as i write this..its is snowing way too hard!!!

the tour of flanders was run on sunday....stijn devolder doubled up with another ronde in his palmares. another solo ride after putting the hammer down on the mur! i had a couple leffe's for him..fine belgian blonde ale to go along with the race.

as for my week, it was a down week.....a little recovery....

sunday march 29 off recovery

monday 2 hrs endurance...nothing hard, zone 2

tuesday 2 hrs indoors 4,3,2 intervals 4mins 350 watts, 1min rest, 3mins at 360 watts, 1min rest, 2mins at 370 watts..5 min spin...4 mins at 360 watts, 1min rest, 3mins at 370 watts, 1min rest, 2mins at 390 watts.

* rode in the evening with my buddy cliff, he did his workout and i rode shotgun....1.25 hrs ridden at a fairly quick tempo and lots of wind.

wednesday 1.25 hrs easy

thursday 3 hrs intervals 1.25 hrs at race pace hr.r at 165 to 175, 2 * 5mins at 15 secs on, 15 secs off, then 8min t.t. with 200m sprint at end.

friday off

saturday off

* in all 9.5 hrs ridden and some really good intensity. legs feel great.

kieth kelly has been posting on his cycling build up and has now joined usa cycling and is on a team for 2009, all of this to compliment his return to running at some point once his knee is sorted out. i have been helping him with some intervals for his training and overall structure for his time on the bike. wish him all the best as i think the freshness of a new sport is lighting a fire under his ass.....

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.