing a certain ‘pop’ on the climbs that I used to have… but on my hill ride yesterday (it’s been awhile since I’ve actually done a hilly ride…) it seemed to have re-appeared!

My body seems to be responding really well to my current ‘training plan’ so I will continue with what I’m doing and gently add more time as the weeks progress.  I will taper off a little bit before Elkhorn and continue to build afterward.

I’ve planned out some of the summer racing stuff, but who knows what will actually happen with the rest of life getting in the way.  I’m primarily focusing on hilly road races, but will be throwing some crits in for a good variety.  Things are getting exciting, and Elkhorn is getting closer…

Training Update

I made a serious effort to get out and do a nice long 3hr+ ride this weekend but due to some unavoidable mechanical incidents it just didn’t happen.  Other than that, my training is going very well.  I’ve been doing the race rides and attacking them as hard as I can whenever I can.  I’m sure people must wonder about the guy who attacks super hard with no chance to get away, gets pulled back in, explodes off the back, and isn’t seen again for the rest of the day.  It probably looks pretty silly but a lot of the time I can find my way back into the pack and keep going… if only to launch another suicidal attack.  I really do feel like it’s making me stronger though — it’s worked for me in past years so I’m going to stick with it.  I just stay off the front a little bit longer now.

I’ll be doing another TT on Wednesday to (hopefully) verify that my last time was not a fluke.  I definitely need to get back to doing some hill training but it’s pretty difficult due to the time it takes just to get to hills.  However, I’m getting very close to my ideal race weight, without really doing any sort of intentional weight loss aside from eating more fruits and vegetables and riding more.  With my strength increasing and my weight going down, my climbing abilities will probably get better even without specific training.  We shall see.

End of Collegiate Season

Yup, collegiate racing is over.  Theres a lot of racing to sum up but I’m not even going to try.  I’m happy about my personal performance — 2 2nd place finishes was more than I would have ever anticipated.  I just wanted to finish with the pack in most of the races.  I was most impressed by the performance of all of my teammates, from the D’s up to the A’s.  It was obvious that everyone had been working really hard and it was great to see lots of personal goals met or exceeded throughout the season.

My focus is now on building up for Summer racing.  In particular, I’m working really hard on improving my time trialing ability, which has always been a weakness and limiting factor for me.  Fortunately, I’ve seen lots of improvement in this department — I’ve set personal records on my last 3 attempts at the 10mi TT and have reduced it by over 2 minutes in 3 months.

I’ve got a crit tomorrow so we’ll see how that goes!

Quick April Update

Training is going very well. My 10mi TT time has gone down and I’m starting to feel like I’m in top shape again. I feel much stronger than I ever did last year. Collegiate season is starting to wind down (we really didn’t do many races) but I’m really not all that concerned with collegiate racing. I’m going to focus on preparing for Summer racing, including a stage race. I will be training pretty hard through the end of collegiate season, taking a short rest period, and then I will continue to build up for the Summer.

Training Status

So I’ve had a few races this year and I think at this point it’s a good idea to critically analyze my racing. My fitness isn’t where it should be, but that’s something that will just take time and solid training. I’m working hard on my time trialing, which should improve my performance in flat and windy road races. I’ve been pretty comfortable in terms of pack skills and my sprint is basically what I would expect it to be. I have repeatedly made the mistake of allowing myself to get stuck in the back of the pack during road races — this is something that I can’t let happen anymore.

Mostly I just need to train more…