My test, and my weekend.

First, the test. I had a great test, averaging 331 watts for 20 minutes, which was 53 watts higher than last time. This brings my FTP to 315, which is 45 watts higher than last time. There isn't much more to say about it than that. Getting a coach has really paid off with my wattage jumping that much in only 4.5 months! With my recent move to Category 3, I'm hoping my increase in performance will help me be an asset to Andy, our pimp mack daddy in the saddle.
Second, we have my weekend. We went to the Gainesville Georgia Cup RR course and rode a lap. The weather looked a bit shabby, so we just turned around and rode about 5.5 miles back to the bottom of the "big climb" of the race and did that again. When we got to the top of the climb, the bottom fell out and all of us got soaked. I feel pretty confident with my climbing after our ride, and think I'll do decent in the race. All I have to do is kick up the pace and work for Andy anyways, so I definitely won't get disappointed if I don't do well for myself!

Recovery!

Which is the reason I haven't really posted lately. I rode really hard this past weekend, logging about 7-8 hours total for the weekend, and had some well-deserved rest yesterday and the day before. Today I was semi-at it again and did a good ol' unstructured ride with a couple guys. I did throw in some hard efforts, but kept my overall average down to 180-185 watts, and had a really good time. Having a set training regimine prevents me from ever really getting to just get out and have a fun ride with attacks thrown wherever. Rides like this refresh you even though they are a bit tough at times, and sometimes are way too hard, like my Tuesday night group rides. Today was nowhere near as hard as a Tuesday night group ride, but it was a ton of fun, and I feel great now! I have a 20 min. power test tomorrow, the last of which came at the end of last season. That one resulted in an average of 278 watts, so I'm excited to see what I can put down tomorrow.

Some distance and recon

Saturday I hit the road at 7:30am. A little bit early to get out on the road, but I had a great ride, and ended up doing a little over 4 hours of on-bike time, and was beat when I finished. Today I went with my teammates to ride the Gainesville road race course, and had a great time just fellowshipping and getting some low endurance miles in. I think yesterday's ride wore on me harder than I thought, as I was, and am, completely beat after yesterday and today. I'm happy that I have a couple of really easy days ahead of me! By the way, for those of you who are racing gainesville, but can't ride the course...GET READY TO CLIMB!

The moonwalking bear.

Here's an interesting take on cycling awareness...

Resume accepted!

So my resume got accepted last night. I kinda figured it would, but still thought it’d be worth mentioning. I’m a category 3 racer now, and that means more responsibility…Oh wait, that was another talk my dad laid on me way back when. Seriously, though, I don’t know what to think until I’m on the road actually racing. I hear some guys say it’s not much different than the 4’s minus distance, while others say it’s much harder. Some guys say it’s easier because no one wants to move up to the 2’s because of the huge difference from the 3’s to the 2’s, since you’re racing with pro’s then. Here’s a question to pose to any pro’s or 1-2 racers out there. If you’re a 2, do you tell the ladies you’re a pro? I mean you race with them. My wife could care less what category I tell her I race, but there could be some role-playing going on. I’ll pretend I’m Lance, and she can be a podium girl, and….TMI!

Category 3?

So I entered my request to move up to category 3 today. I had 20 points, which was the pre-requisite to do so. I'm looking forward to this move, as I have a teammate who is a monster in the saddle by the name of Andy Brackett. I told him tonight I look forward to killing myself for him in Gainesville at the Georgia Cup races. I have noticed that all of the Cat 3 races are about 1 1/2-1 3/4 the length of the Cat 4 ones, but I don't think it'll be a huge deal if I play it smart. I know the big difference will be the power with which attacks are made, and it will be much harder answered those attacks later on in a race, but I still look very forward to this new "adventure" in my riding.

Yesterday's race and some reflection

So I decided just not to put a video blog up this week, sorry. I had something, but after the long message I posted the other night, I figured I covered everything that should have been covered. On top of that, reading edifies the mind more anyways, I’m sure.
Yesterday’s race was almost as eventful as Saturday’s, but was much harder without a team. Saturday was a 50 mile road race with a good little climb, some rollers, and a couple miles of dirt road that was probably a little more sand than dirt. After the first lap the pack was still all together, with only a few unlucky guys who were at the back when we first hit the dirt road who got dropped. When we hit the climb the second time, all of us at the front made a move to attempt to split the pack up some, and it worked pretty well, with only about 10 of us making the split. We were only able to hold the pack off about 15 seconds until the dirt road, at which point we knew we could make the gap larger and unleashed all we had at the moment. When we made the turn on the dirt road, the pack was nowhere to be seen, and that’s the way it stayed the rest of the day.
On the last lap this new guy I’ve never raced with before name Ty (spelling?) broke away from our break-away group and tore us a new one, taking his third first place finish for the weekend. You Cat 3’s might have your hands full with this guy, as he moved up to category 3 after yesterday, or so he said he was going to.
Now on to where my training stands as of right now. To the best of my ability, and my understanding of training so far since my acquisition of a coach, I think I’m doing fine. I feel fairly comfortable sitting at the front of the pack, and even though I didn’t pull of a first place this weekend, I feel like I’m a lot stronger than I was last year. Obviously, there is coming a time when I may plateau, but right now I feel like instead of doing such, I am slowly getting stronger from week to week. I have bad days/races like anyone else. I was very blessed this weekend, and didn’t nessecarily have such a day. It will come though, and I feel that I’m mentally prepared for it. Like my quote a couple weeks ago stated, I feel that I’ve prepared myself and am still preparing myself to accel. In doing so, I won’t be mad if I have a bad day, I’ll just write it off as such and move on. I feel that in preparing myself, I have made myself much more useful to my team, and have greatly increased my potential to move up to the next category. I guess that’s what it’s all about, though. This is my journey from then until now…

Why yes, I do...

Have a video blog,that is. I'm visiting family, though, and am toast from the tt and circuit races from today. Yes, you guessed it, I'm at again with this bike racing thing. Today was an interesting one, and I'll try and lay it out to the best of my ability.
The time trial this morning went pretty well and in my favor. I felt fairly strong, but didn't have my usual borrowed (I'm a bum!) front Zipp wheel from my teammate. I ended up riding my front road wheel that normally gets ridden in road races and such. I was pretty surprised at how much it didn't really slow me down, and ended up pulling off a respectable 4th place.
Now for the circuit race. I have been told numerous times by different people that category 4 racing has nothing to do with teamwork. Unfortunately, I had that attiude some last year, and it has cost me the respect of some teammates and other riders which I may never be able to re-aquire. Today's circuit race was definitely proof that teamwork DOES work in this category of racing, and brought me to greatly respect the selfless work my team put forth to help me stay up top (2nd) in the overall GC race for the weekend. Quite frankly, I was asked what to do at the beginning of the race, and I said I didn't feel like I had a break in me. Like a doofus, I didn't take my own advice and actually chased after a break that had one of my teammates in it. I honestly don't know what I was thinking at the moment, but for some reason when I saw the guy that won the time trial, and the guy that got 5th on a road bike, go up the road, I thought "maybe I should chase them". Mind you I already had a teammate dedicated to suck wheel and do nothing in the break to physically and mentally wear those two riders down. After catching the break, I sat and watched my teammate take a few incredibly strong pulls to his breaking point, and then drop off. In the meantime, the rest of my team was taking charge of the pack situation and making sure the pace dropped enough for us to actually establish a break. In one of the most painful races ever, we managed to pull together in the break, and I got 2nd. The great thing about it was even though I broke the team plan to get me in a pack sprint like a dummy, my team still selflessly organized in the peloton and took control of the race anyways to help me stay away. Kudos goes out to all the team, and hopefully I can manage to survive tomorrow at the road race without anyone there to watch my back! Thanks guys!

Been a few days!

I've been really busy at work and home this week. Yes, I do have your video blog from Saturday now!



On another note, I'm going to Perry, GA this weekend. The TT and Circuit race are Saturday at 8AM-ish and 12pm. The RR Sunday is 9AM I think. I'll try and get a video/text blog up Saturday night, but I'm not sure. I'll be visiting family while down there, so a post may be out of the question. Thanks and stay tuned!

Text for now, video tonight!

So I had a good weekend. Saturday I was able to drag my 162lbs. up that climb 6 times and tack on to the final break of 6, which resulted in me getting a 3rd place finish! This was my first Cat 4 podium finish outside of a time trial, so I'm pretty stoked! Yesterday wasn't a huge success or anything personally, but as far as our team goes, we showed we aren't screwing around when we want a break to be caught. At one point, we had a train of Me, Star, Eddie, and Reilly rotating at the front to bring in a 6-7 man break that had gotten up the road a bit. There was a crash at the end which pushed us off the road, but no one went down, and I think it was a good day. If nothing else, a very successful training ride, and what more can you ask from the "Greenville Training Series"?

I have video of Saturday's race blog, but with the new baby, and the release of Smash Brothers Brawl on the Nintendo Wii, I have had hardly any time to work on getting it sent to the laptop. Hopefully I can drag myself from fine Nintendo brawling long enough tonight to get it up!

Climbing?! OH MY NO!

So tomorrow will be the first "climbing" race of the season for me. I've definitely never been much of a climber, but am hoping my winter weight loss of 20lbs., along with my small increases in power, will help me to finish strong tomorrow. Heck, if I can finish with the pack, I'll be finishing strong. I should be game for a nice little video blog again this weekend, so stay posted for the update!

A new feature!

Okay, so I know I'm not the one checking my own site almost 500 times, so obviously there's one or two others who get so bored that they are reduced to reading about the goings-on with my riding and family. I'm going to be adding a new feature, effective now, simply named "Other Blogs". This new feature will be exactly what it sounds like. Email me a link to your blog, with the name of your blog, and I'll provide a link to it on my site. I only ask that you do the same. Hopefully this will open me, and others, up to other people's ideas on blogging, and I honestly don't know of many other cycling-related blogs, so I'd like to read some. My email is dartingd@gmail.com , and as soon as I get an email from you saying you added a link to my blog, I'll add yours! Just make sure to provide the name of your blog, and a link to it.

Great ride!

So I went to the pediatrician with my wife today for our son Aaron's first doctor visit. Everything was well, and he did great! Afterwards, I had some spare time, so I went out for a nice "little" 1.75 hour ride. It was a little cool, but not enough to warrant warmers or anything. I had to do some intervals (2x6 @ 375) with basically warm-up, cool-down, and light endurance otherwise. I feel like everything is progressing nicely, and hope to be putting down some really good power numbers soon.

New Teammate!

I haven't posted in a few days because I got a new teammate. This isn't one of the cycling nature though, as my little baby boy Aaron Dustin Mealor was born! I did race yesterday, but that is of no importance. I may get me a post in on Wednesday, but as of right now, I'm totally exhausted, and doubt I'll be willing to get online to update till then. If nothing else, at least the time changes this weekend! Taking it back outdoors!