The Countdown

So this weekend, I had a revelation of the oracle type. I am only going to be in San Francisco for one more weekend before I jettison off to the People's Republic. Its quiet surreal but exciting and sad all at the same time. There will be many new surprises for me in the coming weeks as I move out of my norm and into the un-norm. I decided I need to make a list of things to do so my departure will go off without much disaster. I hope the weather doesn't turn sour and I am trekking east through snow storm after snow storm. After my 12 hour trip to Long Beach earlier this month, I'm kind of exhausted with roadway malaise.

Training this past weekend went pretty well. Saturday was a big day with threshold intervals, 3x20min. I basically felt like collapsing after each one but thats good b/c I know that I am pushing myself. Shawn has been pushing me to try to keep my form together for the entire workout and now kill the first one but keep a steady upward trend through the workout. I think the message got to me on Saturday. I did the first one at 335w, 2nd at 332w and 3rd at 326w. So I had a power decay of only 9w from the first to the last. Thats a super narrow range compared to the Tuesday's workout of 343 and 327, 18w range. I guess the key was starting a little more conservative and not killing myself as I rode out of Mill Valley up to Tam. On the 2nd one, I had this guy jump on my wheel which kind of threw off my rhythm. I don't like when I have people riding my wheel who I don't know. This guy was pretty strong but its just not cool to ride another dude's wheel when he is working out especially on a road as narrow as the one up Tam. Finally got my rhythm back and let the jag ride away from me. The last one was a killer. I started on a flat section which required me to spin pretty high before going vertical. The change in cadence is pretty hard on the system. Fortunately I had my rabbit ahead of me. A fit, ValueAct Capital rider. She was a pretty good climber. But I couldn't identify her on a mug shot which is typical of cyclists. Its funny b/c cyclists get all geared up and go riding and ride with people for year's but never see them w/o their gear on. The guy or gal you race with every weekend could be the one sipping a latte next to you in a cafe but you would probably never know it b/c cyclists like to james bondish. People think I'm just some tall straight-edge bloke but what they don't know is that I have a wild side, yep I do. Now back after my little digression. VAC rider was pretty strong which gave me the motivation I needed to keep the wattage high. Pretty hammered after the last interval but thats good.

Sunday was a flat recovery ride. I was thinking about doing some climbing but legs were just not feeling too snappy so I renegotiated the ride route and chose to go on a high-cadence, flat ride. Ending up doing almost 5 hours. The secret to getting the most from you body is realizing that some days are not going to be good so its okay and definitely recommended to get those recovery rides in. The results of good, hard training can only be fully realized if you take a proper approach to nutrition, recovery and rest. I'm definitely going to heed more to that advice this year. Last year I just rode myself to the ground but it was good, I wouldn't go back and change. But I learned some things which should make me a more powerful rider.

Monday it started raining here and got gnarly cold by NorCal standards. Boy am I in for a rude awakening. It was only in the 40s and I was pretty damn cold. Decided to play a little touristy on Monday. Had a really nice breakfast at Crepes on Cole then N-Judah'd it to Emarcardero. Walked around a little bit before making my way to Chinatown. I will definitely miss the variety of spots and cultures when I leave here. Chinatown is an adventure all in itself. You basically leave the US by all observable purposes and walk into a street carnival of dried seafood, massive amounts of people, stores full of priceless shit, and weird looking foods. Its basically sensory overload. Its more difficult than a game of frogger to navigate the streets as you have people pushing and pulling all kinds of goods. If you want weird dried game, here it is. Need 20lbs of ginseng? If you have the cash, you can get it here and set up a little herbal medicinal.

As always keep it real, and keep on trucking...

Matthew