The Final Week: Time To Fret

It’s now August 8th, six days before Quadzilla, the 400-mile, 28,000 feet of climbing event in Ithaca, N.Y. for which I have been training for months.  My power numbers are showing that I have improved significantly, by some measures by more than 10 percent.  Overall, my numbers are comparable in many ways to those the week before last fall’s Endless Mountains 1240k, which went well.

But now I worry about the final days.  Am I resting enough?  Will I be sharp on the day of the event?  Hard to know for sure.

I had a busy week.  Thursday I did another one-hour time trial on the spinner, raising my record calorie output to 827 kcal.  That compares with a high of 736 kcal for the same duration last fall before the EM 1240.  I can feel a difference in my cruising speed.  On Friday, during one burst during a recovery ride, I hit 479 watts for one minute, the highest level for me in two years.   Saturday was a Hillier Than Thou training ride, 65 miles long with about 5500 feet of gain.  I took the first climb Stephensburg Road at 300 watts for the first 5 minutes, then the second climb of Coleman Hill Rd 314 watts.  This was probably too strong at the start.  I didn’t make it all the way up Fiddlers Elbow, having to walk the end of its 25 percent grade section.  Fiddlers gets into my head somehow.  Sometimes I make it, sometimes not.  My overall numbers of 163 watts absolute and 218 normalized were very good compared to my results this year and comparable to some of my best numbers on similar rides.  Today I rode 61 miles to the Sourlands Ridge with the Cyclepaths.  My wattage numbers were 143 absolute and 172 normalized, right in the middle of aerobic range, which was the goal.  I felt comfortable.

Now I’m winding down, with no more longer rides planned before the event and with easy to moderate rides each day with just one intense 30-minute session on the spinner Tuesday.  Oh, and I’m taking tomorrow Monday off completely.  According to my software, this will leave me well enough rested, with a TSB (Training Stress Balance) of about 20 and rising and a CTL (Chronic Training Load) of about 104, which would be only an 8 percent drop in fitness from my season peak of 113 today.

My attitude is good.  Except I can’t help worrying a little.  It’s always that way before a big event.

Jud

Goal event is six days away.  Too late to do anything to change fitness level.  Now I’ll just try to rest and throw in enough work so I won’t lose too much fitness.