First "race" of the year under my belt!

Yesterday was a good day. Went up to VQ headquarters in Lake Bluff, with 7 of my VQ Morton teammates. The purpose was to do some base testing, on the computrainer multi-rider, so it's like all 8 of us racing against each other, on a computerized course. The course selected is none other than the Coors Classic Morgul-Bismarck (sp) hill ride.

I have not had any performance testing since the spring of 04, so I had no idea what to expect. We did our warm up for 20+ minutes, and then had to get the computers calibrated. Looking at the course profile, ie: HILLS, I knew I wouldn't be the winner of this one (Being gravitationally challenged has it's drawbacks). BUT, the only reason I was here was to see how many avg. watts I could put out for the duration of the race.


Here's what we looked like at VQ, although this is not us.

25 minutes into the test, my compu-trainer "blew" up! Totally seized up. I would like to think that my wattage blew the machine up, but that was not the case. Just a fluke. Overall, I did the course in 38:01 avg. 247 watts. What does that mean? It means I am getting some fitness back, but I am probably off by 20% in wattage, and 50% in fitness & recovery. It's February, and the season is long.......

Race notes: Stan, the VQ Godfather, who's age I will not mention, but he is in his 50's, SMOKED the test! He threw down almost 290 watts average, and beat the nearest competitors (Bartonville & Michaelson) by a couple of minutes, who are ALMOST 1/2 his age.......I think he's on EPO, or just trains hard, the latter is probably more true.


This is the screen we watch on the LCD projector as we race! It's pretty cool, and high-tech.

























Here's some pics of the Range Rover, that I thought I would throw in, or as we call it, The Grover.