Training

Last season, I focused on building up the areas that I was naturally strong in - high intensity, anaerobic efforts and explosive burst speed. Track racing is my jam!!! I finished 2012 with a wicked high cadence (150+ for >2mns), a natural cadence in the low 100's, and a better understanding of what it means to push myself in a race.

2013 Goals

1. Increase FTP to an upper Cat 4/lower Cat 3 range
2. Improve timed track events 

The plan

I started off this year working with Yale Cycling's coaching sponsor, Aiden Charles, who has been steering me towards greater force development and technical refinement. The whopping cadence is there when I need it, but for now I am slowing it down to 90-95rpm for endurance pacing and upping the gears instead. We are also working on building aerobic base, endurance, and climbing ability so that I can better adapt to longer road races - which will be necessary if I am even considering a category upgrade this year. This will be the year of working on filling in the gaps and addressing weaknesses, and racing to win!

My training plan is 7 days a week, with two of those days being active recovery days (45mns-1 hour easy, recovery rides), and 5 being mixed force development, lactate threshold, climbing and sprint efforts. Oh, and power starts (big front ring, small cassette ring) from a stand still. Lots of them. 

I am also focusing on eating right for racing, and suplimenting with LOTS of vitamins because I have a LOT of nutritional gaps. 

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I confess to being delinquent in uploading to Strava, so there's not much to see there. 

I've started using Golden Cheetah software for analyzing and tracking my data. It's free, and awesome, and if you use Linux it will make you feel right at home (it is compatible with all platforms). Check it out: goldencheetah.org