Yesterday I went up to Portland to meet Jeannette Rose and Russell Cree at Upper Echelon Fitness for a little LT testing and discussion about the racing year ahead. But first, I carpooled into Portland with my dad to attend one of his classes at Portland State University. The class was general oceanography, and he spent more time making jokes than he did anything else! It was actually a very entertaining lecture–better than most of my lecture classes at the UO. Topics of interest were: making fun of the midwest because it’s smack dab in the middle of a continental plate, therefore making it boring, explaining how plate tectonics are responsible for the variation between different cultures (and more importantly the amazing variety of lunch food street vendors down the block, which include thai, indian, mexican, italian, and greek), and cool names for metal hair bands (The Lava Sharks).
After the lecture, we got milk shakes, then I went over to Echelon Fitness (which is very hard to find), and took the tour of the place. It is very cool, and shares a workout facility with Therapeutics Associates.
The LT test went well, although I wasn’t expecting to have to crank up to 525 watts. Russ started me out at 150 or so, and gradually increased until my legs were almost done at 525. Then he took me down again to 150, and increased the wattage again slowly, going up to 450 briefly before stopping.
My lactic acid clearing rate was very good, and my power at LT was good too. Russ and Jeannette were impressed, but worried that I was in too good of shape this early in the season. I assured them that 95% of what I’ve done has just been endurance and tempo miles. Although it may seem like I’ve been doing a lot of intervals since I write about it a lot on this here blog, that’s just because I write about intervals almost every time I’ve done them because I get excited about them. I feel like I have successfully built a very good base platform to build on this year. My endurance is great right now, and I feel super fresh and excited to ride every day.
Well, I’m off to Eugene now to go mooch off of Will, Larry, Tony, Chad, and Mike. And whoever else stands in the way of Hurricane Peterson, the eating machine.
KENNETT PETERSON 