Heffron.

NP 306W, 37km/hr

First race back at Heffron for the year... Raced in B grade. Felt pretty good all the way through, just sat at the back for the first 9 laps and watched. Legs felt great. Lap 10 I went to the front to chase down a break which looked dangerous, the chase ended up turning into a breakaway and soon I was with my fellow escapees. Did a lot of work (5 minute peak power = 380W), but ultimately I was the only one willing.

We reintegrated with the bunch, and with all my matches burnt I thought I would just stay on the front and keep the pace as high as I could. Felt good, even with the legs burning, I dug very deep on the last lap to setup the sprint.

All in all, rather happy. Total TSS for the day 244 which comprised:

80 TSS - morning ride

60 TSS - ride to and from the race

104 TSS - criterium

Will get out for an easy ride in the morning.

On Fire

Hot on the heels of yesterdays great effort up Mt Keira, I had another great morning ride today.

Thursday club ride is a combination of fast flat work and some short sharp climbing right on the rivet.

Managed to stay at the pointy end for all of the ride and on the final climb pulled out an amazing turn of speed with some great peak power outputs. How does a 30 second peak power of 900watts sound? I definitely think the track has a lot of answer for those numbers. Peak one minute was a respectable 540Watts...

Yellow line shows current best power outputs over time. Dotted line shows best ever results. So by the looks of things, i just need to tune up my power outputs over longer time intervals and i'll be sweet....

Will rest the legs tomorrow and then perhaps do a moderate ride saturday morning and follow it up with saturday afternoon criterium and see how the legs perform there!!

Mt Keira

20.34, NP 326W !!, average speed 17 km/hr, average cadence 80rpm

A new best time, by a minute and a half!

Felt amazing the whole way up, didn't go under 300W the whole way, and the last 500 metres was over 400W, so there is still a bit more left in the tank I think!!!!

Well there you have it, i'm staggered at my Normalised power for this effort. 326W is huge. What was even more impressive was my cadence (ave 80rpm). My previous best ever time was at an average cadence of 70rpm.

I wonder if riding the single speed has helped in this regard, holding high cadence and power for sustained times... Interesting field i'll have to research into...

Taking the step UP.

The thin blue line continues to advance!

Currently at a TSS/d of 55, which is not fantastic. I'd like to be around 65-70 at this point of my build phase. Starting to sharpen the rides now, yesterday was a grueling day doing 10 second seated sprints. Managed to reel off the majority at over 1000 watts average.

A lot of my sessions from now will be very targeted on raising my lactic threshold as well as my FTP.

Tomorrow is Mt Keira repeats. Which should be a lot of fun, and should also indicate what my current fitness level is like. I'd like to think I will do well given my weight has stabilized just under 80kg. I hope I can keep the power over 300watts as this will result in a good time....

Thursday will be another interval session focussing on some TTI's ~ 5mins @ 320watts. Friday recovery, followed by long and fast ride Saturday. If I can nail these sessions I'll be doing well and on my way to beating last years effort @ Bathurst.

Trackstar

Track racing again last night.

Felt ok going around and was able to keep up with the changes in pace, but when it came to the sprint my legs just simply couldn't wind up.

Did ok in the elimination race racing off for first. The money race was similar with the legs just not firing up for the sprint.

Legs feel like jello now. Unsure if i'll be sufficiently recovered for a hard ride tomorrow. May take it relatively easy and then try an afternoon criterium to sharpen the legs up in a race simulation...

456km

7 Days of riding, 456km.

Not a bad effort, lots of base in there, now time to get the engine running hotter!!!

Today was a 90km loop out to wollongong and back, taking in some undulating terrain which makes you focus on your pace and effort levels.

Felt very good the whole way, pretty much kept it in the big ring the whole way powering over the tops of small rises and only changing down for the longer climbs.

Finished the ride with a hill TT up Waterfall hill. My previous best was 12.30 and with tired legs today I manage 13 minutes flat. Not bad.

Tomorrow is a HARD club ride followed by track racing!!

190km

First time in several years that I have actually been on the bike for this long. 190 quite painful kilometres.

The route was Sydney - Wollongong return, taking in the National Park on the way down to the 'Gong and returning via Mt Keira and the three deadlies.

Humidity was atrocious and the heat pretty hard to deal with. The wheels started to fall off at around the 140km mark. Coke and Mars bars saved the day and we managed to roll back with no major troubles.

NP was 222w for the ride of just under 7 hours, total ascent was 2200 metres.

A few more rides like this should get me back into form. I'm hoping to repeat this ride again on Wednesday and then again this coming Saturday.

The next phase will be introducing some speed work in and some intervals to bump up my FTP and get me used to 5-10 minute threshold efforts. I think this is absolutely critical for the racing i'll be doing in the near future.

Happy Daize

Back on Track

Title is so cliche... but it just had to be said!!!

Got out for my first race start at the track tonight. Boy what a blast!!!!!!

Was very unsure of what to do, so for the first race (all in scratch) I just sat at the back of B grade and watched... rolled in last, happy to have completely my first track race!!!

Second race was a 10 laps points race with a sprint every second lap. The idea is to get the least amount of points.

First sprint I was second over the line, Second sprint I was first, Third I was second, Fourth I was second.. By this stage I didn't know who had what points, so just tried my hardest and managed to get to the line for another first... Lucky for me I did as I needed the win to take out the race!!! WOOHOO VICTORY!!!

The last race was a 16 lap A and B combined scratch race with prizes for first A and B rider over the line. I started right at the back just to keep out of the way and get a feel for what the pace was going to be like. 10 laps in and the legs are absolutely screaming and I'm the only B grader left with around 7 other A graders. Manage to swap a few turns and try and conserve some energy... Unfortunately I was at the front on the bell lap so just wound it up as hard as I could and managed to hold onto third place overall!!!

Pretty stoked in general. Track racing seems to come pretty easy for me. I love the short sharp stuff... And having a bit of endurance base sure does help. Looking forward to next week!!!!

Where'd Dave Go

Dave has been sick.

Dave has been very sick.

Dave is starting to get better.

Training has been very slow. I've lost all that wonderful base that I accumulated at Jindabyne. I don't think it'll take much to wind it back up again, but my early season goals have been destroyed pretty much.

On the bright side I've lost 3kgs. And I seem to have stabilised at around 80kgs. I'm going to focus on keeping myself this lean and try and build the same engine as before.

Goals for the short term are Blaney to Bathurst (116km), then the Canberra tour (3 x 40km road races). I'll be happy if i can match last years time at Blaney, and i'll be even more happy if I can stay with the main pack at Canberra...

Have to keep the goals realistic.

Keep turning those wheels.

D