Post-Moab

Upon returning home from Utah after Moab, I had little time to get ready for a week in Wyoming in the field. One of my real-job projects up there needed some work done and I left Monday for Cheyenne. As if I havn't driven enough the last few days. ST2 was at his moms for the week, so I unloaded my junk from Moab, reloaded the truck for a week for work, put my road bike on the rack, packed a trainer and was off. I almost always bring a trainer with me when I travel so I can ride in the hotel. I have been on a huge training roll and am not about to take 4 or 5 days off because of my job. As I have promised myself a decent 2008 training year, from now on, the bike goes where I go. We work long hard days in the field and its not easy to ride when I get back to the hotel, but I made it happen each night, except Thursday night which was an all-nighter on-site. Friday I wrapped it up and came home, happy with the week as it panned out. Lots of solid physical labor sampling wells, lots of training.

I got home Friday night, and packed up my hockey gear and headed to the Bladium for our game. I love hockey. I wish I had more time to enjoy all the cool sports I dig, but as it is, hockey will always remain a low priority for me. I just dont have time to play more ofen than once a week. Thanks again to my man Scottie D for turning me on again to the game. I played hard, felt good, but still need to work on my puck-handling and skating skills. Im coming along and learning a lot, but no where near good enough to move up to the intermediate yet. I didnt score, and we lost the game 6-3, but it is so much fun. Its a no-check league made up of co-ed adults. There is plenty of agressive contact at the puck though. I play as hard as I can, and I have no problem with hits at all, but some of the guys on other teams take it a bit to far. Its not the NHL, and we all have to get to work Monday morning, so I try and keep a lid on my aggression, where some other dudes think they are trying out for the Olympic team.

We have some new players on our team this season that are very good and I listen to and watch them play so I can learn. More on hockey next week.

Today I woke up at 188 pounds-the lightest Ive been since pre Ironman Wisco in 2002. Now, I think I could possibly skinny down to under 180. Im not sure. Ive lost about 15 pounds and basically, I dont know what the big deal is...its easy really. Train a lot, and dont eat. Haaa..NOT the wisest way to lose at all, but it is what it is. I have been riding my ass off, and I havent eatin much at all in October. I feel strong though, so I am going to continue limiting caloric intake and sticking to my modified Paleo diet as I increase the miles again in November and December.

Today I headed to Loveland to sit in on a pre-season new instructor meeting. Im going to work there this year as a part-time instructor. I miss it, I'm good at it, and it makes me happy to teach people how to ski. I've been blessed with some decent abilities at some of these sports and an even better ability to teach them to others, so I am really looking forward to teaching there this winter. The mountain actually opend up last week, after the dumping they got the night Dan and I drove home from Moab! I didn't ski today though - the coverage is still a bit thin.

We are supposed to get some flakes tonight but as of 10:30 PM, no joy. I'm really looking forward to winter. Skiing is another passion of mine and little Steven has been bugging me about it all summer. As he heads into the 2nd year of his ski career, and I head into my 36th, I am amped up to teach him more. I hope he enjoys skiing as much as I have. And if he chooses to race, I'll support him all I can. I raced a ton as a kid and all the way through college, and it was a very good time for me....I'll never forget those days. Skiing just rocks, bottom line. ST2 is very coordinated and has a body type that makes a good powerful ski racer. He keeps asking to go - almost every day now he asks when we are going again. And I tell him "soon dude - very very soon. Be patient and when the flakes fall, we will go make some turns"



Thanks for reading.

The Moab

The Moab 24-Hour.

October has been a good training month for me, despite my schedule recently. I had two solid weeks in the saddle pre-Moab including some decent adaptation work in the gym. I took the day off work on Friday the 12th to drive to Utah. Snowman Dan Le met me at the ranch house in the morning, and we transferred his gear to my truck and we headed west. We were a bit behind schedule so we got there to late to do a pre-ride lap, but in the end that was fine. We camped with a large extended family of racers on three different relay teams...many I already knew, and others I only just met there. Plesko was camped with his support crew (dad Plesko and wife Plesko) down in the Solo campground, but we were up the hill a third of a mile to segregate ourselves a bit from the general mayhem of the race scene. The Moab is a beautiful place really. One of those places where I think, why bother with travel overseas when God has blessed us with such beauty here at home. Growing up in SoCal, I am familar with the desert and love it there. The Moab is a different kind of desert than the Cali-style, but as a geologist and a lover of any place sans roof, I dig the crap out of the Moab. More visits are in order.

We camped out, talked race, drank some beers, and hit the rack about 10 PM. Saturday AM I woke early as usual, took some food, checked my bike and got ready for the race. There were about 400 teams and Solos, so maybe 1300 racers total, and at least 2000 with all the rest of the folks. Maybe 3000. It was quite a situation really. The race started with the same general insanity as so many other big races I have been in over the years - loud noise, rock n roll, dirt, my kind of place. Sort of like a dirty smoky biker bar without the smoke -in my fantasy world, the perfect place!

I am almost never nervous before a race. Ive been at so many start lines that Ive long ago learned the routine, so to me, it is always just another roll. I dig races. I dig racing. I dig the whole scene surrounding bike racing. Dan took the first lap for our team. He had some trouble and I was way jacked to go for the second team lap when he came in to the relay station. Not having pre-rode the route, I was totally surprised at the insane tech sections. I cant even describe it - just sick. Much harder than any of the front range routes I had done with the Wednesday gang, and mile-per-mile much harder then KOTR. Winter Park is a basic technique girl scout camp compared to the Moab. Soft sand, lots of portages, stupid rock sections, serious drop sections, etc. I took two diggers on that first lap, one nearly killed me (God bless you Mr. Bike Helmet Inventor, whoever you are), but what can you do but mount up and hit it again. The second endo I all but ripped my arm off at the elbow somehow, but as it was still attached and functional, I was able to continue operating the rear brake and shifter. I felt good the first lap, but was slower than I had planned, due to the crashes and uncertainty of the route. No biggie since it was just a fun race. Cory smoked his first lap about 7 minutes fastr than mine, and then Nic absolutely nailed it on her first lap. She is pretty fast and has a huge racing future if she pursues one. All of us had slower second laps at night. I had a flat and some light failures that slowed me way way down, but it was a fun lap and I felt generally good. As one point about 2 AM I rolled up on Plesko who was sitting on a rock pouring sand out of his shoe and he said to me "I am pouring sand out of my shoe" in a sort of half-baked stupor. I guess riding 14 hours by that point in time had toasted him a little bit..but that dude is hard to the bone. Absolutely hard. I went back to camp and passed out until 6 AM, then went down for my third lap. I was stoked to go, but could not make the bike move at all. Oh wait..... I know why, no food! Idiot!! I had bonked before I even woke up like a moron! I flatted again on a rocky section. After some food, I got it going about 2/3 into the lap and nailed the last 5 miles, but my lap time was pathetic. No more crashes though, so thats was good.

We finished with 12 laps, pretty much in the last half of the 50 teams in the coed fun category, which was fine with us really. Nobody went to hard, and everybody was safe. I learned some valuable lessons about 24-hour relays, and I think next year we can get 14 to 15 laps easy if we all buck up a bit more.

Plesko inked a top-10 in Mens Solo with a full 16 laps, which was a huge thing for him. He could have left before noon for one more lap, but decided against it as it would not have gotten him to the podium.

Dan and I hit a Mexican joint in Moab, gassed up and then headed home and we got the Denver about 8 PM Sunday night, after a sort of Banzai run through the first Colorado snow storm of the year. Vail pass was choked and it snowed and rained all the way down the hill.

It was a good weekend, and I learned much. I intend to race again next year for sure, and am confident I can get my lap times down a signifcant amount.

I think thats it for MTB racing until next year, and so now I will simply focus on the long grind back to real bike racing shape for '08.

Thanks for reading.

Updates from The Ranch

Yikes...over two weeks have gone by and no blog! Ive been pretty busy. Last week was a good training week, and it culminated with an awesome weekend out in Moab. I raced the 24-hour with Nicolette, Dan "Snowman" Le, and Cory. Big Bill raced on a very competitive Clydesdale team agaisnt some hella fast teams. Bills team, Ballistic Stillness, got second with an incredible 16 laps. Those dudes are so fast it boggles me how big guys ride so fast. Ive been trimming down as I start to get into the 2008 annual training plan, but those dudes are way way faster in the dirt. I have a lot to learn and a lot of work to do beofre I am ready for next summer but, im so looking forward to it. I'll write more about Moab later on as I have much to log, and I dont want to forget it.

Also, Hockey has started up again. Last night was the second game of the Fall season. I missed last wek as I was in the Moab. I love hockey. Its an awesome game, very technical, and its not easy to be good at it. It has the makings of an ST favorite. I'll post more about that as well.

I was up at Loveland today. They are open with some natural flakes and a bunch of man-made, but I was there at a ski school seminar for new instructors. Im going to work there this year as a part-time instructor...more on that as well. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.

October Training

I had to work a bit late, and was unable to hit the Wednesday Night MTB ride tonight. I havent really trained all that much since about mid-August - I have trained maybe 30 hours total in the six weeks since then. This off-season period was not really part of my 2007 Training Plan - I had initially planned to peak for Masters Track Nationals in August, but it didn't work out this year. I've had some additional issues with my back and a heavy work load at the firm, so I had to put training and racing aside. But it has sort of worked out well...I've had an early off-season, and now I feel totally refreshed physically, and am very ready to train hard again. October 1 was the first day of my 2008 Training Plan and I'm three days in. I'm going to change some things this year on a tactical level so I can be well trained for Winter Park next summer, but the strategy is the same - the same periodic training principles apply. So as usual, the first few blocks are easy, adaptive, low-intensity periods. I have some goals and objectives that I'll post about later, but one of the main key characteristics of any successful year is consistancy, so one of my main goals this year is a 90% workout completion rate. I just want to get in 9 out of 10 planned trainign ewfforts. Not as easy at it sounds, but easy enough. So, as of now I am 3 for 3 for workout completion! Occasionally, we all have to take a TURD (Totally Unplanned Rest Day), but for this next season I am going do what I can to keep those to a minimum.

Im going to do some creative training this coming weekend in prep for Moab. I'm thinking of doing two 90-minute hard efforts about 4 or 5 hours apart to simulate the race schedule, and one of those efforts will be with the lights at Green Mountain or somewhere. I am really looking forward to racing Moab next weekend. More about Moab later.

Thanks for reading