Past, Present and Future

So here is a glimpse into our training program administered by Pete - aka Captain Punishment.

The highlights of this very simple training plan are the weekly total hours, the long ride, the flat intervals, hill repeats, and finally leg speed. We started riding together back in December on conversational rides but usually averaging 1000 ft of climbing per 10 miles (i.e. 80 mile ride with 8000 ft of climbing). This was the barometer for deeming the ride "hilly". In February we started doing the hill repeats on the Old 395 highway just south of Hwy. 76. For those of you not familiar with it, there is a consistent grade of about 7% over 1.7 miles that you can do repeats on. We tried to ride these at a HR of our lactate threshold minus 1-3 bpm. Unfortunately we don't have power meters. We would climb for 10 minutes, spin down which usually took about 3 minutes, and repeat up to 7 times. The stationary trainer intervals would be classified as VO2 max intervals. We would go as hard as you go. We did these in Pete's driveway as it is much easier to push yourself with others than sitting in your dungeon at home trying to suffer solo. The intervals have now left the trainer and we are progressing towards our RAAM specific training. The plan is to ride between 5-30 minutes each on the road during the race. In addition, we will occasionally use 2 riders in a pace line. We are now working to dial in our efforts just below our LT in the TT position. The 5 minute intervals on the schedule are done on a 1 mile stretch of road with about 300 ft of elevation gain. These are painful as the goal is to do them 1-3 bpm above your LT. Your legs are in pain at the end. Finally the leg speed drills are to increase your ability to spin out and not loose control or bounce on the seat.

So this weekend we had 4x15 minutes of flat intervals. We did these on Camino del Ray. Two were solo efforts and the alternating ones were with another rider on the team. We are trying to figure out the best combinations for the road. I was with Mike Bennett, who stands about 5'-6". I am 6'-7". Although I am pretty skinny, people say that it is like drafting behind a VW bug when you tuck onto my rear wheel. Mike on the other hand is pretty low to the ground. Hopefully there are some pictures I can post so you can see the difference. Anyhow, I ended up with 95 miles and avg. of 20.1 mph for the day. Sunday I caught up with Joe Beeson, a member of a 4 person RAAM team, and we cruised up the coast to Las Pulgas and back catching up. A nice easy 50 miles followed with a flop in the pool late in the day.

Enough for now -

We'll talk later.

NJB