2006 Racing -- CAT 4

In the fall of 2005, I developed a training plan for the 2006 season based on Joe Friel's Cyclist Training Bible. I bought a powertap and planned on using power for my training from now on. Here was the tentative training plan with a peak from May 22-June 25, then again from Aug. 21 - Sept 4.

Well, the training was going fine, then at the first race (a local criterium series in Boulder), I found out that I had the speed to keep up with the pack, but no sprint. So, I did what you should never do, and I changed my training plan mid season. I had been reading a book by Michael Ross and rewrote my plan to get the power I needed to win. Here was the plan I wrote in March (with results):

Michael Ross prescribes workouts a little differently than Friel. It really changed my training plan and for the first couple months my results got worse and worse. I got 11th before changing the plan, then got 22nd, 15th, DNF, 35th, 32nd. Then, when I started doing the HIT workouts, something clicked and I started developing some real speed. From then on, it was smooth sailing through the rest of the year to get results.

I would write race recaps to my team or family after the races and it's interesting to see how my mood and results changed throughout the changes in the training plan. By the end of August, I had achieved enough good results to upgrade at CAT 4 to a CAT 3.

Another thing to note is that I started lifting weights 3 times a week starting in March to help get some more power out of the legs. I was doing back extensions, squats, leg curls, bench, upright rows, leg extensions and crunches. I lifted 3x a week until June 1st. Incidentally, my first good result was two weeks after I stopped lifting weights. During that period, my weight had increased from 180lbs to 195lbs.

As a reference, my power to weight references during that period for various intervals were:
5 seconds -- 1280 Watts, or 14.79 W/kg (2/12/07)
1 minute -- 6.47 W/kg (10/13/06)
5 minute -- 4.19 W/kg (10/13/06)