Friday, July 31, 2009

Train and Burn

Great training the first half of this week: hill repeats Monday at Pelican Hill - hard, but not too long. Eldo Crit in Long Beach Tuesday. Tempo mtn bike ride through Whiting, Old Camp, and the Luge on Wednessay. The crit was really good training - and works my weaknesses for sure. Short burts of power are the one thing that you do a good amount of in cross country races, but I do least in training. Pulling through when Rashan Bahati and some other really good crit racers are trying to force a break is hard! It was pretty fun overall though, just under an hour at 28mph.

Wednesday I was about 2 minutes from being done with my tempo climbing on the mtn bike and about to start heading home when i crashed pretty hard. Very easy downhill section of trail, but I was going 20 plus mph and my front tire must have drifted into some looser gravel than I was expecting. Split second later I'm sliding down the trail on my side. Skinned elbow, little bit on my knee, ribs, and a pretty bad one on my hip. Snapped my remotoe fork lockout in half also. Rode it home though, minus the water stop at Cooks Corner since I didnt want to go in there with ripped shorts and a bloody knee. Yesterday and today I planned rest days so as weird as this sounds - it was good timing. There's a picture of my hip but I dont think anyone would want to see it.

Another nice summer weekend in SoCal coming up and then it's time to pack for the east coast trip. Actually a lot of that will have to happen this weekend so things don't get too stressful and I can just work and ride next week.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Pacific Coast Tri - Duathlon

Beth had an awesome race at the Pac Coast Tri - actually make that Du - yesterday for 3rd in her age group. It's a really big sprint race with about 1,000 "participants" and would have to be considered Beth's home course since it's 8 miles from our house at a beach she runs and rides all the time. They cancelled the swim due to the big surf, which wasnt terribly big the morning of the race, but there was still a danger of rip currents i guess. Anyway, everyone got to run 800 meters down the beach instead and then up the paved path that climbs about 150 vertical feet to the transition area. Nice way to get yourself going at 7:30 in the morning. Without the swim the racing was closer for the fast people. Of course triathlons have some not so fast people out there at the same time just trying to finish, which makes for good spectating I guess. Anyway, after surviving the initial sprint, Beth had a good ride and great run to get 3rd against a really competitive field.


I didn't feel so super over the weekend, and took a long nap instead of riding yesterday. Still tired this morning, but think I'm ready for some hard climbing on Pelican Hill this evening to get myself back in gear for a small training block before the East Coast Nationals. Time to log off the work computer, change, soak my head in the sink, eat my dried apricots, and go ride.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Friday Already?

Don't forget to check out the XC and Short Track videos from Naitonals on cylcingdirt... I'm not really in them since I was riding just outside the top group that Colt usually films like usual, but they're still great videos.

Not sure how easy / rest weeks go by so fast. Working I guess... After 3 days off I did a pretty nice ride through Coto de Caza (home of the real desparate housewives) last night. Good hilly route without much traffic.

Plan was to do a mini rest week - 4-5 days and then train hard on the weekend. With only 3 hrs on the bike so far my delima now is whether to keep it going and ride this evening - or rest yet again and go watch the big surf that's pumping right now... What tough choices.

Sunday Beth is racing the Pacific Coast Triathlon which will be awesome to watch. It does mean missing the group ride though. The weather is really warm right now too, so mountain biking won't be much fun this weekend. So I need some creative ideas for good training - high intensity on Saturday and a good tempo / hill endurance ride Sunday. Any ideas??

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Nationals

Nationals was hard! Even with really good fitness I could only manage about 40th place throughout the first two laps. Luckily for me it was a (slightly long) 5-lap race and I was able to maintain my pace and work by a lot of people on the 2nd half of the race. My goal was a top 15 which didnt happen, but I wasn't that far off which is pretty encouraging for a race at 8,500ft.

I thought the the cross country course was tough until seeing where they ran us for the short track the next day. Not sure how we were doing sub 2:30 laps because the climb alone seemed a lot longer than that. My legs were better than expected and I fought hard to get 21st...

The couple days after a big race are always the toughest for me. I don't know how much is mental vs. physical, but I'm obviously tired and my motivation goes all over the place. Sometimes I'm fired up for more, but tired. A lot of times I just dont feel like doing anything. I've felt both ways on and off today. Either way it's tough to get back into the swing of things at work and home after being out a couple days. There's a lot to catch up on and not much energy to do it with.

go time

not sure whats going on here

beth at the mountain cross

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Good Times in SoCal

Beths ocean swim saturday morning was pretty awesome - about 350 people doing the 2 miles from Balboa pier to Newport Pier - Beth in 42min. After that a really warm ride doing the climbs in Laguna, 90+ degrees, very hard effort, 6mph = hot. The group ride was good again on Sunday and got in a couple extra hours with Manny afterward. Thursday afternoon we're off to Colorado.


The start


Lots of swimmers
Beth warming up after
Me after the 2 miles (just kidding)

Friday, July 10, 2009

We finally have a new camera so expect to start seeing some more photos. My rides the last 2 evenings have gone until dark and been pretty draining. What a good feeling though...

I've set my mind on Nationals and the 3 remaining US Cup / Pro Tour races as my focus for the rest of the year. Those are by far the most competitive xc races left in the US this year, and that's where I want to be competing. Vermont Aug 8, Windham NY Aug 16 and Vegas Sept 26. This part of the season is much different than the spring here in CA though. There are far less local races (at least good size ones) to go after. Flat crits in the industrial area of Long Beach just don't do it for me.

Looking forward to Beth's first ocean swim / race of the summer, some tour watching, and the group ride this weekend...

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Nats Preparation

Riding and life have been going well the last couple weeks. A couple new best times up the Cholla and Old Camp climbs, busy at work, but not too busy, and some time to actually relax on the weekend. My schedule pretty much includes rest days on Mon & Tue, one of them completely off and an easy spin the other day. Short intervals (something I only do a few times per year) on Wed and Tempo ride through Santiago Canyon on the road bike Thursday. Off Friday and train hard again Sat and Sun for a total of 14 hours or so.

We're going to road trip it to Colorado, which is always an experience. At least I can bring chain lube and CO2 for my bike though.

The training has had me eating a lot, but i'm listening to my body and not getting too skinny and losing a little muscle like last year. Did have to go to bed a little early last night to keep from eating more brownies though...