Puget Power

2011 Season Wrap-up

2011-12-20T17:06:00.000-08:00

2011 is coming to a close and I wanted to wrap up the racing I didn't get to in my previous posts. I had a great season this year, definitely my best yet. I already wrote about my wins at Elkhorn, Rist Canyon and Mt. Greylock, but I had a lot of other good rides in there as well which I didn't get around to writing about. Some of them ended with good results and some didn't, but overall I felt like I was on a higher level this year - in addition to the local/regional races I won, I was in the mix at a lot of the NRCs we went to instead of just trying to survive, which was a great feeling. Of course, I'd still like to do better and spend more time thinking about how to go faster and what I could have done differently in races I lost than I do resting on the laurels of the races where I did well, but I think this is probably true of most bike racers unless they're already winning the Tour de France.

The last race I posted about was Elkhorn - after that the team headed to the National Championships in Augusta, Georgia, a place that can only be described as hell on earth. Scorching hot, humid conditions, narrow high-traffic roads and endless strip malls make it a place to which I hope I never go back. The racing was decent enough, though, with an 80-km downtown crit and 120km road race over a rolling course on a nearby army base. As a side note, why on earth is the National Champs crit always 80km long? That ends up being just under 2hrs long. I am all for longer races, especially at championship events, but it's pretty ridiculous for a Championship to be nearly double the length of most normal events of the same type. I think it would make a lot more sense to standardize the championship crit at 90 minutes. And the road race at 200km ;) As far as the racing went, I burned up my whole matchbook in the crit in a late break with a couple of other guys, but we got caught with about five laps to go. In the road race, the team rode perfectly with DB getting into the early break and Dan Harm and I conserving energy for the final, with Steve and Ian (pulling double duty after racing U23s the previous day) helping us out hugely with bottles and ice socks. We were a little out-manned in the final, however, and despite our best attempts Dan and I didn't make it into the winning move. It was an extremely frustrating and negative final but I salvaged what I could in the 1km uphill sprint to the line and came home with 12th (the top 5 survived from the late break). My best showing at Nats so far, but definitely not what we wanted out of the race - I've replayed the last 2 laps of that race in my head about a thousand times. After that we had a few weeks off from big races until Cascade, during which I did a few local crits.

Local Crit Action
More Local Crit Action
EVEN MORE local crit action

I've typically found it difficult to prepare for Cascade because you have to deal with heat and moderate altitude when you race there. Luckily it was pretty hot in Seattle during the first part of July this year, and I also experimented with some hypoxic workouts to prepare for the altitude. It paid off as I had a great ride there (aside from a couple of terrible TTs) and I was in the mix in all of the road races, making the splits over the climbs and getting into moves off the front. I never got in THE move, unfortunately, but it was great to finally be in the actual mix in that race instead of just hanging on for dear life (or getting time cut like I did in 2008). I had especially good legs on the last day's Awbrey Butte circuit race - I burned some matches getting off the front before trying to ride a little smarter and it felt good to make the split over Archie Briggs every time, even when the group was pretty small, watch Francisco Mancebo ride the break back almost single-handed, and try to get in moves.

I finished somewhere in the 30s overall right along with the top amateurs, my best result yet, but I definitely would have traded overall consistency for one day in the break. The problem at these climbing NRCs, though, is that all the big teams are so intent on trying to get away from a climbing hitter like Mancebo that they keep trying to get the perfect break going. Instead of letting something go early that may not be exactly perfect for them, but which would put pressure on Mancebo and RC, they keep attacking and attacking trying to get the perfect break going. This actually ensures that the race stays together and nothing goes until very late, by which point it is too late to pose an actual threat to RC and everybody is pumped for the finish anyway. In a way it's exactly what's been happening at local stage races recently - instead of sitting back and gambling and forcing the leaders' team to work from a very early stage in the race they play into the leaders' hands by keeping everything together until it's too late to put in any damaging attacks. They almost cracked RC on Awbrey Butte, but Bissell missed the move and their efforts to try to get into it ensured that RC had just barely enough guys to keep the race in Mancebo's hands. Anyway, long story short, it was basically impossible to get into THE move every day because there was SO much attacking you had to basically have 10 Steve Fishers to get into THE move.

Cascade Photo Montages from Winger Studios

After Cascade we had some more down time before heading to Chicago for the Tour of Elk Grove, a big-money NRC/UCI stage race. It was a crazy race because all 200 miles of racing that weekend took place within about an 8-square-mile area of the town of Elk Grove. The courses were crazy circuits with a ton of turning and doubling back on each other, and we did something like 900 turns in the 150km road race. The race was crazy fast and all the turning made it like a big 150km crit. I was on the rivet the whole day and with about 4 laps to go I felt like I had to get off the front, or I was going to get dropped responding to all the accelerations out of the corners. I got to the front and attacked at what happened to be the perfect time - Christian Helmig and a few other guys were off the front - I got up to them and then after a short period Freddy Rodriguez bridged up, along with a bunch of other super fast guys. Pretty soon the group was 15 or 20 guys and that turned out to be the bike race as all the big teams were represented and the pack sat up.

Tour of Elk Grove Prologue

It wasn't really any easier off the front and I spent the next few laps trying to save as much energy as possible while avoiding getting yelled. It turns out big time pros get real cranky when you don't pull through EVERY PULL, even when you don't have 3 teammates in the move like they do, and especially when you point out that they aren't pulling through either. I also wasn't getting any bottles as the Comms never brought our car up from the caravan and despite several attempts I couldn't snake any from the feed zone as there were no neutral feeders. With about a lap to go I was cramping extremely badly and could barely follow the accelerations. I made it to about 1km to go before my legs seized up completely and I had to settle with 20th or so. While they can be painful, I can normally ride through cramps if the race situation is good and there is light at the end of the tunnel for suffering through it. But this time the cramps were worse than I've ever experienced and my legs simply stopped working and wouldn't be told otherwise. So I basically coasted the last km of the race; luckily we had a 15-min gap or something crazy like that. The next day was a 100km circuit along the same lines as the previous day over some of the same roads. I mixed it up trying to get off the front but in the end got caught in a crash with 1 lap to go. My teammates Steve and Gabe helped me out a ton getting around the last lap without losing too much time and I actually ended up moving up a few spots to finish 19th overall for the weekend, which was awesome as I'd never been in the top 20 at a NRC or UCI race before. I definitely got lucky with an attack at the right time, but that's how bike racing works sometimes - I definitely wish I'd been able to get adequate nutrition during the race so I could have contested the finale, but that's also how bike racing works sometimes. Elk Grove ended up being my last NRC race with the Elite team for the season as I wasn't able to do Univest, but I stacked up plenty more racing. I've already written about some of those days, but also did races like the Mt. Spokane Hillclimb in Eastern WA, where I took 2nd with a ton of help from Gabe, and then Green Mountain, where I tried to repay the favor in helping him win the KOM jersey at that race, while also taking home 17th on GC.

After some East Coast racing at GMSR, Mt. Greylock Hill Climb, and the Prospect Park Crit in NYC, I traveled down to the Caribbean to close out my season in Trinidad and Tobago. As I touched on earlier, racing there is a little hectic but still pretty dang hard and fast. I was riding with an international composite team with 2 Danes, 2 Dutch, 1 German, 1 Brit, a Colombian, and two Yanks, and we started off with a couple of crits in Trinidad's capital Port of Spain. After that we did a 4-day stage race on the sister island of Tobago, followed immediately by a one-day UCI road race. I had a couple of good rides in the first two road race stages, making the winning break on both days and taking 2nd on Stage 2, the hardest stage aside from the last day Tour of Tobago, with a bunch of steep, punchy climbs. After the Tour of Tobago I was scheduled to go do another couple of races back in Trinidad but due to some logistical snafus with the team I ended up just going home and calling it a season. It was a little bit of an anticlimactic ending to a great season, but overall I'm really happy with the way things went. I ended up with fewer races this year, 76 days as opposed to 94 in 2010, but obviously results are more important than my simple tally of race days. Results aside, I made some big steps up and it's pretty awesome to look back on the progress I've made in the past few years. Races where I used to just hang on for dear life I can now actually race, make splits, and be in the mix, and races where I used to be just in the mix I was able to win this year. That's a good feeling.

2011 Review: Elkhorn Classic

2011-12-16T09:40:00.001-08:00

Ok, I'm still getting caught up on the 2011 season. Here is another RRs I wrote months ago on a plane but didn't get around to posting.

Photo: Winger Studios

The weekend after Capital Stage race I headed down to Oregon for the Elkhorn Classic SR with Colin, Tall Alan, Tyler Stearns and Winger and managed to come home with the overall GC win. Elkhorn is my favorite race in the NW because it has a couple of long, hard road stages over some really scenic terrain. I've done it a bunch of times and always wanted to win it, so I was pretty stoked to get the win this year. Because I like to copy Ian Crane, I'll start this RR with a little trip in the "Time Machine:"

2002: First "big" race as a Cat 4 while on hiatus from running due to a femoral stress fracture. For some reason I decided camping at the school was a good idea. Woefully underprepared, I spent the whole weekend shivering in my tent and eating dry Crispix directly out of the box.

2005: Race Cat 3s, get crashed in the feed zone on the first day... rest of the race hazy, nothing special.

2006: Race with Recycled Cycles Elite Team, spent the whole race on the front with Messrs Hegyvary and Harm riding tempo for Ian McKissick, who won the overall.

2007-08: Spent most of the races off the front in breaks, but didn't win anything. Hotter 'n hell both years.

How it unfolded this year:

Stage 1: 72 mi w/ 4000ft of climbing, one big climb followed by a big descent, then crosswind climbs to the finish. Our plan: be aggressive and put someone every move, then smash the race in the final 10 miles of crosswind climbing. Part 1 of the plan was foiled by more janky negative racing so we shut down the attacks and waited for the crosswind climbs. And watched as some Team 0 and Ironclad guys furiously chased down an attack from Bob's before the main climb of the day. Colin and Alan threw some bombs on the descent off the big climb and then again once we started the crosswind climbs. A couple guys countered, got a gap and I went across to cover it. The guys were Davis Shepherd and Jake Hansen and we got a good gap quickly and we finished with a 47-second gap on the field. I got a little cocky and wasn't that worried about the other guys in the sprint because I was killing them in the last five minutes of the climb (or at least it seemed that way to me), but I got beat in the sprint and came in second. Winger lead out Colin to take the field sprint for 5th place.

Stage 2: 11.3 mile TT out and back from town. It's usually a tailwind/uphill out, headwind/downhill back, so usually better to save your energy for the way back, but I pre-rode the course in the morning and noticed that the wind was the opposite of normal and it would be better to really empty the clip on the way to the turnaround. It was a small detail that likely helped a bit because for the first time ever I had a solid TT when it counted, and finished second which moved me into the overall lead with 1:14 on 2nd and 1:35 on 3rd. Winger was really 3rd but received a bogus 30-second drafting penalty because he got caught by a guy who decided to slow-dance his way around the turn-around. Colin was 5th to round out solid HB representation in the Top 5.

Stage 3: 60-min Crit, nothing that exciting happened, except T Stearns taking 2nd on the stage. No change on GC.

Stage 4: 102-mi RR with 6500ft of climbing over 3 small climbs and a 9-mile finishing climb. Our plan was to put someone in the early move and force another team to chase, then just make sure I got to the bottom of the final climb with the danger guys. The VERY first attack that went got a huge gap right away and it was perfect for us: Alan was in it and he was higher placed on GC than everybody else, although Gabe Varela was in it and although he was down on GC we didn't want to give him too much leash. Team Bob's was forced to chase because they missed the move completely. They started riding the front into the headwind for the next 40 miles but the gap kept going up and up. Colin asked me what kind of a gap we should be comfortable with, and when we should start chasing. I said "hmm... 3:30?" Just then an official came back to us: "The gap is 4:30." Well, shit. Gabe was really driving the move! I started to get a little worried and had Colin and Winger ride the front on the descent just to keep the gap in check without spending any energy (since they are big boys they can go downhill rrrrl fast). On the third climb, the Team 0 guy came back to the field after getting dropped out of the break, so Team 0 started riding. After a bit of re-shuffling on the climb and a patented "Team 0 slow-motion attack" Alan found himself in a second breakaway but then suffered an untimely flat on the descent. The situation on the road was then a solo rider with 2:30 and a 3-man group with 30 sec on us. With no one in the bridge group we had Winger and Tyler start riding the front at medium tempo to keep the gap in check over the next ~25 miles of slightly downhill, cross/tailwind.

Winger and Tyler rode great and kept the gap pegged right at 30 seconds, and we ended up catching them right as we hit the base of the final climb with 9 miles to go. They stayed on the front and kept riding steady tempo and for a while nothing happened. A Bob's guy attacked and Winger towed it back, and then things were pretty quiet for another mile or so. Then Davis Shepherd attacked a couple of times and Colin closed it down every time. At this point guys were getting shelled and the group was down to only 10 guys. I have to apologize to one of the Team 0 guys whom I yelled at because he kept opening up gaps. I though the was messing around so I yelled at him but it turned out he was getting dropped, so... my bad, I should have just gone around earlier. I was getting a little sick of the accelerations and wanted to win the stage so after one of the attacks and right as we were catching Gabe, I countered hard and it was down to just me, Davis, and an Ironclad guy. We started going harder and dropped the Ironclad guy - I felt great and thought I could drop Davis based on the way the final went on Friday, but I couldn't. In hindsight I should have just sat on since I didn't need any time on him but I was all hopped up after having to keep things in the holster all day and really wanted to put the hammer down. Anyway, we came to the last 3k together and really started hitting out with attacks but couldn't get rid of each other, so it came down to another sprint and he won again. I definitely didn't gift it to him and wanted to win the stage so I was bummed about that, but having the overall GC in the bag was pretty satisfying.

Garmin Connect Data:

All in all a great weekend for the team with the overall win and numerous podiums. The guys all rode spectacularly on Sunday and made my job really easy. I want to thank Alan, Colin, Tyler and Winger once again for working so selflessly in defense of the jersey, especially since that probably wasn't what they had in mind going into the race given that I was a late addition to the squad. Thanks guys!

June Recap - Mt. Hood, etc

2011-12-15T09:09:00.000-08:00

What's more boring than a race report? How about a six month old race report? Well, I wrote this while on a plane a while ago and figure I might as well post it. So here's a little trip down memory lane to June of 2011.

June was a busy month with two big targets for the team: the Mt. Hood Classic stage race and Elite National Road Championships. After an evening prologue, Mt. Hood started in earnest with an 80-mile road race with plenty of climbing:

We'd raced on the same roads previously at the 2009 Cherry Blossom stage race, although in a slightly different order, and knew it was going to be a pretty hard day in the saddle. The race started fast with everyone, including us, wanting to get in a move off the front, making the first tailwind climb and following couple of climbs pretty darn hard. After a lot of splitting and regrouping we hit the base of the first big climb with a small break off the front, in which we had Chris Parrish for HB. The break came back about halfway up the climb as Nate English and Ian Boswell hit out at the front and although the race was split into several small groups over the top of the climb, most everyone caught back on during the long descent and following headwind climb. Four or five miles before the second trip up the big climb, I got into a little move with a few other guys which turned into a ~10-man split with about 40 seconds on the field at the base of the climb, and I was happy to see my teammate Dan had bridged across.

Chompin' at the bit

There was very little cooperation so I just rode a medium tempo at the front with one of the Pure Black guys when the climb got steep, as it doesn't really make a difference if you're in front or in back on a slower climb like that. Our group was splitting up a bit but I wanted to ride hard so I could get over the climb with the guys that I knew would be attacking from the field - I knew from the previous lap I couldn't hang with English or Boswell so my best bet was to get off the front and hope I could get over the top before them. We held them off until just before the summit of the climb and although I dug deep I couldn't hang that time either. Luckily I was able to get back on during the descent with a few other guys, and there was a general regrouping on the headwind climb and final Rowena descent so the pack was about 40 guys with 10k to go with Parrish and Dan also there for us. Parrish and I put in some attacks in the last 5k but we couldn't get anything going, and Dan had to nurse a bent chain. We finished with the group but didn't contest the sprint.

The next day I had another forgettable time trial on what was a deceptively technical farmland course. The big news of the day was the very unfortunate crash of my teammate Parrish who was hit by a negligent motorcyclist and suffered a serious head injury. [Thankfully he is back on the bike now training and will race with us again before the end of the season. Looking forward to having you back Chris!]

The next stage was the crit, which I was just happy to get through without getting crashed like this guy:
Mike Olheiser put on an impressive show of force and soloed the entire race wire to wire for the win.

The last stage was the "Three Summits" Road Race, which was mis-named because it was actually four summits. It was CRAZY! An insanely hard day on the bike. The profile looked like this:
We decided to make things harder for ourselves by attacking from the gun:
Spencer and Kenentt were off the front for most of the descent, but then got caught. I countered and got off the front for a bit:

But everything came back together before the first climb started. Then Kennett attacked AGAIN and got into the main break of the day. Kennett ANGRY! It turned out to be a good move because we ended up taking it fairly easy up the climb the first time as the leaders' team let the break establish a gap. The descent was pretty crazy and I actually got a little bit dropped but luckily was able to get back on before we hit the same climb for the second time. This time things were serious, as Nate English put his Yahoo guys on the front to chase down the break. The pack trimmed down quite a bit up the climb and it was a small group of only 40 or so guys at the top. Down the descent for the second time I didn't have any problems; having seen it before I was less tentative. This time we took a right turn about halfway down the descent and hit the third big climb of the day. As we hit the steep pitch at the bottom of this climb Nate attacked hard and the race exploded. We were catching the remnants of the break and I gave Kennett a little pat on the butt and a "good job" as we went by. Or at least I thought that's what I said; it probably sounded more like "mmmplsapsldpapspa" since I was going pretty hard. There were a lot of accelerations on the climb and I was hurting pretty bad, but a lot of guys were getting dropped so I just focused on keeping it steady, staying on wheels, and closing down any gaps that opened up without accelerating too hard.

I made it over the top of the climb with the small front group of about 15 guys, but instead of a big descent right away there were about 10 miles of false flat and rolling terrain along the top of the ridge. Even though the race leader Olheiser had been dropped and super strong guys like English and Salas were off the front, there was no cooperation in the group. One of the guys from Rio pulled a lot and I took a few turns to help keep the speed up. We finally hit the last big descent, the fastest and most technical of the day, very narrow with some unexpected gravel sections which caused one of the Pure Black riders to crash.

I managed to get down the descent safely without getting dropped (surprising, given how I was descending earlier in the race) and the group hit the final 10-mile climb more or less intact. English and Salas were still off the front, but we had caught the last two guys from the early break. We'd beenr racing all-out for over 4 hours by that point and everybody was a little cracked. I was feeling pretty cracked too but knew I had to dig something out of the hat. Cooperation in the chase group had completely broken down and there were some really good climbers there, like Ian Boswell, so I knew I would have to get off the front and was looking for opportunities. A Marc Pro guy had just attacked and was dangling off the front so I bridged across to him, then a few minutes later Stefano Barberi and James Mattis bridged across to us. That was pretty much the group for the rest of the climb, I was on the rivet just pulling through with Stefano just killing it. He attacked as we turned onto the final 3k-loose-pavement section up to the ski area from Cooper Spur. It took everything I had to just hold his wheel - I pulled through once and then blew up without a K to go, but held on for 4th on the stage, which moved me into 12th overall, which was a great result for me at such a hard race.

The rest of June was jam-packed with more racing. The next weekend we did the Capital Stage race in Olympia, a new race put on by Erik Anderson, It was an awesome event with a lot of great new courses and was a refreshing addition to the calendar. The race itself was a little frustrating for me as I lost the "beat your teammates into the break game" and had to settle for a late-race move with Karl Krusher Kunnigham to salvage something near the top 10, but several minutes down and out of the GC. Like every other time we stacked the break but didn't win. I love my teammates but I truly cannot fathom how you put 4 out of 10 in a break and don't win.

We turned it around the next day in the Oly Crit when Colin and Logan got off the front of the crit together and Steve came through with a clutch field sprint win (since he is, you know, "good in traffic") for a complete HB sweep of the podium:

Believe that.Proud of my bru's!

I wish I could say I helped but really, in that crit, I was mostly trying not to drive my bike into the ground. The final stage was a 90-mile road race connecting the same roads used by the Vance Creek and Independence Valley road races, but run the opposite direction. With a few guys within striking distance of the GC lead we were trying to get a good group off the front to put pressure on the race leader, who was flying solo. Somehow I found myself off the front solo, which wasn't a great tactical situation because I wasn't a GC threat, and I alternated between thinking I should just sit up and go back and riding kinda hard to stay off the front. In the end I rode hard enough to stay out there, hoping a group including one of our GC guys would bridge up. Finally Steve bridged up to me and we started putting the hammer down, but despite our best efforts we got caught with about 30 miles to go. Turns out two little guys can't really go that fast on a downhill tailwind drag.

When we were caught I found out Colin had been forced to drop out due to a mechanical, which sucked because he was our only guy within reasonable striking distance of the GC leader. After some confusion over what we should be doing, we started hitting out with more attacks. With 3 climbs in the last 20 miles, the overall and the stage win were still in play and our best bet was to get a favorable break going. Each climb guys would get dropped, some would get back on, but the group got smaller and smaller. We hit the final climb with about 20 guys, over the top it was down to ~10 and we had 4 with Steve, Logan, Winger and I. I was intent on ensuring we won this time, so I attacked a few times and made sure the other guys were on the same page about attacking as hard as possible until we got somebody off the front.

Inexplicably, I kept getting chased down by guys who had no reason to do so - I didn't threaten them on GC and they were some of the worst sprinters in the group. Here's a tip: if you're in a group with good sprinters and you are not a good sprinter, you have to attack in order to win, not tow the sprinters up to the guys who are attacking. I didn't take it personally, though, because we had 3 other strong guys there to counter off of each other and the most important objective at that point in the race was to win the stage for the team. GC was no longer in play thanks to they typical inability of WA teams to understand stage racing tactics. Just once I would like to do a stage race around here where everyone is on the same page about isolating and putting pressure on the race leader instead of just chasing each other down and playing right into their hands, which is what happens all the time. Anyhow, after a lot of attacking Logan got away solo with about 3k to go and stayed off for the win, and Steve won the field sprint again, so we had another awesome 1-2 for the team.

Stay tuned for recaps from Elkhorn, Nationals, and the rest of 2011.

Training Volume... part deux

2011-11-15T22:17:00.001-08:00

Ok so I touched on the annual training volume I've done over the last few years in the previous post and I wanted to get into it in a little more detail. First off, I added in all my rides from October this year so that the 2011 total was accurate. Once again, each year starts the previous November, when I usually start training for the upcoming race season. So the "2006" number starts on Nov 1, 2005 and ends on Oct 31 2006, and so on. One caveat is that despite my best efforts I don't have a 100% complete record of every ride I did during this time period. I think I have about 99.9% of them, though. Also, I should really be doing this in terms of work performed (killa-joules) but I don't have power data from quite a few races this year so that would skew the numbers.

With the Oct rides added in, 2010 and 2011 show virtually the same total, right around 800hrs (800.2 and 788.5hrs, respectively):

Basically I hovered right around 450-500hrs for my first three years before increasing my volume 26% to 565hrs in 2009 and then a pretty massive 42% increase to 800hrs for 2010 and '11.

While I started riding more seriously in 2005, 2006 was the first year I had any idea what I was doing and working off of a properly structured training plan. Luckily it was also the year I started using a power meter so I have comprehensive data from basically the very beginning. In the fall of '05 I was doing a Marine Bio internship-type-thing on San Juan Island and found myself a lot more psyched for the bike riding part of my day than the field or lab work parts. So I decided I should probably just ride bikes instead of going to grad school. I found a swing-shift job assembling bikes at REI so I could spend my morning training and then go to work and get paid to learn how to work on bikes.

In '06 I did my first NRCs and raced on Recycled Cycles with a legit group of guys. In 07 I rode for PruDog's AxleyUSA.COM team and did more NRCs. I got destroyed pretty thoroughly at these new NRCs but had better rides at smaller races and was confident I could keep improving and reach a higher level. I managed to get a spot on HB Elite for 08 and was looking forward to stepping it up another notch. Unfortunately I hurt my knee in April at Walla Walla and never got back to full fitness after that, so it was a forgettable season for the most part.

Preparing for '09 I knew I had to make some big changes and step it up for real. I quit my bike shop job and switched to concentrate on coaching, which I had been doing since 2006 and which gave me more flexible hours during which to train. I trained more and I raced a lot more, including my first 10 days straight of racing at TOAD aka "Christmas in June in the form of a bike race every day". I didn't win any races in 09 but I placed 2nd approximately 1,000 times and made a lot of progress.

At the end of the year I broke my collarbone while out on an HB team ride the day before I was supposed to get on a plane for the Tour of Southland in New Zealand. I had surgery, got a plate put in over the shattered bone (flew to Kona to watch Rhae do that triathlon tournament), took the minimum recovery time, then started training again for the next year. 2010 and 2011 were pretty similar. I broke my collarbone before the 2011 season too. I worked less, traveled more and raced more. I trained more and harder than I thought possible. Before this year I trained even more and even harder than I did last year, moving to California for January and February where it slightly less taxing to put in those 90-hour months without having to worry about crappy weather. I had my best year ever this year, with my best performances at the NRC climbing stage races and winning more races than ever. I started racing early (Jan 31) and extended the season as long as I could (Oct 3 this year, Nov 4 last year) racing as much as I could (70-90+ days) while balancing peak performance at the races that mattered.

The obvious correlation is that bigger hours make you faster, but it's important to understand that training composition is more important than just a weekly volume number. I increased my volume significantly in the winter training season (Nov-Feb) of '10 and '11 but everything I did was focused high-intensity work. Like I said I trained way more and much harder than I had ever thought was possible, and frankly I would be surprised if very many of my colleagues could survive such a regimen... especially Kennett, he definitely couldn't survive it. Additionally, the winter training season accounts for only about a quarter of total annual volume, so the increase in racing days is responsible for much of the annual volume increase from '06-'08 to '09-'11. Particularly, extending the racing season into September and October as much as possible, which I started doing in 2009 and did to a greater extreme in '10 and '11 resulted in a big jump in additional hours. Of course, racing has a training effect, so you do have to consider the longer season in some ways resulting in a higher level of fitness for the following year.

It would be easy to wish with hindsight that I had started piling on earlier but I don't think I was ready for it. I injured myself pretty badly in '08 as a result of a bike fit/biomechanical issue that definitely would have been a lot worse if I had been trying to pile on the miles. Once I got that straightened out I was ready to step things up and I made a reasonable progression from there to where I am now. Who knows, maybe I would be a pro already if I'd started doing 90-hr training months in 07, but I think there's an equal or greater chance I would have wrecked my knee and forced to leave the sport. It was actually pretty drastic as it was and it's a little surprising I was able to make those kinds of jumps without destroying myself. I've never had a problem with motivation but to the extent that burnout is as much a biochemical process as an emotional one I consider myself lucky to have had the good fortune to work with coaches who put me on the right path from the beginning and kept me away from the EuroPRO voodoo folklore tradition that currently constitutes the bike racing training canon.

So, how many hours did you do this year? It's a good time to look back at what you did, where you are, where you want to be, and what you need to do to get there.

Annual Training Volume

2011-10-31T21:50:00.001-07:00

So it's a normal Monday night here at the Team Rhang household, @rhacedayrhae and I are arguing about who trains harder. Luckily we can settle this argument empirically, with charts. As everybody knows, an important part to every argumen is saying it with charts (Thanks Loren).

Anyway, we weren't really arguing, but here's my side of the story (click to enlarge):

I arranged the chart to start totaling on November 1st of the previous year, mostly because I started riding with a power meter in August of 2005, but didn't really hit the training hard until that November, so that is the start of the earliest full year for which I have data.

I'll fill in some details later... talk amongst yourselves...