Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Reflections on the Sheboygan CX Race

This is a longer version of a piece I wrote up for the WCA Cyclocross website:


The 2014 Sheboygan Bicycle Company CX Classic held this past Saturday, September 6th, was a great success. The weather was beautiful, the event was smoothly managed, the racers and fans were in high spirits, and the course was varied, fast, and fun.

Walking around the course and watching different categories race, the comment I overheard most frequently was some version of “’cross season is here at last!” Everybody I spoke to was just happy to be racing ‘cross again, to be testing out new gear, and to be seeing old friends. I also heard a lot of people comment positively on the music in the start/finish area (hey, thanks for getting the ‘Led’ out with “Heartbreaker”!). For sure, the music and the location near not only the playground but also the barriers and the spiral made the start/finish area the place to be--or at least the place to be if you weren’t out heckling people on “The Equalizer.” It didn’t hurt that the podium was right at the start/finish area this year and that awards were swiftly given out after each race.

Speaking of awards, I don’t think I was alone in appreciating the introduction this year of cash prizes in more than just the Pro/1/2/3 race. A little goes a long way toward making a racer feel that his or her hard efforts are being honored. But I’m sure we all agree that it was the Twinkie stashed in each trophy water bottle that really made it all worth it! (That’s how my 4-year old daughter felt anyway.)

As for the course itself, the main comment I heard was that it was really bumpy but still lots of fun. I raced it twice—once with the Pro/1/2/3 field and once in the Masters 35+ 1/2/3 field—and I agree that it was a lot of bumpy fun. But what I really came away with was an appreciation for how well the course served as a season opener. Above all, it reminded me just how much ‘cross hurts. As they say, if it didn’t hurt, you weren’t doing it right. But it also reminded me how that pain can be tempered or endured if you nail the right pace and get the right rhythm going. 

More specifically, here’s what key parts of the course reminded me to work on in the coming weeks:

--the start: practice clipping in and accelerating across bumpy terrain!
--first turn: figure out the best line coming into the first turn!
--the barriers: practice slowing down while clipped out of one pedal!
--the off-camber turns: practice using a little body English to get through!
--the gravel downhill: practice two-wheel slides and riding in the drops!
--the steps: practice cornering while clipped out of one pedal!
--the Equalizer: eat your Wheaties! And practice shouldering technique!
--the grassy stretch after the hill: eat more Wheaties! Practice slogging away!
--the spiral: practice carrying speed through turns by setting up early!


So, like I said, this course served well as a wake-up call, reminding us of all the little techniques and the psychological resilience required to race ‘cross well. It was a great kick-off to the season, and I’m sure everyone else is as eager as I am for the next race—Lake Geneva Cross on Sunday 9/14. See you there!

Monday, September 1, 2014

Taking Stock on the Cusp of the Season

Hard to believe it, but the first WCA CX race--The Sheboygan Bicycle Company CX Classic--is just 5 days away! That means it's high time to take stock of where I'm at with my equipment, condition, and mentality. In simple terms: how ready am I?

Equipment

Things were looking very grim for cyclocross purchases this summer, but by selling 7 of my 8 bikes and by working my tail off at two part-time jobs this summer, I was able to get what I needed at the last minute. So here's what I'll be on this year:



My 'A' bike (on right in photo):
--Trek Boone 9 cantilever
--1x10 drivetrain (Red crankset, Force shifters, CX1 rear derailleur, Wolftooth 40t chainring, 11-28 PG1070 cassette, KMC 10SL Gold chain)
--Avid Shorty Ultimate brakes with Swissstop Black Prince pads
--Bontrager RXL alloy stem, RXL Isozone bars, Bontrager carbon fiber seatmast, and Fizik Aliante saddle
--Easton EC90 SLX carbon fiber tubular wheelset running Challenge Chicanes.

My 'B' bike (on left in photo):
--Trek Crockett 7 cantilever
--1x10 drivetrain (FSA Energy Cross crankset, Rival shifters, Force rear derailleur, Race Race 40t chainring, 11-28 PG1070 cassette, KMC 10SL Gold chain)
--Avid Shorty 6 brakes with stock pads for now
--Bontrager RXL alloy stem, RXL carbon bars, Thomson Elite setback seatpost, and Fizik Aliante saddle
--Vista Cruiser alloy tubular wheelset running Challenge Limuses

Both bikes are the same size, have the same geometry, and are dialed in to fit exactly the same. So this should make swapping bikes very comfortable. The bikes feel the same underneath me, and they handle very similarly. The Boone, of course, accelerates a lot faster, feels a lot lighter when carried, pushed, or lifted, and offers a smoother, more comfortable ride. I swapped back and forth between them this morning and was pretty amazed at how much better the Boone is overall, but the Crockett is certainly good enough to finish a race on if I get a mechanical on the Boone or to take every other lap or two in a mudder. So this is a great set up that I plan to get two good seasons out of.

The weakness in my equipment is wheel selection. I've just got one great wheelset--the Easton EC90 SLXs--which are set up with the Chicanes. This limits that wheelset to dry or tacky races only, but that is 80% of our races. I've got the heavier alloy tubular wheelset with the Limuses on them for the Boone in muddy races, and they will be on the Crockett for dry races. I also have a new set of  Bontrager Race TLR wheels that I'll set up tubeless with Clement PDXs which I will put on the Crockett for muddy races.

That's how I'll be starting the season, but I have placed an order with Trek for a set of Aeolus 3 D3 tubulars. So when (or if?) those ever arrive, I'll put some new Challenge Chicane Team Edition tires (which I already have) on them. I will then pull the current Chicanes off my Easton wheelset and replace them with new Challenge Limus Team Edition tires (which I already have). That'll give me 2 superlight carbon fiber wheelsets, one for mud and one for dry. Plus, I'll still have the alloy wheelset with the old Limuses on them. So in a mudder, I'll have a superlight Limus setup for the A bike and the alloy Limus setup for the B bike. I really hope to get all of this set up by the time of Jingle Cross, my first important race of the season.

Condition

I'm feeling pretty confident in my current condition and plan to keep building it between now and Jingle Cross in mid-November. I started the year slow, with lots of unstructured endurance riding in March, April, and May. That meant I suffered hard in the first MTB races of the year; I didn't have any real muscular endurance--the ability to hold a hard effort for a long time--nor any real force--the ability to power up hills and through rough terrain. In June I started doing more structured training in the form of weekly hill repeats, more muscular endurance workouts, and a bit of high intensity training. I also started holding a weekly cyclocross skill session (now in week 15 of that!). I started seeing improvement in my MTB fitness by late July, and in the last few races I've been a lot stronger (even when sick!).


So right now I have very good endurance, muscular endurance, and force for cyclocross, and I've honed my skills pretty well. Recently I have done some hot laps and some anaerobic threshold training (in the form of HIIT workouts), so I'm starting to feel the higher-end fitness come together. The plan from here is to let that higher-end fitness come via all the racing I'll be doing in September and October, setting me up for my new big goal of taking the Master's 35+ overall award at Jingle Cross (that's right--I'm racing in 35+ there, not 45+, because I want to race against those top 5 guys who bested me there last year).

Mentality

Since I've got all my equipment dialed in and have my condition on track (not counting the summer flu I'm fighting right now), my mind is in a good place for the coming year. I'm excited but not chomping at the bit quite as much as I was this time last year, but I think that's just because my goals are different and I'm more aware of the real length of the season when Nationals is the top goal. Also helping my mental outlook is the fact that I will be focusing primarily on the Pro 1/2 races. I won't go into those races feeling the same kind of pressure to win as I would if I were trying to repeat last year's feat of winning both the Masters 35+ Cat 1/2 WCA Series and the State Championship race. Instead, I can approach the WCA races as an opportunity to build a very high level of fitness by chasing guys like Brian Matter, Joe Maloney, Tristan Schouten, and others around. That leaves the real psychological pressure for the select national-level races I'll be doing such as the Trek CXC Cup, Cincy3, Jingle Cross, and Nationals.

Finally, one thing I really got more focused on during this summer's MTB racing is racing for the joy of racing. It's great fun to win races, but if you focus on that, you tend only to enjoy the races you win. If you focus instead on how awesome it is to be flying around a technical course, elbow-to-elbow with your racing brothers-in-arms, you'll enjoy all of your racing. And when you're enjoying it, you're probably going to race better anyway.

Conclusion
It's going to be a great season: I've got my gear dialed, my fitness on track, and my mind in the right place. I also have great support from my team (KS/TW), my teammates, and my team's sponsors (KS Energy Services, Emery's, Trek, and others), Plus, my family is into the bike racing scene too, so every outing is a good time for all of us.

CX is Coming Now! Let's do this! See you all out there!


Monday, July 21, 2014

2014-15 CX Season Schedule & Goals

Today is a recovery day (despite the fantastic riding weather), so I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down to work through the CX schedule and chart out some more detailed plans. 

My season revolves around the #1 goal of getting on the podium at CX Nationals in Austin, TX in early January. I will be racing in the Masters 45-49 age group for the first time, but so will Peter Webber and other heavies, so getting on the podium will be a tough but I think realistic goal. After some reflection, I've come to three important conclusions about attaining that goal:

1. Obviously, I have to plan to peak physically and mentally in January. To that end, I've mapped out a season that has 3 minor peaks building up to that highest peak. My first peak will be for the Trek CXC Cup on 9/20 & 9/21. My second will be for Jingle Cross on 11/14-16. And my third peak will be for the State Championship race on 12/6. Then I will have a full month to recover and rebuild for my final peak at Nationals.

2. I have to do all I can to get a front-row start at Nationals. This means doing races that help my points. Since my points are already very good, it does me no good to race in the masters category at WCA races. So for that reason alone (I'll go into my other reason below), I'll be racing in the Pro 1/2 category at all WCA races. But I also need to be doing national-level events whenever I can afford to travel to them. So I am hoping to get to the Gateway Cup in St. Louis on 10/25 & 10/26, the Cincy3 races on 10/31-11/2, and the Derby City races on 11/8 & 11/9 in addition to the Trek CXC Cup and Jingle Cross.

3. At Nationals, it is all about the start and the ability to chase the fastest guys like Peter Webber and Mark Savery. I'm good at starts, but I need to spend my season chasing people who are faster than me. I need to build not only the physical ability to sustain that high pace but also the mental fortitude to avoid cracking and to limit my losses if I do crack while chasing. This is my other big reason to focus on the Pro 1/2 category at WCA races and to travel to bigger events whenever possible. So I hope to chase my teammates Brian Matter and Joe Maloney a lot this year as well as other strong WI guys like Isaac Neff & Tristan Schouten. 

But don't worry, Wisconsin masters racers: the new WCA schedule puts the masters races AFTER the Pro 1/2 race, so I will likely be lining up to do my second race of the day with you! I know you would miss me otherwise.

Next post I'll explain what I'm doing in this first phase of building toward the Trek CXC Cup. 

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Official Launch of the 2014 'Cross Season

For me, this week marks the official launch of the 2014 'cross season, so it's time to get blogging. Why, you ask, is this the week I'm starting my season? Mid-July would be a smart launching point for anyone since the earliest 'cross races are just 7-8 weeks away, but my personal reason is that I've had to cancel my plans to compete at the 2014 MTB XC Nationals in Macungie, PA. I competed there last year and had a great result despite 2 flat tires, and I really wanted to return this year to contest the podium, especially since I grew up close by in NJ and could have visited my mother as part of the trip. But reality harshly intruded: I'm going through some tough financial times and just couldn't afford the trip. That being the case, it made sense to have the WORS Subaru Pro XCT race at Cascade Mountain this past weekend mark the end of my focus on MTB XC for 2014. I'm planning to have 2015 be all about MTB racing, but it's full steam ahead now to the 2014 'cross season.

Since I'm switching gears, it's a good time to take stock and consider what I've done since CX Nationals in January and where I'm at now with my condition. After Nationals, I took 2 weeks off the bike except for some tough winter commuting; I mainly rested, got caught up on work, and did a little XC skiing. Then in February, I started P90X3, kept up with the XC skiing, and began doing some easy road rides on the 'cross bike 2-3 times per week.

That was my routine in February and most of March, but by mid March I dropped the skiing and started doing 3-4 rides per week, still just keeping my rides unstructured. In April, I started going a little harder and longer on my rides, though it has to be said we endured a horrible winter and spring here in Wisconsin, so it was tough to do the consistent long miles that are crucial to the base training period. I'll also admit that I lacked motivation to do any structured training during the spring. I did over 50 races in 2013, so I was kind of burned out on race efforts, though fortunately I still was psyched to be riding a bike.

By May, I had finished a full, 90-day round of P90X3 and had started doing some basic hill repeats to get ready for the first MTB race of the year. Sometime I'd love to give a full account of P90X3, but for now I'll say it is the best total conditioning program I've done yet in the base season. I did P90X in 2012, P90X2 in 2013, and now P90X3 in 2014. These programs have laid the foundations each season for my success since they so effectively address every aspect of fitness. This is especially important for an aging cyclist such as myself--the core strength, the flexibility, and the agility in particular. I also like how the lower body routines and the more general aerobic conditioning routines don't overemphasize any particular muscle but instead focus on developing all of the muscles in the legs, including the "merely" supportive or minor muscles. Strengthening those muscles obviously enables the larger muscles to be more efficient.

May saw the start of the MTB race season, and I immediately could see that my lack of structured training in the winter and spring--my avoidance of interval training--put me at a huge disadvantage. In fact, even though I started doing more structured training around May 15, I didn't feel my usual self at any of the MTB races this season. Specifically, I kept having good starts but then blowing up at around the hour and a quarter to hour and a half mark in these 2 hour races. It was as if I still had my excellent 'cross-specific fitness from 2013 but not the muscular endurance required to go hard for the full 2 hours. It took me 3 races to really understand the problem and begin to address it in my training, but by then I was just not having a good season because of mechanicals and other sorts of bad luck, not to mention the stress of my personal life. However, I did have 2 races that I'm content with: the Red Flint Firecracker, where I felt strong the whole race and ended up 15th in the Pro/Elite field and the Subaru Pro XCT Short Track event, where I rode well and managed 9th place in the Cat 1 / Elite field. So I leave my MTB focus behind with ambivalent feelings about it. I do still have some MTB racing ahead this year: WORS Mt. Morris, WORS Reforestation Camp, WORS Treadfest, WORS Colectivo Classic, and of course Chequamegon. But these are now just hard training rides in my mind; I won't get too invested in them psychologically.

Cyclocross is another story! There I am fully invested in my pursuit of a podium at the National Championships in Austin, TX in January, as well as my quest for a win at Jingle Cross in Iowa this November (my favorite race of all) and at the Trek CXC Cup right here in Wisconsin in September. I have 10 weeks until the Trek CXC Cup, which is the perfect amount of time to prepare given where I am at. I have a great base thanks to P90X3 and all the MTB racing I've done so far; I'm close to my ideal racing weight and have a great nutritional strategy going forward; I have an amazing new bike (my 2014 Trek Boone Cantilever) and a good pit bike (my 2011 Specialized Crux Disc); and I'm finally getting my life sorted out so that it's less stressful. On top of that, I've been getting out on the cyclocross bike every Tuesday for 6 weeks now to work on basic skills at the practice sessions I've been running at Estabrook Park. And for the past 2 weeks, I've also done some harder efforts on the 'cross bike on Thursday evenings. I've even been doing a little running.

Next time I'll outline my season plan and perhaps discuss my nutritional strategy a bit.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

P90X and Competitive Cycling

With the 2013 racing season over and the deep freeze of a Wisconsin winter upon us, it's time for me to do yet another round of Tony Horton's super-popular P90X programs. This will be my third year in a row of using these programs during the cycling offseason to set myself up for a new year of racing. I did the original P90X program in 2012 and P90X2 in 2013, so this winter it makes sense to tackle P90X3, which was just released in December. I attribute much of my success as a masters MTB and CX racer to the P90X programs, so I thought I'd describe my experience with them and share some thoughts on why I think they've helped me achieve my racing goals. Just to be clear, I am not a Team Beachbody Coach, so I have no commercial stake in P90X; my review is  positive but honest.

Year 1: P90X Classic

My first year, 2012, I did the original P90X Classic program from February through May. When I started it, I was in relatively bad shape (keeping in mind I've been a serious athlete my whole life). My 2011 CX season was cut short by a severe overuse injury to my quad, and I had spent November through January just doing physical therapy for that. So by February, I was heavy (168 lbs at 5'8), and while my quad was doing better, I was generally weak from all the time away from my usual activities. I also had been suffering from a lot of back pain since throwing my back out a couple of years earlier. My physical therapist, on one of my final visits for my quad injury, recommended I try P90X, and so I ordered it up and planned to start on February 20th, my 42nd birthday.

Before I recount my own experience with the program, let me tell you a bit about its design. P90X is a 90 day-long boot camp type fitness program and diet. The fitness program is broken down into 3 phases of 4 weeks each, and each phase is broken down into 3 hard weeks and 1 recovery week. Each of the phases has its unique workouts, but the hard weeks in all 3 phases share a weekly yoga workout, a weekly plyometrics workout, and a weekly MMA cardio workout called Kenpo X. You also do a 15 minute abdominal workout 3 days a week after other workouts in all the hard weeks. The workouts themselves last anywhere from 50 to 90 minutes, and all of them are pretty tough, even the yoga. They are tough because they keep you moving, not because the moves themselves are difficult. It is all circuit training; even when you are doing the Chest and Back routine, for example, you move from exercise to exercise so fast that it becomes a cardio workout too. You end nearly every workout drenched in sweat and exhausted yet adrenalized. Through all 3 phases, the hard weeks go basically like this:

Day 1: a very hard upper-body workout + ab routine
Day 2: a demanding plyometrics routine
Day 3: an easier upper-body workout + ab routine
Day 4: a slow 90 minute yoga routine
Day 5: a hard lower-body + back workout + ab routine
Day 6: a fun and easy MMA cardio workout
Day 7: an hour-long stretching routine (optional but I always included it)

The recovery weeks involve doing the yoga routine twice, the stretch routine twice, the MMA routine once, and a very good core program called Core Synergistics twice. Though it is a good recovery week, they were right not to call it a rest week.

As for the diet, it is effective but could be hard to follow for some. You really have to do some research and planning before you start, or you'll feel lost and waste a lot of time trying to figure out each meal. Basically, in the first phase you eat mainly protein, and then in the second and third phases you increase the proportion of carbs to protein. All along, though, the emphasis is on the quality of the nutrients, so it does teach you to eat smarter. Since I had followed various macrobiotic, vegan, and vegetarian diets for many years (but had recently started including meat and fish in my diet), I was already familiar with lots of different sources of protein and was good at preparing meals using a large variety of vegetables, seeds, and nuts. All of this made the diet pretty easy for me to adapt to.

So, just before February 20th rolled around, I bought some weights and a pull-up bar, studied the diet guide, purged the kitchen cabinets of all unhealthy food, and, hardest of all, prepared myself mentally to give up alcohol for 3 months. Then on February 18th, I took the P90X fitness test. I was disappointed by the results; for example, I could only do 9 good pull-ups in a row and fewer than 50 push-ups. That may not sound terrible, but I had been a dedicated climber and surfer for many years, so I thought my upper-body strength was better than that. I also had done many marathons and ultramarathons over the years, so I thought I would have more endurance and leg strength than I did.

Inspired by my lack of fitness, I started the program two days later as planned and immediately liked it. The first workout felt incredibly hard, but I really enjoyed the degree of suffering it dished out. This was clearly the real thing. I was completely exhausted by the end of the first week. Yet I recovered and the rest of the first phase went well. The results were apparent: I was feeling great; I was already up to 16 pull-ups in a row, my core was getting much stronger, my flexibility was better, and my weak leg and shoulder (both of which had been operated on a couple of years earlier) were feeling more stable.

During the second phase, I upped my daily calories a bit and, following the program, I restored some balance between carbs and protein. This made me feel much more energetic. Surprisingly, even with the increased carbs, my weight continued to drop, though more slowly. By the end of the second phase, I was at 155 (13 lbs lighter) and definitely looking more lean. More importantly, I was doing 20 pull-ups in a row and feeling way more flexible and much more fit cardiovascularly. With just one phase to go, I had no trouble staying committed.

In the third phase, I finally started getting on the bike a little. I knew I would be spending the summer in Colorado in order to compete in the Leadville 100, so I didn't want to arrive there without any cycling fitness at all. I decided to ride 2-3 times per week, keeping it to very easy rides since I was so committed to finishing out P90X as strongly as possible. With the fitness I had already attained in the first 2 phases and the momentum I felt, the third phase was a breeze. I finished the program the day before I hit the road for Colorado. I had a great feeling of accomplishment, especially when I managed 31 legitimate pull-ups in a row in the final fitness test. All of the results were pretty astonishing to me. I was down to a very lean 150, had fantastic all-around fitness, and wasn't experiencing any more back, shoulder, or knee trouble. I honestly felt more energetic and spry than I had in at least a decade. 

This greatly improved general fitness set me up for a good racing season. I adjusted to the altitude well and felt strong on the big Colorado climbs (being 18 lbs lighter makes climbing a blast!). I didn't have a very good endurance base, though, so I did have some trouble getting used to the long rides required to prepare for Leadville. But after 2 months out there, I managed to finish Leadville in under 9 hours (my biggest goal for the year), and I returned to Wisconsin very satisfied and ready to race cyclocross.



However, getting on the bike so late in the season (May) and focusing only on endurance rides all summer turned out to be poor preparation for the specific demands of cyclocross. On top of that, I had a lot of stress in my life and was sick pretty much the entire fall. So even though I did a lot of CX races and tasted a bit of success, the 2012 CX season was mediocre overall. I don't feel this was the fault of P90X though; if anything, I had a mediocre season in spite of it.

Near the end of the season, between the national and the world championships, I did a little soul searching and decided that rather than tackle the Leadman Challenge as I had planned, I wanted to make cyclocross my priority in 2013. I recognized that P90X had helped me make great improvements in my general fitness and that it had the potential to help me a lot in racing too, so I decided that, to launch my 2013 cyclocross campaign, I would spend the winter doing the newly released P90X2.



I'll cover my experience with P90X2 in my next post; for now, here is my P90X conclusion in a nutshell: if you are over 35 and want to compete seriously in bike racing (especially MTB or CX with their demands on the whole body), the best thing you can do for yourself in the offseason is commit to a boot camp type fitness program such as P90X. It takes a lot of discipline and forethought to do it right, but the benefits are huge: you learn to eat smarter; you achieve a good racing weight; you become more flexible; your core becomes stronger, which should take care of most back problems; all of your muscles become more balanced, which should take care of many other nagging aches and chronic weaknesses relating to middle age; you improve your VO2 max; and you just feel younger, lighter, and better all around. The downsides for a competitive cyclist are that you either have to give up the bike for a while or have to find time to do both; you have to work your way through some exercises and routines that you might not like or that seem silly; you don't develop the kind of endurance base that is normally the goal of the offseason; and if you don't approach the weightlifting in the right way, you might put on a little more upper-body muscle than you would like. 
Next time: how P90X2 set the stage for my 2013 season

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Lessons Learned from CX Nats

The 2014 CX National Championships are over and done with and so is my season. It is a bit of a relief to be done, I have to admit. But I have to get my preparations for the coming season underway quickly here since my first MTB races are just 3 1/2 months a way. That might seem like a long time, but it's really not when you take into account the need for a brief offseason, a sufficiently long base-building season, and a period of more intense efforts to get the engine ready for racing. But before I write about any of those plans, I thought I'd write a brief account of the lessons learned from my Nats race in particular and the CX season more generally.

How the Race Went Down
I'll keep this brief. Basically, I had a good start, threaded my way through numerous crashes, and pushed a strong pace the first lap. The front of the race quickly got strung out thanks to the crashes, and by the end of the first lap it was clear that a top fifteen finish was the best I could realistically hope for. I wasn't defeatist about it, just realistic. In fact, I went absolutely as hard as I could, and I was very motivated and positive during the whole race. For the remaining 5 laps I battled hard with the 8-10 others who were sitting just outside the top 10. I had great focus, used good tactics, made no major mistakes, and never let off the gas. Thanks to all that, I ended up 13th. Not the top-10 finish that I had set as my stretch goal, but still well within my realistic goal of a top-15 finish.

What I Learned from the Race and the Season--The Positive

1) All my work on increasing my power paid off. This was my main limiter last season, and I put a lot of time into doing all-out 5 minute intervals to address it. I was able to go super-hard on the first lap and keep laying the power down on the straightaway and the big hill each lap.

2) All my work on practicing starts paid off. I didn't think of starts as a limiter, but I knew that in a big race a good start is almost everything. I hit my pedal just right, got up to speed quickly and smoothly, kept myself out of trouble, and kept my cool. Luck played a big role as always, but bike cause I did these things right, I made it ok through the big crashes at the start. And boy were they ugly.

3) I've developed a good feel for when to go hard and when to recover, and I've become really good at staying calm and not wasting energy.

4) My bike handling skills are very good, and I'm getting better at positioning myself against others to take advantage of that.

5) I've developed a much better race mentality. My confidence is much higher than before, and I race to win. That was never really the case before; I always assumed I couldn't win races, and this became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now when I race I recognize the negative thinking right when it starts (usually in the 2nd or 3rd lap of a big race), and I correct it.

What I Learned from the Race and the Season--Things to Work on

1) My biggest problem is that my right quad tends to cramp up near the end of a really hard race. This problem was so bad that it ended my season 2 years ago. This year it was less of a problem, but it still caused me trouble. At Nats the quad cramped up during my last run up the stairs, causing me to lose my battle for 12th place. I'm going to address this by strengthening the quad with heavy weight lifting throughout my base season (and keep up with it less intensely during the MTB and CX seasons) as well as by increasing my endurance and muscular endurance. 

2) Another weakness is my ability to push hard through my second and third laps. While I plan to keep improving my first lap (5-minute) capacity, I'm going to focus more attention this year on my 10-minute capacity. This will mean one day per week dedicated to 10 minute hard intervals with shorter and shorter recovery periods each week. 

3) I need to do more running--more stair and hill running--before and during the CX season. At both Jingle Cross and Nats I had trouble with running. You'd think since I used to be an ultramarathon runner I wouldn't have trouble with this, but sprinting up a hill or staircase is its own thing.

4) I need to drill my cornering technique even more than I did last year (and I drilled it so much!). It's not a weakness, but I recognize I could get even better at this, and that would pay huge dividends.

5) I need to work on bunny-hopping barriers. This wasn't possible at Nats since they were on an icy hill, but there were a few races this season where I could have gained a second here and there had I jumped the barriers. Especially true at Jingle Cross, so I plan to replicate the set up and drill it.

6) Finally, I really need to get my child-care situation under control. There were many times this season when my inability to get a babysitter lined up prevented me from pre-riding courses, kept me from warming up properly, and just generally caused a lot of stress. At Nats, I was at the race for 2 full days before my race, yet I was completely unable to preride the course. And the day before I was stuck on the trainer trying to get the legs opened up for my race. Not ideal at all!

Conclusion
That was a great season--better than I ever imagined. I look back on the goals I wrote down a year ago and realize I blew them away. Now I have a much better sense of what I am capable of, I've set some great goals (esp. a top-3 finish at CX Nats and a top-5 finish at MTB Nats), and I have a very good plan for achieving them. Here's to a great 2014 season!

Monday, January 6, 2014

Prepping for 2014 CX Nationals


I've decided to leave my planning for next year's campaign until after Nationals. It makes more sense now to write about how I've been preparing for the biggest and last race of this long season.

The biggest challenges we all are facing going into nationals are 1) maintaining race form for weeks after the end of the state series, 2) not overindulging during the holiday season, 3) dealing with the stress of traveling, and 4) adjusting to the altitude. It has been a big struggle, but I've managed to deal well with all 4 challenges so far, and nationals are now just 5 days away for me. This is how I managed it.

Since I have family and friends in Gunnison and Crested Butte, Colorado, and was on winter break from my university job, I drove out there on 12/23 accompanied by my 3 year-old daughter, Judit. We arrived at my brother's house in Gunnison (7700 feet elevation) on Christmas Eve, just in time for a big family dinner with his family, with the families of my two younger sisters, and with my mother. I even managed to get a quick spin in to get the blood flowing after the 20 hour drive. Off to a good start.

Over the next 4 days I got some decent rides in right out my brother's door on snow-covered ranch roads. I took it very easy the first ride and gradually worked in some moderate efforts over the next 3 rides, never getting above 75% RPE. I felt pretty good at altitude so far, and the cold air (single digits most days) was made bearable by the bright sunlight. 5 degrees here feels like 25 in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, on the health front, I stayed away from alcohol altogether and stuck to my usual training diet with the exception of some pumpkin pie and a few Christmas cookies. Boring!

On day 5 I moved on up to Crested Butte to stay with my best friend, Jay Prentiss, who lives in an incredible house right on the slopes of Mt. Crested Butte, at 9400 feet elevation. Right away the altitude was hitting me hard. I barely slept the first night and felt a little dizzy going up and down the stairs. I'm very familiar with all of this since my main thing used to be mountaineering and I've been to 14,000 feet hundreds of times and even as high as 22,000 feet a few times, but it still hurts every time I come to altitude. So for the next week my routine was to go to my sister Stephanie's place in CB South in the mid-morning, have her watch my daughter, and get out on a ride. The rides I did there were very productive. I would descend about 600 vertical from her home, ride about 20 minutes up a canyon called Cement Creek on a snow-covered dirt road, turn around where the road was closed, descend it, climb back up to her house, and then do some short hard efforts on the flat road in front of her house. Altogether about 1:30 of training each day. I was feeling better and better with the altitude but still noticing a terrible lack of power on all my hard efforts.

The biggest challenge during that week was that my daughter got sick, forcing me to stay in my friend's apartment with her around the clock for 2 days. All the training I could manage was to sneak onto the trainer while she slept. The first day I did 5 x 5 minute hard efforts with 4 minute rests, and the second day I did 5 x 10 minute moderate efforts with 5 minute rests. Luckily there were lots of kersteperiode races to catch up on via YouTube.
By the end of the week--1/3--my daughter was better, so I went ahead with my plan to go to Longmont, Colorado for 2 days of racing at the Altitude Adjustment Cross races. My brother and my sister-in-law were generous enough to take care of my daughter, and they themselves have a 2 year-old and a 6 year-old, so I felt good about leaving her there for one night. I woke up Saturday morning to a snowstorm and had to drive all the way to Longmont through it to get there in time for my 3:15 race. The 4 1/2 hour drive took me 5 1/2, and I saw countless accidents along the way. The usual mayhem of mountain driving in the winter.

I got to the race with plenty of time. It was pretty much a blizzard at the course, and there was a good 5-6 inches of snow on the ground. Luckily for those of us adjusting to the altitude, it was a fairly flat course with constant turns, so with all the snow there were very few places where anybody could really lay down the power. Good thing because somehow I was still really feeling the altitude anytime I tried out a bit of acceleration while warming up. So I wasn't feeling that motivated to race, but my mood was greatly improved by running into my teammate Alex Martin and our fellow Wisconsinites J.W. Miller and Max Ackermann.

The race itself turned out to be a blast. This was my first time lining up with the likes of Jeremy Powers, Jeremy Driscoll, Justine Lindine, Logan Owen, and other national-caliber racers. But I had a second-row position on the grid and, as usual, managed to have a very good start. I was about 8th going into the holeshot. I stuck with the leaders for about 3/4 of a lap, and a gap opened up behind me. Since the race was all about handling, I started to think I'd be able to hang in there, but then I made the slightest of mistakes, just a quick foot dab, and in an instant I was dropped and facing an unbridled lie gap of about 5 meters. Crazy how fast that happened. I was in no-man's land for a bit, and then on the longer climb, coming at the end of the lap, I started to feel the altitude, so coming through the start/finish straight I got passed by the whole second group and fell to around 15th. I settled in and the rest of the race went well. I just focused on staying upright and having some fun with it. I got passed a few more times, but had an excellent last lap and even beat one guy in the final sprint, so I ended on a good note. My teammate Alex said he had a really bad start, so his race didn't go as well, but I'm sure he had fun since he loves racing on snow as much as I do.

I stayed overnight in Longmont with an old school pal, Peter Schaub, who proved to be an awesome host--he and his whole family. He, too, is a 'cross racer, and had raced that day, so we had plenty to chat about over dinner. Next day it was brutally cold and still snowing. I got out and did the masters race at 10 AM, but it was such a bad experience that I lost all desire to stick around until 3:15 for the pro race. It was bad mainly because the organizer decided to have the large 45+ field start 30 seconds in front of the 40-44 field. Total catastrophe. I was leading my race when, after just 1/2 a lap, I caught up to the back of the 45+ field. With all of the snow and the turny nature to the course, it was next to impossible to pass anybody. I was even reduced to walking along with my bike on my shoulder several times. And each time I hit a straight and tried to pass, I would have to do so through the deep snow to the side, which completely drained me given the altitude. There was a fast Colorado guy in my group, and he was able to work the deep snow better than I could, so he got in a few more passes and finished just in front of me in our 3 lap, 27 minute race; I didn't help myself by getting my front wheel stuck in somebody's pedal while desperately trying to pass people. Ridiculous race. I packed up and drove back to Gunnison.

So now it's just 5 days until I race at 9 AM Saturday. What to do? I will train a bit more here in Gunnison, then head to Boulder on Thursday to catch Dave Eckel's race--our team captain. Friday I'll preview the course, and Saturday I will try to close out this amazing season with a top-10 finish. That'll be a big challenge with the altitude still working against me, but it may just be doable with the right amount of luck and intelligent racing.