Cross Training

Finally, I've gotten around to getting in some cross training, as in training by doing things other than ride the bike, not cyclocross training. I went to the pool tonight for a swim. It felt good to move through the water, it's been quite some time since I've been swimming. I could tell that I was a bit out of shape and under strength in my upper body, it didn't take long for my arms to get tired. I didn't want to over do it, so I only swam for about 30 minutes doing a relatively easy 1100 yards. I figure this should do a number of things for me. 1. Swimming is a great way to stay in shape, 2. it should help me elevate my riding another notch this year 3. it'll keep my mind off cycling for a while so that I don't burn out mentally to early in the season. We'll see how it goes, hopefully I can keep to a schedule of swimming a few nights per week, more so than I ever did last year.

The other thing I've been doing that should help considerably, is stretching. I was never in a very good habit of stretching, but over the last month I've been working it into my daily routine.

The final installment of my year in review will be coming very soon, stay tuned.

Year in review: the peak

I began a week back in Pennsylvania by traveling to camp Alleghany in Allegheny State Park (New York) for the Raccoon Rally. One of my favorite races of years past, it was the first time in 3 or 4 years I'd come to race it. Unlike the Root 66 series which sends each age class off a few minutes apart, the Rally sends the entire class, sport in my case, off at once. I like this because you get some idea of how you are doing overall, not just in your age group. Well I started off strong but not too hard. I was near the front as we headed down the first half mile of dirt road and into the double track climb. Entering the climb I worked my way forward until I had caught first place, where I decided just to sit on his wheel. We rolled together for a while, but then I faded off just a bit and as I was losing his wheel I got passed by another rider. I hit the top of the hill in 3rd place. It was a bit chilly on top, too chilly for my knees which stiffened up on me and sapped some of my power. Over the course of the race I was caught by two other guys. I rode a great race for 5th overall in sport, and 1st in my age group. Though I'd come to the race really shooting for 1st overall in sport, I was happy with the result.

Then came a week of fantastic training. I put in a lot of good mileage, even setting a new personal best for the time it took to ride over the hills to Smethport. The following week back in Connecticut I kept everything pretty light and easy. Mid to late week I did some easy repeats up east rock, in the race. This really got me mentally prepared for riding Mt. Washington. That weekend I headed for North Conway, NH. I met my parents and John and Cindy. Saturday the 14th was my birthday and we took advantage of some fantastically clear skies to drive up the Mt. Washington auto road for a course preview and to take in the view from the top. The next day we were up quite early and headed for the mountain, it was the practice ride for the race. I was here to see what I could do and to see if it might be worth entering the race in the future. I surpassed my highest goal by 5 and 1/2 minutes, with a time of 1 hour 24 minutes 33 seconds. I'd peaked perfectly.

Unfortunately, I came off that ride a little too self confident. The next weekend was the USA Cycling National Mountain bike championships. I rode once in the week between the hill climb and nationals. I quickly lost the mental game, and found I just didn't have good legs. I finished the race in 9th of 9 in the age 19-24 sport class. I certainly learned a lot more from this race than I'd learned from the other events of the season.

I returned to training for a few weeks before heading back to Mount Washington. This time for the 24 hours of Great Glen. I was part of a team of 4 guys that would ride relay style for 24 hours straight. Team Dirtnuts 2.0 was much more prepared this year and we brought pit help with us. The help we found out is priceless in the pursuit of a good finish. We were all in good shape, and it showed. We posted 12 laps that were faster than our fastest lap of the previous year. We rolled through the night strong and into the morning at a very fast pace. We completed 27 laps, good enough for 7th of 20+ four-man sport teams and 14th overall. This really concluded the height of my season. I entered a period of slightly burned out rest for a few weeks. Cycling for the year was hardly over though, cyclocross was yet to completely take over me.

year in review: to the races

Back from England and back into the swing of things, caught up with school work and such I can get back to the cycling year in review.

After the tough race at Hopbrook, April 7, I got out training a bit more, significantly on the road bike. I had almost 600 miles in May. Just before that big month was the race at Winding Trails on April 29, where form and fitness were beginning to show. Each race I was doing better. Despite being somewhat vertically challenged Brialee (May 13) put a hurt on with the sheer roughness of the course. Roots, rocks, and mud pits made for a brutal, brutal race. It was my first top 5 finish of the season though. Then came Coyote Hill in Bradford, VT. What a great Memorial day weekend. We went up a day early, pre-rode the course and had a blast riding it. Camping for the night, we raced the next day. The next weekend we hit the Channel 3 race. Overall a very fast course, but there were two short steep climbs that made for some pain. The twin sisters of mercy they were dubbed, but the were far more merciful for me than some others, I landed a 4th place finish.

My only century of the season came the second weekend of June. The developing cycling club at work took part in the Tour de Cure to raise money for the fight against diabetes. The following weekend I volunteered for the New Haven century ride, working at 2 rest stops along the ride. It was nice to be a supporter for once. The final weekend of June I headed for the wilds of Pennsylvania working into the peak of my season, which I'll cover in the next post.

Pictures of England update

You may have already visited the pictures of England but I have added captions to many of the pictures now, explaining what things are. The captions will show up during the slide show option. If you choose to run through the pictures in non slide show format you'll find a little google map feature, I marked where I took the picture for almost all the pictures. Again, you can click here for the pictures. Following this link will take you to a satellite image of Rochester Castle. Cheers!

England

I was lucky enough to go to England for the past 5 days. The best part was that most of my trip expenses were paid for. I was there for two days of meetings with BAE. We left JFK around 8pm Sunday and arrived at London Stansted Airport around 8am Monday morning. After getting check into our hotel in Maidstone we headed for Rochester to see the castle there and wonder around the pubs and shops that were close by. We were using the day to adjust to the time difference. The castle was something else, hard to believe I was standing in something that had been there since the 11th century. High Street in Rochester was pretty neat as well with all the shops and pubs. While waiting for our ride back we stopped in a pub and I came across a beer called Scrumpy Jack. With a name like that, I had to try it. There was something funny about the taste though, as a later found out, it wasn't beer, it was fermented cider. Dinner was at the Whitehorse near Maidstone, Pork chops with Bubbles & Squeak for me. The next day was spent meeting for work, with dinner at an Italian place, Prezzo, on Earl St. in Maidstone. Wednesday again was spent meeting for work. That night we met with some of the BAE folk at an Indian cuisine restaurant and I had some pretty good conversation with a few of the guys. From there we walked just a short ways up the street to a pub called The Who'd Ha Thought where I tried a brew called Tanglefoot.

The next day I went into London with three other guys. What a day! We saw a lot, and the book Fodor's London 2008 helped a lot. First was Westminster Abbey, then the Clock Tower and Big Ben. The houses of Parliament are connected to the clock tower and just across the river is the London Eye. Following lunch near the eye, we headed back towards Buckingham Palace, then down the mall to Trafalgar Square and into the National Gallery. Following that we caught the tube (underground) to Tower Hill. Here we saw the London Tower and the Tower bridge. Unfortunately we didn't make it in time to go in the tower but it was still quite grand to see. This is when the rain was coming down the hardest so we ducked into a souvenir shop for a little while to dry out and warm up. Once we were ready, we headed back to the tube. It was now rush hour and quite packed. We headed for Covent Garden after getting of the tube and ate dinner there at Punch and Judy's. Feeling much better with food in our stomachs we wandered towards Leicester Square, then Piccadilly Circus. We stumble upon the London premiere of Sweeney Todd here, and apparently had just missed Johnny Depp on the red carpet. Next was Chinatown before catching the tube to Liverpool St. Station and a train ride to our hotel at the London Stansted Airport. Friday morning we caught our flight back to the U.S.

It was quite a jam packed and exciting week, I can't wait to go back when I have more time to spend sightseeing.

I took over 330 pictures, here is a link to a selection of them.

Natz Shmatz reschedule

That's it, the final race of the season. It was delayed after we had 10 inches of snow on the course December 12. Today was tricky, there was still snow on some sections, and it crusty at the start, but as the race rolled on it got chewed up. So I had to change my lines as the race went on. I rode a good race, good enough for third place, first and second were just a little to quick. I had a few extra minutes before heading out to catch a flight for the U.K. so I got the pictures posted up. I didn't really sort through them or add any subtitles, but you'll get the idea. Click here to see them.

My season in review will pick up next weekend after returning from England.

year in review: the early season

It seems we often take a look back at the previous year as we begin another year on the calendar. Various media outlets look at the big stories, top tens, or the best and worst. This is all somewhat arbitrary, considering the 'new year' could be any day on the calendar if we really wanted it to be. For me though, especially this year, it really marks the end of the cycling season and the start of some time spent resting the legs and some cross training (really, cross training, not [cyclo]cross training). While a retrospect of the last year may be somewhat cliché, I feel that it provides a much needed reflection in creating a quality plan and goals for the future.

So, in continuation of my cycling season in review, I'll take a look at the early season build up and early season races.

In January and February I was simply trying to get out once or twice a week in the cold weather. Bundled up I would hop on the mountain bike and ride for about an hour on a loop that took me through some of the quieter streets in the area. Riding the mountain bike with studded knobby tires made me work a bit harder while going slower in turn keeping me warmer on some very frigid nights.

In mid March and through April I started to pick up my mileage and time out on the bike. As the weather got warmer I became more anxious to get outside. April 7 brought the first race of the season. While I wasn't really in racing form, it's probably better that I wasn't. This race was a real wake up call for me to get out more and start training. Really, I was still reviving my base. I had kept general fitness over the previous two summers with regular riding and some swimming in the winter, but both summers were less than stellar. In fact they were probably two of my worst summers in some time. Reflecting on this, I feel that my base is significantly better entering the 2008 season. I think I'll be able to accomplish even better results given my current base.