The team camp was a great team-building success, I think, with some good off-bike time and great riding. Last year was supposed to be the first annual camp, but it got rained out. Our weather this weekend was excellent.
18 of us arrived at the rental house on Discovery Bay on Friday night, trickling in around 8pm. It was a pretty big place on the bay, complete with dock and pontoon boat (which got some use, but that's a story for someone else to tell). The co-op-style food planning worked well. Friday dinner was simple, given the hour, but the breakfasts and afternoon grilling made for some quality ride chow Saturday and Sunday, thanks to DP, Ryan, Nick, and Dan.
Saturday was a pretty mellow day for me. I hadn't felt like I had time to get the new Leopard bike fully ready Friday night (good call since it took much of Saturday afternoon), so rode the Waterford. When we hit the big hills through Patterson Pass, the pace really picked up. I dropped my chain at the right time, since that got me out of that group and let me settle me down to more of a tempo climbing pace. The group up front looked like it stayed together for most of it, but there were a few guys behind me so I didn't feel hurried. On Altamont, I set a fairly brisk tempo at the front at the start of the climb, and just let the group ride by when they wanted to go harder. I did get in a big attack later on the flats, but generally it was a good aerobic training day and good team fun. Terrence, our recent Cat 2 addition, drove over for the morning ride and hung out.
I headed into Sunday with my new bike ready to ride and was pretty eager to test the bike and my legs. And after the Saturday night season-planning chat, I also felt like I probably needed to show a bit more strength, given that I've just been cruising along in most team rides (sprints excepted). That was a recipe for going harder than my coach had recommended for the weekend, especially on the Morgan Territory climb. The landscape there was inspiring. Coming up on Marsh Creek Rd we were treated to a beautiful view of Mt. Diablo in stark silouette, from the back side. Then we turned onto the narrow Morgan Territory road and got into the wooded Diablo foothills. The profile is "rollers" that mostly roll up, then it becomes a real hill with lots of pitch changes, some quite steep.
After Ben did one of his test attacks, I was the one to bridge (@650W avg for 15s) and pulled a couple guys with me. Then a group of 5 formed (Ben, DP, Ryan B, Vlad, and I) and the hammerfest started. DP and Ryan would surge on every roller pointing up, I was maintaining that hard steady pace for my pulls (up and down), and Ben wasn't pulling so much as attacking from the back whenever things eased up a bit.
After 12 minutes, I took a last pull and told Ryan at the back that I'd had my fun and sat up. I'd been able to recover under threshold here and there and wasn't breathing VO2max-hard at any point. But I knew I'd burned a match and that I'd enjoy the ride more if I took it down to tempo for the remaining climb. Those first 5 minutes were quite hard: 352W normalized power (339W avg). 10 minutes: 326W normalized (306W avg). I heard after that it just got harder, with Ryan attacking on a steep pitch to get away solo for the KOM, with DP and Ben chasing hard. Ryan's not a small guy (@ 6' 2", though relatively skinny for that height) but he can really climb.
Another highlight on Sunday was the rolling descent back on Altamont Pass. It was a bit messy on Saturday with 19, but our smaller 12-man group kept it neat. I was kicking up the pace whenever I could for fun, trying to take longer pulls, when the formation allowed. We kept it together pretty well, averaging 27.5mph over 10min.
The most fun was taking a big pull on Byron Highway. The smooth pavement, flat terrain, and narrow shoulder makes it a good candidate for having just one or two guys do the pacemaking. Ammon took us to the intersection with the Hwy, then I took over, slowly easing the pace up to 22 over the first few minutes to settle us in after the left-turn crossing, then keeping it steady between 22 and 24 for the next 14 minutes. That pull felt great, nice and comfortable in mid-zone 4 HR. We had a light-to-moderate crosswind on the right shoulder. Averages for core 14 minutes: 23.7mph, 275W, 165bpm.
All in all a good end to a good training week. I took an extra day off (Friday, to pack), but the four workouts I did were pretty solid, medium to high intensity. That closes out the third week in this first build cycle. Next week will be a pretty easy rest week, then the intensity will step up another notch, to prep for racing late next month.
No comments:
Post a Comment