Would like to get some expert opinions - Page 4

I agree with you. I would also remind you of what I said earlier. I am not smart enough or experienced enough to say that I am some training guru and am more knowledgeable than Friel, Carmichael, etc. But I have read the opinions of extremely qualified, knowledgeable people who happen to go against the grain, somewhat. And in balancing the viewpoints of these people, Andy Coggan and Ric Stern especially, vs. those of others (who may be pro-weight training, pro-"base", etc), I found they had the bulk of evidence, common sense, whatever, on their side. Can you truly say the same thing?

On the other hand, there is value from having a coach to provide structure, know your strengths and weaknesses, etc. No one here thinks they are some training genius (although some have every right to), they just have different opinions then what you/your coach may.

BTW, I self trained from begginer to expert in 5 months. (and several other people I know did similar, mtb categories are pretty soft)

Bummer, I was really hoping I would get a salute.

I guess the best data I have is knowing that I had a lt of 161 in September and having a lt of 167 now. That's enough for me to have faith in his methods.

I thought I was asking a relatively simple question when I originally created this thread. I guess I was incorrect. Thank you and everyone else for your time though. I appreciate the different opinions.

Makes me smile. I increased my power by 62% in 8 months, but I don't get any salutes here either.

Sounds to me like you already have your expert. You're happy with your coach, so he is the best person to ask for advice. Your original question was pretty simple, but we got a little sidetracked. Lets stay away from the #'s if you don't want it to get sidetracked further.

Well if I had a salute smilie I'd post it for you. Congratulations on your gains, thats awesome!

62%! That's mind-boggling! I ran some numbers on ac for my loop that I do intervals on, and (assuming the power curve on my trainer is fairly correct, which squidwrangl and frenchgye backed up) it looks like about 40% for me. Thanks to all, you guys are cool. RD, how active were you during your lay off from cycling?

Well, I went from 160 lbs when I was competing to 212 lbs in March of last year. But, my golf handicap is pretty low. Oh, and does 200K frequent flier miles a year count? BTW, when things get serious this summer I'll be back to 160, but I think I'll hang onto my golf handicap.

Thanks. And, as to all this training recipe stuff, just remember that the body just responds to stress, actually in a fairly predictable way. If you want to really improve your understanding of cycling, study the physiology stuff. It's pretty cool and Andy Coggan is a true guru. I still can't figure out why he spends time posting here for the benefit of morons like me. But, I'm glad he does.

Well I did my first two races this weekend, thought I would post my race reviews as a follow up. Here is the first one.

Feb.25 - Hartford Season Opener - Hartford, OH www.teamcolumbus.org

This race was originally supposed to be a 30 mile race, three loops each ten miles long. Once we got there we found out that it was going to be four loops eight miles long, no big deal. It ended up being four laps 9.5 miles long and pretty much flat, a total of about 38 miles. The weather was in the mid 40's with 20 mph winds with 30 mph gusts, that made it interesting.

Anyway, on to the details. The officials put the cat 5's, juniors, vets, and women together. We all started off rather easy and headed off into the wind. About 7 miles in there was a section about a mile long that people really took off. I think we hit about 30 mph in that section. We dropped a few of the riders including my buddy that I was traveling with. The suffering only lasted a couple of minutes until we made a turn that put us back into the wind. That was about the end of the first lap. The second lap was pretty uneventful as was the third until I had a guy come over and give my bars a pretty good tap. A gust of wind pushed him right into me, definately got my attention. At this point I was still amazed at how strong the riders were in a cat 5 race, I was just hoping to finish with the pack.

Well, now it's time for the forth lap. This was a pretty slow lap since most people were fighting for position. This road race thing is basicly a rolling chess game on two wheels. Much different than the mountain bike races I'm used to. The first couple of laps I had been stuck on the inside with no place to go. I knew that I was going to spend most of this lap on the outside, I hadn't really planned on pulling for over 1/2 of the lap though. At times I did get down to about 12 mph, no one would pass. Can't blame them, they were either exhausted or saving for the finish. About 4.5 miles into the lap me and another guy found ourselves in a breakaway, this was a total accident. We both decided to set up and let the peleton catch back up. It was too windy to make anything stick at this point. With about two miles to go things started getting interesting. There were a couple of attempts at breakaways, I just did my best to follow each of them.

With about 1 mile to go there were four of us out front. It stayed like this for about 1/2 mile. With 1/2 mile to go one of the guys finished his pull and sat back. The guy behind him just sat up for some reason. I decided to go. I looked back and no one came with me, I didn't think I had a chance at getting it to stick, especially when I had to hit my brakes and ask a cop which way I had to turn. I just started pedaling again and hoping for the best. The finish was a slight uphill grade with a little bit of a headwind. I finished about five to ten yards ahead of second place. I couldn't believe it, I had won my first race!

Here is a link to the power information.

Here is the information for the second race.

Feb.26 - Mentor to Maysville (KY) www.godzulla.com

This is my second cat 5 road race, my first was the day before. I had a great finish in Saturday's race but I was definately feeling it on Sunday. I was just hoping to be able to stick with the pack.

This race is a 43 mile out and back on a rolling course. However, everyone had to park 6 miles from the start which actually worked out to be a pretty good warm up. The warm up was needed since it was about 28 - 30 degrees out. It was slightly windy with a little tail wind on the way to the turn around and a head wind the second half. After the race we had to 6 miles back to the car which was mostly uphill.

For this race they had the cat 5's and the vets together.

The race started out at a pretty good pace, nothing crazy but not real slow either. There were a couple of teams in the pack, one had about six riders, the other had five riders I believe. This made a breakaway pretty much impossible. Everything stayed pretty calm during the race with the exception of a couple of squirly riders. Nothing too bad they just made a few unnecessary sudden moves. No harm done though, just kept everyone on their toes. Things kept rolling on, by the turn around we had probably dropped about five riders, not too bad.

On the way back things stayed calm until about six miles to go. That's when the chess game started. With about four miles there was a decent little climb that spread the field out a bit. However, at the top people started setting up again which would have let some of the struggling riders get back on and rest. At that point I went out front and took the lead for a couple of minutes. I just wanted to make the peleton a little smaller. It seemed to work. By the time I was able to get someone else to pull I realized there were only nine of us left, four cat 5's and five vets.

Getting rid of the pull wasn't easy, at that point nobody wanted to do the work since there was just a couple of miles left.

Anyway, things calmed down for a minute or two then we got about 1/2 mile from the finish. At that point a buddy of mine somehow thought the finish line was much closer than it was. Oops. Well I grabbed his wheel until he blew up. That left about 1/4 mile to go. I tried to go but quickly found out that I just didn't have the legs. With about 100 feet to go the other two cat 5's went around me and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I lost the chess match. With about 50 feet left I looked back and saw my buddy a good ways back. I just sat up and rode in about 5 seconds back from the winners.

I'll be satisfied with third this time and chalk it up as a learning experience.

Anyway, for the weekend I ended up with a win and a third. In my mind that's a pretty decent first couple of races.

Here is a link to the power chart.