4/11 Calaveras. 4/12 Bayway

Monday I went out with Brooks Sizemore and did a rapid Calaveras run from Dublin to Nvidia. 2:18 clock time from West Dublin BART to work, no stopping to screw around, with a pack on. Very good workout, had to keep myself pinned to Brooks' wheel as best as I could - he sat up on the Calaveras climb so we could avoid any stopping and I had some trouble on the roller/technical sections headed towards Milpitas.

Tuesday I took it easy, slept in and helped with some laundry, then set out late to chase a slower SF2G group, catching them at the Water stop. They were in no hurry to leave, and we had a flat, so I stopped off at Redwood City to Caltrain to MV. A good restful ride in general.

In theory tomorrow we're going to go up Old La Honda itself, then head down Skyline to Highway 9 to descend to work.

4/6 - Jefferson and Los Altos Hills

Our son was sick last night and we got very little sleep. I had to bail on a planned ride over to Pacifica and South to Half Moon Bay and up Tunitas Creek for the first time in who knows how long. I groggily got up at 7 AM and headed to the train, leaving my bag at home thinking about getting in some sort of ride.

I got off at Redwood City and rode 30 miles starting with the Highland/Jefferson climb, a climb I have been doing occasionally and is probably the best benchmark I have for climbing right now.

I decided to take it out in the 150's HR and then ramp into the 160s after the 5 way stop at Lakeview. Well, I ended up going right into the 160s and held it there the whole way. I do think I started out a little fast, but whatever, it felt good. I ended up setting a PR by a whopping 3 seconds - exactly 10 minutes. Over 10 minutes, 3 seconds could be anything. I really hoped to see a marked improvement given I have been riding a lot and am down a few lbs, but it was a strong climb and I'll take it. Certainly there is going to be some plateau anywhere. And it's not like I was really well rested!

It's supposed to rain Thursday, I'll see what I can do and hope to plan for some Friday riding.

4/3/11 - Solid Bayway

Did a solid 55 mile Colmaway with a largish (18) group. The theory was a relaxed Monday ride, and on the whole it was, but with a group of this size you are bound to see a few instigations. Fun, and since it was warm I threw in the dirt sections around Moffett Field in tribute to the upcoming Paris Roubaix. Riding hard on the dirt really numbs my hands - those guys are incredible. A lot of the time all I needed was to shake my hands out but on the strada bianche I really needed my hands on the bars to keep control.

In theory we're going up Tunitas Creek on Wednesday so tomorrow will be easy or off.

3/31 - easy half bayway

30 miles with the group from San Mateo to work. Felt pretty easy and breezy.
Hoping to go uphill on Friday.

3/30 - short easy rides

Feeling tired which is good.

Short rides to and from train stations, and going out this PM to ride with the wife and tow Liam along in the trailer. Perfect. Strangely it adds up to probably 25+ miles.

Tuesday 3/28 - Skyline

Did a reasonable ride on Skyline today. I really felt quite good. And we went pretty hard. 55 miles with 3k of climbing in 3.5 hours. There was only one real specific hard effort on a strava segment - the Hillsborough rollers segment, a series of rollers gaining 185 net feet over 2.4 miles.

I went to the front on the segment and felt pretty frisky so I pushed the pace. Towards the end, Peter Chang went by on the last tough roller (on his fixie) and I gave a shot at holding his wheel but had to stick to a rhythm. There is a T stop sign that would typically just be run, but Peter had to stop watching a car turning left onto Skyline, and we had to stop and regain momentum. I ended up 9 seconds off my PR despite this - but the PR was done sucking wheel, not leading out. Overall I spent a lot of time in the front and felt great. Good sign.

Tomorrow should be an easy day in general, but will probably be closer to a nonexistent day because I should do some daddy/hubby duty.

Monday 3/28 Base Bayway

Actually been riding a bit. Going to start trying to put snippets up.

So far this year 1483 miles per strava, not including random unrecorded commutes.
57,335 feet of climbing - a ratio that is pretty low compared to "back in the day" because most of my riding is commutes that are either completely flat, or with just a couple of small climbs/rollers. Still, this is some pretty decent stuff.

In late Jan early Feb I managed some 200 mile weeks. This slowed down with various pressures at home/work plus a lot of precipitation. Maybe for the best, to take some rest. I feel like I've plateaued a bit despite having dropped another 5 pounds to 195, a number seen only once since I left college - in 2003 I got down to 191 and did a 20:41 OLH. It's hard to measure, I will go out and feel like I really nailed a certain small climb, then the GPS would later tell me "not really". But climbs like Polhemous can be subject to things like headwinds more than sheltered steeper climbs. And it's harder to really ramp it up when it's 48 degrees and sort of crappy. I'm definitely riding a lot faster than 12 months ago.

One thing that sort of makes the slog feel harder is that the SF2G rides have really turned into all out hammerfests with very strong riders - several riders have been placing in NorCal road races - including ones like the Early Bird RR with substantial climbs. So it's hard to feel upbeat when you are always getting your ass handed to you. But then you look at the logs and - "Hey, that was pretty damn fast no wonder it felt so hard".

Anyway, got out this AM about 5 minutes late and missed the train. Rode the 53 miles into work along the flat bayway, made a half hearted attempt to see if I could catch the group but it was not to be. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and am hoping to escape for one of the two planned climbing routes on the docket.

The weight loss has been attributable to one thing, pretty much - I gave up Soda Jan 1 - that's a lot of useless calories not in the system. Maybe when I really want to go after an effort I'll have a Coca-Cola and see how my body reacts to an unusual dose of caffeine and HFCS.