After slowly floating down from the cloud I had been sitting on since the win last Sunday at Treehouse, back to another week of training and racing.
Monday started out with a 90 min spin of the legs on the trainer while watching the women and men's cyclocross race at Kruibeke. I had picked the Zwift Jungle course which is an appropriate virtual dirt course.
Tuesday did the same criss-cross intervals as last week and this time felt much better, I also completed the bonus two 3 min VO2Max intervals at the end.
The next day went for a run in the morning. Back to my regular longer route and in the afternoon went to the NCC Cyclocross training. My legs felt good so after the full warmup lap, did a super hard 2nd lap and tried to stay in Patrick's wheel. This was probably the fastest lap I did on the course. Then was tired and rode an easier lap with David. After being recovered we showed Patrick the short VO2 max climb lap and then did 4 laps all-out. I felt pretty strong and in all 4 laps was able to keep more than 500 watts for 40secs. Definitely needed a breather after that in the form of a cooldown lap. After the training drove to Arlington.
The next morning went out for a mixed terrain loop towards Concord. There was a storm coming and I thought I could beat it, unfortunately not and at the furthest point ended up in the rain, thunder and lightning. I had to ride an hour in the storm back home. Since everything was wet and dirty stepped with my whole kit in the shower to clean.
Friday after driving back to Conway did an ez 40min spin on the trainer.
The next day Paula and I rode a little gravel loop on Main Poland, which allowed me to do my openers workout. We cut it short and took rt 116 back instead of Pine Hill.
David and I carpooled on Sunday to the race in Newtown. That is deep south in Connecticut and was a 2 hour drive. We left early (6:30 am) to allow for 2 laps of the course before our race at 11am. I raced in the cat 1-4 50+ and David in the 60+ with a minute difference. The 40+ started 1 minute before us. There was a lot of elevation on this course and required extended (standing) hard climbing efforts.
I had a relatively good start, but every time we did the climb I ended up losing time and then would make it up on the fun sweepy grass turns down hill. I was battling with 3 other guys for what turned out later for a top 10 spot. At some point I was at 10th place but then took one turn too aggressive for 9th and had to give up 2 spots. Crossresults had me ranked at 14th place and I finished in 12th spot. Now my legs did feel heavy, it was either the course or I paid a price for my efforts on Wednesday. So next week plan to take it a little easier on the Wednesday night intervals and save some for the two races that weekend.
This week on Veloviewer
