[JEP Coaching Scholarship] Report for Week 03 (ending 2012-01-01)

Hello everyone. I spent last week visiting family and fighting off illness, working out when possible. It is good to be home.

Workouts:

12-26 Monday

Prescribed: Travel day - flight to Ohio. Eat well, wear compression tights, stay hydrated, etc.

Actual: As prescribed. The compression tights definitely do help with air travel - highly recommended. I managed to do an hour spin on the rollers before heading out.

12-27 Tuesday

Prescribed: Holiday - take it easy.

Actual: As prescribed - really, I did almost nothing except spend time with people I do not see very often. It was cold and snowing.

12-28 Wednesday

Prescribed: Holiday - take it easy.

Actual: As prescribed.

12-29 Thursday

Prescribed: Holiday - take it easy.

Actual: Workout at Crossfit Energy, a gym in Ohio. It was interesting to go to a different Crossfit gym. The workout of the day involved a total of 100 lunges with a 45 lb plate overhead, 150 wall balls with a 20lb medicine ball, and 750 jump ropes. It was a bit much, way more volume and intensity than I'm used to. Plus, I was getting sick...

12-30 Friday

Prescribed: Holiday - take it easy.

Actual: Felt sick all day, had trouble keeping food down at some point. Bleck.

12-31 Saturday

Prescribed: Travel day - flight from Ohio. Eat well, wear compression tights, stay hydrated, etc.

Actual: As prescribed. Glad that I felt well enough to travel.

01-01 Sunday

Prescribed: 90 minute tempo ride and stretching.

Actual: I went for a 1h20m ride around Arastradero and Portola roads. It was 65 degrees out! Did 30min of stretching and foam roller work when I got home. Happy New Year!

Weekly summary:

Time: 3h51m54s

Distance: 45.78mi

TSS: 187.8

(Distance and TSS only incorporate rides for which I have power data.)

I've copied this report to my blog at http://bikefleet.blogspot.com/, where you can also find past updates, race reports, and more!

Thanks for reading.

--Jose

[JEP Coaching Scholarship] Report for Week 02 (ending 2011-12-25)

Hello everyone. I've been fighting off illness for most of the week. There is a balance between doing training and recovering from a cold, even a minor one. A minor head cold is not a dealbreaker for many training rides. Of course, training too hard in cold weather can divert energy away from the immune system, complicating a simple cold. I do not enjoy being sick.

Workouts:

12-19 Monday
Prescribed: 45-60 minute recovery ride.
Actual: Easy spin to work, along the usual Central Expressway route.

12-20 Tuesday
Prescribed: Crossfit workout in the morning, followed by on-bike sprints session.
Actual: As prescribed. Crossfit was good, with a challenging workout of the day (WOD) involving box jumps and kettle bell swings. Dan sometimes prescribes sprints just after Crossfit to take advantage of neuromuscular training. The sprints were the best I've done in a while, with a max wattage of just over 1400W. Someone my size ought to generate more wattage than that in a sprint; this is one of my training goals.

12-21 Wednesday
Prescribed: Unstructured ~60 minute ride with stretching session.
Actual: I woke up with a sore throat this morning. I did a loop ride (defined as a ride on Alpine, Portola, and Sand Hill roads) around lunchtime, which may not have been a great idea. I cannot recall if I managed to get the stretching in, which means I likely did not.

12-22 Thursday
Prescribed: Crossfit workout in the morning, plus 1 hour ride with some tempo efforts.
Actual: No workout. Woke up feeling less well. Stayed off the bike and ended up leaving work early due to not feeling well. Tried to do some stretching in the evening, but decided against since I really was not feeling well.

12-23 Friday
Prescribed: 2-3h tempo combo ride with stretching session.
Actual: As prescribed. I was feeling a little better this morning. I waited until the warmest part of the day to ride. The ride itself was very good: I felt stronger than I have in a while. Stretched after the ride.

12-24 Saturday
Prescribed: 3h30m ride with two 20+min climbs, doing 90min sitting 60sec standing on climbs, plus stretching session.
Actual: No workout. I woke up this morning to green mucus, signs of a possible chest cold. Blech. Tried to recover as best as I could.

12-25 Sunday
Prescribed: 90 minute endurance ride with some 10min Z3 efforts, plus stretching session.
Actual: As prescribed. I was feeling somewhat better today. I rode up and down Canada Road once the weather got "warm" (around 8C, or 48F). Merry Christmas!

Weekly summary:
Time: 8h16m
Distance: 103.73 mi
TSS: 462.4

(Distance and TSS only incorporate rides for which I have power data.)

I've copied this report to my blog at http://bikefleet.blogspot.com/, where you can also find past updates, race reports, and more!

Thanks for reading.

--Jose

California is Beautiful

I was in California from Aug 3 to Aug 12, a week and a half not too long ago. In that time, I learned how Model N (my new employer) functions, found a new apartment, visited Dave Miller, beat Super Mario Bros. 3, saw a real live airship, found a delicious farmer's market and, courtesy of my hard case, rode my bicycle plenty.

Except for one morning of rain, the weather was perfect. 82F (28C), clear, and dry during the day, 55F (13C) and slightly humid to foggy overnight. Compared to Boston's two choices - hot and humid or raining - I'm wondering why I bothered to come back at all. Oh, right. Thesis.

The cycling around the Silicon Valley is just amazing. To the east, there are little paths that go along the water. North and south is all flat. To the west, there are mountains - real mountains! I really enjoyed doing legitimate, tough climbs that took an hour.

I set a personal best on the local Old La Honda Road climb, of 18m48s. I should immediately discredit this and say that I wasn't really trying. As it's hard to watch what I eat when traveling, I was about 5 lbs overweight. I was riding my Fuji Aloha CF2 with Zipp 808 clinchers, a tool bag, and two full water bottles (heavy!). I was also carrying Dave's wallet, phone, arm warmers, and bottle. So, if I can break 19 minutes in Sherpa mode, maybe I can break 17m or even 16m once everything is properly dialed in?

I did manage to pass Dave up the climb. (Sorry Dave! This is one of the best photos I have of the trip!)

Paterson Pass Road Race

I'll be in California for job training with Model N for the first week in August. I'll be starting as a junior Java developer there in the middle of September. There are good jobs out there in this economy - you just have to look hard, and be patient. I'm very excited.

I'm staying for a few extra days, with girlfriend and bicycles in tow. This is our opportunity to find housing before we head out, and we're glad that we have the chance to do so.

Dave Miller is trying to get me to do the Paterson Pass road race. It would take a logistical miracle to get everything together for this, so the jury is still out. Needless to say, this would be my first Pro/1/2 race. A 92-mile road race with four goes up a 1300 foot climb sounds just plain hard, much like the Easterns course up the Black Mo. Add in local pros who know the race well and are in peak form, and it's the makings of what could be an interesting learning experience. We'll see.

If nothing else, I can look forward to an abundance of really fast riders in the Bay Area. There are mountains AND a velodrome! So many decisions.

Garmin, Get Your Act Together

I went for my 80 mile loop ride today; it's posted at http://connect.garmin.com/activity/9719415. I need to start training with PowerCranks again and getting back into a routine; my power data clearly indicates that I'm getting fat, slow, and lazy.

Garmin Connect is a neat service; in fact, it integrates many of the features that I would have liked to see in some other programs, like WKO and SportTracks. Of course, there is no single program that does everything I'd like, so I'll probably end up writing my own in the next few years. In short, I want a program that has all of the advanced power analysis features of WKO, with the mapping features of SportTracks and Connect, that allows you to seamlessly store information both in a standalone app (because I don't always have Internet at races) and online in the cloud (because I like to share my data).

The single biggest complaint I have, at present, is that Connect doesn't work in Opera or Chrome. (I haven't tried Safari.) Come on guys, really? I haven't taken a look at Garmin's Javascripts at all, but I'm guessing it's a simple fix. For all that they've done to embrace Web standards - the .TCX format is, after all, just an XML standard that works with the usual XML processing tools very nicely - it's a real pity that Garmin locks browsers this way. It's like the browser wars all over again. Party like it's 1997.

The best thing about standards, is that there are so many to choose from!