Back to training with a coach

I signed up to work with a coach again. This time I am using a cycling coach because my focus is pretty much only on cycling. I will do a few triathlons this year but probably won't do much more than an Olympic. My new coach, Melissa Sanborn, is an elite athlete I have worked with before when she was riding for Subway Express and I was a soigneur for them at Sea Otter. She is an excellent rider and someone I think I can learn a lot about racing from.

Prior to my injury, I only entered one road race, the Banana Belt, and I DNF'd. The race was in March. I got dropped in the first 6 miles of a hilly course and after one lap, I packed it in. I had only done mountain bike racing before that and I never used a coach before. I did one other road race at the Portland International Raceway a couple of years ago, finished, but I was on my own when I did so. I think I lasted for 6 of 9 laps with the group, and that was in mid summer. I was training for IM Florida at that time so I had some base but had no idea what to do as far as race tactics go and for some dumb reason, I took a few pulls out front and blew up.

Today, I started my new plan. For the most part, February will be base building. She is starting me at "base building 2" because I have been riding for a while and should be able to adapt pretty quickly to the program. I have to work on my cadence as my plan calls for 90+ RPM and almost all last year I was doing much lower. I did a 2 hour ride and I can say I did at least 90RPM for 95% of it. My HR target was 132-152 and I averaged 145 for 120 minutes. Unfortunately, I averaged 16.7 mph. I stayed in my 39 tooth ring and stayed in the 16 and 17 cogs. For some of the ride, I wished a 16.5 existed because at times, my HR went up in the high 150's in the 17 and with the 16, the cadence was up in the 100's. My butt was sore but overall it was a pretty good ride.

Tomorrow is core strengthening day, no riding, but Im excited as I think this will be a great program and I am positive I will get stronger than ever on my bike.