Week 32 Summary and KW Classic RR

12 hours => 770TSS

Friday and Saturday were sort of a write-off as far as training goes because of family stuff, but otherwise had good solid sessions earlier in the week.

I went into the KW Classic with some trepidation, mostly thinking of the scenario where I get spit out the back of the field on the third lap and spend an hour slogging in the wind by myself, shedding bitter tears of regret and shame.

The first lap was a little nervous, and I had a tense moment going into a 90-degree right at the bottom of a hill almost locking up my front wheel, but things calmed down a little after that. I stayed mid-back of the field, moved up on the downhills and worked hard to stay with the group up the hills.

There was a nasty crash mid-race that took down two or three riders, and a bunch of near-misses as everyone negotiated around them.

After that, I focussed on recovering on the flats and downhills, preparing for the climbs (there were two) on each lap, which seemed to work out pretty well. I managed to stay up with the field up the climbs each lap, except the last one where I was seriously going backwards up the first steep climb, managed to catch back up to the group, then hung on through the final climb, and the sprint to the finish.

So as far as my first "real" road race goes, I had a good time, got a lot of work out of it, and managed to stay with the main field and not crash. Victory! :)

Edit: Results are up now -- 30th place, 1:31:30, 39.2km/h, +00' 05"

Week 31 Summary

Back at it this week, 12 hours logged. Went for my first group 3a road ride with WCC Tuesday night, it wasn't too bad. I'm signed up for the O-Cup KW Classic (13 x 4.5km loops), so I'm feeling the fear. Also decided that weights were something I need to start investigating, both for performance, and also because I'm getting older, and want to stay as active as possible.

I'm starting out gently, 5x10 squats with just the bar + 10lbs, 40lb tricep pull downs and 120lb leg press. Looking to ramp up quickly.

Week 30 Summary

Transition week!

Only 9 hours of work, mostly swim ... I started back swimming Tues and Wed, Thursday was an easy trainer spin, Fri was an easy run + swim, then a bunch of cycling on Sat+Sunday. Quads were still very tender from the TripleT hill beating.

OCA licensing

My next race is the KW classic here in Kitchener, which is an O-Cup race, meaning that it's affiliated/sanctioned by the Ontario Cycling Association. This means you need a valid OCA license, obtaining said license is a bit of navigation through some twisty passages because there are two options, 1) a vanilla UCI license or 2) a Citizen's permit.

The UCI license will let you race whatever, whenever you like, but costs $148 for the year.

The Citizen's permit is $48, but can only be used for three races, and only for specific categories -- typically Masters 3 in the road/XC races. At each race you'll pay your race registration fee, *plus* have to purchase a Citizen upgrade permit (which is $12 at the KW Classic).

Because I am 1) slow, and 2) unlikely to race more than 3 O-Cup races this season, I decided to purchase the Citizen's permit, and pay the upgrade fee.

Update: If you purchase a Citizen's permit, and then decide you need a full UCI license, the OCA will credit your Citizen's permit cost to your UCI fee.

Triple T summary -- "Choose to walk, not forced to walk"

Last year's goal was "don't walk" ... a year's worth of training and experience later, and that seems amusingly naive. This year, the goal was "don't blow up again." So Saturday, the mantra was "this is not the race, tomorrow is the race", and then on the Sunday bike, "this is not the race, the run is the race."

My goal was to be sub 12:00, I was 12:04 with a slight unplanned 5k detour during the Saturday morning Olympic.

Best stat that describes this bike course: over a 10 minute period, I averaged 250 watts at 12 km/h.

Fri -- wasn't stupid, (26min-ish)

Saturday AM Swim : 25:53 (1:43 min/100m)
Saturday AM Bike : 1:31:33 (got lost, added 5k onto distance), NP=216W, 29.7km/h

Saturday AM Run : 1:00:50 (5:49 min/km)

Saturday PM Bike : 1:21:36, NP=201W, 29.9km/h
Saturday PM Swim : 26:16 (1:45 min/100m)
Saturday PM Run : 58:49 (5:38 min/km)

Sunday Swim : 30:45 (1:37 min/100m)
Sunday Bike : 3:19:52, NP=165W, 27.9 km/h
Sunday Run : 1:51:30 (5:43 min/km)

I was happy with how I raced, I was very even on the bike, steady on the runs, walked up the steep hills and opened up on the downhills (my quads paid for that, but it worked for the race).

I did what I had planned to do in this race, I'm going to give it a rest for a while, maybe do it as a team in a couple years.

Week 28 summary

whoo... 5.3 hours of training! Luxury! Unintended taper, but hey, I'll take it. Any work that did get done was at least reasonable intensity (strides). There was a fair amount of non-specific training: baby jogger errands, bike trailer school commute, etc, but maybe only another two hours worth.

Week 27 summary and Mudpuppy Chase 5k report

Working on adding some intensity this week, getting ready for Triple T. Didn't get a lot more intensity, just reduced work (only 7hr of training this week -- snuck in work as possible, child care responsibilities have higher priority :).

Good news was a quick performance at the Mudpuppy, I was hoping to go under 20min, ended up 18:39, so that's nice, if a bit scary for my required training paces now.