The Line

I ended up getting in a fairly productive week of training last week. At least, I learned some things...

I tried to do some short intervals at PLRA on Thursday night. I've done longer ones there before and I've thought it worked OK. I found that short ones don't though. I just can't go hard enough on the trail to get the right training effect. So, I think I'll either save longer intervals for the trail, or just do shorter hard efforts as the trail dictates (ie- hammer up all the climbs, or flats, or whatever).

I went over to Lakeshore Park in Novi to ride and "practice" on Saturday. It was pretty hot, and it took me quite a while before I felt like doing anything but just riding. Eventually, I stopped and worked on some corners. I realized that in linked corners, where I should be compromising the first corner to take a good line through the second one, I don't. I take a normal line through the first one, then a crappy line through the second. I stopped at a few corners and worked on doing it the right way. It's amazing, without really even pedaling hard, how much more speed you carry by following the correct line. I also stopped and spent some time on the pump track. The surface isn't so great there, too gravely, but you can still get zipping around with good technique.

I started re-reading Skip Barber's Going Faster for its good discussion of the line when I got home...

I expected my dirt road ride on Sunday to go kind of badly. My legs never got feeling good on Saturday, so I didn't expect much for Sunday. I did get out pretty early in the morning before it got too hot, which helped. I ended up actually feeling really good. After I got warmed up, I did my usual harder efforts, and those felt good. Then I finished up at an easier pace to make the ride 2.5 hours. I definitely could have done more (and I will, this week).