It's Training Time

Today marks the day when training starts for next season. WTF!?!?!?! Really? Already? Yes.

Mid-August until yesterday was a lot of fun. Lots of surfing a little mountian biking (more on that in a moment) and very little road biking. So now it's time to start training for next season. That may sound really gnarly, but it's not. It just means starting to ride the bike again with some regularity. Rocktober will consist of pushing a HUGE gear all month, in an effort to build muscle and lay a base for next season. The entire month will be nothing but a really long base workout, which won't be too difficult. At least that's what I think. I think that every Rocktober, and then I get out there and realize, I am a whimpy little sissy, who can't turn a big gear any more. This last weekends race might have helped kick-start me though. That's right RACE.

I did it, I went to the dark side, I raced my first mountain bike race. I had a small clue of what to expect, but just a small clue. Friends and clubmates had given me some ideas of how it would go down. One things for sure, I am not in any form to be racing right now. Having said that you throw a cat.1 roadie out with the sport class mtn bikers and there won't be too much competition. Before the race one of my closest friends was there with a friend of his. Sean was racing Expert, and his buddy (Ryan) was racing in my group (sport 35-39). Having never done a mtn bike race before, the highest level I was allowed to race was sport (= cat.4 I guess). So we start off by going 100m and then a sharp left and then straight up. I was 4th going into the first descent (not my strong point). Out onto the paved climb and now I am 2nd in my group, which contained 3 different age classes. So I was in first place for my class, and sitting second in our group. The group thing doesn't matter, but none the less I like to know I am beating everyone. Lap 2 and Ryan is still there. I back it off a hair to leave a little for the end. I put Ryan in front of me to pace for a while. Once through the s/f I take over the lead and slam it on every climb. By the time I got to the finishing climb (4.5 miles into the 5 mile long course) I was up by a minute. I cruised to the finish having won my race, and beaten everyone who was in the group I started with. Ryan was next in, then third was 6 minutes back. I guess that's a lot as they made a big fuss about it at the poduim. All in all a fun race, but it confirms what I already thought, I like the road better. I will leave the dirt to the other guys.

So now its time to get to work on the road. The goal for next season will be to help a few of our guys get their cat.1 status early on, and for me to try and get some GC results at stage races. Not an easy thing to do, but it's something to strive for. I have a meeting with the team big wigs tonight, and after that we will get bikes, and clothes and all that good stuff ordered up. Looking forward to next season. It was good to get that mtn bike race in though. I was already feeling that itch to race. That will hold me over until Roger's Cup. By Feb. I will be frothing to get out and race for real.

Rest time is almost over

The work travel is done for a while, and that's a good thing. If I had to do one more trade show, I would have to go to detox before returning to my office. Having said that, I got a disturbing email this morning. I sat down at my computer, and there it was, looking back at me, with a menacing snarl. The invite to the Vegas Crit. Not sure how I pulled this one off, but it happened. The first thought to go through my head was, HELL NO!!! And as I type this, I am on the phone seeing if I can get my sponsor to pay for hotel. What is wrong with me? Time to call the wife and see if she wants to do a weekend in Vegas.