ride joe ride

I should note here, in case I am maimed or unable to ever again look at bike related material, that I am signed up for the Dairyland Dare 300k. In addition to being 180 glorious miles, it also graciously provides 22k feet of climbing (the summit of Everest is 28k ft above sea level). Though I am already working on cross training, I figured that it would be a travesty to let the summer pass without at least once attempting some serious self-inflicted bike related torture.

Okay, that sounded like I actually made the decision as a rational agent. In fact, Steve preyed upon my post-baseball/beer/bratwurst intoxication and tricked me into signing up. I woke up the next morning with that awful “oh what have I done” feeling. I came to terms with this feeling by cajoling fellow Tatito and Morning Roll author, Francisco into doing it as well.

Man, it’s great to have friends.

Oddly enough, one year ago today I reminisced here about my first 100 mile run. Five years later, and still not very much sense.

I wrote a wrap-up of the cyclocross season last year and never got around to posting it. I pulled it out the other day and realized that in addition to a wrap-up it was a pretty good reminder of both how awesome the season was and what great people surround the sport. That said, it I think it belongs here however late.

Cross is a wrap. Going into the season, my goal was to race each of the CCC races. I managed to do that and add a race in Wisconsin. That comes up to 11 different days of racing and 13 individual races in the span of just under three months. It was a whole lot for a first season of racing bikes, and I am seriously whooped. Before old age takes it’s toll on my memory of the season, it’s time for a wrap up:

Thanks:

I have seen other people noting that it feels odd to offering thanks for support when you’re pack fodder all season. In fact, it’s us pack fodder that needs to be the most thankful — mostly for people putting up with us. To that end, I want to extend a deep thanks to both my family and friends. Allison came to nearly all the races, helped haul the bike stuff to and from the car, cheered for me, gave countless leg massages, cooked awesome recovery meals, went to go buy the Belgian recovery juice when I was napping after workouts and on and on. She was a partner in the truest sense of the word. El came to races and cheered, and there’s nothing like having your kid cheering you on when you’re out there hurting. My good friend’s Steve and Angela traveled seriously long distances to see races, put me up, and helped me build up a bike on short notice. Team K&B: you have my humble thanks.

Also a big ol’ thanks to all you awesome people I met over the season at the races. The Chi cross scene is full of some pretty damn cool people, and it was a pleasure of spending three months of Sunday’s hanging out with them. In particular I’d like to thank Devon Haskell and Aspen Gorry. They organized our Wednesday practices, provided a whole lot of expert advise, and cheered at the races. They also drove me and my stuff to the race on several occasions. Thank you guys, it was appreciated.

Bests of the season:

Without a doubt, my favorite race of the season was Lansing. This was mostly because of the fun competition with Patrick, but I think I actually enjoy the fast and flat grass courses. That said, I think the best course of the year was still probably St. Charles. I loved that course. The best overall race experience, though, was certainly my early season two day epic with Aspen, Devon and the Bagwells. It seems like a long time ago now, but two days of racing in the first cool days of fall with the trees in color is sheer heaven.

What I learned:

I learned a whole bunch, and most of it is mentioned in one place or another in the race reports from this season. Here’s the cliff notes, though:

1. Stand up. Out of each and every transition, you should be standing up. When you can no longer stand up, hammer from the saddle. When you can’t do that, you’d better be close to being finished. If not: train more.

2. Start hard. The first minute of the race is probably the most important so do it right. It’s so incredibly much harder to work up four places than it is to take those four places at the start.

3. Everybody hurts. Particularly after the first lap or two, if you find someone nearby you can be reasonably certain they are hurting just about as bad as you. At that point, he who can hurt more gets to drop he who can hurt less. Recovering from being dropped does cumulative damage. Hence, the game of drop or be dropped is born. Learning how to play this game is lots of fun.

That’s it friends. I’m already looking forward to Jackson Park next year.

For those interested, I’ve just finished up my ‘cross training program for the season. Things are always subject to change, of course, but the base period is pretty solid. I’ll probably shuffle in some interval variations for the build period later. As noted, green cells denote either cross practice or races. Some notes:

1. Base: Last year, my single biggest failure going into cross was the lack of a solid base. I’d done lots of long miles in July and August, but they were nearly all done at very slow speeds. The result was me essentially “burning through” that base about half way through the season. By the last few races, I was doing the opposite of peaking: I could barely handle wednesday practices and the sunday races.

I’ve had a nice long road season already (my base training started in December). Lots of base, two good practice runs at building/peaking, some fun road racing, and lots of hard group riding. In fact, I’m kinda tired, and taking the next couple of weeks super easy sounds like a nice plan. Then it’ll be time for a very solid endurance/tempo oriented 11 weeks. If I can keep to that plan for the base period, I think I’ll be heading into Montrose feeling good and with plenty of pep remaining for our ice cross series afterward.

2. HR based: You’ll notice that everything is planned in terms of heart rate, not power. The iBike died (a firmware glitch it seems). Rather than opt for another one, or returning to a powertap I decided to explore heart rate based training. I found a very interesting system which makes it possible to quantify training load based on heart rate — something especially interesting for cross where lots of the cross specific training happens off the bike. I’ll share this system in another post.

3. Running: Yeah there’s running in there. We’ll see how long that lasts.

As always, I’m happy to answer questions.

(cross is coming woohoo!)