In Your Travels

Look out, I'm training

So my disappointing 5th place at Hagerstown in a course that was tailor made for me and my total destucto-explodo-el slow-o performance at Coppi are about to be reversed, well in awhile anyway. I've been training.

You see, mostly my deal is that I commute in the cold all winter, do a couple weeks of intervals, and then start flying. As the season progresses, I mostly just race, and do a few rides during the week just to keep it going, maybe try to tailor some efforts to the coming race. But my fitness tends to decline and decline. I start to get tired. Then I pretty much don't train much at all, and then my fitness starts to really go. Eventually I'm forced to rest, but I'll still probably line up, and sometimes, like at Hagerstown, I'll even eek out a decent result. But eventually it is just time to start over. So, having gotten a decent amount of rest over the last month, last week I did about 9 solid hours of commuting, about half of it on the fixed gear (48x17 seems to suit me). BTW I got a Specialized Toupe to go on that bike and it is great. I hardly ever stand up on that bike and it really helps the blood flow. On the other hand, it has zilch padding, so your sit-bones do start to feel it after awhile. It weighs a feather, 155 grams, so you've got to love that.

Then on Saturday I did on of my absolute favorite things in life that doesn't involve, well, you know. I did the Lanterne Rouge ride out of Arlington. I rode out there, happily encountering my teammate Joel Christie along the way, and he came along. So we ride out there, do the 60 mile loop with those dudes, and I stop for coffee (ice-ice-baby) and roll home. About 90 miles altogether, with lots of hills. I took the two unofficial yet contested primes and led out the boys for two or three of the hill primes that I can't possibly win at this point. Killer ride if you want to find out about it go to www the caboose dot org. I'll probably do that a few more times this month, and keep the four times a week fixed gear commute going. I have the district track championship in my sights, wanting to defend my state title in the pursuit, perhaps defend the points race title, and see if I can help one or other of my teammates who may stand a better chance than I to bring home a MABRA jersey (namely, Nigel or Todd). Depends on if I do 30+ or Senior Open, last year I did Senior open, because the field looked easier. Anyway, good to have gotten back on the fixed gear this week, and I enjoyed every one of those 90 miles, and didn't even feel that bad today.

posted by Mark @ 4:23 PM