Project Duo - the grumpy way to salvage the season

The 2010 season was a source of some celebration for Team Grumpy: it was the centenary season in which Grumpy Bob and 'Grumpy' Art Vanderlay had both hit their first half century, and took a podium place at the Duo Normand for the first time.  For Grumpy Bob, the Team Grumpy Centenary signalled a resurgence in his timetrialling, hitting LTS times at 10, 25, and 50 miles which actually represented his best times in the past 6 years or so.  While many of Grumpy Bob's club mates laid the explanation for this sudden lift in form squarely at the new bike frame (a Cervelo P3C bought as a birthday present by the Team Grumpy Manager), he actually proposes that it was more due to a better and regular approach to training.

Sadly, this season hasn't been quite so stellar for Grumpy Bob, with lacklustre peformances at most distances.  It's probably fair to observe that in both 2010 and 2011 'Grumpy' Art Vanderlay has had a similarly very slow start to his season, mostly due to pressure of work in the spring and early summer.  On the bright side, 'Grumpy' Art's recent time trials do indicate a possible late season return to form (Grumpy Bob hopes so, as he foresees being towed round the Duo Normand course this year).

Still, the Team Grumpy riders are optimistic that they can pull things together in time for this year's Duo Normand, and parallel training plans aiming to peak in mid-September are now in place - Project Duo, an eight week training plan.  Being an ad hoc sort of set up, there's no centrally determined plan.  It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

For his part, Grumpy Bob has made use of Google Calendar to set out what he's going to be doing each day, and when.  This has the added bonus of a nagging email from Google to remind him to get out there and train (or 'practice' as our Manager likes to put it).  The major advantage of this is that Grumpy Bob's preferred training time is between 5am and 7am, depending on when he wakes up (usually he starts at 6am), a time of day when the Team Manager is sound asleep and merely dreaming of 400 Watts.