My Daily Ground: Week in Review + W&M Preview + Spring Break!

Update: This photo is the ride back from the Naval academy when I was playing around with my Gorilla Pod, I thought the photo came out really cool with the blur and decided I wanted to share.

Gorilla Pod with Rebel XT - DSLR

The quality of my training continues to increase as the season progresses having an opportunity to ride everyday but Tuesday this week. Monday's SAYG'esque ride set the pace for the rest of the week with a rest day Tuesday and a 45 miler on Wednesday. On Wednesday I went out with the team for a group ride, 6 of us riding together. We initially planned for ~2 hours but everyone wanted to do more and I wasn't about to make everyone ride less so I just went with the flow.

We have a pretty gorgeous ride out Mt. Tabor Rd. all the way until we hit Rt. 311 and came back Blacksburg Rd., taking just over 2.5 hours. Garmin Connect details here.

Power Data from Wednesdays ride.

The Garmin Connect data from Wednesday ride, see all those topo lines...Yeah you're tellin' me.

After the ride I grabbed a quick bite and headed to TriAdventure Triathlon practice where we had an opportunity to run through transitions and then headed to the pool for an hour of swimming. My legs were pretty exhausted by the time I got in the pool but I felt really good in the pool and confident about the swim portion of my upcoming triathlon.

Coach Kelly told me should would laugh at me if I stopped to tie my shoes during a transition and recommened I purchase a set of Yankz, elastic shoe laces that make transitions easier apparently (I just didn't want to be laughed at by my coach and fell into the peer pressure). We all received these VERY bright orange swim caps that has their logo, but more importantly will allow our coaches to see where we are in the pool.

Yankz shoe laces and our VERY bright orange TriAdventure swim caps.

which of course I had to try on...That's my swimming fish face, kinda goofy Haha.

Thursday afternoon I hopped on the trainer in the evening for two efforts at LT. Last week during my time trial I recorded new 10 minute and 30 minute peak power, 243 and 226 Watts respectively, which I then interpolated to find my new 20 minute LT of 235 or around 220Watts for 60 minutes. That's what I aimed for on my ride yesterday during my 2x15 min. efforts. I was pretty happy with the intervals:

Power Data from Thursdays LT trainer ride.

This morning I did my usual Friday morning routine of cleaning my bike and packing all of my bags for another weekend of racing, except this weekend I had to pack for a week at home for spring break. While cleaning my bike I decided it was time to retire the American Flag tape and upgrade to Fi'zi:k tape.

What the tape used to look like before it had been ridden for a few months.

My new ish...or New Hotness!

The new hotness is for this weekends race at William and Mary. Now one funny thing about William & Mary is that it's the second oldest university in the U.S. and they still don't have a mascot. I mean 400 years and you can't figure out a mascot? Really? At one point they were the Tribe and then the Ebirt (Tribe Backwards), seriously?

Continuing on, the weekend consists of a 12-Individual Time Trial tomorrow and a road race on Sunday. I'm finally not first in the Men's C which is exciting and will hopefully results in a better performance.

The courses: