#221: Home for once
It is the first ‘normal’ weekend at home for me in over a month (Family in Town, Columbia, Funerals up in Michigan, Team Camp, and SouthernX/Cross-A-Nooga#2). That being said, it was nice to a normal weekend at home. Or it is probably more like an abnormal weekend given how many weekends I am away.
This week has been busy, haven’t really done much around the house after work. Washed up all the cyclocross bikes Friday after work in the fading light. I ended up cleaning all 4 bikes (3 of mine plus Andrea’s). Andrea plans to convert her bike back to SS/fixie…which gives me an idea for my Cannondale. It will be remade into a single speed with a chain tensioner. I have a cheap tensioner / spacerset that I bought a while back from Performance. I haven’t used it because it got bad reviews in an issue of CX magazine (probably issue #2). Since that bike is spare and no one it going to pay me much for it, I might as well make a SS for playing around on.
Today I was able to attend the Cordova group ride from Trinity Commons. It was a big group of about 30 riders (or more) with at least a dozen Memphis Velo in attendance. This time of the year is strange with 30-31F start temperatures rising up to 50F by the end of our 4 hour ride. I felt really good on the short hills and saw some good wattage numbers on sustained efforts. Looks likes things are falling into place. My biggest issue is that I need to put in the longer rides. I have only 5 weeks to get prepped for Rouge Roubaix. That means no more ‘cross (I am tempted to race Knoxiecross since I have a new bike…) and get the distance in on the weekends to supplement my trainer work during the week.
I also ordered another wheelset for the road and for cross next year. Bonktown had a Reynolds carbon tubular wheelset for $970 shipped. I was going to buy a wheelset a bit later, but the deal was too good to pass up.
Since coming back from my ride, I have been pretty drained and have been eating a lot. Normally*, Andrea and I would go out to eat post ride, but she left for her ride as we were coming back in. I thought about winging around and joining her, but it would put me at 110 miles probably. Not quite ready for that…. in a few weeks I will be ready. I did feel good at the end of the ride today, but I want to do a long ride tomorrow (to/from Outdoors ride = 75 miles + any adders).
I will head out to the backyard and turn over the compost pile (which is mostly yard waste). Maybe I will add some photos.
Raise your 1 hour FTP and the long rides will be easier (and give you better overall benefit). If your FTP is higher you body will be in lower power zones for the ride keeping you fresh. Long rides are damn draining and take longer to recover than FTP workouts do thus making you JRA more.
Comment by Frogge — January 31, 2009 @ 4:19 pm
I will be fine… just need to keep ramping up my endurance miles. I rarely ride junk miles… ;-P
To put in TSS terms, my CTL is running about 65 TSS/day. I plan to bring that up towards where it needs to be ~80-100 as I go along. I am not calculating how I will do that, it will just happen–since I feel like I am hardly riding (I took Monday, Thurs, and Friday off, yikes!).
Comment by Ryan — January 31, 2009 @ 4:33 pm
If you’re doing Rouge Roubaix, I’d seriously invest in some heavy duty tires and maybe even some Slime tubes. The attacks will come on the gravel road section, so it’s best to be prepared.
Comment by Richard — February 1, 2009 @ 8:46 pm