Mike's Bike Blog

The start of the year saw me take a true periodization approach to my training. This past year I'd done some loosely structured periodization, but never really started from the beginning with preparation and graduating through each of the phases. In January I purchased Peaksware's WKO+ to track my workouts with power along with the online companion (Training Peaks). The premium version of TrainingPeaks includes a plan builder based on Joe Friel's The Cyclist's Training Bible. It automatically builds your yearly plan based on a wizard that walks you through your strengths and weaknesses to come up with daily workouts.

For the past month I've been lifting weights 3 days a week mixed in with light bike rides. I must confess though, I probably did more intense workouts than what would be typical in the preparation phase. Normally you would not be racing this early in the preparation phase, same with the base stage. Since none of these early races are A races I'm not going to be doing any tapering beforehand. In essence I'll be using them as training days, the intensity will be more than what I should be doing, next year I'll be able to better account for the early season we have here in Texas. I had a couple harder workouts this week. On Thursday I did one of my favorite routes in North/Central Austin which is up Scenic Drive to Mt. Bonnell. The route includes 1344 ft. of climbing in the 15.5 miles, I ended up with an Intensity Factor (IF) of .936.

I followed up Friday with another hard ride where I did a 20 minute all out interval. I did the interval at my FTP. Saturday I drove over to Walburg to ride the course for the upcoming Walburg Classic race.

I'd ridden different sections of the course before, but never the full 24 miles as it will be run in the actual race. My plan was to do 3 or 4 laps. However when I got out there the wind was howling at 25 to 35 mph. The first lap was suppose to be warm up. The first 1/2 from Walburg to Schwertner I averaged 22 mph. For this first part I had the wind at my back for part of it and then a nasty crosswind. The crosswind was so bad I had to lean into it to keep from blowing across the road.

Once I got to Schwertner I turned into the wind. The headwind was working it's magic on my legs. I was starting to feel the effects of the hard week I'd already dropped down. Once I got out of the headwind and had a crosswind I again had to lean into it to stay upright. When it would gust it would push me over a bit on the road. From Schwertner back to Walburg I was only able to average 15 mph. When I got into Walburg my energy was totally sapped, I made the decision to call it at only 1 lap since I wouldn't be able to get much benefit at the watts I was pushing.

Today's ride I hooked up the trail-a-bike (a recent craigslist purchase) to the mountain bike and I was able to talk Zeb into giving it a try. We had tried it when I first bought it but Zeb wasn't sold on it. He wasn't sure about the whole concept since it didn't have training wheels. To help him get over his fears he sat on the seat while I would slowly move the bike to the left and right so he could get the feel of the balance. Once he had a little confidence I talked him into going to the end of our street and back. Well 6 miles later he was ready to get off. He put in his request to go again tomorrow.

Once I dropped him off back at home I went out again on the mountain bike to ride the trails around my house. I found a new trail that comes out to 1.84 miles. This coming week I start the build phase so I'll be adding a bit more miles.