The Story So Far...

In order to kick this blog off let me dive into the 2008 season so far. Like most things in my life, I am late to the party. I didn't start my base training until mid-February. Why? I've got no idea. Lazy I guess. It could be that my target A event is a time trial in August. Because of a late goal, I didn't see the need to get started early. So I've pretty much cut my nose off to spite my face. My goal is to get back to the same form or better that I had in the 2000 season just before I quit racing after 6 seasons. Back then I was 30-35 pounds lighter, I could hammer out a sub hour 40K and I could ride crits and short circuit races well. I still sucked at hilly road races though. Now in 2008 I'm gonna suck at all the early season races.

Moving forward...

This 2008 season sees me trying again to lose 40 pounds. I was hoping to be done with weight loss by now. I didn't ride at all in November, December and not enough in January. So from 200lbs in October 2007, I've gained 20+ instead of losing 20+. So there it is; the 40 lbs. Again.

I have all the tools available to me to keep going in the winter including a great team/club to ride with, ABRT-Latitude. However, until Christmas 2007 I was missing the one tool that I thought might save me from myself. Rollers. And bless my darling bride, she got me a set of Performance technique rollers for Jesus' birthday. Yeah Jesus, and yeah me! I was right. Rollers are the shit! In the last 6 weeks, I've only had 3 days off the bike and only 6 days on the road. The rest of my training has been on rollers. Never less than 30 minutes and mostly 60 to 90 minute sessions. Some people hate them, that's fine, but they have been and will be my savior from winter sloth and crappy weather days.

But I digress...

Looking to kick off the training I went looking for a simple plan I could stick too and not have to think for myself. Enter the Lance Armstrong 7 Week Plan for advanced riders. Right out of the book! I did the first 4 weeks to the letter. And believe it or not it helped. Three weeks ago, a teammate, Ken McDowell, came through for me and sold me his Polar Power Kit. I've been using a Polar S725 hrm since 2005. The power kit was my cheap way into the power club. Now I'm working on the 16 week plan straight out of the Hunter Allen/Andrew Coggan book Training and Racing With A Power Meter. Let me tell you, it's a ass kicker. Thanks to those 4 weeks of CTS workouts I have been handling it well so far. But better yet, I don't have to think. I just do. Lucky for me my FTP is the same as the prescription watt ages in the plan. The only drawback is that I have to type them into my Trainingpeaks.com workout calender.

So here is where I am so far as of today:

Weight - 220 lbs (100 kilos)
Height - 72"
FTP - 250 watts
P/W ratio @ FTP - 2.5 watts per kilo.

Goal by August District TT:

Weight - 175lbs (79.5 kilos)
FTP - 300 watts
P/W ratio @ FTP - 3.8 watts per kilo

A pretty tall order. But one I think that is realistically obtainable. My blog will be my chronical to this goal and beyond.

Cheers!

FGR