Thanks. I have seen a map. I just need to see the course in person. I know why most XC courses are the way they are. I am not a good XC racer, I just like to pretend. Still fun though![/quote] Making Cat 1 podiums in most of your races would define you as at least a good XC racer. Good luck at Bonelli.
I guess some sort of transition has taken place. I no longer ask myself in the middle of a race why a DH racer is trying to race XC. I still have much to learn and may never step on the top of a podium. I do enjoy the adventure though!
Wow... thrashed myself pretty good today! Training with a partner can go a long way to helping you push harder. When you feel like letting up and things start hurting bad, it helps to have someone else to keep you going. My training partner today would fall off pace, I would pass and she would jump right on and hold it, then I when I faded she would pass and I knew I had to dig deeper to hold on. It is fun and really painful, way better than suffering by yourself (especially if you can train with a girl that has a hot ass!) :bang::bang: Make sure you train with someone as fast or faster though. If you train with someone slower make sure to limit the time you spend with them. It will help them get faster but won't help you much. Also, there are always going to be times that you just need to do your own thing.
They'll be the ones riding hand in hand with a gleam in their eye and birds on their shoulder while whistling a sweet lil' ditty! :lol: j/k Good luck at the races!
Hard weekend. I am tired! Training races are a good way to tune up the engine and get the intensity in. Make sure you respect the effort though. Going hard takes recovery! A good way to complete a hard weekend after a training race is to go out and put in a nice long day with some friends. :beer: Slower rides are used to maintain your aerobic fitness and continual adaptation. They will help you get to and keep your race weight. An axiom of Coggan is that our sport is aerobic! Anaerobic training is what makes you super fast in a race but you still need the aerobic engine. It is like a parallel hybrid. A wimpy diesel engine on the backside of a torque monster of an electric motor. If you build up your diesel your highway speed and distance will get better, and you can continue to use that badass electric motor for fast starts and accelerations.
Another great weekend! 8.5 hrs of pedal time. Saturday was 4hrs of mtb in Aliso. from the ranger station, up mathis, down rockit, down coyote run, fire road to cholla, (interval time!) up cholla, down lynx, up cholla, down lynx, up cholla, down lynx, up cholla (feeling WORKED) across to top of the world for a water refill. over to meadows and down that. showed a guy that was new/lost meadows and gave him some riding tips, then escorted him back to ranger station. picked up some food and drink, then headed back for more punishment. saw tink on the way out :wave: then headed up meadows, top of the world, then down rockit, up mathis, up to top of the world, down meadows and back to the ranger station. Exellent ride! Sunday was 4.5 hrs of roadie riding on my new Tarmac. after stopping at Rock N Road we went to Revo to park the truck. Rode from there to Luecadia and got coffee and a snack with Steph and Dan, then rode back up to Revo. The way back was a little slower (2.5 hrs vs 2hrs. fighting a head wind most of the way and I wasn't pulling quite as hard). Excellent ride! Now if I can get a little more sleep than i did last night... :beer:
I sympathize with you on the lack of sleep. Not sure if it was the time change or what but sleep cycle has been whacked since the night before Bonelli. By the way sweet new Tarmac. I just mine a couple of weeks ago, the carbon paint scheme with a Dua-ace Crank. I'm loving it so much I'm thinking of dropping a XC race from the schedule and doing a Crit. Never thought I'd be saying that.
Yeah. I think I am just having a lot of anxiety about everything right now. Lots of stress at work, money, Allison's racing, our training... I had things pretty dialed over the winter but my balance is off right now for sure. I love my new Tarmac! It is sweet! Allison and I have talked about trying a roadie race. She talked to some of the other pro mtb women at bonelli and there are conflicting stories about automatic upgrades. If she could jump to Cat2 and race with our buddy Joy that would be sweet. I think she would love to do some work for joy in a road race! I wish I was strong enough to feel like I could race on the road. Unfortunately I don't think I am. Maybe later this year we will try to find something when all the MTB races in the area are over (they seem to all go back east by May)
wow... huge weekend. tomorrow is going to be a tough day at work! i am sore and worn out and i know allison is too. thanks to everyone for cheering for us out there on course! back to training stuff... how is everyone progressing? what is your schedule looking like? personally i am looking forward to trying out a power tap for the first time. i think it might help me nail my intervals. so stoked to finally have one (allison has two, she is so cool ) reminder to those training and racing: racing is hard, respect the effort with some quality recovery. also racing is intense, make sure you don't neglect your aerobic fitness!!! get your zone 2 time in and it will carry you!
The last two weeks of training did not go as planned. Following a fantastic base and early build phase, I ran into a wall of insomnia. The last two weeks have been a repeating pattern of a couple of nights of very little if any sleep, followed by a night of ok sleep. Not at all what I needed while trying to put the finishing touches on a peak for Sea Otter. I haven’t felt up to doing any of the high intensity interval sessions I had planned for this block. Despite taking several extra days off and otherwise doing only low intensity work I haven’t really recovered from the Bonelli race on 3/14. Having slept ok Friday and Saturday I raced Fontana on Sunday. Felt ok at the start of the race, but since I knew my top end fitness wasn’t there I didn’t go anaerobic at all. Had an ok race, considering my lack of form and that I went down three times, I feel fortunate to have pull off a 2nd. Did a short recovery spin and spent most of the today icing my bruised hip. I actually feel fairly recovered today. Hopefully my sleep pattern is better this week and I can put in some hard training before Santa Ynez and Sea Otter.
poor sleep patterns are surely a sign of over-reaching (a good thing while developing a peak). it can be hard to manage this phase of training! (especially if other stressors are piling up) each athlete responds differently, but i have felt that when slightly over-reached i cannot hit my intervals well. i feel it is better to feel fairly rested going into intervals thus our mondays are usually rest days. wednesdays are long zone 2 rides. this week i think things will be a bit mixed up as i am pretty sore from the race/crash. my advice: if you are doing long intervals, shorten them (maybe do more sets). we have been doing pyramids lately and i feel these are helping a great deal. longer recovery rides can also help to keep carry stress without over stressing. just remember, if you over extend your base you will toast yourself and blow your A priority race.
So loose focus intervals on Tuesday. Good hard workout but not a great one in terms of discipline. I did throw down a couple 1000watt efforts though. (digging my new toy from Cyclops!) Today did a nice long ride. 2:45 of ride time with a lot of output around 220w. Can't wait to get some time to analyze my data files from the last two days. Maybe tonight! Training with power: all the pros do it, they do so because intervals can be power based. HR based intervals are darn near useless because you start out too hard and then fade. with power you can crank it up and have instant feedback. you can also judge when to pull the plug (can no longer hold power) Good stuff!
I've just started doing some jiu jitsu classes as a form of cross training. I always ride after class because I don't want my cycling to suffer too much now that I'm adapting to a new discipline. I think that the benefit is that I'll be a little less susceptible to injury since I broke my wrist in November as the upper body work should strenthen the bones and ligaments a bit. My instructor swears that I won't put on weight unless I start lifting and that this will only make me less susceptible to injury for my cycling. It's been difficult to keep my focus on only riding. I am not here to brag, but I don't know very many people that I can train with that can hold pace with me so the rides by myself get old after awhile. I'm hoping to do some of the Irvine lake races coming up in May. I can ride out to those so that won't be an issue like Fontana. I'm planning on doing the Monday morning training race up Harding this coming week that Garret Garcia organized. We meet at 8AM at the bird sanctuary and drag race gate to gate at 8:15. Hopefully I'll still be able to put in a good ride since I'm now splitting my efforts between two sports. Hope to see someone out there.
No updates? Just because training for me is now a short walk to the mailbox with a walker doesn't mean that everyone else gets to slack off. With Sea Otter right around the corner I imagine most people are doing lots of high intensity intervals. 3-5. Minute Max effort. Make sure to get in enough low intensity recovery and rest! Good luck at the races!
After a rough day in spring classic conditions (wind, rain, and cobbles) at Santa Ynez I'm doing a short recovery spin. If I feel recovered enough I'll squeeze in one more interval session before SO on Friday.
My Tuesday SS training ride last night was Cooks-Harding-Joplin-Luge-Cooks. My first time on Harding-Joplin, perfect conditions. Left at 3:10, back at 7:30 with many stops to enjoy the cool temps and mountain tops.
