August 23 - 29 Riding

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This week was an example of how school is going to limit my cycling time. It's not only the academics, but the social life too because Friday I was set to do a 40 mile ride, but we had a school rally, and I was just so pumped that I didn't really feel like biking so I went to Wingstop (Chicken Wings restaurant) with 3 other friends, but at least I had fuel for Saturday's ride. But anyways, I do have a weekly minimum of 9 hours so I'm good, but by 5 minutes...

Alright so on Monday it was close to 85 degrees...in South San Francisco! So Kenneth and I biked around South San Francisco, Westborough and Hickey--> El Camino Real, to be exact. It was a fast paced ride and we had some shade for 1/3 of the loop we did. On Tuesday it was even hotter, so I did homework and then rode at around 5:45 and it was great, nice and breezy. I stayed around South San Francisco, around Mission Rd and Chestnut and Commercial and Orange Park. Saturday I did an easy Solo Ride to Woodside, and did a sort of time trial effort, but it was pretty easy and fun. Then Sunday, I did the same route but turned around on the first mile of Canada road to meet up with Mario, Kenneth, Nolan, and Chance, and we rode together back to South San Francisco. Going to Canada, I maintained 19mph for my average speed, the fastest ever, which is the reason I considered it an Intense ride. Plus it was hot!

Total Distance: 142.24 Miles

Total Ride Time: 9:05:23

Total Elapsed Time: 10:00:00

August 16 - August 22 Riding

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Okay so this week went by so slow. I did have time for some rides, but I'm getting scared that I won't be able to do more than two hours each day. I don't know why but some days it takes me over more than an hour and half to do 15 miles, which is why my distance count is so low. I also took a two days off the bike, one was because of the first day of school and second was to bond with some friends.

On Monday I did an easy ride but I forget where I went. I believe I went to San Bruno because I was getting tired of Summer homework. On Wednesday and Thursday Kenneth and I met up to do some sprints with a slow-pace recovery for a very easy effort those days. Saturday I rolled down to Woodside at a pretty fast pace, for over 40 of the miles I maintained a 17mph pace until the hills came. And Sunday I rode with Nolan and Mario to the end of Sawyer camp, going back we "raced" our way back, which was a lot of fun, but drained me out. When I got back to South San Francisco, I did some more miles around Centennial Trail, the school and Chestnut.

Total Distance: 166.85

Total Ride Time: 11:26:01

Total Elapsed: 13:15:00

August 9 - August 15 Riding

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Alright! Another week of cycling finished. This was actually one of my easiest weeks this summer because I was just building up for base miles. I mean, look at all that green! It was a good week also because I took two days off of the bike. Had I not, I would've probably gone about over 200 miles and 15 hours. However, I did complete my 2000-mile summer goal which was good for me!

Alright so Monday I took an easy ride just to get out of the house, Tuesday I decided to visit Old La Honda Road to set a new personal record, which was a success. I got 20:30 which was around 3 minutes faster than my old record. Wednesday and Thursday I went on a vacation with my family to Reno, which was a great refresh. Then Friday I planned to climb up San Bruno Mountain but the gate was closed so I continued into Brisbane and back to South San Francisco. Saturday, the big day, was when me and a few friends climbed Mt. Diablo for the first time! It was a great climb, not too steep, but pretty long! And Sunday I had a reunion ride with Kenneth, who had some off time too for about a week.

Total Distance: 193.39

Total Ride Time: 13:38:29

Total Elapsed: 14:45:00

August 2 - August 8 Riding

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I'm pretty much finished with hard workouts, this upcoming week I'm going to finish off the last of my sprinting and Anaerobic intervals. After that, I'll just be riding easy to moderate base miles and I'm looking forward to the centuries I'll be doing.

This week was relatively easy and was almost like a full recovery week. Most of my rides were done at the San Bruno Mountains with another riding partner, Nolan, except for Thursday when I re-visited polo fields and golden gate park as well as Lake Merced, and Friday where Nolan and I rode to Woodside and back at an easy pace.

Saturday I rode with the big boys of our school's cross country team. They did a fairly good job keeping up at a pretty brisk pace, which I expected, since they do have a long history of aerobic workloads. Then we visited a little of the Brisbane hills and rode back into South San Francisco via Centennial Trail.

Sunday was a lot like Saturday except instead of finishing Radio Road we went into the winding and steep hills of Brisbane. It reminded me of European mountains because the roads were so tight and there were houses on the side. Only thing was, it was a bit steeper but very short.

Overall, I had a good easy week and I needed it after all the harder workouts done the month before.

Total Distance: 196.76 Miles

Total Ride Time: 14:16:48

Total Elapsed: 16:00:00

Until Next time, DB

Activity and Intensity Key

This is a key to the abbreviations and other shorthands that I use on my training log.

Timpani Criterium Race Report

This race was held August 1, 2010.

This might be my last criterium of the year if the Oakland Grand Prix isn't rescheduled. But I felt really good about my effort in this race, I exploded in the end, but it doesn't matter since it still counts toward my 10 races to CAT4.

My mom and I arrived early, about 8:40, to the course and registration. My race was at 10:10, with all the extra time I had I was able to properly pin my number and get a very good warm-up on my trainer. By 9:40 I was all done with my warm-up, and I had time to finish a clif bar and a bottle of Propel, and then go to the bathroom. I still had a lot of time so I did a little loop which other people were doing.

After that I met up with Alex Lau and Kasra Shokat and we went to the starting line. My goal was to be in the very front row, and I thought I had blown my chances when the official called Juniors for rollout, but I was still able to get to the front on time.

We were mentored for a bit, and then the race began. The start line advantage was a success, for the next two laps I was in 2nd position behind another Junior. The pace was extremely easy so I took advantage of that to pay attention to the course and be aware of attacks. Surprisingly, for the whole race, there were no breakaways or major attacks.

By 10 mintues I was already in the middle of the pack. I tried my best to not fall back, but the road was just too wide that anyone can come around from the side. For most of the race, I ended up in the back, but on the finish line straight I would try to come around to the front. This was a major waste of energy, and it was due to my poor skills in cornering, which I need to improve.

On the bell lap I tried to open a big gap but that move completely drained my energy, and so I fell to the very back of the pack, finishing second to last (41/42), however, the pack remained close together. I was a little upset with my move, but I was proud of my effort during the whole race, and I was proud to realize that I improved and that my training really paid off.

July 2010

July was a great month! Most of the days were spent doing high-intensity workouts on the bike to better prepare me for criteriums and intense situations during road races. I also experienced my first criterium (July 18th) which didn't go to well, but was still pretty fun

I spent 56 and a half hours on the bike and did 859.16 miles. I think this is good enough for just a CAT5 racer, plus most of my workouts were based on time, and I didn't care too much about the distance. When I return to my base period, I'll pay attention to both distance and time.

So this is the first time I'm going to post my log up on blogger, the colors mean the difficulty (green easy, red hard, blue race) and some of those codes are my workout abbreviations but that's not too important unless someone is dying to know, I'll post my personal key up.

For August, I'm going to spend the first week on a easy pace climbing, and next week I'll be doing the last of my intervals on flat roads. After that, school starts and I'll be riding more base miles. My next races are in September, I believe I have two or three depending if one of them gets cancelled.