After AMBBR, I've tried to stay in bike shape by riding to work a few times a week along with a long mileage day on the weekend. I've been fairly successful but am glad to have a structured program to follow as I have been starting to slip. I've been trying to buy a registration to the Lighthouse Century for the last couple of months with no luck. The ride sold out within 10 hours of opening. The first day of registration was the day after my AMBBR century while I was in Tahoe with no ready access to a computer so I missed it. Anyway, I'm keeping hope alive and decided to up my mileage this weekend to make sure I'm ready if I do manage to secure an entry.
Sooo...Saturday morning started with me getting on the road by 6:30 am, where I biked to a friend's house (~6 miles) then to the TnT training session (~15 miles) at Fiesta Island. I've been training at Fiesta Island on Tuesday nights for the last couple of months so this is familiar stomping grounds. After meeting the new team and coaches we got on the road.
I hooked up with the advanced rider group and we started up around the 4 mile loop with 14 riders in the pace line! Our pace was 18MPH for a few loops. Luckily I was already pretty warm by this time so no problem. I was near the front and one of the coaches, David made some comment about having a little "anarchy" around one of the corners. Anarchy means we break out of the pace line and put the pedal to the metal. Well, it appears that not everyone got the message which resulted in the front 6 riders breaking away from the rest of the group. I was third in the line when all hell broke loose. I got into the big ring and started cranking but was boxed in pretty well by teammates Lisa and Donna. I see a gap and then hit it hard and pull away. I got going really fast and Donna hopped on my back wheel and came along for the ride in my slipstream. I didn't want to completely pull away from the group so after about 45 secs I turn off the jets and slow way down and wait for the rest of the team to catch up. Once we regroup, more laps. A few laps later, our now smaller group is instructed to do a little interval training. We hit the same "anarchy" corner and our mentor instructs us to sprint at whatever speed we can sustain for 60 seconds. Bamm, we all take off and I stand up for more starting power and with the help of a little tailwind, manage to sustain 29 MPH! I was positively flying. After 1 minute I slow it down to 12 MPH and we regroups and do a lap to recover and then back for more. This time, we are heading partially into a head wind and I am also starting to tire so I get it up to 26.4 MPH. After a minute of this, I'm panting like a phone stalker. That's when one of my teammates informs me that our mentor, whose name I don't remember, is a fitness trainer (ie sadist). We do another partial lap to recover and the sprint one last time into a full headwind. Speed drops to 23 MPH and I'm sweating pure agony. Legs are burning, chest is on fire and I'm making that weird shape with my mouth where I look like I was dropped a lot as a baby. After that we take a few more laps at cool down speed and head in. We did a total of 25 miles on the Island.
Afterwards, I spoke to one of the Assistant Coaches, David and he congratulates me for working hard and informs me that I am a "Masher", meaning that I get my speed from pure physical power. He says that when I refine my pedaling I will be even faster. I'm intrigued because after months of cycling with the Tahoe team, no one ever put it that way to me. The theory is that I should increase my pedaling cadence (RPM) and let my heart do a lot of the work, which will give my legs more a break so that they don't tire as quickly. He says, that it's a different technique that can be learned and isn't at the expense of sacrificing power, it is just a more efficient use of it. He said that I should try to maintain over 100 rpm when pedaling on the flats and 80 rpm when climbing hills. Hmmm, something definitely to look into. Overall, I'm very happy with the Fiesta session. After a season of holding back, I was finally able to pedal my little heart out.
Official training session is over and three of us, Captain Jack, Tonya and myself, who are training for upcoming Century rides decide to get a few more miles in. I'm already at 40+ miles but head northward to La Jolla. Captain Jack is the ringleader and we start up by climbing Soledad Mountain which I used to do on a weekly basis but somehow is feeling a lot more punishing. Afterwards, Jack somehow manages to take us on roads we had never been on. I'm frankly surprised at this as I thought we had scoured every last hill on La Jolla while training for the Tahoe ride. Well, let me tell you, there is a nasty little hill that no one told me about called Hidden Valley Road which is about 3 miles of constant uphill. Nothing drastically steep but it just goes on and on and on and on and ... you get the picture. I'm seriously starting falter at this point and am having trouble holding a line and keep meandering out of the bike line towards the curb. There's a usually a little rut at the point where the concrete of the curb meets the asphalt on the road and that's where I'm living. Not a good place to be as it often pitches wildly and is usually pretty uneven. We finally get to the top and I'm at 55+ miles and decide to start heading home as I'm seriously tired and I have a long ride ahead of me. Tonya and I take off and start heading back into San Diego. I eat some cashews I had stashed and drink nearly a full bottle of water and start feeling instantly better.
It's around 1 pm at this time and it is getting hot. Ride back was pretty uneventful except the I hit a pothole so hard on Friars road that my cell phone popped out and split into 4 parts. Luckily it came back together scuffed but otherwise no worse for wear. We split up at Mission Valley and then I tackle my last hill of the day, Texas street to climb out of the valley. Brutal, brutal way to end the day after 70 miles of riding. It's short, but straight up at over a 8% grade. I finally crest the hill and make it the two miles back to my apartment with my total mileage over 72 miles. I'm so tired that when I sit down to check my email I start nodding off at my PC. Take a very cold shower to cool down and try to circumvent any swelling and the proceed to nap for 3 hours.
Here's a map of the route. The gap at you see in the loop is where I forgot to turn my bike computer back on after a brief rest stop.
Tough day but I worked hard, learned a lot and had a lot of fun. I'm think I'm going to enjoy this season.
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