Umbrella Girl of the Week (Formerly Hump Day, but renamed since Kyle already has that)

There was no racing last weekend, so no current grid girls. I found this doing a google search. I'm not a Hentai (Japanese anime porn) fan, but this is pretty dam awesome. I found this on a Honda forum (they didnt have a Honda one, go figure). But hey, Ducati's rule so yeah baby, here you go!

Cheers,

FGR

Hump Day!

Since Kyle says he's gonna be taking a sabbatical from blogging, I thought I would help pick up the slack.

From Sunday's MotoGP race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway!



(photo snatched from SuperbikePlanet.com)

I will be back to blogging soon. Offseason training is upon me and I'm raring to go and get to it. I plan to get back to what I started doing here and keep track using my blog as a glorified training log. If only to prove that someone like me can train hard, drink beer, eat donuts and still not suck at the bike racing!

Cheers,

FGR

Moto Italiano Fatguy!

From Reston Town Center GP.



(Photo credit: Ralph Robbins)

This was a fun corse to blast around on on a Ducati. Thanks Evo doods!

Cheers!

FGR

Weeks in Review: June 1-15

Howdy Ho!

Back in the saddle again. It's been a while since my last posting so I thought I would update. More for myself than anyone in particular. Just so I'd have a record of how the wheels fell off of my season before it really got started. As I have written before May was a lost month for me as far as training goes. June didn't really start off much better. But it doesn't really matter. I have changed my focus to weight loss and maintaining whatever fitness I currently have. I have suspended the Hunter Allen training plan for a while. For the next few weeks I'm going to work on doing a good TT in August. Lots of tempo, cruise intervals @ threshold etc and the lots and lots of endurance miles to work the weight off. Thanks to the high price of diesel I am commuting to work a couple days week by bicycle. Mostly on my wife's days off from the ice cream factory. Last week was a pretty interesting commute. I took a route that I normally avoid like the plaque and to my surprise I found it to be quite easy. In fact allot of old route that I used to dread I'm finding to be quite enjoyable. I can only guess that removing the stress of high intensity training coupled with continued weight loss are having a positive effect on me mentally and physically.

Two weeks ago I couldn't get out of my own way and I was sliding backwards on the Tues/Thur hammer rides. During my rest week, i took 3 straight days off the bicycle. The timing was perfect. Those three days were the hottest of the year so far. One one of those hot days, I worked as a race moto for Ride Sally Ride crit and baked my brains out. That was a long day. 6 am to 8 pm on the motorcycle. The day started out at 80 degrees and only got hotter. I heard over 100 degrees hot! It was still in the low 90's when I got home. I have to give props to the Whole Wheel Velo Club for keeping an ample supply of cold water and grub on hand. I went thru at least 15 bottles of water that day.

I'd like to think that all my bicycle fitness is what keeps me going on the moto race after race. It's what most motorcycle racers do for fitness training. I do need to find a solution for my bars as my wrists are taking the worst of it. By the end of the day I can barely squeeze the clutch lever without searing pain shooting thru my wrists. I wish I had not sold my Helibars. I may have to get another set if I continue with the Ducati next year. I will for sure change out the clutch slave to easy the pull at the lever.

I've been seriously considering a replacement or another mount just to do races. Something like a big Beemer R1200T or R1200TP. Maybe even a R1200GS. I'm not a fan of the K bikes or the small Rotax engined thumpers. If i get a BMW, its got to be a boxer. In spite of sore wrists I still feel pretty good when I get home from a long day on the moto. I've been wearing bib shorts under my armored overpants. They are perfect for the job. I haven't come close to having 'monkey butt.' A common ailment of long distance motorcycling. What ever choices I make I will always have a Duc, so if I get rid of the ST4s, I will replace it with something like a Monster S4R or a 1098 superbike.

Back to the training. Not much to report. I did an unsupported century a couple Sundays ago and had a blast. Otherwise it's been mostly easy riding and tempo efforts. I haven't been back to Greenbelt to race since my last post. I was going to last week, but they needed a ref, so I said OK. I will be there this week to race. I'm looking forward to it.

What I have done is a whole lot of moto ref gigs. Murad in the rain, Ride Sally Ride in the heat, Church Creek TT on a hot, but not as hot as Sally Ride day, Jason Gundel Crit on a perfect day. My favorite one so far has been the Jason Gundel crit in downtown Wilmington. It's not often a rider gets the chance to blast around real city streets riding curb to curb unencumbered by such things as obeying traffic signals, pedestrians, cars, speed limits, etc. I don't think I could have had as much fun if I had went to Summit Point or VIR for a track day. The fact that I get a check for doing this makes it all the more sweeter.

I am looking forward to the Reston GP. If the 8 turns at Wilmington are anything to go by, Reston should be a blast too. But before that I am working the Washington County Road Race in Smithsburg. I like working the road races too. My clutch hand doesn't take quite the beating it does at a crit. What I'm not really looking forward too is getting up at 4 am to make there by 7 am.

Somewhere in between all this work I'll be hitting the bicycle training and getting in my hours as needed to stay on top of my weight loss. I haven't stepped on a scale lately, but I'm sure I'm getting close to the magical 200 lbs mark. Once I cross that barrier it will be much easier to keep at it.

I have to end this on a somber note, as I wish to express my wish for a speedy recovery to fallen Masters 50+ racer Craig Clark of Evolution Cycling. Craig went down hard in the 50+ race at Jason Gundel and suffered very serious life threatening injuries as a result. Fortunately there were plenty of quick thinking and qualified persons on hand to care for Craig until the EMTs arrived on scene. I like to offer my best wishes to him and his family as they do their best get him on the road to recovery.

Cheers,

FGR

Week in Review: April 21-27, 2008

What an awesome week its been. The weather was perfect, except for Sunday. A harbinger of things to come. I hate cold. It was great to have temps in the 70's and 80's. I love the heat. I can't explain why but since living in Texas for a little less than a year way back in 1981-82 my body does not do well with the cold and I seem to thrive in heat. I've gotten better over the years with dealing with the cold. But if I don't have to be out in it, then I'm not gonna be out in it. Got bless rollers and TV, I'll never have to ride in the rain and cold again. 500 of the 1500 miles I've logged in the last 10 weeks are roller miles. That's how much I hate the cold. Speaking of time on the bike, I've now logged 10 weeks of solid base and have this last week to go to complete Base 3 of my training plan. The following week is a rest & recovery week. I'm very much looking forward to the time off the bike. The last 2 weeks have been brutally hard and this week will be no different.

My body is responding well to the overload. After the brutal beating I took on Tuesday at Davidsonville, I traded my off day from Friday to Wednesday. My week started with one off, on on, one off. Not a good way to start a 11 hr week. I knew I would have to hump it hard the remaining days of the week and that's exactly what I did.

Thursday was a particularly nasty workout that called for 6 x 6 minute mock TT efforts at 250-260 watts. Since we all know that more is better I did them all well in excess of 265 watts. The first two were rather weak at 295 watts average, but its hard to find a road in Columbia where you can go more than 2 minute without stopping. I did the first interval going down Snowden River Parkway out toward Rt-108. Once past the Kripsy Kreme its a false flat all the way to Tamar Drive. But it's still too short, so I had to turn right into the 'hood on Tamar to keep it going. The road goes downhill into some short rollers, so I pedaled my ass off to keep the watts up. Even on a 53x12 its still hard to generate 200+ watts going downhill. Girth and gravity make it all to easy to go fast when the road goes down. The 2nd interval was a bruiser heading down the new section of Montgomery Road. I hammered that sucker all the way from the golf course past the Giant to the top of the hill on Lawyers Hill Road. I humped that for about 300 watts. Which wasn't easy since that stretch is mostly on a downgrade. My goal for the night was to get over to Race Rd in Elkridge to do most of the 6 intervals. Lawyers Hill Rd is my short cut to Levering Ave and to Race Rd. It also goes by Speeds, the 2nd best Ducati shop in a 100 mile radius of Balto/Wash. (The 1st is Duc Pond in Winchester, VA in case you were wondering). Race Rd is pretty much flat from start to end except for the part on the other side of Hanover Road that leads toward Cocoa Cola Drive. The stretch from Furnace Rd to Hanover is roughly 5 min 30 sec from start to end at TT pace (1 min. 30 at Ducati pace) so I extended it past the stop sign up the false flat on Hanover Rd that leads toward BWI Airport. The road is closed to all but local traffic and pretty chewed up with road construction. I hope they finish that soon. That little section is part of regular Sunday loop for me. I managed 3 intervals there. All of them over 315 watts average, the best at 330 watts. My goal FTP number. The last interval I saved for the trip back to the office. I cut thru Patapsco State Park on the MUP that now connects up to Illchester Rd. Every local rider knows Illchester Rd! 18% of pain, pain, pain! I skipped it. Instead I did the steadier climb up Bonnie Branch Road. Illchester is too short. Once you get to the top it runs flat all the way to Montgomery Rd for about a mile. Bonnie Branch on the other hand is a steady 4% average climb all the way from it's bottom, where its meets the bottom of Illchester, to it's end at Montgomery Rd. The last 300 yards are some it's hardest tarmac. It's also very bucolic in its scenery. There are a couple of abodes on the lower parts of the road, where the feeder streams into the Patapso run along side the road, that are beautiful. I would give my left arm to live in one of them. I imagine their current owners did. If I lived in that neck of the woods I'd probably never be fat again. That little enclave is the nexus of some of the best and hardest climbing in the area. I have one hill routine that hits them all. I'll save that for another blog entry.

After that last interval I was toast. I limped back to the office, got my shit together and went home. I could barely walk the rest of the evening. I downloaded my data and saw that my TSS scores were all above 1.0 for those intervals. The one I did at 330 watts was like 1.35. And I had already increased my FTP in WKO to 265 watts a couple days prior. Testing is in 2 weeks and I'll be surprised if I don't see big gains.

Fridays workout was supposed to be an active reco ride. Well it was, except for the sprints I did to make up for not doing them on Wednesday when I was supposed too. Those didn't go as well as I expected. The workout was 5 small ring sprints for 50 yards to warm up the legs followed by 3 big ring sprints starting on a 53x19, spin out, shift once to 53x17, spin out and done. The next 3 sprints start off in a 53x17, spin out, shift, spin out, shift again, spin out and done on the 53x14. The very last sprint was a start in a 53x15, spin out, shift, spin out, shift again, spin out and done on the 53x13. The goal of these sprints is not all out power and pain but to teach me not to dump the chain onto a 53x12 or 11 when it comes time to pay the bills. Even though I was not doing all out power and pain I never got past 1025 watts for all those sprints. I was kinda disappointed as I was hoping for a new 5 sec number to be proud off. 1025 watts puts me squarely at 'Untrained' on the Allen/Coggan chart. I dunno what to make of it. Maybe I didn't have fresh legs. Maybe I held back too so I wouldn't get dropped on the Davidsonville ride 12 hrs away on Saturday morning. Whatever the reasons it's still disappointing to see what you thought was your strength turning out to be a weakness.

Ahhh, the Davidsonville Ride. The bane of my existence. It's the kind of ride you just cant keep away from no matter how many times it all ends in tears. Much like my golf game of many years ago. The occasional flashes of brilliance give way to total suckage and pain. But its those spurts of greatness that keep me coming back to repeat the pain and suffering with the hope of extending those moments of glory.

It all ended in tears.

Again.

This time it wasn't my fault. Well it it was, but not due to fitness. I found out after the first hump on Sands Road that I had great legs on the day. I was having one of those 'chainless' rides. (Andrew Coggan, you were right about the sprints. Thank you!). I also found out that my rear wheel was about to come flying apart like the Bluesmobile at Daly Plaza. I knew I had a sketchy wheel before we even left the parking lot. I was gonna just bail and go to work and switch out the wheels on my other bike at the office. But Deutchman said, "fuck that shit, ask around for a wrench" I asked about 15 people there for a spoke wrench and that last guy I asked, a really cool guy name Les, gave me his. It's on my key ring now. I worked the wheel enough to not worry about bailing on the ride. But after that hard short sprint up the hill on Sands, the spokes worked loose again. I could feel the brake rubbing and so I opened up the brake caliper so it would stop. That got me another couple miles to ride but that wheel started wobbling worse than a drunken sailor on shore leave. By the time I got over the last hard hill on Rt-408 past the golf course it was toast. My ride was over with the main group. Shit!!!! I was pissed. At myself mostly but the wheel in particular. I, finally, was having a good day. With no worries about getting dropped I'm waylaid by a mechanical. I stopped and worked the wheel with the spoke wrench for a good 5 minutes. I TT'ed it back up Brooks Woods Rd and with no hope of catching them on the road I turned off for RT-2. My aim was to get ahead of them at the new roundabout at Friendship Rd. and get to the store stop and fix my wheel some more before they got there. That almost worked out. They got there before me, but not before Bill N., who was dropped. As I was turning down the road to the store Bill shouted out what I thought was "They all went straight." Meaning they skipped the store stop and the beach and went straight on to Fairhaven Rd. Turns out that it was only Bill who was skipping the beach. D'oh. Anyway, I rode the rest of the ride with Bill and we took it easy (relatively speaking) back to the park & ride but still maintaining a good pace. We never did get caught. I had to stop 2 more times. Once to fix the wheel again and at the new gas station in Harwood to get some water. We turned out a pretty solid 19 mph average for 48 miles. Once the other fellas came in I found out they had done close to 23 mph for 62 miles. Damn! I wanted to be part of that. Unfortunately I wont have a chance to be for the next few weeks. I have motoref duties for the next 2 Saturdays. Poolesville RR on May 3rd and Cascasde Crit the following week. I'm really looking forward to those gigs. Getting paid to ride the scoot rocks!

I'm gonna wrap this up with yesterdays ride. The weather sucked ass. I was supposed to do 3 hrs easy with my non-racing cyclist friends at 8:30 am. They live off Millersville Road and I always just ride over there from my house 5 miles away in Arden On The Severn. The plan was to head out Rt-175 to WB&A and loop the BWI Trail, ride up the B&A Trail to Annapolis, past the Naval Academy and cut thru West Annapolis back to Bestgate Rd and Generals Highway and then down Sunrise Beach to home. I stayed in bed. It was raining and I was in no mood to get wet. I spent the morning being lazy instead watching a freshly DVR'd F1 race and later Race 1 of WSBK in Assen. FUCK YOU SPEED CHANNEL! Troy Bayliss is the man, but I wish he'd stop adjusting his hat with his right hand during post race interviews. That pinkyless maw of his (he lost it in a crash at Donnington last season) grosses me out. I was gonna ride the rollers for 3 hrs while watching all the AMA races from Fontana. Luck was on my side because at 4 pm the roads were dry and it wasn't raining. Whoohoo! I'm outside baby. Besides, AMA Superbike sucks and as long as Mladin and Spies are still in the series it's gonna keep sucking. At least Spies is moving on to MotoGP next year, but old man Matt should find something else to do. He's worse than a sandbagging Cat 4. 7 times AMA Superbike champ is not as prestigious as one would think.

But I digress. My ride on Sunday picked up where Saturday left off. With great legs. At least until mile 45. Buy then, I was outta fuel. I did what most us fat guys do to lose pounds quickly. Ride long with no food. I did the first 2 1/2 hrs on 2 bottles of water and thats it. I almost made it home too, but once I hit Bestgate Rd, I had to stop for Gatorade. The Berry Rain got me home. My ride ended up being 55 miles at a 17 1/2 mph avg. Not bad for a solo Active Reco/Endurance ride. My avg HR for the whole ride was 136 bmp, about 79% of LTHR. I never hit above 161 bpm. My body is tired!

Look out fellas, the Fatguy is getting fit!

Numbers for the Week

Training

Hours: 10:47
Miles: 191

Physical

Weight at the beginning of the week: 213 lbs
Weight at the end of the week: 208 lbs (OMFG!)
Calories consumed: 18,221 calories
Calories burned: 24522 calories
Net gain/loss: 6301 calories

I cant explain a 5 lbs loss in one week. Maybe I underestimated my workload? I did put in almost as many hours on the Ducati as I did the bicycle. So maybe that's where the missing calories are. I dunno, I don't care. Gone is gone.

Power

5 sec: 1127 (carryover from 3/2) Seems I'm stuck with this until a really hard sprint workout.
1 min: 468 watts (carryover from 4/12)
5 min: 355 watts (carryover from 4/2)
20 min: 253 watts (carryover from 3/15) I need to test and soon!

I did have new numbers for 10sec, 20 sec, 30 sec, and 60 min. I could even say CP6 went up too, but I don't use Friels protocol so I wont. But I know it's there if I wanna extra moral boost.

Testing is in a couple weeks. I fully expect all these number to update. Especially 5 min and 20 min power.

Beer

My favorite part of training! The reward.

This week I bought a variety 12 pk of brews from Flying Dog Brewery of Colorado. In the box are 2 each of 6 of their many styles available. To be quite honest, they make good brews, but not great ones. None of the ones I had really stood out as exceptional.

The ones that were in the box.

Gonzo Imperial Porter - Very good. As good as Sam Adams
Old Scratch Amber Lager - Tastes like Sam Adams Boston Lager. Looks like it too.
Flying Dog Classic Pale Ale - Reminded me of Bass Ale.
Tire Bite Golden Ale - Too close to Flying Dog Classic Pale Ale
Snake Dog IPA - Good stuff. Not as hoppy as Dogfish Head 60 Min. IPA. A plus in my book.
In Heat Wheat - A good Hefe, right up there with Sam Adams too, but there are betters Hefes for the money. The one I reviewed two weeks ago for instance.

All good beers. The 12 pk was 13 bucks at Village Liquors in Waugh Chapel in Crofton. My new favorite beer store since finding out they stock the corked 7-fiddys of my favorite brew, Saison Dupont Valle Provision.

See you all at Poolesville and remember to stay to the right of the yellow line. Oh and if I find one discarded Gu wrapper stuck to my Ducati or sucked into the airbox, heads will roll. Under my fat 180 Conti Sport Attack!

Cheers,

FGR.

Next up - Carl Dolan Circut Race on 4/20/08

And I'm bringing the beer.

I cant wait. I love this race. The Gateway Loop in Columbia, Md is a course I know like the back of my hand. I've been training and racing on it for 15 years. I think I have one DNF here and that was due to a crash. I'm signed up for the 3/4 race in the afternoon. The 4/5 race filled to quick for me to get in. The last time I did this race was in 2006. I finished mid pack. It was my first real race after a 5 year layoff and it was the 40/50+ race to boot. Very fast. This year they combined the 40+ with the 30+. That might be more than I can handle at this stage of my training so far season. I think the 3/4 might be a better choice for me. Since I want to upgrade to Cat 3, I'd like to get a feel for it. This is the kind a race circuit where I can sit in the wheels, stay out of trouble and help a teammate with a lead out at the end. And if I'm still there at the end, maybe go all out for myself. The finish hill is not an issue as the pack literally sucks you up. All I have to do is spin a 53x19 at a high cadence and it's over. 12 times. I hope so anyway. The killer will be the end sprint up the same hill. In 2006 I went way too early after being in the top 10 at the bottom of the hill. I gave it all I had and I blew in spectacular fashion half way up the hill to the line and drifted in mid pack. I was spent. It was a wonder i made it to the line at all. I think I keeled over when I got there. It was an immensely satisfying race.

This weeks training has been good in quality even if i haven't been feeling very motivated to do it. I did some L7 work with 6x2 min intervals on Monday and 2x15 L4 threshold intervals on Tuesday. All my work was completed above the prescribed wattages. I think i need to test soon, lest I waste too much training time not going hard enough. Strange enough though, when i was doing the rides on Monday and Tuesday, I didn't feel like I was firing on all cylinders. I was sure my numbers would be low, but WKO says no. My wattages were higher than the minimums.

I think I'm just having a bad week. Yesterday i didn't feel like riding at all and I had another L7 tempo sprints workout scheduled. I didn't do it. I knew something was up when on Wednesdays active recovery ride i felt awful. My stress levels have been high all week and I have not been resting as much as I should. Maybe it was the 2 Sam Adams I drank the night before at Italian Bike Night with my other hooligan Ducati riding friends from the Ducati Monster List. I bet I was just pissed that the Rhodeside was so crowded I only got to do one song. But it was a good one though. Gimme Three Steps. I love karaoke. Dont tell anyone.

I feel good today. I weighed myself this morning and I'm down another 2 lbs to 214. About 2 lbs heavier than i was the 2006 race. The loss is a nice morale booster. I thought I was hitting a plateau. I'm still on track to make my power to weight goals. Taking the book advice about not making up missed workouts, I'll do the scheduled active recovery ride tonight, do the group ride tomorrow with some tempo and threshold efforts to open up the legs and then the race on Sunday.

I hope to do well. At the very least I hope help a teammate do well. I know i'll be drinking beer one way or another. Isn't that what it's all about anyway?

Cheers,

FGR