Today ended up being a strength day for me. I went to Pilates in the morning which is always a good core-builder. Then for my ride, I did a road ride with my neighbor Dan. I wasn’t planning on doing any intervals, but I wanted to do some sprints. Since Dan is fairly new to cycling, I gave him the rundown on how to sprint. We did an easy-gear sprint as a warm-up and I gave him some pointers.

Then we spun at an easy pace until we got to a section of road where we could do our first real sprint. I put it in a bigger gear and sprinted. Without killing myself I managed to get within 50 watts off of my all-time best of 1306. This was a good sign. Since I was feeling good, I decided to try and break my max. On the second sprint, I hit 1274. I was getting closer! Then on the third sprint, I did 1297…so close that I could taste it! I knew I could do it if I just pushed hard enough. So on a short uphill section of road, I punched it one final time. I only sprinted for a few seconds, but when I looked down I saw a number which made me smile: 1315 watts…a new record!!!

Now there’s some debate on the importance of max wattage; the more accepted metric for sprint power is 5-second maximal power. But from experience I’ve learned: when my max numbers are good, so too are my 5-second and 12-second numbers. So when I got home, I quickly downloaded the ride to check it out. I was happy to find that I did indeed break my 12-second all-time best as well. My 5-second was good—the highest for 2006—but still shy of my all-time best which I achieved way back in 2002. Regardless, I am extremely happy with where my sprint power is for this time of year. I will continue to do one neuromuscular workout per week, which is yet another aspect of my training plan which is new.

To cap off the day, in the evening I went with my teammate, Ted, to The Athletic Training Center. Every Tuesday and Thursday night they have a drop-in circuit training session tailored for cyclists. Ted has been going regularly so he invited me to come along. The workout consists of a series of exercises that you perform for a certain amount of time. Then you have a rest period where you move to the next station. There were about 20 exercises in a rotation.

The first round was 1 minute on/30 seconds off. Most of the exercises weren’t too bad…some just relied upon your body weight for resistance; others used weights, but light enough that you could do for a minute. There were a couple cardio exercises included as well: jump roping and elliptical. The worst exercise for me was pull-ups. I stopped lifting weights for my upper body years ago yet I’ve always retained upper-body bulk. Unfortunately, that bulk doesn’t mean I’m still strong. The best I could manage was a measly 6 pull-ups in a row. That’s just pathetic!

The second round we did was 40 seconds on/30 seconds off, which wasn’t as bad. It was kind of fun to laugh at fellow cyclists and how weak and uncoordinated we all are. It also was a good workout. I wore my HR monitor just for fun and for the session, my average HR was 115. Not bad for a strength-training workout. I’m glad I got to see what it was all about, but I have a feeling I’m going to be really sore tomorrow!