CRANK the WATTAGE

After my first Time Trial I had figured that I needed to practice at cranking out higher wattage. I was doing this by cranking the resistance on the trainer and having it in the fastest gear on my bike with 2 to 3 minute intervals. At the 6th interval there was a crunch, and clang in the bottom bracket and there it went. I broke my first bottom bracket of my cycling experiences. I am not sure how common this is, but it is appealing that I was able to do this. Also I am not even sure what WATTAGE I can crank out for short periods. I am hoping that it is higher than the average. It will be a little bit before I get things all dialed in with cycling, but it sure is fun figuring these things out.

Bici TT in Strathmore, Alberta.

Having ridden in my first Time Trial today, I opted to take some photos afterwards. These two photos are of two people that I know through cycling. Top photo is of Dallas and the lower photo is of Chris. The race was fun, and I did learn a few things, and they are.
1. I should have pinned it harder on the first half of the race because the second half would have taken the same time regardless at this point.
2. It would have been nice to have Areo bars, apparently it would have shaved a minute or so off of my time.
3. Last but not least, I need to do a lot more hill training. But that will come soon enough.

It was a fun experience, and I would do it again. The result was somewhere around the middle. The time I did 33:01. Not bad for a first timer, and I was the only DeadGoat there.

One goal down.

Well I have conquered one of my goals that I had, and this goal was to do 4500kms since November on my road bike. Although I did not ride my road bike alone meaning that I went far and beyond my expectations. My next goal is to win some races or at least podium at some of them. doing all of this riding I did learn a lot about myself. I will go into detail another day about what I have learned.

Last Wednesday I took my mountain bike out for the first time around the Glenmore resevoir. It is a 14.4km jaunt for one loop. I did not time myself, and road with my heart rate at around 170bpm. Then on Thursday is when I decided to do a two loop time trial and ended up doing the loop twice in 1:02hrs. Don't forget that I was riding a mountain bike with big nobby tires, and had a high rolling resistance and wanted to make myself suffer.

Over the weekend the weather had the race cancelled with all of the snow. I was quite depressed about it and did not do a thing all weekend except for going to The Bike Shop to look at bikes a dream some more. If only I could afford a Rocky Mountain Element. I am trying to sell my Slayer but there hasn't been any takers yet.

With the weather being cold all week I am wondering if the race that had been rescheduled to next weekend will be canceled? It is supposed to be shitty up until Friday, and with all of this snow I don't think it will be dry enough for the race. Guess I will have to wait and see. If the race is canceled I will race in the road race that is at Racecity Speedway, and the TT on Sunday.

Weekend riding.

The riding this weekend was exceptional and I was able to get some good miles in his fine weekend. Saturday I rode from home to Bragg Creek on LSR, then down highway 22 to Bragg and then down highway 66 for an extra few kilometres. When in Bragg I had run into Stan Rachar a fellow I raced against last year. Stan and his partner Laury (a dude) were getting in pre Trans Rockies kilometres. When leaving Bragg I was able to catch up to Stan and his partner and attack them on the hills.
It seems that when I come to a hill I am able to distance myself if in front of someone, or I am able to close the gap if someone is in front of me. I am slowly learning the tactic of attacking the hill. But don’t forget that this is on with mere mortals. Not any DeadGoats or someone of equal calibre. I am sure I would get shelled if it were one of them.
Saturday ended up being 150km day. When coming back through Bragg I went up 22 to Cochrane, then to Calgary through the north and then home. It was a good ride, and I was pretty shell shocked when arriving home. I took a shower, had a protein shake, and then had a nap. But when waking from my nap I had felt like I was hit by a truck. I was so sore, and felt like shit. I had some supper and almost before finishing my meal I had felt fine and was looking forward to riding on Sunday. I am not sure what that soreness was all about, but it is something that I haven’t experienced before.
On Sunday it was only a 90km road ride, and a 30km mountain bike ride when the day was finished. Riding to Bragg, and when getting on highway 22 there was a guy that I rode with but for the life of me I can’t remember his name. We rode for a nice pace and when I arrived in Bragg I ran into Scott Brooks and Craig Stappler. Craig was having tubular issues and had been telling me about the mishap of them losing their bikes off the top of the motor home on their way back from Moab.
When arriving from home on the road ride I had a shower, then a bite to eat and opted for a mountain bike ride. When riding my mountain bike I did not have the jam in my legs because they were quite tired from the Saturday ride, and the ride earlier today. But it was nice to get out on the mountain bike and get in some kilometres. The temperature today got up to 23c and was very windy from the west.

Another 40km TT

So low and behold I was kind of sick over the weekend and made myself get some rest. Getting the rest was a good thing as I was starting to get a little tired. Tuesday I rode 40km and took Wednesday off from riding. Today I had decided that I was going to giver. Bring on the 40km TT is what I say, and here are the results.

40km
51:59secs
MHR 186 (couldn't get it up any higher than this)
for the cadence I tried to keep it between 80 and 90 rpm.
I am slowly getting faster, and I am quite eager to go riding with some other people now to see how I will compare, or basically to see how bad I am.

The intensity training I am doing is new to me this year, and I am finding that my body is starting to respond well to it. I will take tomorrow off of riding and get in some good kilometers this weekend. I think I only need to get just over 200kms to meet my goal of 4500kms before the first race of the season.

As for next week on Tuesday I will do another 40km TT, Wednesday I will do a 10km TT and then on Thursday I will ride 50km at a good pace, but not TT pace. Probably won't let my heart rate get over 175bpm for Thursday. Friday I will take off, Saturday I will go for nice ride on the mountain bike and Sunday I will race.

Hobbies

Aside from having mountain biking and videogames as my main hobbies I do have a passion for photography as well. This photo to the right is a favorite of mine and I thought it would show some of the passion that I have for photography.

40km TT

Wowsers is all i can say after that. 40kms and 1:01:18 was the time. Goal for this time trial was to keep my heart rate in zone 4. Zone 4 for me is between 160bpm and 175bpm. Staying in the zone for the hour was hard, and I felt like pinning it, but I was able to contain myself and work harder. Also maintaining a cadence of 80rpm. All I know now is I will be taking a well deserved day off tomorrow from riding. Yikes!!!! Going to try and get in 300kms this weekend to ramp up the endurance kilometers.

On the weekend I won't giver, I will just keep a good pace and ride, ride and ride. I had set a goal for myself to have my odometer to be at 4500kms by April 20th of this year. I had set this goal in November. But not all of the kilometers I have done have been on that bike. They have been on my mountain bike, and the single speed as well. So when I hit the 4500kms it will be exciting for me. At this time I am at 4084kms, so not much farther to go there. After I hit this goal I am going to have to set another goal for myself.

In the first two weeks of June I am going to try and do close to 1000kms in preparation for the Test of Metal. Starting with really long rides in the beginning and slowly tapering off as the race gets closer. For some reason they had put me in the Pro Elite category for the race, and this has kicked started me to train a heck of a lot harder.

TT April 1st

Yesterday I tried something different, and it was hard. I put my road bike on the rollers which I haven't done before. I have always put my mountain bike which has slicks on the rollers and it seemed not to difficult. But for some reason when I have the road bike on there it was pretty hard. I couldn't keep it in the hardest gear for very long with out my heart rate from going to high.

Maintaining my heart rate between 165 and 175 is what I did for 50kms. It wasn't easy but I did it, and quite proud of it. Woot Woot.

Today is my time trial day and I thought that I would have a crappy time after yesterdays ride on the rollers. I couldn't have been so wrong. This morning when I woke up I haven't felt that tired in the longest time. It wasn't until around noon that I felt like myself. I was clumsy, couldn't concentrate and sleepy as hell. But once I was awake I felt good, and was looking forward to riding the time trial tonight.

The first ten minutes are warm up, and I thought I was going to feel like crap, but I didn't feel bad at all.

TT results are
10kms
11:18 minutes
Maximum heart rate 194
Maximum speed 67kms
Average speed 52kms

First 2kms I pinned it to get my heart rate up to 186bpm, and then I maintained it until the last 1.5kms. The last 1.5kms I pinned it, and the time was 11:18minutes. My best time ever, and I had thought that I wouldn't get even close to that.

I have always been intimidated of the anaerobic training. Not quite sure why it is, but I have been. Now that I have gotten this monkey off of my back it should be interesting to see what kind of goals I can reach, and successes I can accomplish.