ITS COMING SOON!!!!!!

APRIL 12 2009........95 KMS OF "HELL"

part duex.....

i finished todays riding with an evening ride with cliff van clief. cliff is the owner of THE HUB BICYCLE SHOP in down town hespeler. he is the one that got me into cyclocross, as he is a die hard for that. as we were riding tonight, just as the dark started to creep in, i mentioned that a very specific x-race was added into the calendar for the x-season. the race is at GARRETT FARMS. this is the first cross race that i did with cliff....and, at one pont during the race, also my last.....for about 2 weeks....lol....that i swore i would never do again. but, once bitten by the bug, its in your blood. we ran more than any other x-race i have ever done. just nothing but black topsoil for as far as the eye can see and about 3 ft. deep at its shallowest point. and it snowed, and rained, and snowed some more.....and the wind decided to chime in as well. they had some awesome kerosene heaters in the barn...thats right, a barn, where u got dressed in one of the stalls, with the animals still wandering around too....mind the poop. cliff loves the race, and is pumped even more now than ever since it hasnt' been used for a couple of years. believe it or not, i cant' wait either. :)

just a quick note about todays workout.......bike racing is about aerobic metabolism. to boost your performance, u need to work on anerobic power. its to pace high intensity work so that u dont get dropped a the end of a race. this workout optimises that anerobic ability to do high intensity and get use to how it "feels" when the hammer drops. lets get to the meat of it!!......

warmup for about 15 to 20 mins, increasing your workload to build up a good sweat.....for me, its going from 120 to 160 for 3 mins prior to the actual work.

after your warmup, u can do 2-4 sets fo these. 2 for 60 mins or 4 for 90 mins.

1. 4 mins at (this is for me) 350 watts, 1 min rest
2. 3 mins at 360 watts, 1 min rest
3. 2 mins at 370 watts, 3 min rest
   now, i didnt fully read the entire workout, so i gave myself too much time on recovery.....i was doing 3 mins per rep.

now my next set was done like this...
1. 4mins at 370 watts, 1 min rest

2. 3mins at 380 watts, 1 min rest

3. 2 mins at 390-400 watts, rest and recover (THIS WAS DONE ON THE COMPUTRAINER)

this was really hard the first time, and i will work up to 3 sets. basically, this helps with any surges or bridging u need to do to stay afloat in the race.

top pic is of my beautiful wife theresa ( on the right) in nassau , bahamas 09'

suppose to meet up with the owner of THE HUB BICYCLE SHOP, cliff van clief, for a ride tonight at 7.30 pm. he has some goals of his own this year and wants someone to hang with him while he does his workout. i already put 2 hours in indoors, so this should be fun.

come on summer!!!!

took an nice, well deserved rest sunday.....thought i would share this with ya!!!

ohhhhhhhhhh...the agony!!!!

how the week breaks down: 16.75hrs ridden...

sunday endurance with hard pulls 3.75 hrs *last 10km hard.

monday off

tuesday endurance zone 2-3 2.25 hrs

wednesday off bad weather

thursday steady state ride zone 3-4 hard steady ride 3 hrs

friday zone 2 easy 2 hrs

saturday all zones with hills, sprints and attacks. 5.75 hrs *longest ride this year at 153 kms. felt good untill headwind back home. :)

the ride today was a real test of the strength that i have been building on for the last couple of months, and i must say, that if i didnt have to ride the last hour on my own but in a race pack, i know that the legs would react in the proper way if there was a sprint. i felt strong on the hills and could pull pretty hard from bamberg back to waterloo over a series of short punchy climbs. need to have a couple of days of rest and start doing some short hard reps now to tickle the red zone for surges and sprints.

i like black.....when worn like this...

thats all i to say on that...... :)......and the sprint between haussler and cavendish at milan sanremo was epic.

HOLY HOURS BATMAN!!!!!

i am tired right now....long week. lets break it down:

sunday 2.25 hrs zone 2 endurance

monday 1.5 hrs zone 2 endurance

tuesday 3 hrs zone 2 endurance with 2-3 hill sprints with chris kraemer

wednesday 3 hrs zone 4-5 hard tempo workout with erik box. 60kms in 1:46

windy night, hard sprint at 3 blue signs.

thursday off fix up cross bike for paris to ancaster

friday 3.5 hrs on cross bike zone 2 endurance with some dirt hill climbs

saturday 3.5 hrs zone 4-5 5 * 150m sprint, 3 * 200m hill sprint (hard!!!), big gear, low

rpm into headwind and finished of with 5km hard tempo ride finish with sign

sprint.

overall nearly 17 hrs of training and good intensity. strength is really coming up, and hopefully this week will be another big hour week before i lower my hours and pick my intensity.

i like days of more sunlight...more time to ride.

weather has been up and down all week.....except friday, saturday and sunday. awesome. had a great week of training again. got most of my time in on friday and saturday..lol...probably a bit too much...but gotta take it when i can.

this is how the week went.....

sunday mar. 8 3.25 hrs zone 2 endurance

monday mar. 9 off

tuesday mar. 10 2 hrs zone 4/5 hard tempo ride with erik box. avg watts at 290, avg. hr. 170

33km/hr avg. hills not attcked, but tempo constant.

wed. mar. 11 off

thurs. mar 12 1.25 hrs indoors zone 2 endurance

friday mar.13 4.5 hrs outdoors zone 2 endurance cool day, temps at 0 deg. but lots of sun

sat. mar. 14 3 hrs indoors on computrainer zone 2-5 workout consisted of 6 * 10min t.t.

efforts at 290-320 watts, then 8 * 40secs on/40 secs off ...sprint/tempo

protion...10 secs hard and then sit in and hold 360 watts for 30 secs.

my week goes from sunday to saturday. 14 hrs total for the week.

not bad overall, and with some better weather this week, hopefully, a bigger week in total hrs.

hope kieth's mri goes well...but with all that pain, its hard to tell. just keep the faith man.

THE DONUT RIDE

went into toronto on sunday morning with my buddy "fast" freddy to do the donut ride.. a legendary ride that has existed since the mid-70's that some of the great in canadian cycling have made their fave training route for years. its even on the wikipedia website as to the history of the ride. it was my first time out with them, and of course my bladder acts up like 5 times in the first hour, more from all the coffee consumption, and my last pit stop is just when they drop the hammer into a long, grindy hill....bye bye group. caught them at coffee stop in king city withthe help of a gracious rider who helped me sort out my directional probs and get me on my way again. the group splits into 2...one to do the longer, hillier route thru aurora and the other makes an earlier exit to get to the coffee shop sooner. the coffe shop has all these photos of the rides that have stopped over the years to partake of their coffee and donuts at the mid way point. all, in all, a great day of riding with some of the best in ontario. about 3.5 hrs of riding and new friendship making.

as for the week.....

mon 90 mins indoors
tues 90 mins indoors
wed 4hrs outdoors some intervals
thur 3.25 hrs outdoors
fri 2.25 hrs really windy 60km/h gusts
sat 3 hrs indoors hard computrainer session
sun 3.5 hrs donut ride toronto

the legs r feeling the volume, but will get use to it. as this is the start of march, hopefully the rest of the month goes along at this pace.

its warm!!!!!!

the spring classics have started......omloop het nieuswblad was on saturday and big thor hushovd took the win. sunday was kuurne-brussels-kuurne and tom boonen notched another for himself and quick step.

as for me......this is how the week went do far:

mon 90 mins indoors zone 2 endurance

tues 90 mins indoors zone 2 endurance

wed 4 hrs with 5 * 30 sec hill sprints/4 * 30 sec blue sign sprints and the last hour at race pace. avg. 35km/h, avg. hr. for last hour at 162. pretty tired after this as the weather was just awsesome. tried to keep the wind to my face on the way out and wind to my back onthe way home. 5 deg.

thurs 3.25hrs zone 2 endurance. weather beautiful again. wind out of the east, strong. rain expected to start this aft. and continue on off all weekend. damn. 6deg today.

so far so good. saturday will be indoors again and is my second hard effort for the week. will post back again sunday.

big shout out to kieth kelly, who is using cycling as a cross training method to keep his knee from damage and build his leg strength and cardio...it has paid big dividends for him.

jmac

kieth kelly is my comeback hero and blog buddy!!!

the above picture is from the irish national x-country champs that my friend kieth kelly won on the weekend. kieth is in the RED TOP. he is on a road of redemption. this is just won of many things to come his way in the next while. he is a true FLAHUTE...refer back to some of my earlier posts to get a feel of what a flahute is....flemish for tuff.

as for me, just rode another 90 mins at zone 2 indoors for today. windchill made it feel like -22 outside. the weather should be bearable by wed.
my buddy erik box is back from his training camp in victoria b.c. he was able to putaway 1700kms in 2weeks. not bad for a guy who did most of it on his own. he is riding at the pro level this year. in canada that is a class at senior 1/2 or pro 1/2 in the states. big things for him this year and he just turned 25?...or 24? cant remember...but pro is go with him!!!

gotta go give kieth some more props!!

jmac

its been a short bit of time away....

this past week has been somewhat kind in the weather department. temps have moved above zero with sustainability for a few days.
just a recap of the past week:
mon off
tues off
wed 4 hrs outside in afternoon with john stewart, fast freddy, and mr parkinson
some fast tempo with the odd stomp on the short hills. john stewart broke his chain on west alps road and we had to push him in. good day.

thurs 3hrs outside on my own. north wind so i went towards milton and back into cambridge via small town of crieff.

fri 90 mins indoors in the evening. easy stuff as the days outside are fairly harsh with the wind and cold.

sat 7am indoors on the computrainer. covered 100kms. about 3hrs and 15mins. tuff course as most of the climbing comes in the last 15kms. avg 232 watts at an avg. h.r. of 161.

today is an off day as to gear up for a bigger week ahead.

in total 11.75 hrs for the week. kilometers dont mean to much to me. i will start to watch my distance accumalation abit more thru the month of march. i am hoping to get the next 4 weeks at 15 hrs a week steady.
as for my actual workouts, be it on the trainer or indoors, alot of the race itself is aerobic. try to build a large aerobic base and get beat up by the wind, cold and lumpy courses i ride on. it is very easy to elevate your h.r. on long solo rides with just the wind and cold, so the object is to ride in the assigned zones and then start to tickle the red zone with sprints and 30/30's. i find doing structed intervals on the trainer very rewarding. i will start to do more intervals now based on how the first 2-3 races of the year go from past experiences. 30/30's are a great interval workout that basically mimics how u have to go hard then go easy....hard easy, hard easy....and the first few races are on looped courses with small punchy climbs that u have to go over 8-12 times....a fast recovery from short hard bursts must be worked on.

i will post again to update how the week goes.

jmac