Your Snappy Title Here

I've Got About As Much Chance As This Guy

No wonder my Cat 4 results last year were less than stellar. After performing my FTP test last night, I’ve found out that I’m lucky to have even finished any races last year. Put simply, I’m a freaking sally. There are a couple of factors that mitigate the result – I was NOT rested when I did it, I did it indoors on a trainer, beyond just being on a trainer I absolutely hate riding on this trainer in particular because it holds my bike at about a 5 degree heel to the left (try it sometimes, it sucks) and El Ocho was pulling numbers that were just slightly lower than my test numbers when we rode Blue Mountain out in Marshall a few weeks ago. We pretty much rode stroke for stroke up that hill, and I’ve probably got 20 pounds on him, and that was after about 50 miles and Mount Weather… Lots of nice ways of shading the fact that I’ve got a long way to go if I’m going to get anywhere in this mess.

To that end, I actually did have some high points last year, so there must be some strength lurking within me to have come up with those high points. One thing I know is that I recover quicker than most. If I get stopped at a traffic light, my heart rate will easily drop below 100. Another thing I know is that I have silly endurance – a lot of long ass rides with guys way stronger than me have ended with me way less cooked than I should be.


The Hound Instinct

The other thing I have going for me, but also working against me to some degree, is the hound instinct. Basically, when there is a rabbit to chase, this dog can run. No rabbit, no run. So good in that I can do things that I shouldn’t be able to do when the motivation is there, but bad in that when you are in a break or in a TT, there’s no rabbit. You also have to train at ludicrous speed to get ludicrous speed, and when you can’t get to ludicrous speed without something to chase but don’t have something to chase, well you aren’t exactly going to look like this guy any time soon.

It’s a question of training the mind as much as anything else – maybe more. Maybe I have to get all Pavlovian and shit, you know, since I’m pretty much a dog.

So the decision to throw in my lot with the Hunter Allen FTP based base training plan appears to have been validated by my actual needs. The headshrinker aspect, well, we’ll see how that goes. Cipollini used to tape pictures of nekkid womens on his stem to give him motivation (or maybe just for something to look at during a five hour boring ass stage), maybe something like that is the answer for this guy?

Off to watch the G’Town Hoyas hoop it up against the Wolverines tonight. El Ocho’s from Michigan. Maybe he’s a fan? We had season tickets last year, then they got really expensive this year so we didn’t do it. Good thing we have lots of friends who still have tickets and can’t make all the games. Woo hoo.

Oh yeah, the market’s in the shitter again today. Looks like Tuesday was a classic dead cat. More on that next time.

Outta here.