Ghisallo Leg Ripping

I went to the Ghisallo ride yesterday like I frequently do. Rode there and back to give me 20 more miles in the saddle. Normally the ride gets interesting on the way back when a group at the front forms and does paceline work which turns out for me to be tempo/subthreshold effort in the draft with VO2 max bursts when my turn rolls through. I all depends on who shows up though. When Dave Schindler led the ride it was very consistent. Now its more variable. If John Thrasher is there, you know it will be good even though he is more of the sprinter/power climber than the roulleur that I am. A couple of the other Ghisallo guys have gotten some good power too.

Today was the first time that Tim K went on the ride (when I was there). I thought this could be good. What I didn't figure on was meeting up with Shawn O'Neal on the Ossenfort downhill. Shawn proceded to tear all of our legs off. We had about 6 guys in the group, and when Shawn pulled through at about 30mph, one of the guys would pop off the back. I was right behind him which made it brutal to take my turn right after him, but it was better than being on the wheel of someone who's rubber band was about to snap. This continued until it was just Shawn, Tim and myself. I was doing 330 watts in Shawn's draft and about 400-450 at the front. I knew I couldn't take that for long. I finally popped at the S-curve on Eatherton. TK popped at Rombach's, which made me feel a bit better.

Good leg ripping today! I'm supposed to do a reference 20k TT today, but I think I'll wait till tomorrow and let the legs come back a bit.

CX Season a Wash

I had high hopes for this year's cyclocross season, but I was derailed by life. My father died after a two year struggle with ALS (Lou Gerhig's disease) in mid October. I subsequently did a lot of weekend commuting between St. Louis and Tallahassee and Michigan. I actually did get some quality road riding in in some unlikely places like northern Florida and Chattanooga (highly recommended for riding if you're ever in the area). When the cross season started, I felt slooooooow! Maybe it was the jump from C to B race, maybe it was lack of focused training, maybe my head just wasn't in it with all the stuff happening in my life. Anyway, the season was a wash and I'll just leave it at that.

Now doing base and working gradually on threshold. Major goal for next year is state TT champs. Hopefully that Delbert dude won't show up and destroy the 4'!