Taking off to go to Astoria and leaving the wheels in PA, soaking up the holidays and taking some time off the bike…

After normal Christmas protocol started to rain and with a little lack of motivation all morning and afternoon finally got my butt on the trainer at 4pm. Went into my parents Gym and set up the trainer, chatted with mom while a warmed up explaining the parts and workings behind the little green machine.

Didn’t have much of a plan but as I have been realising more and more that I have to have some goal and point to a ride and workout. Thinking about Paul’s last workout and fantastic data analysis of his cadence I decided to do some Cadence work while keeping HR just under LBP - 145-155.

Turned up my I-pod and decided every new song, change cadence. didn’t matter what clock said, just change but keep pressure on and power the same 2.5 W/kg.

This made the workout go by pretty fast but was challenging, throwing in 3-4 minute standing efforts and never easing off the pedals. So my tempo/Sub LBP ride of a constant resistance which normally are no fun at all and really hard to sit through went by quick.

One note from looking at the Data is HR did not increase or decrease during any of the specific cadences other then standing, which is to be expected, even then it was a small increase +/- 5 beats. Being a “big rider” 80 kg Standing is typically said to be a “no-no” but something I workout almost every ride, long steady efforts of 5 minutes or more, then going back to sitting and keeping intensity up.

On the hill climb races being able to vary back and forth from standing to sitting and keeping HR as low as possible while standing to give legs a break and utilize different muscles helps significantly.

Looking forward to Christmas turkey and Grandma Vera’s stuffing….

Finally, Got outside, even if it was only an hour, it was long overdue.

Got to parents earlier then planned after driving from Astoria this morning. It has been weeks since being able to get outside, so the thought of sneaking in a ride was awesome. Rushed through the house when I got in, changed, had mom get some water/fuel mixed up, the neighbors were taking as I was getting ready to head out but I was like a 6 year old with a new toy, So focused on checking everything, air in tires, skewers tight, brakes, good, “see ya”
Temps around 38 and no wind.-

Felt great to have my eyes water and a quick chill once I pulled out of my parents house and headed down the hill and into the neighborhood at 30mph.

No real goal for the ride, enjoy being outside. Explore the area a little more, their are some hills around I haven’t ridden so was going in that direction. Secretly I wanted to compare a few “road” watts to “trainer” watts but wasn’t hell bent on it….of course I ended up with 10 small climbs- .25 -.35 miles long- 3.5% to 10+% -

1hill i repeated 4 times worth noting:
John st. .30 miles - 5.3%

never looked at power, cadence just rode-
First climb up -Standing whole time - 70 seconds - avg 440 Watts, , 77 cadence - HR avg 160 got up to 170 Climb was 10 minutes from pulling out of the driveway so a little shock to the lungs but was normal standing effort aerobic wise-

Second Climb up - Seated - 80 seconds - avg 340 watts - 92 cadence- HR avg only 152- and up to 158 - still under race pace .

Third Climb - exactly the same as second….
Fourth Climb up again exactly the same as second….

Pleasantly surprised to say the least once downloading and looking at data- All of the efforts could talk, and never out of breath- short efforts,  but very content,  just reinforced the training I have been doing, and gave a little extra life and tolerance to the trainer…as is is almost January!

Finished up messing around a few other hills, and cooled down. All in all just happy to be outside.

Packed up Wheels,my trainer and abag full of everything I could possibly need ot ride either inside or out  before heading up to Tink’s  for the weekend, didn’t know if I would get to ride or not but at least I would be prepared.

Between driving Tuesday and catching up didn’t get to ride but Wednesday morning, Tink cleared out a nice spot in the living room and wen to run some errands, had to apartment to myself and set up for a ride again to nowhere….I thought about venturing outside but the snow and lovely traffic both were not appealing.

Wanted to ride pretty hard, had a day off and feeling pretty good so why not, her apartment was 72 degrees and even with the windows open and no fan I was already dripping sweat after the 10 minute warm-up.

Started with one legged drills for 10 minutes, felt a good burn but had pretty good power. - didn’t recover at all and jumped into a little cadence work. 2 minutes each 90,100,110 rpm-2. 2.5 and 3 w/kg all seated- Hr never broke out of LBP range which was and is good- one recovered for 1 minute to keep intensity up and did a 10 minute seated climb- 75 rpm - 2.5 w/kg and HR hovered around 150.

No recovery again and right into some standing efforts- 4 minutes in drops, two minutes in aero, elbows over bars and as far forward as I could sit on the saddle and then finished with 2 minutes standing with hands on hoods- Varied resistance but kept cadence low, 65 rpm to push a bigger gear and really pull through. —1 min 200- 1 min 190- 1 min 180- 1 min 190 -2min 200- 2 min at 225—

10 minute cool down-

I will admit this past season I strayed far from any structured workout’s - I did alot of hammering it, then recover, search out the longest steepest hills and climb them as fast as I could, and kept adding hills and miles. This coupled with racing literally every weekend, and ritual recovery rides the following day made for some success and skills learned I am positive that keeping with the structure and skills will reap big rewards come race season.

Not being able to make the Tuesday trainer workout at the Peddler I decided to keep on the schedule and did the workout on my own at home.  Did normal pre-ride hydration, and fuel. Set-up the fan, opened windows but room temp was still 70′ and humid.

Started out normal warm-up. 15 minutes- couple standing efforts, spin-ups etc.

8 minute steady effort- 6 RPE- - 90- Cadence all seated- , 2 minute spin- right into cadence drill- 2 minutes each - 90,100,110 rpm same gear then knocking it down 2 gears and back to 90 rpm for another 2 minutes - followed by 2 minute spin-  Still felt very comfortable- definitely something to be said about repeating drills and sticking to workouts -

Next up was a seated ‘climb’ 75 rpm again around 2.5 w/kg for 7 minutes finishing with 1 minute at 3.75w/kg standing for 10 seconds on the minute, same cadence, followed by another 2 minute spin

10 minutes of one legged drills- with a 2 minute spin right before 3 minutes standing, hands in drops, 65 cadence - 1 minute seated- 3 minutes standing again - one gear harder then first effort- 3.5 W/kg

After last 2 minute rest- finished with spin ups for 5 minutes - staying above 3.0 w/kg at 90 rpm- and spinning up over 105 rpm for ten seconds every minute, and a 1 minute standing sprint- 85+ rpm’s @4.25 w/kg.

Spun out for ten minutes, Really looking forward to getting outside, doing some hill repeats, short TT efforts and flying down a couple super fast descents, but for now the ‘rides to nowhere’ will have to do.

So I went skiing yesterday.  And today.  I am not sure if I am happy that I found something else that I really enjoy.  I already enjoy swimming, biking, running, lifting, trail running (which is sort of hiking for the impatient), hiking, rock climbing, shooting, scuba diving, kayaking, sailing, water skiing, back country camping…….do I really want another sport??  Well, yes, I think I do! How much are downhill skis again?  LOL

I brought my cross country skis out here with me because I have been liking the aerobic sports mostly in the past but somewhere in the past year, I decided I really like speed.  The faster, the better.  Well, I always liked speed but never went very fast.  Now I am going fast and enjoying it immensely.

My brother is a good ski coach…..hmmm, interesting family trait, no?   And tweaked my not-so-bad form after all this time not skiing (6 years?) and suddenly I had control through turns and on steeper hills.   The skis are very different since I last skied; they are not straight down the sides but almost like an hour glass shape.  This helps grab the snow with the edges.  He told me to use all of the edges of the skis, both skis, and roll from edge to center to other edge as you go through your turn and to not rush the turns.  Do not be afraid of the speed or of pointing straight downhill.  You are, after all, trying to go downhill.  And with that, I finally felt I could go fast with control.  I had felt that I could hold my own before on moderate hills but I was doing the same thing I had always done and wasn’t really sure how to get better.  I don’t think you get better by doing the same thing over and over.  You have to try something new - push the envelope a little bit.  After that little lesson, I felt lots faster, lots more in control.  I still could not catch Travis, even with him on Telemark skis, he just flies.  Maybe I am faster than him on the bike!!!  I can hope!!  And besides, thank God for all of the squats and lunges I have been doing because I don’t know how many more runs I could have made- wwhoooeeee - skiing does burn the quads!

Nature note: It is so cool how the snow sticks to all sides of the trees.  It was raining (I missed the really cold weather last week - it has been in the 30’s the entire time so far) when we left the house and another storm is forecast to come in behind this one - so there will be plenty of fresh snow between now and Christmas day.  Always a Schule family tradition to go skiing on Christmas day.  One I have not been a part of in many years and am looking forward to it very much this year.

Off to sit in the sauna.  From Montana for a few more days at least, Jennisse

Had a Christmas party for work up in Newark, and plans to go back down to see Tink in AC late Friday Night so thought I wouldn’t get a chance to ride at all. But ended up getting home earlier then planned and wasn’t going to leave for AC till 9 at night so hopped on the trainer real quick, did a nice easy active recovery spin.

Nothing too eventful but 30 minutes focusing on pedaling smooth and easy was good enough for me. Off for the next couple days for some R&R.

With plans to be o9ut of town again all weekend and feeling pretty rested after Tuesday’s workout wanted to do some specific threshold work.  Haven’t done any specific threshold work months. normally this work is awful on the trainer and pretty much demoralizing to be honest. The power always, seems harder, and lower then on the road. The ‘rides to nowhere’ as Mark perfectly put it are tough already but throw in riding at your Threshold makes it even less enjoyable.

Typically we can see 20-40 watts difference on the trainer, And not doing any specific Threshold training besides the Vo2 test I didn’t know what to expect in regards to power. The plan was to go on HR, keep it under control -

155-163 have been my LBP HR, 170 HR was average Hr for races 30-70 minutes this past season. I planned on keeping it just under 170- the 164-167 range- Hoping to produce good power and knowing that was a HR just below race effort but still pretty darn hard.

I have learned everyone needs to warm-up, buffer and get ready to work before a race…It took a lot of stubbornness, trial and error and finally just listening to Jennisse that If i warm up , at least 30 minutes even up to an hour I have my best results.  As last season progressed, and I started playing around with methods and times we got it down pretty well. Today, I went with 10 minutes. I wanted to shock my body and see if I could control my HR, control my breathing and hit the Power I was hoping to see. Either I would have it or I wouldn’t.

First interval was fine, room was warm, 70 degrees and humid, fan blowing but not helping too much. Kept cadence up over 90, hr never went past 166, Garmin is set to avg Watts over 3 seconds and was jumping around a bit but new I was over 260 so left it in that range.

Recovered for 4 minutes and ramped up to second interval, felt pretty much the same, legs still feeling strong, able to keep cadence up and stay in the saddle. Hr again nearing 168 but staying under control.

Recovered again, 4 minutes, “this is good, this is good, this is what we need to do, you don’t have to be at 350 watts in decemeber, hold back boy” is what I thought, ramped up for 3rd interval, same as last two. felt good. Hr got up to speed quick but leveled right at 166-167

4 of 4 - 3 minutes in still feeling the same as the previous intervals and HR still 168 bpm , ramped it up 290 Watts and hr stayed at 172 bpm- nice

only planning on doing 4 intervals but feeling good decided to add another but to experiment wiht a lower cadence. 70 Rpm seated for 2 minutes backed it off for a minutes then finished with 2 minutes standing.

Did a nice easy spin out to cool down.

This was one of the best trainer workouts I have had, after downloading the Garmin even happier with the numbers. 270 watts pretty consitantly, HR sub 166 avg. good cadence and had enough to push harder towards the end. Will try and repeat with workout thru January and Febuary, then shorting the recovery time and increasing the intervals.

Seems that after a while on the damn rollers I keep pushing the envelope, Haven’t rode off the darn things yet but that isn’t stopping me from trying…Did a easy 30 minute spin. Pretty tired from work and ride night before, even wore recovery tights to bed. Grumpy about setting up everything, water, mat, music, bike,  felt like set up was longer than ride blah blah .

Ride went good, changed up gears as I went along to make time go by. 5 minute blocks. Messing around at the end of the ride with seeing how long I could coast for almost bit it…Stupid, but fun.

3rd week on the same workout- Arrived at 6:30 this week to help set-up. A few more people then last week but another good workout. Met Greg, another crazy mountain bike who road 100 miles back from Capemay only using one leg due to tearing his IT band, not that is what I am talking about!

Really hot tonight, but I am sure due to the act I wore compression shirt and not jeresy as I was out of them and not being able to unzip and having it tight all the way up my neck was rough, felt like dead of summer.

Felt a little tired tonight but talks with Ati about some TT training, finishing up the transition get me going.