Tucson Day 2

Good day of riding today, it was sunny in Tucson.  I got a good 5hours in with a bit of intensity.  I did a pretty good FTP TT effort about 1.5 hrs in.  I'm thinking about talking more in depth about that, but it's really nothing special so I'm just gonna leave at that (cough cough...385w...cough).  Oh yeah it was so cool, today for a bit of the ride we rode with this guy that rode for Toyota United this past season...his name's Fred, and he can trackstand!

Once we got back to the house I headed out for a little more, did a quick run up Gates Pass and down the backside (steep side), I then came back up and did it hard up the steep side, got a good little effort in right der.  This picture is from like halfway down Gates looking out at the valley, pretty different from the epic Best Buy I pass everytime I do my favorite ride back home!
Tomorrow I'm doing a little shorter, but going to do some hill repeats on Gates cuz on Tuesday we're gonna do a big one out to Kitt Peak.  But otherwise all is good, just wanna give a quick shout out to my mom C-Wizzle, I miss you mommy!  

Tucson Day 1

So we got to Tucson at about 1am this morning, luckily I was able to sleep some on the plane there, which is weird because I usually can never sleep on planes.  After some extra sleep at the house, we headed out for a ride.  Today would've been our only day to do the shootout since we're only here for a week, but with the late flight it wasn't really feasible.  Steven Black who got here last night went to do it.  The ride today was pretty solid, we just rode pretty steady I got a good ~4hrs in, not really too hard, at the end I did a trip over Gate's Pass, just pretty ez which was nice, it always makes me happy to climb!...probably because I get to see people cry when I climb!  It was nice and sunny today but not to warm, it was in the 40's but the next week it's supposed to get up into the 70's.  Later in the week we're going to hit Kitt Peak and Madera Canyon and Mount Lemmon.  Also beast from the east and west Russ Brown is coming out to Tucson tomorrow so I'm gonna throw down withhim.  If anyone is out in Tucson or knows people that are in Tucson that want to do some good climbing and long rides then holla!...for realy cuz Kitt Peak and Madera Canyon are some pretty big rides and it wouldn't hurt to have a few more motors, about 5 Lances for example equal one me!  

Also, I took some cell phone pics on the ride today of just stuff...here is just a random peak, the scenery around here is such a nice change for the eyes from the DC suburbs:

This picture is of this long straight flat road with just desert around, it was pretty beast, made me feel hard:
So yeah should be a good little block of training this week, see how it goes.  I'm starting to get pretty pumped for next season, Tradezone starts in like 6 weeks or something, hopefully by then I'll be on peak form.  I'm gonna come out all guns a flying and just lap the field like two or three times at the first Tradezone then just go into hibernation the rest of the season, satisfied with a good early season haul.  If you want to form a composite team to ride support for me at Tradezone #1 then email me at: nate1wilson@verizon.net

Alright...I was kidding

Soooooooo...on my last post when I said my training schedule and asked for advice, I made that up.  I tried to make it as crazy as possible while still being believable.  I was dissappointed I only got two people to take the bait, but Chip and Kyle's responses were entertaining to me.  Sorry fellas to trick you!

In other news I did some real training today...my buddy zack is back from college at CSU and we rode out to Great Falls and rocked some hill repeats, or more truthfully I rocked some hill repeats while he sat on my wheel and cried. While out there we saw the venerable Nick Bax, presumably home on his christmas break from college.  He was towing some guys around that seemed to b riding on his wheel in a similar manner Zack was on mine...ahh tis the life of crushing people!  But no really I cried every time up great falls, it was worth it though, because maybe I'll be stronger now.

Whenever I'm coming back home from that direction I usually go over chain bridge up to Arlington, the main road after chain bridge has a lot of traffic on it so I go up this little side road that is like mad steep so today I took a picture of it, dissappointingly the picture doesn't accurately portray how steep it is.  Next time I go up it I'll try and get a better picture...I cried going up that hill too...c'est la vie!

Training

Sooooooo...everything has been good, training is pretty solid I THINK?  Yesterday I got a nice 4 and a half hours in the WV mountains with some beast bikers.  My cannondale is currently in a box on the way to Tucson, AZ as it is much cheaper to ship fed-ex then to pay the rediculous bike fee on the plane.  So Sue let me borrow her back-up bike to ride until I go out to Tucson, it is the first road bike in 6 years of riding I have ever ridden besides my cannondale...except for turkey day a few years ago where my bike was broken and I rode my mom's women's specific ruby in the junior and then sue's ruby in the 1/2/3.  But here's the bike it's pretty sweet, its a 54 instead of a 56 but i just jacked up the post and it is sweet, so stiff and supple a ride, the ceramic seat post bearings are exquisite!

The ride was good we did an epic 30min climbing test at the end with some vicious switch backs, but before we could get down to bussiness Blair had to get a flat 7.5min into our ride...exciting!
Today I got out on the bike for about 2.5 hours I took this shot becuz it is g...and I don't have my powertap cuz the wheel is on the way to Tucson, not worries, I jsut rode steady today anyway so not missing much...woulda been just a strait line at 320w on the file anyway.

You may recall the title to this post was "training?".  Well that is because I've been thinking about my training schedule a lot.  I've come up with it mostly on my own and some of Sue's input, I'm worried I'm not training enough for next year, I really want to be on good form.  There are a lot of people out there that are much more knowledgable and have a lot more experience than me.  So I'm putting my schedule for this week Mon-Sun below and would really appreciate any feedback I can get:

Mon- 2hr on the bike (outside) zone 2, power=250w @ 110 rpm...then full body gym 3x20,               45min on bike (rollers) after power=220

Tues- 3.5hr with 3 sets of 10x 30s HARD/10s off rest between sets 6min @ power=280

Wed- 4.5-5 hr with 2sets of 5x5min tempo efforts power=360, rest 5min between efforts @             power=200 rest between sets 10min @ power=250

Thurs- 5-6hrs all zone 2, power=250-260...remember your competition is taking off so every            mile counts!!!!

Fri- Rest day...3hr on rollers power=230, core work

Sat- ~7hrs ride to Charlottesville, down skyline drive starting in The Plains power=250

Sun- ~7hrs ride back from Charlottesville, this time go thru Batesville, Wintergreen, Front             Royal...Sue picks me up in Gainesville power=250 but hit Wintergreen and 211 climbs             HARD

So this week is fairly big since I only have school Monday and Tuesday.  But I want to know am I doing enough volume (not enough/too much?) enough intensity, the right intensity whatever.  There's a lot of smart guys out there so give me some feedback, just post in the comments.  Thanks! and have a good holiday!

Stuff, Stuff and Boulder!!!!!

So, I've been up to basically the same old stuff training, school, and whatnot.  Sunday it was pretty nice and sunny, me and Blair got in a nice 5.5 hour ride on the Peters Rd. Loop (unofficial name, but should be official).  I felt pretty good but thats boring no one wants to hear about that, but if your courious average power was about 87 watts.  More interesting news, maybe?, is that next year I will be riding for Kelly/LSV.  This is a picture of me wearing some Kelly clothes:

I've been riding for NCVC ever since I started racing in 2003 but now I'm trying to be on the up and up and thought I'd mix it up a bit, so giving this a go for next year, I think it will go well.  More information as the season goes on, I guess.

As for the ride, that loop is awesome, once you get past like Gaithersburg, its like no cars and really sweet back roadds through farms and stuff.  You come out at the scenic Monocacy River, by Buckeystown:
Peters road is a cool gravel road with these two steep little climbs that are like something in tour of flanders or something, it is sweet, it was kinda wet yesterday so my bike got all muddy only non sweet part, but at least my sick fender caught some of it:
Scale of 1-10 how awesome is the fender, 10 being like really awesome?

Finally, some really good news just came my way as I have been accepted early admissions to University of Colorado Boulder...so I am really happy about that and basically for sure going to go there for Fall 2009!

GamJams Reviews: Trainers and Rollers - Rollers.

I'm definitely not a fan of training inside, as I think most people aren't except for a few guys I know that are like real hardcore and do it to keep all things constant and what not.  But when I do train inside I like to rock the rollers.  I've had a couple sets of rollers, first were a set I found in a trash can.  Surprisingly enough they served me well for two years, and would still be serving me if someone hadn't given me a pair of Kreitlers.  I now have Kreitler dyno-lyte rollers they are nice, slightly smaller drums then the standard version but not tiny.  They are good for doing z2 on much more than the trainer, because you use your core more to stabilize like your riding outside and it requires more focus.  Unfortunately I only use them for z2, with my junior gears (52x14) they don't have enough pressure to do intervals, in my 14 at ~100rpm it is about 220w, so maybe if I had adult gears I could do intervals on them.  But the bottom line is riding inside my first choice is always rollers of any kind, my kreitlers are great, and the trainer is really only for intervals, and even then I'd rather just get fat and give up bike racing, so thats my advice.  If you find yourself having to ride inside just give up bike racing.

Finally, I've heard e-motion rollers are awesome and I'm sure they are.  They capitalize on rollers being awesome and make them more so plus (I think) they have an adjustable mag unit so you can make pressure and do sick intervals.  I haven't gotten to try a set, I would love to own a set, but the 800 dollar price tag has deterred me.  If anyone has a set they are looking to give away for free, and/or less than ten dollars please email me @ nate1wilson@verizon.net

Hurting

IT was pretty nice today but I didn't have time to ride outside, cuz the light runs out before I can finish my workout anyway...ahhh I hate school for this.  I would love it if instead of school from 8-3 I could have schoool from like 2pm-9pm, oh well this is senior year anyway so next year i'll have more time.  But I'm about to go get on the trainer to do some intervals, I'm not hurting yet but I know I will be so I thought just make this post before hand.  It's been so freaking cold lately but the next few days are supposed to be warmer then cold again, it's gonna be in the 40s this weekend i think so after some computrainer stuff on saturday ill hopefully get out for a long one on sunday.  Also the NCVC end of year party is on Saturday which is always kind of fun, who doesn't love free food and trophies!  Also, I leave for Tucson in 17 days...YES...it is 70 there right now, hate me.

Crushing Foos

I haven't blogged in a while which is dissappointing, been over a week i think, im sorry.  I have not really been too busy just too lazy, and uncreative.  But heres a quick catchup on janx...it was really cold today so instead of suffering for like 4hours on a long ride i decided to get all my sufferin done in a quick painful 40 min cx race.  So I'm broke out the cx bike first time riding it since mid-october...oh yeah and i slammed the stem on that bitch, so awesome.

So I just did the jr race cuz I ddin't want to do not good so it was pretty fun, i felt pretty decent it was a cool course...me and steve kendall crushed it and went 1-2, yeah i got 2.

Other exciting news continues I cut my steerer tube down so it looks more g and i popped it down a spacer, i really want to slam it BUT i might break my back, plus im switching bikes pretty soon anyway.

More awesome news (isn't this the best blog ever!!!!) last weekend I did some intervals on my TT bike.  I feel real good in the position trying to get rockin on it so I can crush in some tts next year.  Hopefully you cant read my powertap because it says 108 watts, infortunately this is during one of my intervals, it's hard to be me.

I'm sitting at my keyboard out of things to stay...stalling, stalling...YES, something just hit me.  I will share an anecdote, first follow the link to this picture, for full effect of the story:

http://www.wheelsinfocus.com/2008/JrRoadNats/c1718/pages/94AD3510rnc.htm

The picture is from junior crit nationals this august.  The course was nothing too special, it was in a parking lot around angel stadium in LA kinda like RFK, made outta barriers.  I had vicious saddle sores coming off a week long stage race that were open raw and stinging so bad I didn't even really want to start.  I started anyway and rode through them for awhile.  On the third lap I got to the front and bridged to a break with a HotTubes kid and someother guy.  Eventually the group swelled up to 10, as seen in the picture, and we opened up a bigger and bigger gap, I started thinking we were gonna stay away, but too many guys thought that the move was def away and just wouldn't work that really pissed me off.  After about 10 laps out front we were brought back, I was pretty angry and after almost crashing I just dropped out, my sores ripped open.  IT was a pretty dissappointing nationals for me this year, with a shitty TT, that in the crit, and a RR where I just attacked the hell out of the race and got really nowhere on a dissaappointingly unselective course, and I easily missed the winning move, unfortunately thinking back the crit was probably my high point of nationals this year, oh well.  Good post, probably my longest one yet, if you read this account I am honored, hope it wasn't too boring.  This anecdote idea is kinda cool, I think.  Next time I want to blog but can't think of something I'm just gonna talk about race from before my blog.

New Shades

So I just got back from The Bicycle Place shop.  It was the first time I had been inside.   I had a 50 dollar gift certificate for the shop so I went there to make some purchases.  I told myself literally out loud before I went in that I wasn't going to spend over 50 bux.  However once I got in there I lost control of myself.  Before I knew it I was trying on some sweet Giro sunglasses and handing the guy my debit card to pay the extra 80 dollars.  So yeah my new sunglasses are sweet.  But I have some other sunglasses I went to sell:

Tifosi Q3 (white) with 3 sets of lenses (clear, yellow, dark blue) and hard carrying case and soft carrying case-- $40

Tifosi Q3 (orange), limited edition Jittery Joes can't buy in stores, with smoke lenses and carrying like soft bag thing-- $30

Rudy Project Rydon (black with red earpieces) with 3 sets of lenses (dark blue, dark red, racing red-clearish) with hard carrying case and soft carrying case-- $70

Also I have Rudy Project Syluro lenses if you have those glasses they are dark blue.  Also have a hard carrying case and soft carrying case, but lost the frames racing in Canada.  For just the lenses-- $10 for the stuff together $15

I'm willing to negotiate on prices, so if you're at all interested email me at nate1wilson@verizon.net and I can send you pictures and stuff, please buy these glasses!  If I don't here anything pretty soon, I'll probably try and sell them on ebay.

Here are the glasses I bought today:

Hey

I kinda lost track and havent done any posts in a while, I wanted to do them more regularly but I choked, weak.  But more fun is my buddy Russ Brown was back this week from Durgango, CO for thanksgiving break.  ON Wednesday we did a long ride out to sugarloaf it was pretty fun, but kinda windy/cold, but we had tailwind coming back so that was awesome, and we averaged around 40mph.  

Russ just got back from altitude and all the big mountains in CO, and was acting like the loaf was gonna be nothing for him.  I warned him the loaf took no prisoners and documented the journey.  Here is a picture of Russ at the bottom of the vicious climb:

Going up the climb I was dominant but Russell was able to cheat and sprint around me at the end.  I took this picture at the top of the climb to document Russ post climb:

Unfortunately this was his biggest victory to date :(

Finally I thought I'd give my loyal readers a little view into what it's like to be in my position, one of sure dominance.  I sit there look at my powertap and just continue to shock myself with my inability to break 100 watts.

I strategically took the picture in a manner in which you can't see the face of the Powertap.  For anyone interested in more in depth analysis of my powerfiles and training can email me and make a check out of 20.00 USD per file to Nathan Wilson....well worth the money I think.

AHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

It was cold! today.  I was gonna do some intervals but I really didn't want to ride on the trainer.  So I bundled up and went down to hains point.  It would've been fine, cuz I was wearing plenty of clothes, I wasn't cold, but becasue of school I couldn't get out on my ride till 3:30 and I ran out of light.  It was really annoying cuz I couldn't read the timer on my power tap so I was supposed to do a 4min effort at the end and it ended up being 3.5 cuz I thought it was over.  what a pain.  i guess Im going to have to concede and ride the trainer, during the week.  I don't mind the cold, thats what clothes are for, but with the lack of light its a real pain, if only I didn't have to go to school and could just ride during the day.   The sunset was pretty cool today, but I didn't take a picture of it.  Instead I took this picture of cars on GW parkway on the bike path overpass to Roosevelt Island, it looks alright.

Gettin Huge

Today I went to the gym, which I actually enjoy a fair amount.  Since the offseason started I've been lifting pretty regularly twice a week.  It is having a great effect.  For those of you that haven't seen me since the summer racing season, I've included a picture below, of my bicep.

More importantly my buddy Russ gets back from Durango, CO for his thanksgiving break on Friday so we get to ride and stuff which is awesome.  Also, i just found out that we're going to be in Tucson during the same time this winter so we'll get to beat up on all the chumps there.  Hopefully this weekend or next it will be relatively warm so Russ and I can go down to the mountains and beat up on eachother and anyone man enough to come with.

Weekend

On Saturday I woke up early to ride over to Spokes to do Computrainer class.  It was pretty good, nothing special, but I got to teach the 10am class so that was awesome ($$$).  My legs are feeling pretty vicious lately...I'm going to leave that ambiguous as to whether I want that to mean good or bad, yours to decide.  they said it was going to rain a lot Saturday but after the classes it was really warm and sunny so I got out for a couple hours outside.  When I got home I was really hungry so I ate a lot of food, probably entirely too much, but it was awesome.

Then Sunday wasn't quite as good.  It was cold and soooo windy.  The kendalls came over in the morning and we rode over to join the espresso ride, in Georgetown.  I don't know why so many people were there when it was so nasty out but it was awesome because like 80 people were there.  It was pretty fun, I went hard a couple times, but split off after the One lane bridge at Glen to go do a little more.  The Kendalls just finished the ride and I headed out for an extra 2 hours.  It was very dissappointing because there was a vicious headwind all the way out to Poolesville and the tail wind back was not that fresh, but whatever.  WHen I got back to the house the kendalls were just laying on my front yard...rofl.  Bradley locked his keys in the car.  It was pretty hilarious, they had to call a guy to come get them out but it took him like two hours to get there.  When they guy came I politely asked if I could document the event for my blog and he didn't respond, I think he hates me. 

So basically I've just been training and it's going pretty well.  mostly base but doing some intensity on the computrainer.  I really like racing cross, and I've always wanted to be really good at cross.  But I've only race twice so far this year, I'm sort of into training right now.  I'm lending my bike to someone else anyway.  i think I might race the cx race at the end of the year in REston.  I race two earlier one in MD and one PA.

Sunday Ride

Yesterday I got out for a nice long ride, just base miles, for the power geeks it was about 350 avg watts.  I was joined by coach, Pierre, and Steven and Bradley Kendall.  We left from my house at 10 and headed out to Sugarloaf.  The loop we did, my two favorite roads are Moore Rd. and Big Woods Rd., they're pretty cool and had leaves all over them which was cool.  Probably the only two roads I like more in the area are Montevideo road and Peters road. 

(Big Woods Rd.)

 Peters Road is the bomb it is gravel and has these two steep power climbs that are like redic, they're out of tour of flanders or something, i think im gonna ride over there next weekend and take a cell phone pic for my blog.

I'm feeling pretty good riding lately, I dont know if I mentioned it or not but at the end of august i hurt my hip flexor and it was bothering me for a long time, but it feels basically completely better so I'm going back to the full training load. 

There were so many people out riding yesterday, we saw so many people out around Sugarloaf, and there were a bunch of cars up there too.  WE got cauhgt behind a car on the descent and were going like 1mph.  

The only other thing worth sharing is that I was really annoyed that both places we stopped didnt have any blue gatorade.  WE stopped at the minimart at Seneca and 28 and I had to get Tiger Cool Fusion gatorade, and at the gas station in poolesville there was no blue either I had to get orange and lime...so weak. 

We did a sprint for the DC town line coming back in where I of course dusted everyone...actually Steven and Bradley beat me, but I think they cheated.

Nice Weather

The weather has been really nice lately, at least I think it is nicer than it is usually this time of year, i am very happy about that.  I'm sure in a month or two, maybe a week or two?, the weather will seriously suck and i will be bumming...I'll probably give up bike racing and pursue ballet or something.  But since the weather is nice, I'm still giving this sport a go.

Today I woke up early to go ride the computrainer out in Vienna, it was pretty good, not really going too hard on it yet, but starting some hard stuff.   I actually feel like I'm riding really good right now so hopefully I don't suck when the race season comes around...though I've always kind of wanted to be that guy who just massacres people on group rides and sucks in the race season.  I've decided that once I get to masters 40+, one year I'll not race the whole summer and just train like I would as if its the offseason then from November to January just go and crush people...thatd be awesome!

Tomorrow I'm gonna ride long with some friends, probably out to Sugarloaf, I like doing that.  I think the riding around here is really good, especially like last week we went out to like Buckeystown area and there are some really cool dirt roads, they're sweet.

I'm pretty pumped because when i went to the the grocery store today they were serving thanksgiving food like stuffing and turkey, which was aweseome, and in a few weeks my buddy Russ gets back from college for Thanksgiving break so we can go down to skyline and climb, cuz climbing is boss!  Also, this weekend is boss cuz Monday is senior skip day and Tuesday is Vet's day so I have a four day weekend.  I think I might've said that in my last post so if I did I'm sorry, but i think I didn't

Finally, I have a set of American Classic carbon tubular and the front rim is cracked.  I am trying to get AC to hook me up on replacing it cuz I don't have much money, but I don't know if thats going to work out (probably not).  So if you have some carbon tubular wheels you are looking to sell, for not much money, email me--nate1wilson@verizon.net, I might be interested.

Vicious Sesh

So yesterday was the first day of Computrainer classes out at Spokes Etc in Vienna.  I taught a 4:30 class after school, which is kinda fun, I get to just ride on the rollers while I'm teaching.  Then I rode the 6:30pm class on the computrainer hard to get my workout in.  I felt decent, but thats not really interesting.  What is interesting is the picture below, of the 3 mile TT we did at the end of class...there were 7 other people.

That number 1 under Nate W, well we all know what that means...yeah thats right, chalk one up for the victory column, right next to my proudest wins right alongside of Juniors Day Out!...oh yeah!  I would say it was a pretty prestigious win, below is a picture of some of my most fierce competition:

In other news tonight I will be hitting up the gym.  I like to do this twice a week in the offseason to accentuate how jacked and tan I am.  I try to make friends at the gym but usually whenever I get within 20 feet of someone they just run away fall to the floor and beg for mercy, oh well.

I think it is going to be nice this weekend, probably get out for some long basemiles followed by lots of eating.  And score its a four daay weekend for me this weekend.  Tuesday is Veterans day (I think) and Monday is senior skip day!

Bike Path

Cuz of the elections I didn't have school today.  So I thought I'd hit up a little bike practicing.  I took my sick nasty new TT bike (picture  below) out on the bike path (pictured below) to get aero.  My position is so aero on my new TT bike, I averaged a mere 48 watts but yet my average speed was about 32.4 mph, not bad for the flat to rolling terrain of the bike path.  But in all serious this was my first chance to ride this bike outside since I bought it from Lengermann last weekend...I hope it causes my competitors, such as Adam Leibovitz, to cry.

On a more serious note after Nationals when I was in California I crashed and strained my hipflexor.  I continued to race it on through September basically just trying to ignore it.  So by the time the offseason started it was raging pretty hard.  I've been doing a lot of exercises/stretches to help it get better and it is almost back to 100% so with that out of the way I think I might do some cross races.  I did two in October, but once I realized they somehow weren't making my hipflexor feel better I had to back it off.  I think I'm gonna race the tacchino cross in Leesburg in a couple of weeks, we'll see.

Tomorrow I'm gonna start doing the winter Computrainer classes.  I train on the CT out at spokes in Vienna and teach classes twice a week.  That is really nice cause I get $$$...but not so nice cuz this year instead of spending at all I'm supposed to save it for college (weak).

I'll this post with saying that I did my training ride today in a long sleeve skin suit...is that bad?  why do people only race in something so fresh?

Epic Stuff

So today my teammate Blair and I headed out to do a pretty cool ride out past Sugarloaf onto some cool dirt roads.  About 1 hour into the ride Blair's rear derailleur exploded.  With that being no reason to stop a ride, we cut his chain, and he single speeded the next 80 miles in his 39x19.  So we were talking about it and decided that if I was going to start a blog that today would be the day.  That way I'll at least have one interesting post.  If this blog makes it past 5 posts then I'll consider a success on my behalf.

Our ride was pretty good despite having to jam up the hills and coast on all the downhills.  Riding with Blair is always good cuz he knows all the best roads out there.  I don't really want to talk about how my legs felt good/bad or anything, so I'll pass on that.

So I guess I'll finish up this inaugural blog post with a little bit about myself...My name is Nathan Wilson.  I am 17 and live in Arlington, VA, I like racing bikes...uh yeah its cool.  Next year is my last year racing in the juniors, which is sad, because juniors is pretty tight, but oh well.  I'm a cat. 2 and thats all I'll share for now.  Hopefully this blog doesn't suck, cuz I hate blogs that suck.