Training Log Archive: Flight

C • Really long warm up 2

I was super nervous for this race. I hadn't ever piloted in a Peloton of tandems.
My race strategy was stick with the men for as long as I could. Then go hard.
This worked.
Benoit and Matt took off on the second lap. They went HARD and no one was able to chase them down. We tried. The friend cracked to Ben + Matt bike alone in front. Robbie + Audrey (olimpic), Cindy + pilot (Quebec), Lowell + Mark (Alberta), Kevin + Scott (Ontario), Quebec men, us. The rest were behind.
There were a lot of attacks. Some lulls of taking turns pulling. Audrey attack after every one of our pulls. We reeled her in each time. A few times I will credit to scotts strong wheel.
We kept with the group until 3 laps to go then we got behind Cindy after an attack and she fell off the group, rather than come around and pull her back to the group, I sat on her wheel for a bit then came around for a pull. The group ahead exploded, Robbie was dropped half a lap after us but stayed ahead of us.
We worked with Cindy for the last few laps tsking short pulls and keeping the pace up.
500m to go they tried to drop us by picking up the pace. I wasn't having it.
200m to go I pulled us up beside them
150 I yelled at Carla to go and upshifted us to track mode and started the sprint.
We dropped them right away.
Took home second place. Audry gave us congratulations and said "holy you're strong." Then said she'd like to have us at their training camp this summer.
So.
That's a thing that may happen.
Team Canada training camp.
Holy
Shit.

C • Wow! 6

TT
I was still a bit nervous for the hairpin, particularly with the wind.

First one out of the gate. We were off quick with a pace van.
A gust of on the first chicane surprised me and almost blew us into the pylons, I swore and apologized to Carla. We picked the pace back up. Swooping left and right into the first "hill" drop a gear and took off up it into the a gust of wind.
More swooping down hill turns. A bit of break for the tighter left that tended to have people on it in our warm up the day before.
Last corner then a straight shot for 1km to the hairpin. Into the drops (vs aeros) took a bit of brake and coasted through the hairpin then yelled at Carla to go just through the apex of the turn. Back in the aeros to flat through our second shot at the long straight into the headwind of lap two.
Pedaled through all the corners save the one left on the back stretch. Took the hairpin faster but still a bit hesitant.
Lap three. Picked up the pace just a touch confident through the hairpin.
Lap four, keeping that quicker pace. Controlling the bike in the drops for the gusty areas. Last time around the hairpin, made it my bitch and took it fast. Upshift in the apex and stomped on the pedals to bring our pace up.
The last lap we brought the average pace for our ride up by 0.5km. Ripped through the finish line at 50km/hr and grabbed a bit of brake to hit the hairpin and roll slow through a cool down lap.
It was a good ride.
Carla was strong through.
We took 3rd place out of 10 tandems (factored against the men).
We were 1:03 behind Olympic ladies.
Carla was the only stoker to drop her time from last year.
Worse conditions. Faster ride.
Turned some heads.

C • 50 kph! 2

Pre laps
Construction didn't allow for us to test the hairpin. Which is too bad.
Made some tweaks to the handlebar position for me for the TT.

Day of packing with a little riding and coffee

Few easy gear spin ups
A few big gear spin ups
Mostly E2

Got home from the clinic at 9pm
Jumped on the trainer for 3 x 3 min map efforts, 5 min in between.

Watts are as follows:
301
305
310

Rollers

Same a spot last week.
2 times through

9min E4
3 off
7 min E4
2 off
5 min E4
1 off
3 min E4
5 off

Target was higher than last week. Held Ave 5 watts higher while both max and Ave HR were about 7 beats lower.