Ohhhh-klahoma

I got back from my trip to Western Arkansas / Eastern Oklahoma yesterday. From a travel stanpoint, it was fine (except for the 6:30am flights), but from a work standpoint, it was brutal. I guess that's how trips go sometimes though.

I did find some time to get some exercise in though. Tuesday and Wednesday I got up early and ran. The weather down there was still quite a bit warmer than Michigan. I actually felt really good on my runs; it was a little surprising, since I'd run a bit a few days ago and my knee started bothering me.

Most days, I also swam in the evening. Swimming is a great workout for me. Since I hardly ever swim, I have absolutely no efficiency in the water. I can make it slowly down and back (remember, in a hotel-sized pool) and then I have to stop and suck wind for a while.

I didn't ride last night. I ended up working late last night and I wanted to spend some time with the family. I should be able to get in some good rides tonight and this weekend though.

Lower Huron CX - 2008

I raced at Lower Huron Metropark this morning. This course is usually one of my favorites, and today it was also a good one. Last year, I got my first "podium" (5th place) at this race, but that was in the C race. I had a good week of training this week, so I was expecting to have a good day today...

Here were my goals for the race (if you read my last race report, you'll know where these came from):

1. Do a better job of inspecting the course. Have a plan for any tricky spots.

2. Use energy wisely.

3. Ride relaxed, but corner aggressively.

The course starts with a long, open stretch of paved road. I didn't get a great start position, but I wasn't too concerned given the long stretch of road. What I didn't expect was totally blowing the start. I usually start with my left foot clipped in. I did today also, but when I made my first downstroke, I started tipping left, and I didn't get my right foot in. Fortunately, one of my competitors stuck his arm out and probably stopped me from crashing. After that bit of artistry, I was off the back before I got started. Still, it was a long stretch of road, and I didn't panic. I worked my way by quite a few people before we hit the grass.

(Sarah actually captured this moment on the camera. Upon closer inspection of the picture, I saw that my left foot wasn't clipped in either. So, I don't know if I didn't actually have my foot clipped in when I though, or if I clipped out to avoid falling.)

So, back to the action... as soon as I hit the grass, I saw riders splitting around something. Someone had gone down and his bike was covering most of the course. I lost a few spots getting around the crash. Again, I just kept reminding myself to use my energy wisely. I passed people when I could but didn't force it. A minute later, I crashed on an off-camber corner. I'd been nailing it on my warmup laps, but I think I was going faster and probably just leaned too much. I managed to finish the lap without crashing.

Once again, I was noticeably quicker than the guys around me through the technical sections. I still really don't understand this, as it is not a strength of mine in mountain bike races.

I'd been gradually working by people in the early laps. I finally felt like my fitness was starting to get good today. I was able to keep my pace up the whole race and push hard a few times. More setbacks on the third lap, I tripped over one of the barriers, but I didn't fall. Immediately after I got back on the bike though, I overcooked the next corner and got tangled up in the tape. Three of the guys I'd just passed went by me.

At some point during the race, I managed to rip a big hole in my shorts. Nice...

So, over the last couple laps, I worked my way back by those same guys. At the start of my last lap, my bike started having trouble staying in gear. I thought maybe there was a stick in there or something and I thought I could ride through it. The guy chasing me commented that I was having terrible luck today. After I set my bike down after the sandpit, I got a big gear skip and heard the brakes rubbing. I had to stop to fix it then. It turned out that the quick release had loosened so my rear wheel was moving around. Amazingly, just the one guy that was right behind me passed me while I was fixing my bike. It did bring two more guys right up to me though.

On the rest of the last lap, I was just trying to make sure I beat the two guys behinds me. The riders in front of me were out of contact at that point. I tried to put in an attack on the runup and on the hills afterward, but I could still see a shadow behind me. I attempted to covertly shift to the big ring a few corners before the finish. I didn't hear any chainrings shifting behind me. I punched it on the last corner before the finish and kept it burried to the finish. Sarah said the guys behind me weren't too close to coming around.

So, I ended up finishing 13th out of about 25 today. Despite all of my mistakes and mishaps today, I felt really good about this race, mainly because my fitness seemed so much better. So, next up, in two weeks, the Veteran's Park doubleheader in Ann Arbor. In the meantime, I think I'll work on my starts...

(My daugter made the trip today too...)

Bike Racer At Last?

I had sort of forgotten that the title of my blog says "wannabe bike racer"... maybe those days are over?

I went to 'cross practice Tuesday night. A lot of the usual group raced at the BioWheels 'cross race in Ohio the weekend before, so they were just taking it easy on the track. I didn't race, so I felt like I needed to go hard. The result was that I was about the only one going hard (there were a few other people riding easy on the 'cross course). After one of my hard efforts, I stopped to talk to Jeff for a minute. He commented that I was "finally starting to look like a bike racer". From Jeff, that's a pretty big compliment; he usually spends most of his time complaining about how people ride. Anyway, it was kind of cool.

I've sort of been wondering when I'd finally feel like I was getting into racing shape. I think it may be starting to happen. I felt pretty decent on Tuesday night, but since I was the only one riding hard, I couldn't compare. Tonight, I did a hard trainer workout and I felt better than I expected. So, maybe I'm starting to come around. We'll see. I still expect to struggle a bit at the race this weekend, but maybe I'll be OK after that.

Having said that, I'm really not so sure my 'cross season will ever come together this year. I decided that I needed to go to Oklahoma for work next week. I would have really preferred not to go (since it screws up my training and my family "balance"), but I think I need to. Then, as I mentioned before, I'll be going to Korea and China for a week or so in early November. (Also, a quick trip to Nebraska in late November!) That's how it goes I guess. I'll just try to prepare the best I can for my races and not get stressed that I can't train how I'd like.

Base Mileage Thoughts

Maybe it really isn't appropriate to title this post "Base Mileage Thoughts", but it's close enough.

As has happened before, a lot of training ideas are starting to converge for me. It's funny how sometimes you really need to have a sufficient knowledge base to understand what someone is trying to explain. A lot of times, I feel like I need to take a piece from this and a piece from that before a bigger idea finally makes sense.

So, one of the pieces of this puzzle was an article that Ashwin had linked to. I think this article is, by the way, nearly impossible to understand without some significant understanding of cycling training principles.

Another piece of the puzzle was my frustration, or lack of understanding, about why long rides are necessary for mountain bike and cyclocross. In lots of books you read (and in my club), people are suggesting you do these 4-6 hour rides. For road racing, I can understand this, as the race distances are approaching this range. But, to ride 4-6 hours for a 2 hour mountain bike race, or a 1 hour cross race? I don't get it, it's always seemed like overkill to me.

The last piece is my reading of several different books and websites about higher intensity training.

I want to avoid turning this into a full program discussion, but the above sources have helped me answer the question I have. How long do my long rides have to be, and how many do I need to do? I think the answer is "not that long and not that many".

One of the key ideas from the Willet article was to match your "fill rides" (long rides) with the expected energy expended during the race (energy = power x time). Doing more than this is not really useful; it increases your fatigue level with little benefit. I made a little chart of energy burned as a function of intensity (% CP30) and time (hrs). Here's the key thing to notice: increasing time increases energy expended much faster than increasing intensity. (Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to make the image bigger in Blogger.)

Let's say you can do a 1hr 'cross race at 95% of your CP30 power (maybe this intensity is too high, I don't know). If you have a CP30 power of 268W (which I do), you burn 917kJ. So, if you want to do an endurance ride at 65% of CP30 (not working too hard), you'd only have to ride for 1.5 hours to roughly match the energy expended in the 'cross race.

You could do the same exercise for a mountain bike race. What it looks like to me though is that, as long as you're not racing for long periods of time (like in road races or marathon MTB races), you don't need to ride much longer than 2.5-3 hours. 4-6 hours puts you way over your energy expended in a MTB or 'cross race.

Of course, matching energy is only half the story. Training just to match energy will still get you smoked in a bike race. I don't want to delve into the other half of the story in this post, but I will say that I think I'm spending way too much time working on "fill rides" and not enough on the latter.

Bad Legs

My legs have been feeling bad on my rides this week. I'm not completely sure what's going on, I think it's a combination of doing more higher intensity work and inadequate recovery. I think, especially with the Paleo nutrition plan, you have to be a bit more careful about eating the right foods for recovery. I'm going to focus on that over the next few weeks and see how it goes.

I actually had some pretty fun rides this week, even though the legs didn't feel great. I did a hill sprint workout at Waterford Oaks Thursday night. Since there was a lot of recovery time in that workout, I played around with some different 'cross handling things on the trails. I did a road ride on Saturday, it was pretty windy... maybe that wasn't so fun. Sunday morning I rode my singlespeed at PLRA again. I didn't push very hard, and I had a good time. I definitely need to make some changes to that bike if I want to keep riding it so much. That (relatively) narrow front tire is killing me!

I had a much better hockey game last night. No goals, but I actually handled the puck reasonably well. So it was a big improvement over my last skate.

It looks like my rough cyclocross season will be getting rougher. It's not official yet, but I'm probably heading off to Korea and China early next month for work. It won't be a long trip, but the timing is pretty bad. A week of messed up sleep, food and exercise is not a recipe for good form for the last month or so of the season.

This is another reason that some of the higher intensity programs have some appeal to me. Yeah, maybe my peak won't be as good as it could be with a more progressive build, but I think I stand a better chance of being in better shape for more races.

Testing

This week didn't turn out like I'd planned. I had a customer visiting my office this week, so I was busy preparing for meetings and in meetings. I also didn't recover very quickly from the race on Sunday; I decided not to play hockey afterward on Sunday night.

I took Tuesday night off (so no 'cross workout). Then, on Wednesday, because it looked like I had to ride the trainer anyway, I decided to do a LT field test. I've really been feeling lost lately about where my fitness is, and I figured that the test was a good substitute for the Muscular Endurance workout I was planning to do.

The test didn't go great, which maybe isn't a big surprise, since I did it at about 8pm after a full day of work. Usually, I do these on Saturday mornings. That being said, my heart rate was right where it should be for a good test, so I know my effort was good. I also improved my average power by 12 Watts over my previous test (done back in March, end of Base 2).

So, I feel like I got some mixed results. On the one hand, I'm a little disappointed that I didn't improve more between March and now. On the other hand, I'm sure I could have eeked out a few more Watts if I'd have done the test under more ideal conditions. Also, I know that I've been improving on this test at a pretty good clip, and, at some point, the improvement will start slowing down. Maybe that's starting to happen?

For reference, and because it makes me feel good, here's my improvement. From the time I started seriously training and doing these tests, back in January of 2006, my average power has improved by 62W, or 30%. That's pretty dramatic! To put it in terms of speed (which is maybe more understandable), my average speed on the test has improved by 2.3mph.

(I've been playing around with some power and energy numbers lately... more on that later... but I read that in an international professional MTB race, the riders average about 88% of their threshold. With some other data, I worked out that their threshold power is about 400W! This is about 130W higher than me! Cripe! I can only hold 400W for a few minutes!)

Stony Creek CX - 2008

I had the realization last week that this would be the fourth year I've done the Stony Creek cyclocross race. It was one of the four races I did the very first year I raced.

Anyway, my plan for the race was to try to hang with English Mark and Irish Pete for as long as I could. I knew it would be a stretch, but I also knew it would force me to keep the pace up.

I got myself a fired up a bit on the starting line, and when the whistle blew, I went out hard. The guy in front of me didn't start quite as hard, so I lost a little momentum getting around him. At that point, English Mark went by me, so I latched on to his wheel and off we went. I think I was easily in the top 10 when we got off the pavement.

The first unpaved corner was fine, but I ran into trouble on the second. It was a hairpin left, with the course doubling back on itself. I was in a short line on the inside, and there was a long line on the outside. The outside line guys, of course, had the fast line through the corner, while us inside line guys had to crawl around. I probably lost 7 or 8 spots just getting around that corner, but at least I didn't fall.

I was still trying to push hard, which probably contributed to my next mistake. The next section was a log runup, some people were riding it, some were running. I elected to run, but I didn't shift down beforehand, so I was in too hard of a gear when I got back on. Another small group passed me.

The next section was a long section of relatively tight corners in the grass. I was actually pretty quick through here, but I continued to make bad decisions. I was still scrambling to move up, but I was forcing things too much and I was using up a lot of energy for very little return.




The signature feature of the Stony 'cross race is the beach section, and they made it as long as possible this year. It was a little trickier this year than it normally is, because there were sections down by the water that were firm and easily rideable, but there were also deeper sections in between that were much harder to ride. What seemed to work (later in the race) was to ride the first hard section, then ride the short deep section, ride the second firm section, and then run the last deep section. That's not what I did on the first lap though. On the first lap, I started running in the first deep section, and I think this cost me quite a bit of time.

Once I got off the beach on that first lap, I assessed my position a bit and realized I wasn't going to be able to catch Mark and Pete at that point. So, I backed off a touch and started in on my steady pace. For most of the rest of the race, I rode in a group of 3-4 guys. I crashed on the beach on my third lap when my handlebar hooked a sign right on the edge of the course. It was dramatic, but it didn't cost me a tremendous amount of time.

On the last lap, I made my move to break away from the group I was riding with. I thought I was faster through the "tape maze" section, and so, when there was a little lull in the pace in that section, I pushed hard for a little while and broke away. It's a good thing I got my gap at that point, because I was spent, and I couldn't have put in another hard effort.

I ended up rolling through 17th out of 25. I'm sort of disappointed with this race. I thought my effort was OK, but I ended up making a lot of mistakes. My fitness is still not where it needs to be to be really competitive. I'm hoping I'll start sharpening up later this month...

Singlespeed

Wow, it's been over a week since I last posted! Things have been very busy at work lately. I've also gotten a bit more efficient about how I'm structuring my evenings. I'm either riding immediately after work or after my daughter goes to bed. This way I can maximize the time I'm spending with her. It's been working well, but it means I don't have time for much else... like blogging.

I did a couple interesting things last week. One was a night ride on the road. I broke out my lights and actually ended up exploring some new roads (before it got dark). I found a hillier stretch of road by my house that I can incorporate into my typical rides out toward Pontiac Lake. I just need to remember to pop the clear lenses into my glasses if I'm going to be riding after dark. I ended up taking my glasses off and getting a little bug stuck in my eye!

I've been riding my singlespeed mountain bike a lot lately. Partly because I wanted to ride it, and partly because my geared mountain bike is still half-broken. It's been fun, but I learned an important lesson. It's critical to make sure the rear wheel is really locked down. I was climbing a steep hill at Bald Mountain last week, and I heard a loud pop from the rear wheel. Turns out that I didn't have the wheel tightened enough, and it slipped forward in the dropout. This made the wheel rub on the brakes and I lost my chain tension. Of course, I didn't have a tool to fix it with me. So I had to ride slowly out, with my chain falling off every minute or so. For the next ride, at Pontiac Lake, I really cranked the axle nuts down, and I didn't have any trouble (I also brought a wrench, just in case).

Hockey was a bit of a disaster on Sunday night. I actually skated pretty well, but I could do anything with the puck. I got lots of good opportunities, but I only made a few decent plays. Hopefully this weekend will be better.

Weekend Reflections

Some reflections after this weekend of racing...

1. Things like the duel with Mark at the end of Sunday's race is part of the reason cyclocross is so cool. Not only is it a very physical race, but it's also tactical. I think moreso than mountain bike racing (at least, at my level).

2. The big differences between my races Saturday and Sunday were my focus and my relaxation. I did a much better job of staying focused on what I was doing Sunday and "staying on the boil". I was also more relaxed on the bike Sunday. This is why I flowed really well in some of the corners.

3. What's so different between mountain biking and cyclocross? I looked at my lap times for this weekend compared to some of the guys I race mountain bikes against. On both days I was faster than my mountain biking peers. I use the term "peers" loosely, because most of these guys are consistently faster than me on a mountain bike. Certainly, some of them don't have as much 'cross experience as I do, but some of them do.

4. I'm thinking maybe it's time to do a little upgrading to the bike. Up until this weekend, I've been OK with my aluminum fork. Yes, it's harsh, but the C races were so short that it never bothered me. After this Sunday's race though, my arms definitely were feeling the effects. So, I'm thinking maybe a new carbon fork is in order. I'm also seriously considering making the switch to tubular tires.

Springfield Oaks CX - Sun

For the Sunday race, I got out of the house a little earlier. They didn't change the course too much between the two days, but I still did two warmup laps before the C race. My legs felt pretty tired during the warmup, especially any time there was a little rise.

Saturday night, I decided that I needed to be a little more confident about my racing. There were also a couple of spots on course that I decided I should ride in the drops if they were still there on Sunday.

I lined up near the back at the start again (I actually let fellow Rhinos English Mark and Irish Pete move ahead of me at the start, since they both easily beat me Saturday). The starting pace was definitely slower than Saturday, but I still wound up near the back early in the first lap. As with Saturday, I just tried to keep things steady and smooth. I actually felt stronger during the race on Sunday and my focus was much better.

On Sunday, there were a couple of corners that I really nailed. One in particular was just after the horse barn: I started the corner about 20 feet behind a guy and by the corner exit I was passing him. I just took a better line that allowed me to stay off my brakes and carry my momentum back up the hill. Unfortunately, there were also a couple corners out there that I never felt comfortable with.

Anyway, with about 3 laps to go, I could still see Pete and Mark ahead of me. I wasn't making up much ground, but they weren't totally burying me like the day before. Then with 2 laps to go, I saw I was definitely gaining on Mark (I found out later that he crashed).

I was very close with 1 lap to go; Mark must have decided I was too close, and he suddenly opened up a pretty big gap. I thought it was too soon to really chase, so I just kept my steady pace. I kept gradually gaining, and was getting very close again as we hit the run up. I was thinking I could take him in the next section before the "grunt" hill, but I totally biffed getting my feet into the pedals after the runup! I ended up going down the loose, steep hill that followed with my feet out of the pedals and my rear tire kicking all over the place! That caused me to blow the corner, and I figured that was it, but I caught back up quickly again. I started feeling pretty good about being able to beat Mark at that point.

I got past Mark on the "grunt" hill, and I pushed pretty hard on the rise after that. I'd been dropping people all day here, but Mark stayed with me, and we were pretty much shoulder-to-shoulder. I was on the inside, which was a bad spot for the hairpin into the off-camber section (in hindsight, I should have "drifted" right as we were approaching the corner, so I could take a decent line). Mark took the lead into the off-camber, but he gave me a little space, so we rode the off-camber section shoulder-to-shoulder, with me on the uphill side. (In my opinion, that whole sequence was really freakin' cool!) Mark was now to the inside for the last big right-hander. I'd been passing people all day here too. Mark's line sort of went inside-outside, my line went outside-inside (with less braking) and I carried more speed out of the corner. The corner emptied into the paved finish straight. We were even at the corner exit, but I had more momemtum. From there, I just buried it to the finish and Mark wasn't able to get by me.

So, I ended up 15th out of 27 starters on Saturday. I was really pretty happy with the way I raced, and I was reasonably happy with my placing.

Springfield Oaks CX - Sat

This weekend marked the beginning of cyclocross racing season for me. My first race of the year was Saturday, the UCI Michigan Double Cross at Springfield Oaks. I made the move up to the "killer B's" this year, so I went into the weekend not really expecting great results...

I ended up getting a late start out of the house on Saturday morning... last minute baby and dog duties. The plan was to get there before the C race so I could do an early warmup, so I really had plenty of time. I only got one lap in before they started calling for people to clear the course. I felt OK about it, since I had ridden it a bit the night before too. I did warm-up on course again before my race. Just one note about the C race: I couldn't believe how short it seemed when I was watching it. It definitely felt longer when I was racing it!

I lined up for the start near the back (again, no expectations); there were about 30 people in our race. It was probably just as well I was at the back, since I couldn't get my right foot in the pedal and I bogged down at the start. The race was fairly uneventful. I just tried to pace myself and stay smooth. I was very near the back in the first few laps, but I gradually picked people off as the race went on. Still, I didn't feel particularly strong and my focus wasn't great.

I finished 21st out of 32 starters. It wasn't a great race, but, given that I wasn't sure I was even going to race this weekend, I was OK with it.

Springfield Oaks Pre-Ride

I went out for a couple laps on the course tonight. There were a number of Rhinos there helping to set up the banner. I chatted for a minute, then got on my way. The course was great, Joe Brown did his usual good job setting it up. I just about went off twice, on my easy lap, where the course did something I didn't expect.

On my second lap, I pushed the pace a little bit. I started noticing I was slowly catching the only other two riders on the course. I didn't know who they were, but they didn't have local jerseys. In fact, the guy had on some kind of UCI rainbow jersey. Usually, I'd figure it was a replica and wouldn't think much about it, but, given the caliber of some of the riders in town this weekend, I wasn't sure.

I eventually caught the pair. I was going about 70-80%, they were definitely not working hard. Since it was near the end of the lap, I decided to just hang back a bit. It ticks me off on the trail when people go flying by me on a regular day like we're racing if I'm just putzing around (on the other hand, it also ticks me off when people just sit on my wheel). It just didn't seem right to pass some possible pro's on a pre-ride lap. I suppose they probably wouldn't have cared... unless maybe I passed them and then crashed (a classic move!). Anyway, they pulled off (to change tires?) and I stopped to talk to the Rhinos (who had finally finished hanging the banner). The pair of riders came back and stopped to talk to Jeff for a minute. I then discovered that the guy in the rainbow jersey was Steve Tilford, so I'm sure it was an earned jersey. I didn't catch the woman's name, but my assumption is that she's also a pro. Anyway, cool stuff... I'm getting fired up for tomorrow!

Leg Check

I'm progressing pretty nicely in getting rid of my cold. Still not 100%, but pretty close. Last night, I did a hard trainer ride (on the trainer because we had company over). I still think I'll get crushed this weekend, but I didn't feel totally weak on the bike. So, a big improvement over Tuesday.

I'm going to head out to the course tonight and do a few laps. Just to make sure the bike is ready and to check things out.

I signed up for the race yesterday afternoon. They had the registration set up so you could see the list of confirmed riders... I think this is a cool feature. There were only 5 B-racers signed up when I registered. By this morning, there were a bunch more. Most of my Rhino buddies that were on the fence decided to race the B's rather than the C's. They probably saw my name on there, remembered the way I rode Tuesday night, and thought, "At least I'll beat Keith." I may have to give John a hard time for racing in the C's this weekend...

Health Check

I think I'm finally getting over my cold; it took about a week. I was feeling slightly better Friday and Saturday; good enough that I did some easy riding on the trainer both days. I felt much worse on Sunday though, and I decided not to go to work on Monday. We had some water in the basement with all the rain over the weekend, and battling that probably didn't help my health. Anyway, yesterday, I finally started feeling much better.

So, I decided to go to the Tuesday night club ride at the track. A ton of people showed up; I don't know if it was because of the race this weekend or what, but it was kind of crazy. I actually felt really good on the bike from a technical perspective. I don't know if it was from laying on the couch and watching cycling videos all weekend or what, but I felt super relaxed and super smooth (at least, at low speeds... as the speed went up, I tightened up).

I pushed reasonably hard on the first "interval". It didn't go so well, I felt weak, and I got dropped by the group of my peers. For the other intervals, my plan was to just take it easy and keep working on technique. I definately did not want to take a step backward in terms of health by going too hard for too long. The plan worked OK, except that there were too many people on course. I figured I'd get dropped immediately and would have a clear course to work on. I discovered instead that my 60% effort pace was still faster than most of the beginners' pace. So, I did another 1.5 intervals and then called it a night.

I did the last little bit in the drops. When we were waiting to start the last one, a woman asked me to "feel her brakes". (My wife asked if that was a cycling pickup line? Alas, no, her rear brake was actually a little sticky.) Anyway, it led to a brief discussion on the merits of riding in the drops versus riding on the hoods. I actually like riding in the drops better... I think the bike handles better with the more forward weight distribution and you can get more leverage on the brakes. I just don't do it. The problem is that I'm not used to riding that low, so my back and arms get uncomfortable after a short time. Maybe part of the solution is to raise the bars a little?

Today I feel better still, which is definitely a good thing. I'm going to do some kind of easier ride tonight, try to go hard tomorrow, easy Friday, and then race this weekend. The Thursday ride should give me a pretty good indication of how things will go this weekend.

Long Week

I forgot to mention that I rode the Stony race with a broken shifter (stuck in the middle ring) and a bent front brake lever. I need to a little work on the bike now...

This week was rough. I played hockey Sunday night, which was probably a mistake. Playing after 'cross races isn't too bad, but it's too much after mountain bike races. I also had lots of stress at work this week which didn't help. So, by Tuesday afternoon, I started feeling sick. I didn't ride at all this week until last night. I did a relatively easy spin on the trainer for about 45 minutes. I'm still a little stuffed up today, but I'm getting better. I'll try another easy trainer ride this afternoon. None of this bodes well for the UCI 'cross race next weekend.

In light of my posts about high-intensity training, I'll just comment that I've noticed that pushing the limits on volume will consistently make me sick. Pushing the limits on intensity will burn me out and make me irritable, but I've never gotten sick (that I'm aware of) from too much intensity.

Stony Creek XC

Long time, no post... I'll explain later.

So, Sunday was my last mountain bike race of the season, a cross-country race at Stony Creek. I really only had one main goal for this race, to put in a hard effort. That was my main complaint about my previous race at Pontiac Lake. I got my hard effort in, but my placement was the same as PLRA, 7th place.


I did feel like I had a decent race. I pushed pretty hard in all the open spots, and I rode the singletrack reasonably well. I think my fitness is just not at the same level as the other guys right now. The break I took in the middle of the summer (and not racing too much) probably hurt me. Of course, improving my bike handling would also make an immediate impact...

I ended up 6th in my class for the USAC MTB series. Not really too bad, considering I only did 5 races, one of which I DNF'd.

Maximum Performance for Cyclists

I picked up a copy of "Maximum Performance for Cyclists" by Dr. Michael Ross the other day. It's an interesting book; it reminded me of the Dave Morris book. Despite the title, it doesn't actually hit the physiology material as hard as Morris, but it includes a lot of other stuff. There's an interesting section on bike fit (including measurement of Q-angle, which I hadn't seen before), and it does a better job of laying out what a training plan would look like.




In general, I think the book doesn't go into enough detail on most topics, and it skips some important things. Basically, I think this shouldn't be your only training book. On the other hand, if you're already somewhat knowledgeable about training, I think this book is enough.

So, Dr. Ross is essentially advocating a focus on high-intensity training after a relatively short low-intensity training period. It's been a long time since I've read the Morris book, but I think the approaches are very similar. Unlike some of the "crazy" Internet sites I read, it looks like rides would still be long enough that there should be no problems actually sitting on the bike for 2 hours if you needed to for a race. Longer than that, and maybe you'd want to rethink it.

One thing that Dr. Ross does very well in the book is focus on training goals for a given workout. If your goal is to build mitochondria, or strengthen certain muscle fibers, then you should do a workout optimized for that specific goal. This is something that I lose sight of sometimes. I think it's definitely important to know what you want to accomplish for a given workout.

Even though I'm currently following the more traditional Friel program, I keep looking at the higher intensity programs for a few reasons:

1. Especially now with the baby, my training time is very limited.

2. With the Friel program, I feel like I'm too far out of racing shape for most of the year. For example, I felt like I was only in good shape for 2 of the 5 mountain bike races I did this year (had I done the 7 races I originally planned, it would have been 2 out of 7). For 'cross this year, it will be about 5 of 9. Maybe this is a problem with my planning, but I think that I may be in better racing shape off-peak with a higher intensity program.

3. Intuitively, I question the value of long rides for the type of racing that I do. My mountain bike races are usually around 90 minutes, and 'cross races will be 45 minutes this year for me. So, is it really effective to frequently ride 2+ hours? On the other hand, I feel that my biggest year over year gains come from the Base phases, but maybe that's because I spend most of the year in them.

Anyway, so I'm going to mull this all over a bit. I'm not changing anything for this season, since I've only got 3 months left, but I'm going to consider making a change for next year. Whether it's this program, or Morris, I at least want to take a look again.

Rubber Side Down

Well, since my last post, I've managed to keep the rubber side down on my rides. I didn't get in as much riding over the weekend as I'd hoped, but I am pretty much recovered from my crashes. My legs and arms are still scabbed and bruised, but I'm not sore anywhere anymore.

I rode out at Stony again on Saturday. I know what happened when I crashed on the bridge now. There's a tree just to the left side of the bridge. When I'm leaning a little bit to the left around the corner, I tend to drop my left shoulder a little more near the tree (to make sure I don't hit it, I guess). When the bridge is dry, it's no problem, when it's wet, it's probably enough to put me down.

Saturday, I was working on breaking my habit of braking too much, too early. Just telling myself not to brake doesn't seem to be very effective. Instead, when I felt the urge to brake, I tried telling myself to look up and stick my elbows out. This seemed to work OK, and it gave me something to do.

I made it out to the track last night for cyclocross practice. I'm still pretty rusty on the 'cross bike. There were a number of things that I remembered during the course of the practice. Riding relaxed and light is really important out at Waterford Hills, since the ground is so rough. It took me a while to get back in the habit of thinking ahead a bit with gear selection (ie- shift to an easier gear going downhill, so you can be in the correct gear when you have to pedal back uphill). I also worked on my cornering technique; it's really the same as on the mountain bike, but the narrower tire is a little less forgiving.

A lot of the stuff I need to work on for cyclocross is the same stuff I need to work on for mountain biking. I find it easier to do this work at the track though, maybe because the course is short, so I go through the same corners a bunch of times over a short period of time. There's also usually no consequence for blowing a corner.

I really didn't feel like I was in very good "racing" shape. Mark C and others gapped me pretty easily. On the other hand, by the end of the night, I was going just about as fast as I was at the beginning, but with less effort. I was just doing a better job of maintaining my momentum around the course.

Crashes in 3's?

Hopefully crashes go in threes... I've had three in the past 5 days.

Crash #1: I got started at the race at Pontiac Lake. I exited a sandy corner a little wide, clipped a tree with my handlebar, and down I went. Result: scraped up right knee, sore right shoulder. It may have also precipitated Crash #2.

Crash #2: Wednesday night at Waterford Oaks (no joke! I know it's not even a proper mountain bike trail. How embarrassing!) There's a steep hill that a couple of 'cross guys and I use to practice run-ups. It's steep enough that I don't think you could ride up even if you wanted to... at least, I'm pretty sure I couldn't ride up it. I do sometimes like riding down it though. Here's what the hill looks like from the bottom:

There's a tight left turn at the bottom. If you blow it, here's what awaits:

I went down it fine the first time. The second time, I didn't negotiate the roots very well, so I was late on my braking. I should also mention that I noticed my front brake wasn't working right, it was a little too weak, but I didn't bring any tools, so I didn't look at it in detail. So, between my mistake and having weak brakes, I blew the corner. I sort of bailed off the back of my bike, so I didn't hit anything hard, but I did scrape up the inside of both of my knees and my left shin. I also cut my lip, which swelled up a little the next day. Nice.

After the crash, I looked at my brakes. I noticed that the lock nut on the front brake lever was loose and the lever wasn't pulling nearly enough cable (I have mechanical discs). I fixed it, and the braking was fine after that. This brake lever would be punished for it's failure in Crash #3 though...

Crash #3: It rained off and on all day on Thursday, and I went out to Stony Creek (site of my final MTB race this year) for a ride after work. There's a long bridge in the middle of The Pines that is notoriously slippery when wet. On my first lap through, I remember thinking "I don't know why people have so much trouble on this bridge, I've never fallen on it."

On the second lap, I was pushing the pace harder, including while on the bridge. There's a left hand turn just beyond what you can see in the picture. I apparently had the bike leaned too far over, and my front wheel slid out in a big hurry, and I went down hard. I sat up and contemplated whether I had a broken collarbone or dislocated shoulder. It turns out neither, but it was a hard enough crash that I thought I was going to throw up. Anyway, the damage here was a bruised left knee and left shoulder, and a big cut on my left elbow. The crash also somehow bent my front brake lever (revenge for Crash #2!).

My shoulder feels better today than I expected, I sort of thought I wouldn't be able to move it today. I did ice it for quite a while last night. My knee feels worse than I expected though.

So, a tough few days. Hopefully I'm done crashing for a while. I took today off work (I was going to take it off anyway). I had planned to do a nice long ride, but I think I'm just going to chill out and try to heal. Maybe I'll do a short easy spin on the bike later just to stay loose.

Pontiac Lake XC

"I'd always envisioned that Olympic athletes were these giant superheroes, and I knew I was just small and an average person."

- Sheila Taormina, 3-time Olympian (in 3 different sports)

The Pontiac Lake XC race was Sunday. I felt like I was well-prepared for this race. Even though I'm not in great racing form right now, I'm definitely recovered from my mid-summer break. I knew the trail very well. I was well-rested, my nutrition has been good, and I made sure I was well-hydrated. My bike was clean and working perfectly. With the trail being only 5 miles or so from my house, I didn't even have much of a drive. As a result of my preparation, I was really calm and relaxed before the race. Then I went out and tanked... I was dead last in my class after the first lap, and then I worked my way up to 7th (of 10 finishers) on the second lap.

There were lots of little details in the race that made some difference one way or another, and, certainly fitness and skill were factors, but I think my lackluster performance really came down to motivation. In all the bike races I've done well in, I've pushed hard enough so that I'm nearly always at the limit. I always say, "If I don't want to quit on the last lap, I didn't go hard enough." On Sunday, I think I just didn't work hard enough. I was at a "comfortable" pace for way too much of the race, and I had way too much energy left at the finish.

Part of the motivation / pacing problem was certainly that I've not really raced since the Stony Marathon. Yeah, I did the Hines TT a couple weeks ago, but a 30 minute road TT and a 90 minute MTB race are totally different (I guess a marathon race is a lot different too). The DNF at Brighton is also still kicking around in my mind. Really though, it comes down to the fact that I wasn't mentally prepared to race on Sunday.

The mental side was a big part of the reason I improved so much last year in cyclocross. I raced so often on the weekends, and I usually treated the Tuesday night practices as race efforts, that I got very good at knowing exactly how hard I could push myself. As soon as I got some good finishes, I started to expect good finishes every time. I started treating myself as a "fast guy".** I lined up at the front, I rode with the lead group (until they dropped me ;) ), I expected to beat anyone I was still riding with on the last lap. This kind of attitude makes a BIG difference.

Why this attitude hasn't transitioned over to mountain biking yet I don't know. I finished on the podium 2 of the 3 races (that I finished) this year... including a 3rd place, my best finish ever in a bike race. The results are there, but I still don't feel like a fast guy. Actually, I do know why, it's because I don't feel like my technical skills are on par with the other Sport racers. This is sort of a different topic, but it's more true on some trails than others.

Anyway, the good thing about having a bad race is that there's lots of stuff to think about and work on. Good races are so boring... ;)

** Little sidebar here... back when I was in to car and kart racing, I was talking to another guy I respected at the kart track (he was a full-blown (car) road racer). I mentioned something that the "fast guys" were doing, and he said, "Dude, you ARE one of the fast guys!". He was right, but it didn't sink in for me until he said it. In the series that was going on, it wasn't unusual for me to set the fastest or one of the fastest qualifying times, and I placed well in (and occasionally won) the A-race.

Riding Light

I did my "key" workout of the week last night, cruise intervals out at PLRA. I expected the trail to be crowded with the race coming up this weekend, but it wasn't bad at all. From a fitness perspective, doing intervals on the trail isn't ideal since intensity varies quite a bit depending on the terrain. But, for me, the big advantage is that I end up riding sections of trail above my race pace. From a technical perspective, it makes riding the trail at race pace a bit more comfortable.

Ever notice how the best mountain bikers seem to just skim over obstacles? I've finally got a good phrase to describe it, "riding light". I borrowed this from Jeff, who said something to the effect of: "If you don't ride light in a 'cross race, you're dead." This is something I've been working on when I ride the trails lately. Certainly, part of it is unweighting the bike a bit when you're about to come up to an obstacle. I think maybe the bigger part of it is staying relaxed on the bike and not sitting too heavily on the saddle. Because, a lot of times, it's the little unseen bumps that bounce you around, especially in 'cross. I'm getting better at this. Usually I can skim over the obvious bumps, roots, rocks, etc, but the little stuff will still get me, especially as I start to get tired near the end of a ride.

PLRA and Running

We'll start out with a couple of links:

Article by Adam Hodges-Myerson about motivation.

Blog entry from Alwyn Cosgrove about the phenomenon of leveling / sharpening.

And then a quote from Shalane Flanagan about her 10km Olympic race: "The plan was to run as fast as possible as efficiently as possible for as long as possible."


I'm still keeping up with my running plan. Still just working on a slow, steady progression. I'm up to a whopping 13 minutes per run this week, but, the key is, I'm doing it pain-free. At first, I think the running had a negative impact on my cycling. My legs just didn't feel right on the bike, I think it hurt my efficiency. I haven't had the same feelings though over the past couple weeks, so maybe I've adapted.

I'm getting pretty fired up about the race at PLRA this weekend. I've been feeling pretty fit again lately, and I know the trail well. By far, I've ridden at PLRA more than anywhere else this year. I actually had a dream about winning the race last night. In it, I ran past John on the last climb. Probably a pretty tall order in the real world; from reading John's blog, he's been racing well lately.

Pair O' Rides

I had a nice pair of rides over the weekend. I got up early Saturday morning and rode out at Stony Creek. The last USAC race is there in a few weeks, so I thought I'd check it out (not that I haven't ridden at Stony a time or two). I worked on climbing strength by riding the hills in too hard of a gear. There really aren't any long climbs at Stony, but it's pretty easy to string a bunch of shorter ones together.

On Sunday, I rode out to PLRA and did a couple of laps. I felt pretty decent; actually better than I have for quite a while. There are still a few descents out there where I need to let go of the brakes and let it rip, but I'm definitely getting better. It will be interesting to see how the race there goes this weekend. Based on last year's times, I should finish near the front, but you never know.

I'll be due for some new tires on the mountain bike at the end of the year. All of the riding on the road I've been doing to and from the trail is really wearing my tires out. I'm going to switch to a little bit faster tire for next year, maybe the Kenda Karma or Small Block 8.

'Cross Practice

I made it to cyclocross practice at the track last night. It was one of the first of the year, and the first one I went to. I've sort of decided I can only do one club ride a week (they take a little too long), so I need to decide how I want to split the Tuesday night 'cross practice and the Thursday night dirt road ride. I think maybe the Thursday ride is more what I need right now.

Anyway, it was a little weird to get back on the 'cross bike on a (sort of) proper 'cross course. Things went pretty well, but I felt rusty.

The main thing I need to work on is barriers. I've practiced just a little in the backyard this summer, but I need to do more now. I wasn't particularly good over the barriers last night. I had trouble with my timing when I didn't have a clear line of sight to the barrier (because of people in front of me). I was also slow getting back on the bike and into the pedals.

I think my cornering was improved over last year, thanks to continued practice on the mountain bike. There was one off-camber corner after a little downhill. I was able to take it confidently without braking because I kept the outside pedal loaded and my weight forward a little.

My intention was to keep the ride focused on skills and not to go too hard. I have some other hard rides planned later this week, so I wanted to keep this one easy to moderate. I was mostly successful; I held back a bit even on the group's harder efforts.

Hines Park TT - 2008

The 2008 edition of the Hines Park TT is in the books for me now. The weather had some influence on my race. The temperature was only in the mid-60's; I did my whole warmup with a jacket on. The wind was the bigger factor, it was blowing along the course, so you had a decent tailwind on the way out, but you turned back into a headwind.

My strategy to deal with the wind was to take as much advantage of the tailwind as possible, and then just suffer through the ride back. I passed a few riders on the road on the way out, and got passed by just one (this may have been our class winner, he was flying!). When I'd remember, I tried to keep my upper body relaxed and I focused on a smooth pedal stroke. I made it to the turnaround in about 15 minutes, well under my target pace. The ride back was tough, but I passed a few more people, and no one went by me. I basically managed to keep a steady pace, but it was definitely slower going back into the wind. I had enough left in the tank to push a little harder over the last mile.

I ended up finishing with a 33:11.75. Good enough for 8th place in the Eddy Merckx category (would have been 7th in the Cat4's, assuming they had the same conditions). I was shooting for around 32:30, but, considering the wind, I was OK with my time.

This was the first year this event has done the Eddy Merckx category, and I really liked it. There were some fast guys out there who had definitely done some racing before (I recognized at least one other mountain biker), and also some people that looked like they were taking their first crack at racing. The mental benefit of having everyone on course with the same equipment was bigger than I expected. I really liked not having anyone blow by me on a tricked-out time trial bike; with everyone's equipment more-or-less even, it just comes down to fitness and technique.

Hines TT Preview

I had a choice about what I was going to do this weekend. I either wanted to do a LT field test or ride the Hines Park TT. It's been a while since I've done a field test (the last one was in March, before my daughter was born), and it certainly provides a good measure of fitness progression for me. On the other hand, it's a little more fun to crank for half an hour on the road than it is on the trainer, and I'd still get some indication on progression. I decided to do the race...

I did the 20km TT two years ago. I had to miss the 20km TT last year, but I did the 40km TT instead. So, I'll be able to directly compare my result to the TT two years ago. Based on the progression of my trainer testing, I'm shooting for a 23mph average speed, or about 32.5 minutes. Not blazing fast by any stretch, but it's about 8.5% faster than I went in 2006.

This year, they have an Eddy Merckx category, for people without aerobars, aero wheels, etc. I'll probably still get smoked, but at least I'll know the equipment was more-or-less equal.

Eddy Merckx, 1966

Rest Week

I finished up the last hard week of my mid-season Base 2 phase. Not too soon either! I was really dragging on my rides over the weekend. It probably didn't help that I did a pretty hard run on Saturday morning.

My knee was a little sore last week and over the weekend. It didn't bother me on the bike or running, but I noticed it doing just normal things during the day. I'm pretty sure it's a result of my saddle height. I've been gradually letting it creep up again, and it seems to have caught up with me. I'll go back now and reset the heights on my bikes to what I found last year, and I bet the problem will go away. I just hate to give up that "free" power. On the other hand, I'd still like to be riding and running (on the knees my parents gave me!) in 20 years.

Speaking of positioning on the bike, I have a couple different ideas that I want to explore:

1. I'm curious about the effect of crankarm length on the whole saddle height issue. In some ways, the longer crankarm would act like a higher saddle height (more leg extension at the bottom of the stroke), but saddle height above the crank center would be the same. Maybe I'd still have the same problem, maybe not.

2. Moving away from under-cleat wedges. I have one right now on my left shoe. It does seem to position my foot better than with no wedge, but it also tends to cause my foot to rock on the pedal. I'm interested to try shoes (eg- Specialized Body Geometry) or insoles to make the correction inside the shoe rather than outside.

3. (Always three things!) Hamstring flexibility. I'm not sure that this is related to any issues I have or don't have, but I've got it in my head that my hamstring flexibility is poor. I've been working on it over the past few weeks with this active stretch, and my flexibility does seem to be improving. Whether or not it will have an impact on anything, I don't know.

Dropped!

I went to the club dirt road ride last night again. This week, we had a much better turnout, close to 15 people I think. There were quite a few people from other clubs / teams also.

Anyway, I made it to about the halfway point before things started getting difficult for me. The main group had already dropped 3 by that point. I didn't get dropped all at once; the group would sort of open a gap, then I'd catch back on, then a gap would open, and then I'd catch back on, until, finally, I didn't catch back on. I rode for quite a while with the main group in sight, I kept thinking if they got stopped at an intersection for a little while that I could catch up. But, in the middle of a hilly section, they finally pulled out of sight.

Since I wasn't too familiar with the route, I had to check my map at intersections once I couldn't see the main group anymore. This helped Joel to catch back up to me. He knows the route well, and he basically pulled me back into town. He was definitely stronger than I was at that point!

Anyway, it was a good ride. It is exactly what I need to work on from a fitness perspective: long, steady, fairly hard efforts. It also illustrated that I need to work harder at staying on the wheel in front of me. If I was better at that, I may still have gotten dropped, but I know I would have stayed with the main group longer. This is also a skill that's useful for cyclocross.

The only other weird thing that happened was that I got hit in the mouth with a rock that was kicked up off someone's tire. It got me in the lip and then one of my teeth. It didn't do any damage, but it sure got my attention!

More Running

I did a little more running Friday night. It worked out that running was about all I had time for. My wife wasn't feeling good, so I took care of the baby all evening. It was a little after 8pm when I got her to bed, so I didn't have much daylight left for riding. So, instead, I rode over to the middle school track and ran a timed mile (I was planning to do this Saturday anyway). Nights like this, by the way, are exactly why I want to be able to run.

My target for the mile was to run 6 minutes flat. My pace for the first half mile was perfect at 3:00. I started falling off a bit on the next lap, where I was at about 4:37. The last lap was all about holding on. I thought I might have a little left for a hard finish, but I didn't (which, I suppose, means I paced myself pretty well). I ended up running a 6:13. I can't be too disappointed, since I've only been back running for a few weeks, but I did hope to go quicker. My best mile time (in high school) was in the low 5 minute range.

In general, the running I've been doing hasn't had much impact on my cycling. This weekend was a little different though. My legs felt really drained for both of my rides this weekend. It looks like I'll have to be a little careful in the future about when I mix in harder runs.

Thursday Ride

Lots of people associated with the club have been telling me I should do the Thursday night "fast" dirt road ride. So, last night, I finally made it out. What I neglected to consider was that there was a road race at Waterford Hills last night and that there's a big charity ride going on this weekend. When I got to the shop, there was only one other guy there waiting for the ride. Eventually, two more showed up, and that's all we had.

Only one of the four of us knew the route, but we were all at roughly the same fitness level. Anyway, so the "fast" drop ride turned into a not-quite-so-fast no-drop ride. I thought the pace ended up being pretty decent anyway, we just had to stop a few times and regroup.

I ran at a low tire pressure last night, about 30psi, thinking I'd like it for the dirt roads. I did like it for the dirt roads, but then I almost got dropped right at the end of the ride on the paved roads heading back to Clarkston. I'm sure it wasn't that I was tired, it was just the low tire pressure, right?

This is roughly the route that we followed:

Running, etc

"It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential."
- Bruce Lee

I've been running a bit over the past few weeks. My thought is, as my daughter gets older, that my training time will become increasingly limited. In these situations, I think running is a nice workout, since it requires very little total time. You don't have to check your tires, fill up water bottles, find your gloves, etc. Just put on a pair of shoes and go. It's also pretty easy to squeeze in a run before work or at lunch.

This time around, I'm taking my running progression very slowly. In the past, I've gone too far too soon, resulting in some nagging knee pains, which quickly end the whole running experiment. So far, I've still not run more than 9 minutes, but I have done 8 runs over the past 2.5 weeks. With my runs being so short, but consistent, I have avoided the knee problems that plagued me in the past.

I still haven't decided how far I'll build. I'm thinking 30 minutes as a nice round number. We'll see how it goes.

Tonight I'm planning on doing the "fast" club dirt road ride. I'm sort of expecting to get dropped. We'll see what happens... I suppose it will probably depend on who shows up.

Sunday Ride

So, I didn't do the "epic" ride that I had planned. It rained all last night and a good bit of this morning, so I figured the trails would be pretty wet. This is what the radar looked like when I woke up, so I knew I wouldn't escape the rain...

So, instead, I waited for the rain to pass, and then I went for a long paved/dirt road ride. I took my GPS along with me, so here's the data (short story: 3hours, 46miles). For not having ridden much lately, I thought the ride went pretty well. I was definitely bushed by the end, but I basically felt OK.

This weekend was Quake on the Lake over at PRLA. I stopped and watched the boats for a minute or two both ways. If you look carefully, you can see the rooster tails in my wonderful picture.

The dirt road portion of the ride was new to me. The roads were pretty decent for being dirt roads. A little wet and sloppy in spots, but mostly very good. I'm sure the trails would have been much worse. It looks like you could ride a long way on dirt roads out there in White Lake, Davisburg, etc.

Negative Momentum

My mid-summer break was nice, and I'll definitely appreciate it in November, but with such a long break comes the possibility of accumulating some negative momentum. My training didn't go great this week and I didn't feel good about it.

I keep tabs a bit on what is happening at Ross's website and over at Crossfit. I happened to see that Crossfit has an add-on for endurance athletes, CFE. I've always been interested in the high-intensity approach to training, and this is exactly what goes on at CFE. Compared to more traditional programs, ride times are incredibly short (20 minutes or so). I could find plenty of success stories with people who had goals like: "just finishing", but I had trouble finding more than that. How did it work with competitive athletes? I finally found an answer that satisfied me here. Basically, the conclusion was that there are no free lunches. If you want to be a competitive endurance athlete, you'd better train endurance. (I still like this stuff for the off-season though!)

Anyway, questioning my training program did nothing for the momentum, although deciding that CFE probably wouldn't work for me helped.

I was supposed to race on Sunday at Ruby Campground. I've decided not to do it. I didn't feel good about my training this week, it's a long drive, and I've never ridden there before. Instead, I decided to skip today's workout and do what will likely be an "epic" ride tomorrow. I'll post the details after I do it. ;)

I feel much better this afternoon now that I decided to skip the race and got tomorrow planned out. I also stopped by the bike shop to pick up some stuff and had nice chats with a couple guys there. I also heard a rumor about a new 'cross race late this summer. It sounded cool, we'll see if it goes anywhere.

Why Race?

"Cycling is about proving to yourself who you are, what you can be... proving to yourself that you can mold and shape your body, your form, your morale... You are your final product."

- Erik Saunders (from “Pro”)

I've been hanging on to that quote for awhile, but it seems appropriate to pull it out for this post.

I've been asking myself the question: "Why do I race?" At some point, it becomes important to know the answer to this question. When you're trying to decide how much you're willing to sacrifice to become good at racing, it helps to know why you need to race in the first place.

Everyone is different, but for me, Erik's quote is pretty close to my answer. I race because it's hard and because it rewards commitment. Racing impacts what I eat, how much I sleep, what I do with my time outside work, whether I sit or stand, you name it! In that regard, bike racing is a true "lifestyle" sport (in my opinion, moreso than other so-called lifestyle sports like skateboarding or surfing).

The second part of my answer has to do with chasing "peak experiences" (flow states, whatever you want to call it). I've definitely experienced this a few times, in different areas of my life, and I think these experiences are worth chasing after. One thing key I've found, is that to reach these states, you have to be fully prepared. This is what the statement in the Wiki article ("Balance between ability level and challenge") is about. For sure, you're never going to have a peak experience racing a bike if your preparation is lacking.

Cross Training Weekend

My first week off training went pretty well. Aside from still having to go to work, it was pretty relaxing, and I got to spend more time with Cora. I still managed to get a little exercise in though...

Thursday night, we took a little family walk. I had Cora in a carrier, rather than in a stroller, so I was feeling the extra weight by the end. I did a little hill sprint / bodyweight exercise session afterward.

On Friday morning, I went over to Indian Springs with my rollerblades. They recently repaved the trail out there, so it was some very smooth skating. I'm definitely not used to skating for that kind of distance though. It took me a little under an hour to do the whole loop.

Saturday afternoon, I packed my meager hiking gear and went out to Pontiac Lake. I hiked the majority of the mountain bike trail; with my shortcuts, it was about 9.5 miles. It was kind of interesting. I went backward from the riding direction, so I could see riders coming at me. I didn't see nearly as many bikes as I expected, and, since I ride out there so much, I knew the areas where I really had to be careful. My GPS data is here.

Sunday was more laid back... my only physical activity was mowing the lawn. This week is another Transition week, so I'll just keep trying to find interesting things to do as time allows. I'll get back at riding next week again.

Mid-Season Assessment

I had planned to take a break after the Stony Marathon before starting into the second half of the season. I'm definitely ready for one; after racing Saturday, I don't really want to ride a bike for a little while. This is also a good time to re-assess (if necessary) how the second half of the season should go.

Really, the first half of the season went about as well as could be expected. I knew that having the baby would change things, but I didn't know how and I didn't know what kind of schedule I'd be able to keep. It took a couple months, but I've finally settled into a bit of a routine again.

I had my two best placements ever in mountain bike races (3rd and 4th) this year, along with a very bad showing at Brighton (last in the TT, DNF in the XC race). Still, even at Brighton, I was encouraged that my fitness was decent: I finished 4th in the Short Track race, even though a crash sent me to the back of a very big field.

The second half of my season will be focused primarily on cyclocross, but I also want to try to place well overall in the Michigan USAC Mountain Bike Series. So, my training will focus on 'cross, but I'm going to keep showing up at the mountain bike races. We'll see how well that works.

Short term, it means I'm going to take a couple weeks off from focused training. Based on past years, a break like this is necessary if I'm going to have any kind of motivation left to race 'cross through December 7(!).

Stony Creek Marathon XC - 2008

I almost decided not to do this race. We got quite a bit of rain Friday night, adding to the all the rain we've gotten for the past few weeks, so I knew the trails would be pretty muddy. Eventually, I decided that the race would go on with or without me, so I might as well go. I'll try to go to a trail work day when one is set up, because we definitely did some damage...

A lot happens of the course of a 40 mile mountain bike race, so here's what I remember:

- It was very humid. My glasses were fogging up in the singletrack for the first couple laps. Add that to the mud, and it was kind of hard to see. I think if I do a muddy race like that again, I'll have an extra pair of clean pair of glasses ready.

- A made a nice gap near the beginning of the race, but it was all for nothing, as the race stacked up once we got into The Pines. Basically, the whole first lap was just single file riding in the singletrack. There was no where to go if you wanted to pass.

- I nearly went down on one of the two-track descents. There was a fast right-hander followed by a gentle left-hander. The left-hander was muddy, and more slippery than I thought. My bike really started sliding when I hit the mud; I was fortunate to stay upright. I'll credit my recent cornering practice.

- Lots of riders were having trouble with their drivetrains. I saw several people pulled off working to clean things up. While the mud certainly made for some bad shifting at times (and bad noises), my bike basically worked well for most of the race.

- I actually dropped people on the singletrack this year. Maybe fitness had something to do with it, since the times I'm thinking of were on the later laps, but I must be getting better... I also got lapped by the Elite riders later in the race.

- Pretty much like last year, I started the 4th lap feeling really drained. I took an extra gel at the start of the lap, and, like last year, it seemed to help. At least I was sort of prepared for that to happen this year.

Anyway, I ended up finishing 3rd, my best ever finish so far in a bike race. It's nice to have that bad taste of the Brighton race(s) washed out of my mouth. I think the key was sticking to my plan:

1. Get into a steady pace early.
2. Focus on riding smooth, rather than fast.
3. Keep pedaling.

I was also fortunate to avoid crashes and mechanicals. With the tough conditions and the length of the race, there was a lot of potential for stuff to go wrong.

Carving

I had a nice ride last night. I rode to PLRA, then rode the whole trail at a pretty hard pace, and then rode home. My lap time was 0:49, which is definitely the fastest I've ridden out there. Usually, I end up around 0:55... of course, I usually don't ride the whole trail hard either.

I had a couple more thoughts on cornering. I've been thinking of it lately like skiing or skating. You need to set your inside edge, and then you hold it through the turn. So, the key I think is to really start the turn right, get that inside row of knobbies biting, then the rest of the turn should be easy... maybe... I've noticed that when I focus on doing this, my bike will turn a lot sharper than I'm expecting. Of course, since I do it inconsistently, that creates problems too...

The other thing I noticed was that I ride better with my knees bent more. I've been thinking about keeping my elbows out, but that also tends to cue me to bend my knees more. Lots of good things happen when the knees are bent more: lower CG, softer "human suspension", more negative bike travel available, head naturally looks up more, etc. I guess it should be obvious... I can't think of a sport I've tried where it's better to have straighter, stiffer legs.

Fluidride

I was able to do a few longish rides this weekend. I went out to Stony on Friday night after work and rode for about 2.5 hours. I felt pretty decent, I think my little practice session last week helped with my cornering. I wasn't suddenly quick or anything, but I felt smoother than normal.

I alternate between feeling faster than last year and feeling slower than last year. In general, I sort of feel slow, but then I hit certain sections of trail or do certain rides, and I realize that I am still getting better. I should probably do a test again and prove it to myself.

I bought a new mountain bike DVD last week: Fluidride: Like a Pro. It is definitely more downhill oriented, but when I watched the preview and I learned something from the 30 second snippet, I thought it would be worthwhile. I watched it Friday night, and there's great material. I thought the format was very good: a little lecture, followed by some demonstration. The main instructor covers the material really fast, which is sort of a double-edged sword. For the first time through, it was probably too fast, but I think it will be good for repeated viewings.

(I love pictures like this where the rider is leaning so far!)

Sunday was my opportunity to try some of this stuff out. I rode over to my home trail, PLRA for a couple laps. I wanted to do two things: work on staying in a neutral position and try the drop technique they showed in the DVD. When I remembered to do it, I definitely descended and cornered faster and more comfortably in the neutral position. It's something I'll just have to keep working on to make a habit.

As for the drops, I used to always either try to roll a drop by pulling mostly up on my bars (at low speed) or bunny hop a drop (at higher speeds). The DVD explains why bunny hopping off drops can be a bad idea. The main drop technique on the video emphasizes shifting your weight back to lift the front wheel. Nothing new really, but they explained it in a way that worked better for me. Anyway, I tried this on most of the drops at PLRA (none are very big, 2ft, at most) and it worked really well, fast or slow.

Dirt Trackin'

I took both Monday and Tuesday off this week. I was definitely still feeling tired on Tuesday from my workouts over the weekend and from not sleeping enough on Sunday night. Actually, on Tuesday, I was feeling like my legs were really strong, which usually happens right after I've been riding a lot and right before I get sick. That seemed to be another good reason to take Tuesday off.

After the extra rest, I felt much, much better on Wednesday. I had to ride the trainer though, since I had some childcare duties Wednesday night. I did the Spinervals "No Slackers" DVD. It's always a good ride...

So, Thursday, I was going to go easy again (trying to peak a little for the Marathon race next weekend). I grabbed my singlespeed and some cones and went out to a little gravel parking lot near my neighborhood. I set up the cones to make a corner, and started drilling the corner. Pretty interesting session... The gravel was so loose that I ended up "dirt tracking" most of the corners (my inside foot off the pedal). I learned (or experienced) a few interesting things:

1. The bike definitely corners better with the outside pedal weighted. I mean, really weighted.

2. I tend to keep my weight too far back, which tends to make the front end wash out.

I would have kept going, but I'd already spent almost an hour there, and I thought I should spend a little more time with the family.

Pentwater Ride

I was in Pentwater over the weekend to visit the family. I brought my road bike and tried out a route I found on MapMyRide.com. It ended up being a really nice route through farm country. Very little traffic and (mostly) smooth roads.

I went out to Stony Creek on Sunday to continue preparing for the Marathon race. I ended up not riding the Pines at all; I talked to another rider at the trail who said that part of the trail was in very bad shape from the rain. It was basically a good ride. I did notice that the bike handled much better with the trued up rear wheel. Who would have guessed? I suppose I'll have to keep an eye on that now to make sure it doesn't get too bad.

Musings

This week has been pretty good for training. I got out Tuesday night and did a little power workout at Waterford Oaks. I did a hard cruise interval workout on the road Wednesday night, and last night I did a fairly easy endurance ride at Stony. I am now "super uphill logpile man"... OK, maybe not, but after riding the (pretty easy) one at Brighton, I decided I needed to ride the (bigger) one at Stony. I cleared it both laps, no problem. I think being able to do this is a result of working on my balance over the winter; a lot of it is also mental, of course.

I did some work on my mountain bike last night after the ride. I got the wheel trued up. I took the tire off to do it, and I was pretty happy with how quickly I was able to seal the tire back up. Definitely easier than the first time. I got my new rear derailleur about half on (I bought this derailleur in May '06, when I thought I had damaged mine... it turned out to be a bent hanger instead). I noticed that the spring felt stronger than on the broken derailleur, maybe this will help with my chain falling off?

A couple of musings on bike handling:

1. I'm thinking that having a rear wheel noticeably out of true is a "bad thing" for bike handling. Imagine cornering near the limit with the bike leaned over. Your tire is happily holding the line, then it reaches the spot where the wheel is out of true, and the tire (and therefore, contact patch) moves over. I think you would at least feel this, and if you were truly at the limit, it might be enough to push you over. It will be interesting to see if I notice a difference now that my wheel is true again.

2. I think my priorities for picking lines on the trail are screwed up. I put too much weight on avoiding little obstacles and not enough on the geometrically better line. This is one of the things that makes me slow.

3. Another thing I need to focus on is keeping my weight balanced over my pedals. It's a little hard to explain (but easy to feel), but when your weight is really being directed through the pedals, control (and grip!) is so much better.

Stage 3

"Race results live on Google forever."'

For as bad as my racing was on Saturday, Sunday was worse. To make a long story short, I DNF'd. It was the first time I've ever dropped out of any race. According to Weather Underground, the temperature at the race start was about 95F, with humidity about 50% (so, heat index 105F)!

I felt reasonably recovered after Saturday; I knew I wasn't fresh, but I certainly didn't feel bad. I drank plenty of water prior to the race, and I still went through a warmup (although I did cut it back a bit). I tried to hold back a little at the start. I put in one semi-hard effort at the beginning of the race. Basically the group split very early and I was in the wrong half of the split, so I bridged up to the front group. I didn't feel like that effort put me in too much difficulty.

About 2/3 of the way through the lap, I started feeling really bad. I couldn't develop much power and I wasn't able to focus. Shortly after that I felt a few chills. At that point, I rode at a fairly easy pace and called it quits once I got to the start/finish area. I was convinced (and still am) that I would have crashed badly (or worse) if I'd continued on. I'm disappointed that I DNF'd, but I still think it was probably the right decision.

So, what happened? Probably a combination of racing on Saturday and the heat. We haven't really had many hot days this Spring, so the heat and humidity were a bit of a shock this weekend. On the other hand, a bunch of other people raced both days in the same weather I did. In hindsight, I wonder if I would have been better off drinking some kind of sports drink during the race rather than plain water (or, maybe I should have taken my gel sooner?). I tried sports drink once before during a race and I didn't like it, it sort of congealed in my mouth and then I didn't have any plain water to rinse it out. Maybe I didn't really drink enough water prior to the race, but I think that I did.

Anyway, I'm glad that weekend is behind me. I've got to do a little work on the bike, thanks to the Saturday short track crash: my rear derailleur is broken and my rear wheel is out of true. The next race I'm doing is the Stony Creek Marathon, just three weeks away. Last year, this was a hot one too.

Brighton Stage Race: 1 & 2

I raced the first two stages of the Brighton Stage Race today, the time trial and the short track race. How can I best summarize my day? I crashed, and then I crashed some more.

Stage 1 was the TT. I made it through the 2-track / road start and just barely into the singletrack before I went down for the first time. I think the front end started to slide, and then bit, and somehow this caused me to go down. The killer was that I dropped my chain and it seemed to take forever to get it back on (it always does). I fell again about a minute or two later, just about the same way, but my chain stayed on. Then about 5-10 minutes later (with someone right behind me) my front tire slid on a root and I fell again! The second two falls didn't slow me down nearly as much as the first, but falling that much really screws up your focus. To top it off, my bike was ghost-shifting like crazy.

I didn't expect to set a great time in the TT, since the trail was pretty technical, but I thought I'd at least keep the bike rolling! I can't remember the last time I crashed so much in a race (actually, I can). Anyway, my effort earned me a last place finish in the class. I don't remember the exact time gaps now, but I was about 30s or so behind the next guy, and maybe 7 minutes behind the leader.

Between the stages, I at least was able to fix the ghost-shifting problem. It turned out that the low limit on the rear derailleur was way out. I'm thinking maybe the derailleur got bent (or somehow otherwise screwed up) on that first crash.

We had a decent turnout of Rhinos today, 6 in total I think. It was nice to hang out with them between stages: swapping race stories, contemplating tire pressures, etc.

The second stage was a short track XC race. Basically, cyclocross-style racing with no barriers; the course and the race were also very short. They lumped all of the Sport and Beginner riders into one mass start! There were maybe 50-60 people in the race! I lined up in about the 3rd row (if there really were rows). I started next to John, and it looked like most of the people immediately around me knew what they were doing...

At the whistle, everyone went pretty hard; my plan was to try to get to the front quickly to clear the traffic, but it didn't work out so well. The group made it through the first corner OK, but the second corner, a pretty wide off-camber right, was a problem. I thought I did OK holding my line, and someone to my right was bumping into me with their shoulder. I was actually expecting a little contact, so this was no big deal. But, at nearly the same time, someone sailed into my rear tire (after inspecting my bike afterward, I think it was actually my rear derailleur). Contact at two points was more than I could manage, and I went flying off the bike. It looked like 2 or 3 other guys also got collected in the crash. I know my bike was at the bottom of a pile of three bikes.

The other guys got their bikes and got going; meanwhile, I noticed my chain fell off (again!) and I had to get it back on while this huge field was streaming by. By the time I got going again I was dead last... just the old guys and kids in front of me (I'm not kidding! Like I said, they combined the Sport race with all the Beginners). So, I put the hammer down and started passing people. It actually went pretty well, but I had to get off the worn-in racing line a lot. Since most of the course was on a rough grass field, that felt like a lot of extra energy. About halfway through the third lap or so, I felt like I was back into the Sport field, and I backed the effort level down just a touch (I was definitely not riding at a sustainable pace up to that point). I was still able to make passes, just not quite as quickly. Near the start of the 5th and last lap, I started seeing Rhino jerseys. That spurred me on a bit and I buried it for the rest of lap.

I ended up finished 4th out of the 8 guys in my class in the short track race. I doubt I really gained much time advantage in the overall standings, but it was nice to finish with a decent placement. I had hoped to put a little more time into the other guys in my class, but there's only so much you can do in a 15 minute race anyway.

So, tomorrow is the cross country race: 18 miles or so. The trail is pretty fast and open, so it actually might suit me well. If I get a good finish, it might be enough to put me on the podium for the overall standings (since they go to 5 places). It depends on how much time I actually gained in the short track race and how much time I can gain tomorrow. Honestly though, I'll be pretty happy if I can just keep the rubber side down tomorrow.

RSS

I've "discovered" a new way to read blogs and other frequently updated websites: RSS feeds. I set up the Google Reader with feeds to all of my favorite blogs; then I just go to the Google site and it automatically checks for updates and pulls them in. I'm always looking for little efficiencies now...

There's a new article on Ross's website that's worth checking out.

I had planned to ride before work this morning, but I opted for an extra hour of sleep instead. I probably could have done it if I hadn't decided to stay up and watch the first period of the Red Wings game (yes, "stay up" means 9:30pm). I'll ride tonight instead. Sarah and Cora are coming back from Boston today, so tonight will be a little busier than I've gotten used to over the past few days.

Weekend Rides

With Sarah and Cora being in Boston this weekend, I've had some good opportunities to ride. Yesterday afternoon, I went rode over to PLRA and did a lap. It went OK, I was trying to push the pace a bit on the trail, and I didn't feel so good doing that. I've been having some allergy issues this week; I'm generally feeling better, but my nose fills up pretty fast out on the trail.

Today, I drove over to Brighton State Park and rode the trails out there. The next race I'm planning to do is a stage race out at Brighton. I've never ridden there before, so I thought I'd check it out.

The first race will be a time trial on the Torn Shirt Trail. I rode that one first today. It had some nice technical climbs and some pretty fast descents. I'm not feeling too confident about setting a competitive time out there though. I was probably descending too slowly... which is my habit when I don't know where I'm going.

The second race is a short track race which will not be on the trails, as I understand it. The third race is a cross-country race on Sunday. This is on the Murray Lake Trail. I wasn't sure about exactly which trails would be used, so I rode everything out there. The Murray Lake Trail was fun, a lot of it was open and fast. Racing out there will be interesting. I didn't see many trail features that would tend to spread the pack out.