Raising The Bar

I'm not a very powerful cyclist, I'm more like the little engine that could; I motor along at a reasonable pace for a ridiculously long period of time. The diesel engine that goes and goes, the Energizer bunny though I prefer DuraCell batteries. The...never mind.

After months of training and some concentrated effort,s I've raised my FTP from 210 watts to 220 watts. Oooooh! Well to me it's a big deal. Yesterday I rode to work and was within a few seconds of my absolute best time, which was with a significant tail wind. Yesterday's ride to work had virtually no wind effect so it was me, not Zephyrus pushing me along. And I arrived winded but not ready to fall off the bike like the last time I

Here's screenshot from the iBike software showing the effort. This is smoothed to 5 minutes which does a better job of showing the big picture.

Solid 

Today, Sunday the 14th I did a fairly hard ride with some friends. It was my last big effort before the Cool Breeze Double Metric and "things" have come together nicely. I did a hard ride, but didn't feel like I needed a day off afterwards and my heart rate stayed reasonably low. I'm ready. My best 30 minute effort came fairly late in the ride (see below) and that's a good sign.

A SportTracks screenshot showing my best 30 minute effort.

A recovery ride for the August 15th, some high intensity short intervals on the 17th and a short ride to open up the legs on the 19th.

Then it's showtime! My companions and I are starting out at 6AM and will probably be on the road for 8 hours of riding. After all, it is 130 miles including the ride from the hotel to the ride start and of course the return. Barring a disaster, I'll put up a report next week.

No Flats

After replacing two tires within 55 miles because of a massive cut from glass, today's ride was a pleasure. Considering that my training load is very negative, I was actually able to increase my CTL while not making my TSB more negative. Now to maintain that balance. Two climbs up Newport Coast with the second one pushing fairly hard (for me). http://app.strava.com/rides/956073# shows the ride. Here's the profile from SportTracks, one of my favorite analysis programs.

The Cool Breeze Century is about a month away and I plan on doing the double metric (125 miles). That will be my first attempt at that distance and I'm clearly focused on the task at hand. I sure hope my riding partner for the Double Metric, Lee Berman is as focused as I am. It seems that lately he spends more time at Disneyland than anything else.

But I digress. Actually, I'll end it here. Lots more interesting stuff to write about another day.