Get Your VeloAllegro.org FavIcon! It's the little things in life that make it so much sweeter. That's why we've added this little custom Favorites icon. When you bookmark our site in IE 5 or greater (and perhaps others), your bookmark will have our cool custom icon. So, if you already have us bookmarked (and you should), make a new bookmark to get our FavIcon. If you don't have us bookmarked, shame on you. Do it now so no one will know you were so bad. -posted 04 August 2002

Happy August Birthdays to our members and sponsors! Eric Schafer (AUG 01) ** Mike Henderson (01), Gerry Riposa (03) ** Linda Nichols (10) ** Todd Barker (11) ** Steve Hilgers (13) ** Holly Lund (18) ** Brad Foley (20) ** "Pineapple” Bob Yamada (20) ** Steve Barron (22) ** John Fitzgerald (25) ** Denise Phillips (28) ** John La Porta (28) ** Brian “Beefcake” Funstun (30) --posted August 2002

Velo Allegro - UPS Criterium 2002 Race T-Shirts Below is an image of the artwork that will be on the front of the 2002 Velo Allegro - UPS Criterium Race T-Shirts. The design is by Julio Flores, VA's resident artiste graphique. Click the links below to see full-size images of the shirt. T-Shirt Front | T-Shirt Back --posted 22 July 2002

Wenzel Coaching Program - August 2002 The following is a condensed and simplified version of the Wenzel Coaching program for August 2002. The program for August is basically the same as for July, except for the attitude. The program is premised on you ending your season at the end of August and taking September as a rest month. If you planto race through September or longer, keep up all your training this month except when you are fatigued. So, assuming you will be resting in September, this month you can skip or shorten any day you don’t feel like doing. It’s time for the big taper. Here’s the general plan: Saturday and Sunday race or do a club ride. Don’t worry about riding extra distance or intervals after the race any longer. Just cool down for twenty minutes by spinning easily and go home. In fact, if you are going to be doing any more racing this year, don’t even go hard on the club rides. Endurance cruise the whole way. Monday is a rest day: go for a half hour of light spinning, walking or swimming. Don’t do any strength training unless you are doing rehab for an injury or special weakness. Tuesday is a one hour recovery ride if you are not feeling 100% after the weekend. Otherwise get a group together for an endurance ride and sprint for city-limit signs, yellow signs, green signs, bushes or whatever (don’t sprint for red-signs!) If you are not doing weekend races any longer you could do a Tuesday or Wednesday night practice crit or track race. Otherwise, Wednesday you could do 2 x 10-20 minute intervals at 10-20 beats below AT, or go for a few hours of endurance riding. Thursday is a rest day again like Monday. Friday is for your tune-up before the weekend. To do a tune up, ride very easy until your legs get fairly loose (20-40 minutes) and then do one interval of 5-10 minutes at your anaerobic threshold, or three or four hard jumps of about 20 seconds. If you are racing Sunday and not Saturday, rest on Friday and do the tune-up on Saturday. The most important thing to recognize in August is that it takes two to three weeks for the benefits of training to show up as fitness, so if you train hard mid-August, you’re not going to benefit from it until after the season ends. On the other hand, if you train hard mid-August, the fatigue will be with you immediately and stick for a week or two, so you’ll hurt your racing short term for the benefit of a non-existent long term. Dumb idea? A good piece of research showed that muscles sore from weight lifting had damage visible under the microscope until 21 days after the last lifting session, long after the soreness had cleared up. The study has not been repeated that we know of with muscles tired from hard aerobic exercise, but anecdotal evidence suggests that recovery from several days of hard riding takes at least ten days to two weeks. This is why the pros often do shortstage races that end two to three weeks before the big Tours. Take a clue from this and taper through August. September will be a very light month of resting and a tiny bit of endurance maintenance. Go into September tired so you will appreciate it. September will also be the month to check into alternative sports, so plan your hikes, rock-climbing, rafting trips and so on now. Wenzel Coaching suggests taking a rest month in September or October. It is possible in our climate to race year round but we find that people who don’t take a rest month and then dedicate several months to building base never reach their potential as cyclists. While it is hard to break away from the racing scene in the fall, that breaking away is necessary if you want to break away from the field next year. Riders who are focusing on cyclocross this fall should not race road in August but should start to train specifically for cross. Wenzel Coaching has training programs specifically for road, track, criterium, MTB and cyclocross riders. For more information about Wenzel Coaching individualized programs, call Neil Browne at 562.438.3051 or check out our web site at www.WenzelCoaching.com. Wenzel Coaching now offers nutritional analysis and consultation. How many calories are you getting? What percent are coming from fat, carbohydrates and protein? We can help you figure it out. Good luck with your racing. -posted 12 August 2002