Looking for Fitness

Ah, it's been a long time since I've posted. The past couple weeks have really been a mixed bag...

Since the race at Pontiac Lake, I've been trying to get a handle on where my fitness is. The strange thing about the race was that while I felt kind of bad, I went about as fast as I did at the XC race last August. Without the bonk, I might have even been faster.

My training so far this year has been a mix of longer relatively easy rides and very short intervals (20s to 1.5 minutes). I haven't done much hard work at longer durations. So, I set about trying to do that a bit over the last two weeks.

The week following Pontiac Lake was really a good week of training for me. The weather kept me inside one night, and I did an interval session on the trainer (the Spinervals "No Slackers" DVD). That's one I do somewhat frequently during 'cross season, and it went surprisingly well.

That weekend I rode at Brighton to start getting ready for the stage race. It took me a bit longer than normal to get warmed up, but once I got going, I rode really well. I did a dirt road ride with the Rhinos on that Sunday, and I also felt really good.

This past week wasn't so good. For the first time this year, my knee felt a little funny (from mowing the lawn of all things!), so I had to back off the training a bit. Family stuff shortened some other planned training sessions during the week, and I didn't ride particularly well over the weekend. I went back to Brighton on Saturday; in addition to screwing up my nutrition for the ride, I also fell (going uphill!) and scraped up the knee that had been bothering me. The knee seemed OK for Sunday, but I bailed on my ride at PLRA after one lap because my back was bothering me (also strange, because lately, my back has been feeling basically perfect).

Oh well, you win some and you lose some. I was more careful about not twisting my knee while mowing this weekend, and my knee seems OK this time. The plan is to take it a bit easy this week and then do the stage race at Brighton this weekend!