Friday, March 20, 2009

break a commandment and .....



Train moderately and train consistently are two of Joe Friel's "training commandments". As Joe has been a mentor of mine...both as an athlete through his books and methodology and as a coach as part of his Ultrafit Associates group for 7 years you would think that I would know better than to break one of these rules. Well I did...and now I am sick.
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Cara had been sick for almost a week and I was holding it off well. After last weekend I was a bit disappointed in myself that I faded after about 5 hours of racing (even considering my mishaps). This week the weather has been nice and I had two days with no appointments scheduled, so I decided to get a couple of killer rides in. On tuesday I did the ride above. Out to Hot Springs from Black Mountain going over Doggett Mountain on the way out. 121 miles in just under 7 hours of ride time. I was very conservative with my pace and actually felt really good. I limited my power to just 70-80% of FTP on the longer climbs and this worked well to keep me comfortable...until about 10 miles to go. At mile 110 with home just about 30 minutes away I fell apart and struggled in. No worries...I still didn't feel too bad, but I think I pushed the limit a bit too far for what I was ready for right now.
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I started to feel like I was getting sick, but denied it and set off for a 4 hour off road ride on wednesday. I rode up through montreat, down rattlesnake, did kitsuma, then on the road through old fort, up curtis creek to jarrett creek, over star gap , down lower heart break and up mill creek to get home. Stephen Janes has some good photos of the fire damage from last week around lower heartbreak here: http://ashevillejanes.blogspot.com/2009/03/burn.html
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As soon as I got on the long climb up jarrett creek I lost all my energy and knew I had gotten in too deep. I crawled along knowing I was digging myself deeper into illness, but there were no shortcuts home from there. I got home and I was sick. I think it is just a nasty head cold, but the bottom line is I have not been able to ride for a couple of days...and probably won't be able to do any real training for a few more days...and if I do race on sunday, I will really just be riding without being able to push it much.
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So there is a lesson here...and I have learned it before...I guess I just have to make the mistake and re-learn it every few years. If you push the envelope too much and go far above what would be considered "moderate" in training, you get sick...or worse yet, injured. This causes you to break the other commandment of training consistently...if you are sick or injured and can't train, consistency goes out the window...and you lose fitness. SO I am not saying that athletes should not train really HARD when appropriate....or even for very long durations when trying to prepare for endurance events (like I am this season), but care needs to be taken to ride within certain limits in order to stay healthy and injury free. Playing around on that fine line is ok....but take a big leap over the line on a particular day and there will usually be less than beneficial consequences.
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Instead of doing an extreme ride on tuesday , I should have scaled it back a little and done 3 more moderate endurance days in a row. This more than likely would have left me healthy...able to train and race the rest of the week and would still have caused a significant training adaptation.....
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a2

Sunday, March 15, 2009

dirty spokes 6 hrs...ouch


Yesterday was the first endurance race of the season for me...the dirty spokes 6 hour at Heratige Park near Athens, GA. I was hoping for a good ride, but realized after pre-riding friday evening that the course was not particularly suited to my riding strengths...i.e. very twisty and rooty with hardly any sections to really open up and ride hard, short punchy climbs (but nothing extended) and lots of narrow, tight wooded sections. At any rate, I think my fitness is coming along and I still had hopes of a good finish.
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Forecast was for rain and temps in the 40's. We had light rain on and off through the day, but for the most part, while it was cold, humid and cloudy, the course did not get too wet (other than lots of slick roots).
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I got off to a pretty good start and the front group was close together for the first half of lap one. 4 miles into this initial lap I was in about 5th position when I got "clotheslined" by a low hanging vine on a downhill. Ever wonder what would happen if you were cruising on a downhill and ran into a cable hanging right at neck height? I found out. It was a scary moment to be sure...feeling the vine rip into my neck bringing me to a stop...worse still was that this vine had THORNS on it of which I felt every one. Ouch.
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As a few riders stopped behind me I felt bad about holding them up and asked if there was any foreign objects sticking out of my neck....then I was off ...although a bit shaken up and definitely not in the groove. At the end of the lap I stopped to be sure I was not bleeding too badly ( I wasn't) and the promoter and announcer (thanks guys) swabbed off my neck with some alcohol. I was glad I didn't have to pull out of the race and took off on the next lap. I got back into the groove...and as soon as I felt I was really back into it I skipped off a rock and a couple of trees played ping pong with the back of my rib cage. Damn. I had the wind knocked out of me and again it took me a bit to get going again....but I did. I finally got rolling again on lap 3 and 4 and passed a few riders.
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At the start of lap 5 Cara yelled at me that I was just 1 min behind 3rd place and I turned it on. I caught Erik about 3/4 of the way into the lap. We rode together until the start of lap 6....which was cool..... Shortly into lap 6 (which would be my final lap) I realized that I spent a bit too much energy chasing Erik and had to let him ride away. I cruised through lap 6 feeling pretty worked over the second half....and glad that I wouldn't have to go out for a 7th round.
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Just a couple miles before the finish I caught Cara (who was racing in duo class with Dwight Wyatt). I was surprised when she caught back up to me and we crossed the line together at the finish.
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So I ended up 4th. Big congrats to Nathan Wyatt on the win, Shey Linder 2nd and Erik 3rd. I turns out that Erik was able to get within a minute of Shey on the last lap...so I was not too far off the mark today even with some bad luck. Cara and Dwight were 2nd in the duo class.
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My neck looked pretty bad, but is starting to heal up already just 24 hours later. I also have a nasty cut on my left shoulder from the vine...where it burned a nice hole through my jersey. That blood spot on my chest in the pic above, while it looks like a gunshot wound, is really just where the blood from my neck pooled. My back right lat is pretty torn up too...but didn't keep me from getting a good night's sleep. I am already amped up for the next endurance race...I just need to do a better job of avoiding obstacles :)
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a2


Friday, March 13, 2009

kenda pro team camp

The big Kenda pro road team camp has come and gone. This year we gathered in Greenville SC for a 5 day marathon of fitting, analyzing, meeting, learning and getting a couple of decent rides in. When I say "marathon" I mean it. 4 of my days there were going for almost 15 hours straight. Trying to get all the riders fit on the new rigs was a time consuming project....but we got the work done and I am sure it will pay off. The team this year is outstanding. This program started as a small grass roots venture 5 seasons ago and has grown into what is a real uci pro team with some amazing new talent along with some seasoned vets as well.
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Watch for the team at some of the big races this year. With seasoned pros like Jake Rytlewski, Scottie Weiss, Russel Stevenson along with some great neo pro talent the team is more well rounded than in years past where crits have been the focus. Good stuff. While I am still not planning to do many of the big road races this season, coming home from camp I was really motivated and looking forward to lining up with the guys whenever possible.
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For now though it is off to a 6 hour mountain bike race tomorrow (in 50 degrees and rain :( ). Last week was the final of the snake creek gap series and I posted my best time yet again: 2:58....
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a2