Fried Legs

I do not like fried legs and ham...

I fried my legs pretty thoroughly yesterday. After it stopped raining in the morning, I did a short sprint power workout. It always surprises me that this drains the legs as much as it does. The work interval is just so short and the rest interval is so long, but, if you do them at the right intensity, your legs are tired by the end.

My legs were pretty fried for hockey last night too. I actually played reasonably well again, but I had a bunch of good chances that I didn't finish. It would be better if I'd play more than once every other week. We got 5 extra minutes from the Zamboni guy 3 times at the end, so everybody was pretty wiped out by the end.

Unglued

I ended up riding the trainer last night, it was cold and raining, so I stayed in. This morning, there was no rain, but it was a little cold and windy. Out I went...

The idea today was to thoroughly warm up (since I'd been off the bike for almost a week) and then do some "cruise" intervals. I rode over to Indian Springs (about 40 minutes away, using a winding route), and then got going on the intervals. With the wind, the intervals were pretty brutal. I really started coming unglued at the end of the second one; the third one was OK since I was in a more sheltered area.

I know it may not be physically ideal to do intervals on the road (or trail), but I think there are other benefits. You need to get used to pushing hard into the wind, up a hill, around a corner, whatever the road or trail throws at you. The conditions of my ride today felt very Munson-like. My theory is that you train in adverse conditions, then they're not such a shock when you encounter them in a race.

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.