From Western HQ

Teenie and I arrived Friday (1/28) and have had some very busy days.  Construction is going on here at the house.

This is the view from one of our guest bedrooms through the new door and highlights the new patio.

We have been getting the house opened, errands run and a few things fixed.  Roger says the gremlins always come in and break stuff while we are gone?

The weather has been a little cold and we had about 18 hours of rains, which is very unusual.  You can see it was snow up on the mountain.  We are only here for 7 days until we leave for Telluride.  We have never been there and are looking forward to it.  They have very little snow.    I have a new snowboard so I am concerned about tearing it up on the rocks!

We have ridden the last three days despite the funky weather.  We have stayed warm and dry.   We are trying to just get some miles in.   Real training does not start until after Telluride.   I have gotten a little over 7 hours in the 3 days including a great MTB ride in the Tortolitas.   Teenie and I left HQ by bike and rode out into the desert.   We ran into 3 guys who showed us nice trails.  I am learning my way around.

Tomorrow we are starting the year right with a ride to Gates Pass....60+ miles........some of you know it.   Sun all day!

I will be turning attention to Camp as soon as we return from snowboarding.

Plans for the agenda will be out.  Hopefully our kits are in soon.

The season is not far away.   Hincapie is having 4 weekends of racing this year and it is starting the weekend of Camp........crazy, it seems, to start that early??

Stay warm, healthy and hopefully get some winter miles in!


 

Captain's Roles for 2013

The Captain’s role with TEAM headstrong is evolving.   The TEAM leadership thought it would be worthwhile to define this role.  Along with defining the role, a subtle change has been made.  We will no longer have a Men’s Captain and a Women’s Captain.   We will have two Captains.......Sam and Bird.  They will share the responsibilities below for the WHOLE TEAM:

Motivation

• Promote events, races and training
• Encourage participation
• Lead by example
• Support the TEAM goals - help set the goals

Mentor members

• Personal goal development and attainment
• Help ride leaders on training rides
• Help in development
• Coach on upgrades
• Provide race info

Communicate

• Mediate problems - conduit to leadership
• Accept feedback - conduit to leadership
• Listen

Racing support

• Info on races, courses, cats etc
• Logistical support
• Race goals
• Strategy
• Tactics

Let me know if you have any questions.........looking forward to our new season!

ENDURANCE PACE RIDE

In our group TEAM ride today, we had 20+ riders of varied ability.   We had some new riders whose strength is unknown to me.

Our goal was maintain endurance pace which has a wide band.   Realizing there are riders stronger and not as strong, I tried to stay in the middle of the band.   Intensity Factor is a power measurement and endurance rides for me, are .70-.79.   Today, for me, was .74 IF.

Below is my HR.  At this phase in the year, I rely strongly on HR as well as power.   I also always pay attention to my Perceived Rate of Exertion.   Later in race season, I pretty much just train on power.



The chart above is for today's ride.   The ride certainly was a right down the middle of the alley and would have been a strike if we were bowling.  Almost all the time was in Z1-Z3.  If anything, I could have gone a little harder.

I suspect that we had people who were barely at Endurance Pace and some at Tempo....these are the zones below and above.

Whether you use, power, HR, Perceived Rate of Exertion or a combo of all.  LET ME KNOW WHAT THE RIDE PACE WAS FOR YOU.   YOUR FEEDBACK WILL HELP MANAGE FUTURE RIDES.

Thanks for coming....I love TEAM rides!

PS>  Was there a guy out there today on a mountain bike?

Dawn 2 Dusk

What an amazing experience!   We never took a picture.   It came at us fast and hard.   The riding was one thing.....we combined for about 127 miles in 9:46.   Teenie took 3 laps(as fast as my laps) and I took 5.  We were busy as cranberry merchants between laps.........the organization needed was overwhelming.

We came close to obtaining our goals 100%.   I lost traction in a sandy corner and fell....no big deal.  My last 2 laps fell off on speed as I went back to back.  To tell you the truth, we rode much faster than we thought and got in one more lap than anticipated.  We missed the cutoff by about 5 minutes for yet another lap.  No matter, we had no lights which were required for the last lap.   We have exactly zero experience riding in the dark......not that anything like that ever stopped us.

Very happy for Teenie.  She proved, yet again, she can be one TUFFCHIK.   She fought back the emotional drag of crashes in MOAB and at El Tour(recent weeks).   She has taught people to overcome their fears for 20 years but that doesn't exempt her from her own.

I learned a lot about this type of race:

*  Race org is everything and it is complicated.
*  You need lots of stuff.
*  When your female partner is turning in lap times equal to yours, it is very motivating.
*  Your team mate can fall asleep and not be on the course for support when are you going back to back laps.
*  Girls are amazing.  Their bikes never get as dirty as boys.
*  Hangin' out all day, with a bunch of people that like what you like, is fun.
*  When Teenie and I pin a number on, we are racing.....even if we don't know crap about what we are doing.  I could tell you 'we just rode for fun' but that would be pure BS.
*  This race was about 1/100th as dangerous as El Tour de Tucson.
*  A team mate(wife) who rides 4 miles to get the SUV and packs the thing to the brim, while you are on the last lap, is invaluable.
*  Chipotle, the title sponsor, makes awesome tacos.  Maybe they were just OK and we were starved after a day of racing?
*  A race, like this, can leave you hungry for 3 days.

We came away pretty jazzed and I am sure we will try to field more teams next year in this event.   I am already planning for 12 Hours at Tsali (May 11, 2013).

Are you a Tsali racer?

Hope to see this weekend!