Long Live Long Rides

I do a lot of long rides and don’t say epic too often, but Saturday was a pretty epic day on the bike.  7.5 hours and 13,500 feet of climbing in the San Gabriel Mountains to Mt Baldy and Crystal Lake via Glendora Mountain Road.  My legs and energy were good throughout, but it was definitely too hot to be riding that long!  For what a crowded busy place SoCal is these particular roads are surprisingly not too busy with traffic.  And with the 4^th of July holiday Glendora Mountain was actually closed to cars (due to high fire and drunk driving danger) so cyclists took over the road in the morning.  It was really cool to see.  And temperatures were also nice for the first half  of the ride up to Baldy.  The second half to Crystal Lake got a little dangerous with the heat though.  I had gone through about 6 bottles the first half of the ride and was still hydrated but the climb to Crystal lake is over an hour and it had to be 100 degrees up there at an average speed of about 6 miles per hour.  Not good.  I’ve never had this happen before but after riding with my hands on the tops of the bars for a few minutes, when I moved them back to the hoods they were almost too hot to hold.  Anyway about 30min into the climb I was getting too hot and knew one bottle of warm water wouldn’t get me to the top.  I was about to turn around when I saw a faucet in the shade at an entrance to a small camping area.  Thank God the water was cold so I doused myself and filled up my bottles for the rest of the climb.  It was still a long couple hours before I made it back to the car but I knew there was a store to stop at and that one water stop made the whole difference on being able to do the whole route in the heat.

http://www.strava.com/activities/162878890

The 2 week training block I’m in the middle of is planned to maintain my high end fitness while maximizing my endurance.  The 3 races I’m training for will all be 5-7 hours long, so my aerobic fitness has to be really high.  Basically my key rides are 2 intensity rides during the week – one at some short (3-5min) climbing repeats at a really high intensity above race pace, one tempo ride with about an hour at endurance race pace, and an endurance ride the length of my races (6-7 hours).  So far so good!

Now back to work so I can make it out on time for my repeats on Ridge Park this evening. 

Getting it done - working hard towards some big summer races

Time flies!  Between work, riding, and playing with Cameron the days have just been flying by.  I can’t wait until August when we have a true vacation planned.  In the meantime I’ve been having some good times training hard and a few bumps in the road as well like a water leak at home and a tight hamstring that’s been nagging me for weeks now.  Mountain biking is a tough sport where success doesn’t come quickly so I’ve learned to enjoy the process and not focus too much on results.  But I love routine when I’m going through the process and having my routine thrown off a little adds some more stress to the day.  Life is good, it’s just challenging to balance the training and rest needed to be in top shape with everything else going on!

I was able to put in a couple very solid weeks of training in the middle of June.  After the 6 hours of Temecula I did a base week with another 18 hours of riding with a ton of climbing followed by a week with less time but more intensity including 2 weeks in a row racing Over the Hump.  I got my butt kicked both times, but I was racing fairly tired and that’s probably exactly what I needed.  I was tempted to do even more training after the poor results at OTH, but instead followed my plan and took a short rest week.  Now it’s time to get back after it with 2 more solid weeks on the bike before tapering back for the 3 big races I have planned for the summer…

July 26 – Big Bear Grizzly 100

Aug 9 – Leadville 100
Aug 30 – Park City Point to Point

It’s been a while since I’ve ridden in some big mountains, but that's the riding that I love most.  All 3 of these courses will really put me to the test, and that's exactly what I'm looking for!