Not a bad week

I was about 4 hrs under my scheduled training time in the past week.  The main reason for this is that I am just not ready to spend 3 & 4 hrs on the trainer.   I tried for 3 hrs Sunday, but ran out of motivation/energy about 2 hrs into the ride.

With that said I had a successful week.   My lifting workouts are getting better.   Doing squats and deadlifts are starting to "feel right".   When I do a squat, for example, I feel the tension more in my legs than back.  Also, I corrected myself on the dead lifts.  I found myself bending at the waist instead of lowering myself with my legs. I started timing my rest intervals between sets.  I just use the timer function on my blackberry.   This helped to keep my lifting moving along along with getting the required rest between sets.

On the bike, had a couple 2hr sessions and a couple 90min session.  With good speed and good energy.

I looked at my schedule again this week.  I started it a week too late, if I am trying to peak for Joe Martin.  So I am going to make an adjustment which will work out well.   Since I, last week was almost a rest week and I am a week behind, I am going to move forward to Build 2 of my training plan.  This should put me on track with peaking for Joe Martin.

I was happy with myself this morning.  I was able to stick to my schedule and do another two hour trainer ride. 

I had a little less motivation this morning than yesterday.  After all, it is hard to get pumped to sit on the trainer for 2hrs.  Ther first hour I only had the motivation to put my effort in the upper part of zone 1.  When the hour make came and went, I pushed the effort mostly into zone 2.  Nothing to brag about but it was a solid workout. 

Tonight I will hit the weights at the gym.  I am starting to get use to doing squats and dead lifts with the free weights. 

Back at it

Last week I was hit and miss with my training schedule.  Mostly miss.  I was under 10hrs of training, under 100 miles, and no ride was over 2hrs.  As Super Nanny would say, this is "Unacceptable"!! Who watches that show anyway?

So after an abismal week, I was ready to start over.  I had a good trainer ride for the scheduled 90min workout.   Everything felt right.. I had good cadence and good energy.  It is nice finishing a workout wanting more.  I will just put that extra energy into the next workout.

Tomorrow, I have a 2hr trainer ride scheduled int the evening and will probably lift in the morning. 

That's all I got...

Fitness Test

This coming Saturday, I am going down with Rob & Cole to do a Fitness Test with Marc Walters of RightWay Performance.  This will be a good start to my Official Training which starts next week.  I am interested to see my power numbers. 

The last time (Fall, 2008) I did this test with him, I weighed 197lbs.   I had just came off a good season where I won the NE Cat 4 RR.  Also, I had several second place finishes.   I got beat out for second place by the narrowest of margins... you know who you are!   Anyway, I cranked out 4.1watts/kg for the 30min test.   That fell into into the range of Cat 3/Masters (see chart below).   I was thinking about moving up a category and my test results confirmed the move. 

So, now what would my power to weight ratio be?  I don't know.  After my collar bone break at the end of may I had two months off the bike.  I whipped myself into shape to do one more race at the end of August.  I finished the summer just riding "at will" with out any training plan.  Recently I have been just doing base miles.   I want to guess that I am on the lower end of the Cat 3/Masters range but I'll find out Saturday.

Category	Power to weight ratio (30min) - Men	Power to weight ratio (30min) - Women
World Class, ProTour racer	6.0 - 6.8 watts/kg	5.25 – 6.0 watts/kg
Domestic Pro	5.4 – 6.2	4.5 – 5.5
Cat 1	4.8 - 5.6	4.2 – 4.9
Cat 2 / Masters	4.2 – 5.0	3.8 – 4.4
Cat 3 / Masters	3.7 – 4.4	3.2 – 3.8
Cat 4	3.0 – 3.8	2.6 – 3.3
Cat 5/Beginner	2.5 – 3.2	2.1 – 2.8