goooood stufff...

Hell Ride Today, but less Hell at the moment. It seems a avid warning of penalties to licensed riders for misconduct has settled the usually ratty bunch. It is a pleasant ride when the insipid moronic jerks either ride like decent cyclists or don't turn up. So a bit of mangle here and there, but nobody wants a white-knuckled ride at 7:00am on a Saturday. Seemed to be another accident on Beach Rd on the way back in, seems out of control, with cyclist owning that road on the weekend AM.

Drilled some good watts up Olivers today, increased 1 min wattage, well below AeT HR, felt pretty good. The ride to the turn around was solid too, with a couple of guys mixing it up, Jono L (maybe) and some Drapac guy, I rode below max, and was pleased to see then suffering a little.

Huge gains this week allround. Friday the only rest day, so will be another 600km week. Only 1 more, before a week of lower k's, but then the hurt really begins as AeT workouts and ME workouts dominate.

Also need to check out BAW BAW soon, but the fires still burn down that way. Tragic!!!

UP!

Little blue line is going up, and so it should. Have been pounding out the k's recently, and keeping the intensity high for most workouts. It seems that as the little blue line goes up, a recovery day has little effect on it's path, but has major impact on ATL and CTL. The last two workouts show that Monday (red arrow) and Tuesday (blue arrow) have kept general fitness increasing, however have not caused to much strain as to cause the CTL to drop substantially. Tuesday was a solid effort, but my feeling and indicated by the red line (green arrow) is that it was a result of increased overall fitness, therefore not effecting the CTL too much. I also set a TOP10 1 minute power during the ride of 536watts, and even this effort didn't cause to much strain.

What would Jens do?

Bit of a cold the last few days, but have tried to train around it. Todays crit was a strange one, witht some serious team colluding going on. I was told that team work has no place in the Criterium, but I it seems that it is going to exist, how could it not. I wouldn't chase down my team mate, it just isn't done. However, I don't have any team to think about in these races and do my own thing, so when a break went away early on with a few strong guys, it was crucial to bring it back, or I had just wasted 15bucks. The part that bugs me the most is that other riders a really slow to react, I mean come on, if the beak has a rider in from team A, and team A is on the front of the group chasing, do you think we're going as fast as we should be to keep it within reach. Of course not, Team A is soft pedalling and the break is getting away, but to sit on the wheel of the Team A guy, and just follow, not going around him and upping the Tempo is stupidity. Maybe these guys have a motive that I don't quite understand, but when I see this, I just think, 'Oh well, better do it myself'. I produced some pretty good wattage driving the group back to the breaks, some real solid interval work, and on all occasions, achieved my target. I was thinking as I was racing that the only good break is a break in which i'm in, but I guess others see me a threat worthy of a good chase too. Let the games continue....

Some good training of late. Things have settled down at work, and the weather is more suitable for me, and a bit of good 'ole 'I wanna ride'. I have covered over 600km in the last 7 days, which breaks down like this:

Wed 11th 50km
Thu 12th 50km
Fri 13th 50km
Sat 14th 95km (hell ride)
Sun 15th 115 (SKCC crit +)
Mon 16th 95km
Tue 17th 95km
Wed 18th 85km

and feeling pretty good about it. My target at the moment is around 15 solid hours, I am never just cruising, and try to push hard as much as possible without going over-board.

KER-RITS

Ker-rit today. Little tired in the legs from yesterdays effort, but tried to get away after 30mins. Did manage to get a good jump on the field, but what many class as 'negative racing', saw the end of my 5-6 solo laps. I haven't seen a break succeed for a good while, and this can be blamed on the fact that everybody feels themselves a contender. There has to be a way to do it, just need a strong but small group to work together, just for a bit.

The race ended earlier, not given the usual 3 laps to go, just the bell, and I was mid-field, so made it hard to move up as everybody scrambled to the front. I doesn't matter about winning 'coin would be good though', but making sure I work hard and get some good AnT zone training in, and that which really bemuses me why some people pay the $15 bones to enter. They just suck wheels the whole bloody hour, really, what is the point.

Finished the day with another 50km down to Mordi and back, days total was around 115km with 60mins of teeth-gritting.

ATTACK!!!

Hell Ride today, and I really felt like giving it hell. I am really irritated by weekend hobby riders that can't control their bikes, and also those obviously skilled riders who ride like complete morons, weaving and being all erratic. Yes, it's the hell ride, but it is a training ride, still, and therefore some focus must be on actually riding, not being some asshole showoff.

My response to this frustration was to attempt to 'showoff'' in my own way. ATTACK!!! This is something the ride responds to well and makes it a bloody good ride. After being blocked badly on the way up Olivers I finally got moving and grouped at the front with the usual suspects. Felt good, so ATTACK!!!!!. The next section of the only climb on the ride is about 3km dig up about 3-4%. It hurts because Olivers is really steep, but a good place to ride solid high wattage tempo and even better for a 53X14 slog. I shattered the group and only a few could hang on, but didn't come around to pull, except to take the honours at the top, bastards!!!!! I don't look to follow wheels, but train hard and that means ctaching wind, not tagging along for the ride.

Regroup and frustration again strikes on the roll home. Just tired again of idiots who can't hold a good line, so I thought I'd hop on the front and and hammer it. On the flat and with some keen riders to help, we not only strung it out, but nearly broke it. Yay! and too bad for the weekend hobby hero!!!! Seeya!

Still feeling good and with the final 6-7km to go, I developed a nice little jump on the whole hungry group with another fairly motivated rider. We dug in hard and tried like HELL to hold the group off, but with under a kilo to go, succumbed to the will of 150 charging bikes. It was a valient effort and didn't go un-noticed in the bunch. KUDOS!!!

So, a little bit frustration, and a dash of irration can provide some interesting results. I have been feeling good of late, motivated and today was glad to see that my numbers are good, very good. 20min FT power is a solid 340, and there is still much room to improve. There is a lot to gain from pushing yourself, whatever the motivator may be.

Update

Great weather at the moment, which only encourages good riding and training. Am trying to great a rhythm with it at, as recently I have been very on and off. Due to the fires, Ruth and I went to the Otways, a beautiful Naional Park on the Great Ocean Rd. It was perfect for some training, a nice 6km/6% climb up to our cottage, and of course, the Great Ocean Rd itself is a cyclists dream.

The rest of the week i have been doing leg work on Beach Rd, basically spinning, Force, and hill attacks standing and sitting. I am doing it before work, so have to treat these days light, otherwise I will be grumpy, and no-one likes a grumpy waiter.