Long time no post...

Mostly because I haven't been doing much, especially to do with cycling. I've been doing a poor job of training, but haven't lost much fitness so as long as I get back on track now I should be ok.

While I'm writing, I might as well say a bit about the study I am doing at Guelph U. I am volunteering as a lab rat for a PhD student's study. She happens to be a notable racer on the Ontario Elite women's circuit, so of course there's lots of knowledge to be gained alongside my experience. In a nutshell, on 4 occasions (2 hydrated and 2 dehydrated) I ride for 90 minutes at a fixed proportion of my VO2max wattage, with 2 minute intervals every 20 minutes. Following this, I complete a TT equivalent to 6 kJ/kg which for me is 520-530 kJ, generally. The rest of the details are best left out until you can read the paper once published, but the above gives you an idea of what I am required to do.

So what have I gained so far? VO2max test was productive, as I now see my progress since I was last tested about a year and a half prior - this much was very good. Also, the TT portion of the trial is a good indicator for FTP, and the results so far have been surprisingly good (as far as I'm concerned). If I can get my shorter efforts up to the same calibre by race season, I stand to do quite a bit better than last year, I think... but of course numbers don't always translate directly to results.

That leads me to my next thought: I think I am now reaching the point where I could use a coach. Until now, I have felt that as a novice racer I can improve at a significant rate simply by riding lots, with a bit of structure and advice here and there. For beginners, there's no substitute for hours/km in the legs. I also had (and still have) some weight to lose, and this has had more bearing on performance than optimization of my training. Now that I've had a couple years to develop in this way, I am asking myself questions I no longer have the answer for. I see numbers that seem higher than my results would imply, so perhaps it will take a coach to direct my effort toward getting those results. We'll see.

As for the 2010 season, I'm still working on setting goals and finding it very difficult. The structure is more or less laid out and I know that I'll basically race the XC O-Cup series and a couple select events, ultimately building toward a strong cross season. I may aim to peak for Nationals, and I definitely hope to do more racing in the New England race scene where a strong B field offers a lot of close competition at my level, rather than the huge disparity of ability within the relatively small number of racers in Southern Ontario.

I will eventually get some concrete race schedule stuff up here, as well as more thoughts on my training plan/goals. Also, look for some posts containing the upcoming rebuild of my 29er and road bikes - both frames are in getting fixed up and repainted and will be put back together in a spiffy new way over the next month or so.