Reflection on 2006

Now that the season is over, and I'm back from Japan, it's time to reflect on this past year a little bit to help get ready for next season.

In general, it was a very good year, if maybe a little long. I started training on January 2nd and went until November 12. In total, I put in 172 hrs on the bike and 108 hrs off the bike. I read somewhere once that just being consistent was a big part of getting fit. I think this probably made the biggest difference for me between this year and last year.

Season Highlights:

• Fast ride with my dad in June. I never expected that I'd be able to ride like that with him.
• Took over 12 minutes off my time at the Stony Creek MTB Time Trial.
• Improved my LT power by 37 Watts (18%!!!) on my field test.
• Became a mid (to upper-mid) pack "C" cyclocross racer, from routinely finishing near the back last year.
• My left knee, which was achey at times in 2005, generally felt good all year. The only time it really bothered me this year was on a 4 hour hike on my trip to Colorado.

2006 Goals and Objectives:

1. Develop solid aerobic foundation. I largely accomplished this, given my improved power numbers and some fairly long "long rides".
2. Develop technical MTB skills. Well, I'm probably better now than I was last year at this time, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. I didn't accomplish my training objective of riding Pontiac Lake without walking. Two of the climbs cause me problems, one has some bumpy corners and the other is just very steep.
3. Build race experience. I feel like I also accomplished this, even though I didn't do as many MTB races as I had planned.

Tentative 2007 Goals:

1. Develop technical mountain bike skills. Same as last year, just elevated in priority. I feel that my cornering and descending skills are a definite weakness, particularly when compared to other Sport racers.
2. Build solid base of conditioning. In 2006, I did a nice job developing my aerobic capacity. It was in the Base phases last year where I made my biggest gains in power; I'd like to try to repeat this for 2007. However, I felt like my anaerobic conditioning was never particularly good, and you need this for racing (especially MTB and CX racing). Doing more trail riding will definitely help, but I'm also going to experiment a little this off-season with some new conditioning drills to decide if I can increase my workload a little in 2007.
3. Build race experience. Also the same as 2006. I'm still learning things in every race about pacing, tactics, etc. I need to do more MTB races in '07. I'm thinking about signing up for a series this year (NORBA or, more likely, CPS) just to have some extra incentive to do certain races. Somewhat related to this is that I also need to work on my Peak and Race phases; I didn't feel like I performed well in either Race phase this year.