4 days until the Conyers race

Yesterday I did a one hour mountain bike ride at a very easy pace followed by 25 minutes of relaxation yoga. Today I am back to more intense workouts. I am doing the In-Season Week 7 day 6 workout. It involves 8x2 minute zone 5 intervals with 3 minutes rest in between and then 8x1 minute zone 6 intervals with 3 minutes rest. This will be my last hard workout prior to race day.

Monday's workout=Sore legs on Tue and Wed

Monday I did Cyclo-impossible 1-4 followed by Cyclo-endurance in 5, cyclo-power in 5 and finally Cyclo-impossible 5. Tuesday my legs were a little sore and today they are as well. Tuesday I did a 50 minute recovery ride and today I am going to do about a 1 hour mountain bike ride. The goal this week is to be ready for the race on Sunday in Conyers, Georgia. Conyers is home of the mountain bike race course for the 1996 olypmics. I am hoping for a good finish in that race. I believe that I now have the endurace and power to go hard off the line and sustain a solid effort for one hour. After Sunday I have a race every weekend until December 7th.

Sunday Intervals- Fantastic!!

Today I did some awesome intervals on a cyclo-cross course. After a 25 minute warm-up I did 7 intervals with 3 minutes of rest in between. The intervals were set up this way: 25 sec sprint into a 5 min zone 4 with the last 15 sec being a full sprint. After the intervals I had a nice 25 minute cool down. I had that glorious post ride feeling on the cool down. Tomorrow I am doing Cyclo-impossible 1-4 then Power in 5 and Explode in 5 concluding with impossible 5. Big race coming up next Sunday and I want to be at my best.

Sore Legs are Wonderful

Yesterday, I did the week 6 day 3 workout on Graeme's Advanced In-season program. The total workout took about 2: 45 minutes. Lots of Hindu Squats (I think about 250) and Chair pose. Today my legs are sore. Soreness means progress and better results in my next race.

I think I found what was missing from my race....

PAIN. I have been trying to avoid it in both workouts and races. In the race on Sunday I felt like I was going pretty good but I wasn't able to increase my pace and never really felt that glorious cyclo-cross pain. Last night, I was thinking that my level of intensity in both my training and races has faded slightly. I believe the solution will be to push harder during the planned intense sections of my training. During today's workout of Aero ab blaster, Fix the back-strength and stretch, I worked on really making the workout be solid instead of just going through the motions. I think that if I can continue to work hard and not just go throught the motions then I will have that extra gear that I need in the race.

Georgia Cross Race 2 Savannah 10-19-08

Today's race course was awesome. It had some super fun technical sections including a fly-over, an unrideable pit of clay mud and some woop dee woos. The mostly flat course did not suit my strengths but I thoroughly enjoyed riding it.
There appeared to be about 25 guys in the race and the course started with a long dirt car track section that was perfect for establishing an order into the first turn. I made a mistake early in the race by going out too slow. After the start lap I was in 15th place and feeling too relaxed for a cross race. My pace felt more like a group ride and less like a race. I lost some time every lap through a rooty tree section that was full of sharp turns. Those types of sections continue to be my weakness. I was able to make up ground on the straight aways and grassy field areas. I was in a group of about 4 riders (Green jersey guy, 2 red jersey guys on the same team and me)and we continued to attack each other for almost the entire ride. We passed a few guys and with about 6 laps to go the guy in a green jersey got away. So then we were three. Two red jersey team mates and me. The two team mates were able to drop me so I ended up riding most of the last 5 laps solo. With three laps to go I had enough left in the tank to increase the pace. I made up ground on the two team mates. As I came into the grassy field area before the start finish line on the last lap, I noticed the guy in green was back with the two red team mates and they were dropping the guy in green. I quickly made my way up to and then passed the guy in green as well. Shortly after that the two red team mates split up. I was able to catch and pass the slower of the two team mates but the other one got away. I finished in 12th place. My lesson learned was to not go out too slow and leave such a huge gap to make up in the end. I am now going to take a few days off the bike to recover. I will do some recovery yoga today. Tomorrow I will do the aero ab-blaster, fix the back- strength and stretch and by Wednesday I should be ready to increase the intensity. Later in the week, I will work on my work on my cornering skills in the rooty tree sections.

2 rides today

Today I am doing the In-season Peak week2 Tuesday ride in the morning and a super easy paced group ride in the afternoon. Morning ride went great. Great weather definitely helps.

October 12th Training Day

I did the Cyclo-impossible 1-4 and then did cyclo-explode followed by cyclo-impossible 5. I felt strong the whole way through. It did help that it was in the 70's today. The last time I attempted cyclo-impossible 1-5 was in Mexico were it was in the 90's. I had to stop due to fact that I started to feel like I was getting heat stroke. On, Monday October 13th My plan is to do a 30 min eazy spin following by some recovery yoga.

Georgia Cyclo-cross Race 1 Dahlonega

It was a hot day in Dahlonega, GA for the first cross race of the year. I believe it was in the Mid-80's. The race began with somewhere around 21 guys. Due to a early on log hop and this being my first cat 1 cross race, I decided to start at the back of the group and work my way up. That is not the best strategy but I didn't want to get caught up in a crash at the log or blow up on the first lap. I think we did a total of about 12 laps and each lap that went by, I passed more and more cyclists. As I was making the passes I noticed that alot of the riders were looking a little blown. It made me happy that I did not go hard off the start. I finished the ride strong in 10th place overall. My Goal for the next race in Savannah, GA is top 6.

My Training Calender for September

9/1/2008
Today I began my training for the Cyclo-cross series today. For the past month I have been riding in all zones about 5-6 days a week. I took one week off the bike completely in August.
My training is consisting of the Advanced IN-season program with some modifications.

Week 1: Consisted of the Week1 training program but on Wednesday I completed Cyclo-impossible. On Thursday, I did an easy recovery ride of about and hour. Friday and Saturday I was so sore from cyclo-impossible that I was unable to ride and could barely walk. Sunday I felt lots better and completed the ride on the week 1 schedule

Week 2: I did the 7 day cycling boot camp. The only exception that I made is that I am now inserting cross skill training and more anaerobic exercises into the workouts.

Week 3: This week I am planning on doing week 3 of advanced but am replacing the Tuesday Neuromusclar workout with Cyclo-impossible.

A little about Me and 2008 Goals

A little about me: Began riding mountain bikes in 2001 to cross train for a marathon. Completed the Marathon in September of 2001 and have not really run since. I quickly upgraded to Sport in mountain bike races and enjoyed fast paced group rides and solo rides in the summer when the weather was nice. I would do very little riding between November and March due primarily my lack of interest to riding in the dark, cold rain of Seattle. In October of 2007 I purchased and began using the cyclo-core programs with great success! I was placing in middle of pack with the Category 4 racers in cyclo-cross. In 2007 I upgraded to Cat 3 and completed the season in 11th place overall. In the Spring of 2008 I upgraded to Expert in Mountain bike racing and actually won a few events. This year I am upgrading to Cat 1 in Cross and hoping to place in the top 10 overall.