Thursday, March 13, 2008

First Race of Season: U Md President's Crit

Really looking forward to the U Md President Crit this Saturday because it's a great course, extremely selective and only the strong survive. So what have I been doing to get ready for the efforts required to stay up front?

Of course, everyday is race day when you do the Thrasher Ride, especially the Wed Hill Ride.

I've also been doing a lot of hill intervals on the weekends during the past month: Mass, Anglers, GF Park and Mnt Gate. This past weekend I rode on Saturday for an hour in the rain and then another hour freezing my skinny ass riding up and down GF Park. I wound up only doing 7 hill repeats up GF Park before packing it in for the day. Going up was good since I was able to warm up, but I froze my ass off coming down every time.

(Weight Note: just to piss off a few of my readers such as Jesse, Brian and Kyle: I'm down to a consistent 130lbs without dieting).

I headed back to GF Park this past Sunday for the last major workout before tapering for the race. I wound up doing Mass, Anglers, 11 interval up/down GF Park and finally MntGate. Some of the GF Park intervals were all out efforts the entire length, some were all out efforts for just the lower steep section, some were one leg drills, some were high cadence/easy gear, some were low cadence/big gear, and some were a serious of 15 sec full on/15 sec easy spin the whole way up.

I'm really liking these hill interval workouts, but here's something weird: I generate much higher average wattage using my left leg one-leg-only drills for the entire way up GF Park then I do using both legs. However, wattage shouldn't be the only measurement to consider. Time and speed are more important, and fortunately, my times/speeds are much faster using both legs.

So this week, I've been tapering, and taking it easy on Thrasher Race Days.

9 comments:

Kyle Jones said...

Just cut your right leg off. You dont need it. The weight you lose from not lugging that thing around will surely pick your speed up faster then both legs.

Anonymous said...

you dont really need to "taper" for a cat-4 crit, let alone the first crit of the season...

RayMan AKA StingRay said...

I agree, but I'm trying something completely different this year. And, thats trying to go into every race refreshed. Last year, I went into every race tired and just didn't feel like I had snap in my legs.
We'll see how it works for me.

Kyle Jones said...

Well it depends if you are peaking for umd. But I will tell you having fresh legs is one thing I am trying to grapple. I tend to like a little soreness in my legs going into an event. When my legs are completely rested I tend to have a hard time psychologically with getting pain in them. But when there is some pain in them it is easy just to push it. That might be just me.

Anonymous said...

What race does Bicycle Place put on?

RayMan AKA StingRay said...

nothing.

we're barely a team. I think there are maybe like 3 guys that race consistently during the year.

We're kinda like the the Army slogun "an Army of one"

I think the shop has sponsored the Silver Spring and Carl Dolan races in the past.

John(ny) said...

And don't forget about 3 of us race 'cross. You could be the fourth, RM.

Jump in. The water's just fine.

John(ny)

John(ny) said...

What's the deal with anonymous posters, anyway?

John(ny)

Anonymous said...

We post anonymously when we throw bombs about guys that are racing for "clubs" rather than team that put on races, thereby adding nothing to a grass roots sport, but taking from it every weekend.

Thats whats up.