Whats one year worth?

Alrighty, pretty much everyone who doesnt enjoy slogging away in wet and rain got their riding plans kicked in the butt last weekend. My fast 2.5 hours on Saturday turned inot 1.5 hours of soaked to the bone and my Sunday 3 to 4 hours of race pace ride also turned into a horrid 1.5 hours on my old Kurt Kinetic trainer.

Oh, I am not usually one to complain about riding the trainer. We all know the good it does, but once you start getting used to riding outside again, its hard to go back down, down, down into the basement. So there I went, silver stripe now on my Vittorias because I am to lazy to put on a trainer tire for one ride.

So I really struggle to get my tempo wattage up and my hear rate, well thats a good 10 beats low too. Was it the culmination of a lot of intervals and hard rides last week, little rest (at night and on the bike) or was it just being in the basement again?

But before I hopped on I stepped outside. It was cold, ground was dry, over cast, but still drizzling. And before that I needed a workout to do on the trainer so I went deep, deep in my Training Peaks and looked up an oldie, but a goodie called Climbing Sim. 10 minutes of tempo, 5 each of leg tensions and fast pedals, topped off with a one minute max all one after the other. Rest, rinse and repeat. Yeah-its an ouch. I decided on two sets to get off the bike as soon as I could. I wanted it to load up the legs and good, but be over quickly!!

Of course dont you know that 15 minutes into the workout I look out my glass block windows and the sun is out, stayed out most of my ride too. MOCKING my pain!! Darn you Cleveland weatherman!!

To say I lacked motivation was an understatement. Not able to push through the tempo and being pretty mediocre on the one minute max had me feeling a bit down. But then looking at the data and looking up this workout (from Feb. of 2007)gave me an idea. What was I doing wattage wise while doing tempo last year (and I did a lot of it last winter/spring).

Well as it turns out last year right around this time I was doing tempo at about 140 to 147 hr and 206 to 209 watts. That was end of March 2007. Sunday, again too tired or unmotivated to push into my new tempo zone I held 244 watt ave at the same heart rate range. A nearly 15% jump in power in one year. Too bad it wont go up that much every year, eh? Also too bad I was supposed to hold closer to 160 hr and 270++ watts the whole time. Bah, next ride OUTSIDE!!

But remember my favorite Lemond saying, "It doesnt get any easier, you just get faster". Now aint that the truth. being able to hod higher wattage is great, but it is on a whole nother level of pain. But I am not complaining, just whining about riding in the cold and rain or riding the trainer. Yuck. Just read Scott Thor's blog to see the great racing and weather hes doing right now to make you jealous.

OH, two more weeks till Presque Isle now. Push, push, push even more and keep hammering away at Thresholds doorstep (excuse the pun-I'll keep my day job)the next week, short taper and go. I hear PI will be a throw down this spring too. A lot of fast guys coming out to topple the 29mph ave speed set by the NY State TT champ last fall. I cannot play that game, but I'll try and come as close as I can!!