US Military Cycling Team Camp: Day 4

Thursday morning came and after a night of thinking about Jeff Cup and my knee, I had a decision to make.  Should I or should I not do the individual time trial this morning?  I decided that I would go out, do a warm-up and then hit the line.  My start time was 9:17, the course was 9.5 miles out, turn around and return.  All of us headed over to the course and did some warm-up loops.  I hopped on with Jim Weinstein and road for about thirty minutes.  The knee felt okay, simply, just didn't hurt too bad.  So I figured that I would give it a go, still trying to recover from the embarrassment of the day before.

I noticed that there was a head wind all the way out and then a killed tail wind for the return.  After some LT testing a few weeks before, I knew my LT was around 280.  So I figured with the head wind, I could head out at about 305 watts, turn around and ride the tailwind back at around 285.

TT Results

I lined up and waited, 5-4-3-2-1, and I was off, well sort of, could not get the left foot clipped into the pedal and lost a few seconds, but got the bike up to speed with a 1200 watt kick.  I settled in, got my cadence up and looked in at 305 watts and maintained that for the next 27 minutes.  Little slower than I wanted but it was a strong head wind.  I hit the mid-way point and headed back.  instantly i could tell my power was dropping off, so I got it back to 285 and held it there.  Figuring 50 minutes a little over threshold would work out.  The knee was killing me, I kept repeating my mantra, and watched the miles go by.  I crossed the finish line at 51:08, I cut nearly 4 minutes off of the second half.  I am really happy about my performance.  How did I compare to the others?  Well 16th of 19.  Wouldn't score a lot of points on Road Results but for me it was a good day.

After coming back from the ride, most of us kicked around for the day and got ready to head over to Plantation Palms Gold Club to have dinner with American Classic, one of our sponsors.

Other exciting news of the day, Lance Armstrong, Jeremy Powers, Lazer Helmets, and Van Dessel Sports were tweeting about the US Military Cycling Team.  VERY COOL!!!

Tomorrow should be a pretty packed day.  Getting up in the morning, breakfast, kit up, and head out for a 40 miles ride.  Then comeback, lunch, kit up again and head over to Macdill AFB.  We are going to ride with some of the military members and their families tomorrow evening for another 40 miles.  After that, we will have  a few team meetings to talk about Saturday's race strategy.

US Military Cycling Team Camp: Day 3

Wednesday morning was a beautiful Florida morning.  Temperature was hovering just below 60 with promises of climbing to the mid-70s.  Unlike the rest of week in which there was a possibility of rain, today would not bear such predictions, the sky was perfectly calm. 

After the morning meeting we headed out for what was to be around a century. The pace was pretty calm.  The groups was slit into two again, the elites off in on and Masters / devo in the other.  I got to do a couple of things that I had not done before.  First time I have ever dropped out of a pace line, floated back to a chase vehicle, grabbed food and water and pedaled back up to the group.  Pretty neat experience if you haven’t had the chance to try.

But the bad news for the ride.  Several times last year I got a reoccurring dull pain on the back of my knee.  I have gone in to get a fit several times, but each time, all the measurements look correct.  So the idea of the saddle to far back, cleat positioning, float, etc had been checked out and seemed ok. Typically, I would have the pain for a day or two and go away.  Then the 1^st of January came around.  I went on a fairly lengthy ride with Team Sticky Fingers, nothing like the distance here, but for winter in DC, it was a good ride.  After going out MacArthur, we headed up Anglers.  By the time that I got to the top, the knee started to ache.  So I settled in and just rode for the next 50 miles, thinking that it was the same type of pain as I had last year.  Knowing that I was coming to Tampa in about a month, I backed off for a few weeks.  Unfortunately, Monday, the pain returned. By Tuesday afternoon, it was really bad.  So on Wednesday, I had to bail at the 40-mile marker and ride the chase vehicle back to the hotel.  So embarrassing!!!!

Wednesday night, we all got together, had dinner then another great lecture.  We talked some training and racing psychology.  It helped me refocus and think again about the big picture and not the individual days.  My mantra??  I will win Jeff Cup.  Something that I was going to have to repeat to myself several times the next day.

US Military Cycling Team Camp: Day 2

Each day I find this team more and more interesting.  As always, on a 4-hour ride, you have to make the time pass by talking to those around you.  So as I was struggling to keep a close to 26 MPH pace along side Jim Elliott, I decided to inquire about a few things that were said during the introductions.  So on Monday night, when everyone was telling thee story, Jim was a little laissez faire about his background. I caught the idea that he was a former Marine, now Hartford Connecticut Police Officer, but not much more.  As I have remarked before, Bill had started naming off a few accomplishments of some of the riders.  He brought up Jim. Apparently Jim’s passion for cycling has carried him great distances. I mean like from Boston to New York, 220 miles in 11 hours to bring awareness for Livestrong   (video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw0BfyYhomc).   Funny thing is the 220 was probably easy due to the fact the he has also ridden 343 miles around the perimeter of the state, yes in one continuous ride.

So the morning started off with the normal 0630 wake up and grab breakfast.  I deviated a little and headed out to grab a Starbucks.  Twenty minute walk to and from to have a cappuccino. Probably will not do that one again, but figured I would give it a shot.  Made it back to hotel for a photo op, then out on the road.

The plan was to head out for about a 80-90 mile ride.  The weather was a little crappy, but we were all styling with the new kits. I will say, the Primal Wear kits look great.   I also tried the Chamois BUTT'r Eurostyle, pretty impressive.  In the past, I have seldom used anything, but…  this is one that I am going to keep using.

The ride left and we immediately went into pace lining.  Bill split us into two groups of five, from there we took turns simulating the front group rotating and the back group just sitting in.  We did this for almost four and a half hours.  The last 20 miles, my group was sent off the front while the other group was held back, then released to catch us.  So for 47 minutes, five of us went as hard as would could, while maintaining the integrity of the group. We tried to keep it at about 27 MPH, but ended up averaging 25 MPH.  My Normalized Power was 253 over the 47 minutes.  We held off the other group, but only by a mere 30 seconds or so. 

After getting back to the hotel, we showered up, talked some long term strategies, had a fantastic nutrition discussion with Jim Weinstein and now calling it a night.  Tomorrow’s schedule…  80-100 miles ride, I am sure that Jim and Bill will have plenty of pace lining and learning to feed from a vehicle.

If you are on Facebook click here and 'like' the team.  

US Military Cycling Team Camp: Day 1

Not much to report about the flight down to Tampa, except that Air Trans did not charge me for the bike box, which was completely awesome.

So I checked into the Residence Inn in Lutz Florida to get my room and roommate assignment.  After checking in, everyone was scrambling around getting bikes reassembled, unpacking luggage, the normal things that go on if you are staying for a week.   I meet my roommate Donald Davis, then a few of us went off to dinner.  Conversation had more to do about figuring out the professional, non-cycling, attributes and the standard small talk that is required when thrown together with a bunch of strangers.  Being Super Bowl Sunday and the military aspect, it didn't take long for everyone to get acquainted.  That was Sunday, day 0, for us, Monday was truly day 1.

Morning came early, especially after a restless night of Christmas like jitters and excitement.  We all headed down for breakfast around 6:30, then headed over to the team meeting at 7:30.  The next hour was spent talking about expectations, conduct on and off the bike, and signing of the 2012 rider contract.  The interesting part was listening to each of the riders talk about their accomplishments, but once again, it seems to fall back to our military profession. After a few minutes, the race director, Bill, stopped the intros and then started to point out the cycling accomplishments of a very humble crowd.  I sat there for a few minutes and listened, very quickly questioning, then why the heck am I here??  These are legit racers, I think I am the only one running around sporting Cat 4 on their license.  After that we were off to change kits for a leisurely meet and greet ride.

I felt like it was the first day of school, trying to make sure that I had everything together and functioning correctly.  With our rainbow of colors for kits, we all paired up and started out.  We stayed in a double pace line for 80 miles and 4 hours.  First time that I have ever stayed that long, in the saddle and in a pace line.  Sure I have tons of rides over 4 hours and much longer than 80, but never that smooth and consistent.  I remember pulling for a little while then dropping off to the right, watching 12 pairs of riders go by, pretty cool train.  The only skill for today, move back and forth in the pace line, doing introductions.  We were told that we do not stop for mechanicals.  So if someone flats, they just go off the back, fix the flat and work yourself back to the group.  If you are too far off, then in the SAG wagon and get dropped off in front of the group to hop back on.  I guess there is one other skill I am going to have to learn this week, is how to answer nature's call while riding, apparently we will no longer stop for that one either, now that will be interesting.

Post ride, back to the hotel, lunch, showers, kit and soft equipment issue, another team meeting and dinner.  The Primal kits are great looking, so I stoked about that in the morning.  There will be 26 of us rolling out of the Residence Inn, all kitted up.  Hopefully a photo for tomorrows night blog.  Now it is 9:30 at night, I am feeling a little bit of the fatigue from the day, and cannot wait till tomorrow's ride.  Oh yeah, we doing 90 tomorrow.  Gonna be fun.

2012 Road Race Season

The 2012 Cycling Season is well on its way, at least training wise.  After rethinking the first sentence I guess I should clarify and state that the calendar is moving right along, training, let’s just say that it has had it bumps and bruises.

December 16^th, while descending (a set of stairs), I had the sock incident of 2011.  I swear there was no alcohol involved, but was heading down the stairs to close the door to go out and get some chow.  I foot, covered with a sock, slightly too far forward over the stair and I found myself airborne and crashing.  Knocked the wind out of my and hurt like the dickens.   I decided to abandon Sundays ride to recoup.  The ribs SEEMED okay, then came Monday.  I was getting ready for work, felt a sneeze coming on, sneezed heard (and felt) a pop in my back then proceeded to lie on the floor for 45 minutes.  I guess the fall had fractured a rib and the sneeze just finished the job.   So for the last 4 weeks I have been training through 2 broken ribs.  Really as not affected the trainer time, but strength workouts have been on the back shelf.

Training has gone pretty well so far since developing my early season plan.  My first “A” race is Jefferson Cup on the first of April.  Before that I have two races in Tampa Florida, 11/12 February.  I have been able to get about 12-15 hours a week in on the CompuTrainer and have slowly built my LT with a ton of sweet spot training sessions.  I am working through my collection of 1980s movies with an addition of the Tour Down Under last week.  All of this is to prepare for my two training camps in February.

First training camp will be with the US Military Cycling Team from February 5^th to the 12^th in Tampa.  Should be pretty exciting.  The week will culminate with some racing.  My early season goal is to podium at Jeff Cup and get accumulate enough points by May to upgrade to 3.  So lots of early season crits for me.

Second training camp is going to be in Traveler’s Rest South Carolina from the 22^nd to the 26^th of February.  Lots of climbing Paris Mountain and Caesar’s Head. 

Next update will be from Tampa Florida.