Friday was a rest day, but I didn't get a whole lot of rest. Work was really stressful in the morning. It began with a pretty unpleasant call to a vendor who unfortunately, isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. I'm not sure why this happens, but when I'm under a lot of pressure, my legs really seem to tense up. I could almost feel my form slipping away. Tight legs can't produce much power on the bike. Luckily, there were two product release parties in the afternoon, and a couple of glasses of champagne later, I was relaxed, and my legs were feeling much better (kids: don't try this at home). I probably overindulged on the fine spread they had set up for the party though. When I'm feeling stressed out, my resistance to temptation is much lower than normal. I went for a spin in the evening just to fool myself into thinking I had done something productive that day, but I was so drained that all I could do was put around the block at about 15 mph. Some days are like that.

Today I rode for almost exactly four hours with 2.5 hours of solid tempo thrown in for good measure. Lots of high speed motoring on the flats, and several short, steep climbs - Crestview, Alameda de las Pulgas, Hillsdale, Bunker Hill, Mt. Eden, Pierce, Toll Gate, Sara Hills. The form definately looks to be coming around quite nicely. I was really motoring today, and attacking the steep climbs at near race pace. I went so hard today, that I actually started to cramp towards the end of the ride. That was encouraging to see. Its not easy to push yourself that hard in training! Today definately give me a bit of confidence after two pathetic days of training that I'm still on track to have a strong ride in San Francisco.

Recovery after a hard ride like that is super critical to translate a hard effort into real gains in fitness. When I got home, I quickly drank some Endurox, then heated up some leftovers. After lunch, I took a really wonderful hour-long nap. Tomorrow is going to be a long, long day in the saddle, so I really need to make sure I have my energy back by then.

Yesterday's workout was a bit blah.

A bit over two hours of endurance pace riding on the trainer while watching Lord of the Rings on the DVD. It always seems like if you have one really good workout - like I did on Wednesday, the workout the next day just seems a bit flat. Luckily for me, I'm training for a one-day event, and as long as I'm good on the one day I'll be happy. Preparing to peak on one given day is as much a mental excercise as it is physical. Next week is pretty much a rest week, with just a bit of mid week stimulation to keep me fresh. All week though I really want to replenish both my mental and physical reserves and fixate on Sunday - just let my focus and energy build up so that on race day I feel like I want to just rip the pedals off the bike.

Today is going to be a day filled with meetings at work. Actually, I'm going to be in various meetings all afternoon. To cap off the day, I have two different product release parties scheduled for late in the afternoon. They'll be fun I'm sure, but the Champagne and other treats will be a temptation that I will struggle to resist. My weight is floating around 163 - 164 lbs right now which is right where I want it, so I want to make sure that I don't do anything foolish to add a couple of pounds. On an interesting note, new guidelines from the American Institute of Medicine echo a couple of comments I made in a previous diary entry concerning weight loss. They state that what you eat is not as important as just making sure that you eat less than you burn from excersise. It comforting to hear a few scientists and doctors agree with my approach.

Meetings are the bane of any working cyclists training plan. Especially meetings late in the day.

I had planned to leave from work at 5 pm last night after a late afternoon engineering meeting, but the meeting dragged on, and on, and on. That totally disruppted my plans, but what can you do? I ended up still getting out to ride for two hours before it got dark, with two 30 minute, high speed tempo session where I put in numerous surges and attacks on every little rise. Kept the rpms super high at around 100 to 110. Not motorpacing exactly, but as close as I could come when things didn't work out with work to accomodate my training plans.

On the positive side, my legs felt simply brilliant as I motored around at a ridiculously high speed, and a remarkably low heart rate. I think that super hard workout last Wednesday is finally paying off...

Its been hot - sizzling, steaming hot - this weekend. I just feel a bit tired and sluggish right now. Nobody in northern California has central air I think. But, I got my windows open, a couple of fans on, and an ice pack on the back of my neck and I still feel cooked.

I think a reasonable amount of heat is good for you muscles though. I did quite a bit of riding and racing today, and my legs felt really good the entire time. Two hours of moderate endurance pace riding in the morning, followed by a quick nap, lunch, and then the 45 mile Giro di San Francisco Criterium in the afternoon. I felt like I could do pretty much almost anything I wanted in the crit, which was quite a surprise. Normally, by this race, my legs are painfully sore after two hard days of racing coming so late in the season. Feeling good today was a welcome surprise. Our team was going to have its work cut out defending our slim margin in the Cal Cup points omnium. We're not a great crit team, and Dave Fuentes - the rider nipping at our heals in second - is a stellar crit rider. We played our cards fairly well, placing Marc in the break of the race along with Mr. Fuentes, but just weren't able to beat him. Marc finished the race in 5th, and placed 2nd overall in the Cal Cup. We fought well, but just came up a bit short.

I think one of the reasons I've had such good legs this weekend (well - Sunday and Monday at least) was becuase of the amount of time and effort I spent on recovery. A good recovery drink of Endurox quickly after each race. I'm not sure what precisely is in Endurox that makes you legs feel so good so quickly, but it really seems to reduce muscle soreness and fatigue. I've also been getting tons and tons of sleep. Probably 10 to 11 hours each day including naps. It helps a lot to replenish energy reserves - especially in hot weather.

Tomorrow is another rest day. I don't think I'm going to even bother looking at my bike. Wednesday is going to be really hard with some super fast motorpacing, so taking a break both mentally and physically is really essential.

Today was a ton of fun.

I've done the University Road Race in Santa Cruz four times now, and normally it has been such a horrible, painful, suffer-fest trying to survive dozens of attacks by the all powerful Lombardi's squad. This year though, the riders from Lombardi's have been split among Lombardi's and Sierra Nevada, with our team picking up probably the best of them all - 1998 National Champ Patrick Heaney. Its made the racing much more tactical and interesting this season, and today was no different. A bit of a surprise really considering the difficulty of the course. Its a short 2.5 mile loop - half climbing, half descdending - that always forces a selection.

The race started at a much more sedate pace than normal. Everyone was looking at each other waiting for something to happen - trying to get a read on how to play their cards. Mutant-climber Chris Walker launched a few attacks, but nothing much really happened for the 1st half of the race. Then in the course of two laps the race exploded into life. I got in a break on lap 10 that wasn't good for our team - just the wrong mix of riders. I sat on, and we were caught half a lap later. Ted countered and followed Tim Larkin from Lombardi's up the road, and was quickly joined by Marc and a few other riders and the race was over.

Ted played the role of super-domestique to help Marc move up to 1st place in the Cal Cup points omnium by taking 4th behind young Saturn star Damon Kluck. Ted somehow managed to hold on to take 6th. Behind him, me and Darren helped spring Patrick free to take 9th, but most importantly put distance on our main rival in the Cal Cup. Darren and I saw him yo-yoing at the back with about four laps to go, so we dropped the hammer and pounded a lot of nails into his coffin. I ended up 11th with Darren in 12th. We may not have won, but our team placed five riders in the top 15. The local pro team, Sierra Nevada, only was able to get two riders in the top 15.

It was still a hard day - about 150 bpm average for 2:25. Probably the quickest race I've done on this course, with the average speed over 22.5 mph. Thankfully, my legs felt pretty good all day - nothing spectacular, but solid. Taking Thursday and Friday easy really blocked my legs up, and I felt pretty rotten most of the race yesterday - slow. Today though, my legs had opened up quite nicely, and it felt great to be riding so well.

After the race I put in another 1:40 of moderate, endurance pace riding. About 30 miles with a 120 average heart rate. These extra miles come in handy at the end of long, hard races. My legs were pretty sore for the first hour, but in the last forty minutes they really started to feel good. I guess that's how long it took to flush out all the lactic acid from the race.

One more super hard day tomorrow - a long crit plus a couple more hours of steady riding to build my fitness. I'm really looking forward to taking a day off and just working on tuesday.