Beer and Eggs
BY KENNETH LUNDGREN
HUGE weekend for Elite Endurance athletes… Been very busy all week, making sure everyone’s on track, staying on top of everyone’s schedule… Nicholas Salerno is competing in the Darkhorse 40, his first full peak of the year… Laura Winberry is up in Windham, NY, racing the US CUP, her second peak of the year… Dov Torenberg, owner of Tenafly Bike Workshop, is peaking for the Darkhorse 40… David Carr is out at the Tour of Millersburg — we’re hoping to rip that TT… Benjamin Lesnak, winner of a silly amount of TTs this year, is gearing up for Sunday’s NY State TT Championships… Roy Vaccaro and Jan Curran are racing the Blueberry TT, Jan also racing Sunday’s TTT… Bill Duffy is aiming for a great race at the Darkhorse 40… Bladdy Coronel is on track to peak for the NJ State Criterium Championships… Shawn Erickson of the Road Dawgs is looking to SMASH his personal record up the Mt. Washington Hill Climb… His FT has leaped 40w since we’ve started working, and I’m predicting a HUGE ride!!!
This is a busy time of year for me… I work a few hours at the tennis club, running the Speed & Agility classes for the Junior Development summer camps, then teaching 1-2 1h Private lessons. I’m actually mulling the idea of coaching a boys high school team, but I dunno if that’s for me… Then I’m back in the Elite Endurance office, planted in front of the laptop and binders, creating schedules, answering e-mails, reviewing power files, reading articles, always busy — I am quite the nerd… Then it’s out the door for some riding time…
I can say that I am WEAK. I weigh 165 pounds and my FT is realistically at 265w — my power-to-weight ratio is near the bottom of the Cat-4 pool! 🙂 I did the Park Ridge Ride on Saturday morning and was going the wrong way when we hit the Old Tappan “climb.” Did everyone get faster, lol? I was stuck at the back of the group as the leaders powered away around the reservoir… I must be getting old as I was just smiling back there… 🙂
But it is what it is… The bone in the knee is still broken, the left leg vastly atrophied… Main plan now is to hit plenty of Tempo, riding the TT bike. The more Tempo I hit now, the faster I will be next year, and honestly one of my goals is to become one of the top time trialists again, aiming to compete with Goldman, Fritz, Hoffman, Aspholm, Rosenhaus (these are the first to come to mind). For the last two years, I finished 2nd in the TT Cup, a TT adrenaline junkie, and when I went to the Long Meadow TT a few weeks ago, I just had this huge rush… It felt odd being the fat spectator guy, walking around… I missed the preparation, the nerves, the anticipation, the huge rush of satisfaction of ripping to that line, knowing you gave everything… I don’t know if it’s realistic, but my main goal for 2010 is to get back into TT Cup contention!
The further forward position on the TT bike certainly puts more stress on the knee, but so far so good… One thing I should note is I like to spin smaller gears, but that part of me is gone! I was going through my best TTs and I would average 100-103 rpms… I used to think 102 felt like the perfect cadence for me during TT efforts… Well, NOT anymore! I’m looking at my Tempo intervals, and it’s 88-93 rpms… When I utilize the higher cadence, the power drops and the HR skyrockets — all tell-tale signs that aerobically I need a ton of work…
I’ve cut the weights out completely and am riding the PowerCranks three times per week… Right now, one ride is purely easy, another ride is almost Tempo pace from beginning to end, and the third ride is a hilly ride, pushing bigger gears seated… Maybe this is part of the reason I’m favoring a lower cadence right now!!!
But the power is in the toilet. Having said that, I’m just happy to be back on the bike. I mean, I could’ve really been ripped by that motorcycle, and here I am riding again 5 months later… I remember in March how slow I felt when I first started riding again, and I went through several labored rides then, almost feeling like I wasn’t going anywhere, plenty of Tempo, plenty of force work, a few group rides. And then, that week before I went down, I popped some strong data on the TT bike and was starting to feel frisky again, had almost a leap in performance…
This go-around, things will be much slower-paced… PLENTY of Tempo, getting acclimated to the TT bike, a few endurance rides, just plenty plenty plenty of aerobic riding…
For instance, I did a 2.5h Endurance Ride today up through Fayson Lakes and Denville, over roads I’m VERY familiar with… I had done this beautiful loop the week before I won the 2008 Somerset TT, and compared the files… Similar Perceived Efforts, but I averaged a whopping 60 more watts and my HR was 14 bpm lower… Just ridiculous looking at these files! You don’t realize how strong you were until it’s gone! But I rode the ride very disciplined, trying to spin 98+ rpms on the flats and rollers, 90+ rpms on the climbs… Average watts for most of the climbing was 260w — yup!!! Plenty more of these rides on my horizon (this Felt bike is one helluva bike, although I haven’t been able to push so hard — look forward to those days!)…
Oh, beer and eggs… I’m back in Athlete Mode, and it feels great being back in the saddle. Not only that. You go to bed early. You eat better. You rest better. You plan your day. You have focus. You need to make sacrifices, be disciplined… Last night, a friend of mine called me out to the bar… I missed out on this part of my life. High school, college, just not into any of that. I had a great week of work and on the bike, so I said what the (*censored*)(*censored*)(*censored*)(*censored*) — let’s go out. Walked to the bar, had a pizza and 4 beers, came home and laid it down…
Well, today on the bike I just felt empty, almost like poison flowing in my veins. Well, it’s better to get this out of my system NOW and not in FEB when I need to be getting into Monk Mode again… 🙂 But it’s nice to get out and keep things in perspective… AS long as I keep moving in the right direction and having fun, the mind will stay motivated and I’ll be able to keep doing what I need to be doing on the bike. No pressure, no stress, just doing the right thing and having the occassional “cheat.” With the micro-cheats, you avoid that macro meltdown… Then once we hit the New Year, I’ll be 100% and absolutely fresh and ready to start digging in with some mean intent…
That’s it for now… Good luck to everyone racing this weekend and hope to see y’all on the road…
