Just a thought for those racing Saturday in Prospect and Sunday at Housatonic:

Either cut down your efforts Tuesday through Thursday or shift them. The idea is to be a bit fresher for Sunday by taking away some of your acute training load.

So, for those on the Tuesday/Thursday intervals schedule, I'd shift Thursday's efforts to Wednesday and do a few less of whatever on Wednesday, take Thursday really easy or off, and then openers on Friday.

Those who do Tuesday and Wednesday hard, make Wednesday a bit easier, possibly, ironically, by doing harder, shorter efforts.

You can't really improve your fitness between now and the weekend, but you can add a little sharpness with some 1m or 2m efforts, and you can improve your freshness by resting a bit more.

You could also cut down your efforts to just one hard workout during the week. Like a race Tuesday or Wednesday. Or a workout on Wednesday that hits all the major efforts, sprints, anaerobic, VO2, Threshold, and Tempo, in one package.

Would it be unwise to do a long ride (around 130-150 miles) on Wed and race Housatonic on Sunday?

The reason I ask is I have a double century (flat) on the 25th in DC ("Total 200" Ride) it's not a race but I want to hold a good pace

i'm planning on resting monday-friday next week (easy 1-2 hour rides with little speed)

@ John. There's no two ways about it. 130-150 miles at ANY pace is going to effect your ability to perform in your race on Sunday. Unless you are accustomed to those kinds of miles.

But depending on your priorities, it may not matter. Do what sounds like fun to you this week. Ultimately you cannot be in winning form for every race you enter during the season, and if a more important goal for you is a good double century performance, then Housatonic is more about training.

I think...If you do 130 miles on Wednesday, then spin SUPER easy on Thursday for 30-40 minutes. Friday OFF the bike. Saturday easy with a few leg/lung opening efforts of a few minutes in length. Sunday, see how it goes, but be reasonable with your expectations.

Also, make sure you are properly replenishing calories and fluids both during and after your big rides. With that much stress on your body, you are going to need to follow a smart eating/drinking plan to allow your body to properly recover from Wednesday to Sunday and beyond.

John,
Yes, 130 miles is long and will probably impact your Housatonic negatively. However, you can minimize the impact a few ways.

A huge one is sleep. If you can sleep long Wednesday night (like 9-10 hours), and continue sleeping extra through Sunday, your recovery will be better. Arguably, half a pro bike rider's job is recovery and sleep is an important part of that.

Another is make sure you don't bonk on Wednesday and you eat loads after you finish. So eat early and often. Drink early and often.

Maybe on thursday just ride rollers. Maybe get a mid-day nap Friday.

bump

I can't believe I'm the first one to start this thread. A couple of things about stage 1

Intermediate Sprint: Holy cow, check out the overhead shot of Farrar out-accelerating everyone to easily pick up 4th place points. Impressive.

Crashing hopes: I couldn't care less about Contador, but the fact that Christian VandeVelde lost so much time today too, really bums me out.

Am I the only bloke watching this thing? Maybe if I mention Floyd Bennett Field and knee socks and I'll get someone else to comment too. Haha.

Okay, TTT. Reminds me of the Kissena Club Championship last year a bit. I felt bad for the guys on teams that struggled and fell off their train. It's sort of amazing that even while getting a 1 in 9 rider rest interval sitting in the draft, you can still get ridden off the wheels of your teammates. Of course I believe it, because that's what happened to me at FBF last year.

And thinking about the 2011 Club Championships, if they are at FBF, where staying away from the field seems appreciably harder than at PP, I wonder if we employ a tactic that seemed to happen by happen-stance last year. Namely do we have one or two of our stronger guys skipping pulls in the early stages, leaving them with fresher legs as Mengoni's and We Stand Uniteds come flying through, ready to jump on those wheels? Or do we go all in, spend some time practicing TTT-ing before race day and hope that we can keep the field at bay?

Regardless, I plan on wearing socks from my youth, knee-high, cotton with 3 stripes at the top. Interestingly, despite one club member's suggestion (was it you JP?), that those shoe covers are actually less aero, most teams yesterday seemed to have their kicks all covered up. I gotta believe someone's wind-tunnel tested the difference by now?

Nope, I'm with you Marc. Either I'm an easy audience today, or the Phil and Paul are getting funnier. Love Bobke calling sprinters "the honey badgers of cycling"

LOL. @Bill, what the hell is a honey badger? And will she go to the prom with me?

I too am watching in between long periods staring in the mirror and careful measurements of sock length in both metric and US standard measurement.

I agree with Bill about the honey badger comment, though my favorite commentary highlight so far happened the other day when Phil referred to someone from the Europcar squad as a "colored cyclist."

Hah, that's funny. As a fellow Brit, I can tell you that there was some introduction of the term 'coloured' as it was in some quarters deemed to in some way (not sure how) be less offensive than 'black'. I remember once at my Saturday job as a teenager I referred to one customer as 'black' to my boss and he chided me for not using the more correct term of 'coloured'. Your post has just reminded me how absolutely ridiculous describing a person as 'coloured' is (red, green, blue??). Very funny.

Do love Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwen. No idea how it'll work when they're no longer doing the talking bit.

Posted By: Marc BertuccoLOL. @Bill, what the hell is a honey badger? And will she go to the prom with me?

They are particularly ferocious. For a much more thorough explanation, here is a primer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg

Man, those French guys will really do anything to relegate Cav:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/cavendish-hushovd-relegated-in-tour-de-france-sprint

interestingly, Thor offered to take the whole punishment himself. I dunno, I think if they were just groping for things to slap Cav with, they wouldn't have gone after Thor in Yellow and WC, too.

What happened to HTC's train this morning? It evaporated in the final k...

Eisel pulled off after taking a pretty wimpy pull and even Tony "The Panzerwagen" Martin couldn't make up for it, I think. After his idiot crash in yesterday's TTT, he's probably not getting a lot of love on the team bus.

Saw this surprising photo of contador warming up for the TTT

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/photos/start-line-gallery-photos-from-stage-2-of-the-tour-de-france/180343

what's odd about it is he's wearing a $35 evaporative cooling vest rather than a much-fancier ice vest.

Here's the vest:
http://www.cruisercustomizing.com/detail.cfm?Category_ID=8&manufacturer_ID=468&product_ID=45584&sblid_name=TechNiche_International_HyperKewl_Evaporative_Cooling_Ultra_Sport_Vest&utm_source=froogle&utm_medium=na&utm_campaign=froogle&utm_content=45584

I have one myself as I figured the $200 or so for an ice vest isn't worth it for my efforts. But his? Surprised Bjarne didn't find him a colder warmup top.

BTW, my take on the stage is that the teams pulled back the break too soon. That, more than Eisel's and Martin's efforts was the difference. I'm wondering if the bridge and the winds slowed down the break faster than the chasers expected.

Ohhh, Honey Badger will definitely not go to the prom with me. "Honey Badger don't care, Honey Badger don't give a shit."

And because it's my day off, and I just did a hard indoor workout and I have VS and a DVR, I watched today's finish a lot. From my point of view HTC was looking okay until Cav let his two teammates' wheels go. Then there's a gap, then a swarm, then Cav is back in position, albeit about 7 riders back. And then when Garmin starts their leadout, Cav loses the wheels in front of him again and manages to fight back for 5th.

I think Cav would have been better off if he hung onto his two last guys' wheels, avoiding one surge, and then surfing easily onto another rider's wheel as they came over the top of Cav's official leadout men. But by letting his guys go, he gave himself an extra match to burn as he struggled to reposition himself as other riders swarmed and bridged up to the two separated HTC riders.

Interesting blog entry from Chris Horner about the TTT rotation order, among other things..

http://www.cascadegranfondo.com/blog/tdf-stage-two-ttt-time

I'm enjoying this tour so far. The commercials are awful. I can't believe they pay these guys for this shit.

Mark, I think I found a prom date for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaNJPlXk2uM&feature=player_profilepage

the way those guys were sprinting reminds me of these "little bullies"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaNJPlXk2uM&feature=player_profilepage

I still remember when OLN (now VS) first started broadcasting the tour and the only commercials were for DR Chippers. I wanted one in the worst way. Low budget commercials, but nothing beats a medium shot of a small tree being turned into mulch.

I find the hover-round commercials to be a welcome respite from Bob Roll dancing around like a jackass.

I'm digging the Nissan spots with the gas powered alarm clock, dentist drill, etc.

And the Michelob Ultra is going down like water...

i'm digging these skoda commercials

this one is from 2007, but it's basically the same thing with different jerseys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e61gei8AIpA&feature=related

That was a really great finish - Contador almost looked human! When he stood up and attacked I thought "ok, this is where he just smashes everyone, as usual" - but it didn't happen. What a ride by Thor to stay in yellow too, wow.

This early time loss by AC is going to bring some hellacious attacking in the mountains. Should be really exciting!

I feel like i'm missing out not seeing these commercials, but to see them I'd risk watching Bob Roll, and those stakes are too high for me.

Instead I'm watching the tour on Eurosport, with David Harmon and King Kelly commentating, which is pretty good although it does have it's own advert nightmare in the shape of Basso&Nibali cooking up some "Sidi Cycling Shoes" .

final kilometers, pretty cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOs1yw0MwnQ