Blather on Bicycling

Our local road crews are to be commended for turning Summerville Road into the smoothest road in the valley. Usually country roads like this are chip sealed into a rough surface, but not in this case. The recently completed road is absolutely mint. The section between Imbler and Summerville, previously the worst road in the valley, was transformed into a super fast blacktop surface. Now the scienic Imbler/Summerville loop (Summerville > Courtney > Books roads) is really a treat. This loop includes my favorite biking road in the valley, Brooks. Although this is a short road, the surface is good and I think it has the best 360 view around.

I occasionally get questions about how much I train for my racing. Below I have outlined some stats from my training season last year (2006 racing season):

260 Rides
Distance = 16,000 km
Hours = 587
AVG speed = 27 km/h
Training Days = 5 per week with 3 long rides
Ride types = mostly road and cyclocross riding on gravel roads

AVG Windspeed = 9 mph average
AVG Temperature = 55 degree F

This training helped me move up to Category 3 for road racing in USCF and OBRA in early 2006. I’m anxious to get started with a new season of training, which I will start next weekend. Here is my plannned schedule, which is fairly similar to my training plan last year:

Sather Training Plan 2007

I rarely miss a day of scheduled training, which is a challenge in La Grande due to the snow and cold. I often shuffle around the scheduled rides for the week, depending on conditions. The information is based  largely on the concepts of Chris Carmichael (The Ultimate Ride, Berkley Trade, 2004), with some of the plan based on workouts from Joe Friel (The Cyclist’s Training Bible [2nd ed], VeloPress, 2004). I’ve read quite a few books on cycling, and I think Carmichael provides the best approach.

This year I have purchased the Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS, so now I’ll be able to have unlimited fun with ride data. In fact, if someone wants a virtual race against me I’ll email you a file to download to your Garmin GPS (Edge or Forerunner).