POWER DRILLS

     This entry has nothing to do with tools.  Regular readers know that tools and I are estranged, especially power tools.  No, this is a cycling blog and the post is about cycling.  Fortunately, this virus thing has only made a minor impact on my cycling.  True, I was scheduled to race every Thursday for the next several months and that has disappeared thanks to covid-19, but that also gives me the opportunity to get stronger on the bike.  Hence the drills.
     I borrowed all of my training rides from coach Owen Shott.  I still can't properly interpret the data, but I'm not all that serious until 2022.  Today I was scheduled to do a drill that called for three sets of ten by thirty seconds at 220-260 watts and thirty seconds off.  Early this morning I had the brilliant idea to do this in a particular parking lot at Old Settlers Park.  It was the right length for a thirty-second sprint.  The idea was to warm up by riding the park, then hit the parking lot for my workout.  Even more brilliant was that I would set my computer on Auto Lap rather than hitting the button each time.  Do you see where I'm going?  But wait, there's more.
     As I get ready to warm up I see some guys who are preparing to stripe the lot.  They are working on the red No Parking stripe.  No problem, I'm off to warm up.  Twenty minutes later I'm back at the car, stopping to set up Auto Lap.  And I'm off, pumping hard, hitting 300 watts, but dropping back to 260-280.  At the end of the lot I circle out to the road and prepare for the next lap.  Then it hits me, this is not going to be a 30-30 circle.  Turns out to be closer to 30-60 seconds.  And I'm averaging around 300 watts for those thirty seconds.  Ok, I decide that this is what my workout will be.  I also realize that Auto Lapping isn't going to give me specific data on my thirty second leg, I'll have to look at the graph.  Pook!
     Well, that's not the end of it.  The paint guys are laying down a thick red stripe across where I'm circling.  They ask if I could just keep it to one lane.  Sure, no problem.  I take my four minute break between sets and start the second set.  Five laps into it, now passing the Auto Lap spot three times for each acceleration, I see the paint guys are running two red stripes across my lane.  Pook, ding-fu!!
     No problem.  I hop on the sidewalk, get out to the road and move on to another parking lot.  If you are following me on Strava, I moved from Drills to More Drills.  Since I had to change lots, I also turned off Auto Lap and just hit the lap button at the start and end of each acceleration.  This lot has a bit more elevation plus is straight into the wind.  I'm still hitting 300 watts most of the time.
     As I cycled back to the car I determined my next similar drill would be on Great Northern, manual lap entry, and actually do 30 on, 30 off. at ~250 watts.  Even so, I was quite pleased to be able to hold 300 for as many repeats as I did.  And truthfully, the legs had more reps in them.
     As an aside, I rode up to Walburg Monday.  Twenty miles going north, with the wind and twenty-five coming south, against the wind.  It was uneventful other than a dog at a house that had never had a dog before.  He was pretty big, had a deep bark, and ran me up the road for twenty seconds.  He wasn't attacking, just wanted me gone.  That approximated a finishing sprint at the Driveway.  I have him on my Fly 6 camera, but for whatever reason cannot edit it down to twenty seconds.  Maybe I'll just do a picture rather than a video.