Week of September 29

Monday – no riding

Tuesday – Smack bam boom. Let the 2009 training year commence. I figure most of October will be spent doing loads of L3 work. I hopped on the PCs and set out for a 1 hour, 55 minute ride with about 60 minutes in my level 3 zone. What was really different about this ride was my position. I threw on some clip-on aerobars. I’ll been having trouble riding in the drops with the PCs, so the aerobars are meant to be a smooth transition between an upright and more compact position. I wasn’t feeling the absolute best due to the new position, and my power numbers showed it – around 220 W normalized for the hour of tempo. I could not spend the entire time in the aerobars.

Wednesday – A quick 71 minute ride where I just rode briskly. That meant some more tempo in there. I was feeling OK, but the nice thing is it really feels like I’m getting fully acclimated to the Powercranks.

Thursday – The past 2 days have given me a little residual fatigue. I was hoping to get in 75 minutes of tempo riding but just didn’t have the juice to push hard. I did manage a total of 60 or so minutes of L3 riding over 2 hours, but I certainly didn’t meet my goal for the ride.

Friday – no riding, thank goodness

Saturday – Saturday was a group ride day, so I took out the race bike with regular cranks. I felt STRONG. Everytime I was on the front I tried to take pulls at least 3 minutes long and also in my VO2 range. I never felt I was getting fatigued, and one of the guys said he felt I could have pulled everyone around for the whole 55 mile route at a high effort (I probably could have today!). During the 2 hours where we were really pushing, I had a normalized power of 245 W, which is very good for this time of year. Altogether I was out there for 72 miles over 3 and a half hours with a normalized power of 221 watts. Booyah! Equally positive was the 20 minutes in L5 and 10 minutes in L6.

Sunday – Back on the Powercranks today. Was with the group, which is usually casual on Sundays. I just couldn’t get a rhythm going unless I was on the front, and I felt guilty about being selfish with my pulls. When I’d get in the paceline I just couldn’t soft pedal effectively. Stop, go, stop, go. So I drifted off the back and went on a different loop. Coming back I saw one of my teammates cross my upcoming path. When I got on that road I noticed I was now halfway between him and the 80-100 second gap he had on the others. It took 8 minutes and 3 miles, but I closed the 40 second gap on my teammate while riding the PCs. My best effort yet on those things – 8 minutes at 273 W, and in the aerobars.

PC time this week – 7 hours 11 minutes
PC time to date – 64 hours 16 minutes