Last weekend was one of my most successful of this season. If you take a look at my season’s results, it is clear that I’m finally coming on form. As I expected, racing a lot the last month has really paid dividends. In the last 30 days, I’ve done 10 races and only 5 workouts. If you’re quick with math, you’ve already figured out that I spent the other 15 days out of the last 30 not riding at all.
I wasn’t going to be able to race the State Criterium on Sunday, as I was scheduled to work. When I started to look at the details of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb on Saturday, I started to see if I could trade shifts. I’m going through a bit of hill climb fatigue (I think many in Colorado are, as there have been more than usual this season), and I wasn’t too excited about the race. I could probably place in the top 10 and make a few dollars, but the State Crit started to look more appealing.
I last raced the State Crit in 2010, my first year as a Cat 2. I know the race will be a little harder than some of the recent races I’ve been placing well in, but I think I have a chance at a good result. The flat course doesn’t suit me terribly well, but it is technical enough that it doesn’t always come down to a pure field sprint. I’ll be tailoring this week’s training to try to be as fresh as possible for Sunday’s race.
Specifically, I’ll be doing more of what I’ve been doing the past few weeks: racing and resting. I don’t think I’ll make it out of the house for openers today, but if I could, I would ride about an hour with a few hard efforts. Tomorrow I’ll be racing the local training crit as hard as I can. I’ll take two more days off before the race, and that will be it.
Performance Manager Chart July 2012
A quick reminder on how to read the PMC above: Blue is fitness: You can see my fitness peak in early June, ending my build up for the State TT. Yellow is freshness: You can see my freshness increasing throughout early June as the State TT approached. Purple is fatigue. Fatigue has been high the past few weeks despite my low training volume. Racing is very stressful and now that I’ve got power data from racing, it is obvious how much stress can be generated from racing a few times per week.
The dotted lines show my plan for the rest of the week. A short mini-taper will hopefully put me on top form for the State Criterium in Longmont. The race is near Thompson Park at 2:25pm on Sunday the 15th. If you’re in the area, I encourage you to come out to watch what should be a very exciting race.
The Road to Cat 1 
Good luck.