Life of an Age-Grouper

Its been quite some time since I have tested my threshold on the bike.  Actually the last time was 3/10/12 which was prior to getting sick and during a period of solid training.  With less than two months of training left before Miamiman it is very important that I'm as efficient as possible while training which made testing on the bike pertinent. Standard procedure for the threshold test; a solid 40min warm up then an all-out effort for 20 minutes. There were mixed emotions heading into this test. I was excited to test so that I could get my threshold number and get on with my training. With only 6 weeks of training after 2 months off I was apprehensive.  How would I stack up to my former self?  Would I be any where close to those numbers? I went back and forth about going back into my blog and training logs to dig up the stats on my last test.  I decided not to in order to avoid any undo stress.  This was a new me, a healthy me, a new test, a new star...

Instead of the usual Hecksher Park threshold test that I have done the previous two times I opted to jump on the trainer.  The main reason that I decided to jump on the trainer was do to the weather.  It was very windy this morning at my apartment so therefor it would have been tornado like conditions down by the water.  Usually I'm all about going out in adverse conditions but for test purposes I wanted to be in the most controlled environment as possible. One advantage of riding on the trainer is the ability to listen to music.  I set up a solid play list for the threshold test, re-read my notes on bike test #2, put some gas in the tank and saddled up.  Goals for the test, down blow up in the first 5 minutes, no major wattage spikes, maintain a high cadence and smooth speed.                                   Test #2                 ...

Going into this morning's bike test I was riding the wave of confidence from my run test.  As I approached Hecksher Park I kept checking out the trees to see how bad the wind was going to be.  There is always wind at Hecksher so its important to adapt your riding and mindset accordingly.  As I pulled into field 5 and began to put everything together I was shocked about how little wind there was.  This could be the making of a fast TT time. I started my warm up and started to get passed by multiple cars.  What the hell was up with that? Hecksher is typically dead during the winter months and within a matter of a minute I was passed by at least 5 cars. No sooner then these cars passed me then I saw a road block closing off the outer loop (the loop I was suppose to test on).  I couldn't believe, I just drove all the way to Hecksher and now the park was closed off! I spoke with the park security and apparently there was a 5k race but the entire loop woul...