Long Winter Build Up
Training couldn’t be going any better. If anything it’s going too good. The weather is so dry in Durango that I haven’t missed one day of training. I’ll either over train or hopefully be very fit and strong this year. I think I’ll do ok Dave has me pretty dialed in with my Chronic Training Load so I wont over do it.
I started training in October with weights and running and biking just a little bit. It was more of a fun, easy month just to get ready for long structured training. My build up has been very steady all winter. I don’t know how most people can do base and almost immediately do a 35 hr week - that would kill me. Don’t get me wrong - it seems to make a lot of people fast. I already have pretty good endurance so I don’t do the big base under 140 hr. I’m doing a lot of tempo work this year.
November was a fun month. I did a lot of weights and low cadence climbs to build power. Also, big mountain bike rides in Moab like the White Rim. But you probably already heard all about that ride from three different websites. December through most of January I did a 7 week training cycle. Each week consisted of weights, intervals, long rides, and slowly ramping up the tempo. Finishing one gym workout I started to walk down the steps of the rec center to go home and both of my legs completely cramped up. I’ve never cramped up that bad before, and I know I had enough electrolytes and fluids. It’s just all that training finally got to me. The next day I spun easy and completely recovered. To help with recovery I’ve been eating as healthy as possible. If you want to get some good advice on health, read Shane’s book Health Myths Exposed.
In October Cottonwood Cycles hooked me up with a sweet TT bike - the Equinox 11. I built it myself and have been training on it once a week to hopefully improve enough to not lose minutes from the TT during every stage race I do. I even have a power tap cable on it. I hope this year I will be able to push more than a measly AV of 284 watts during the Gila TT.
The good thing about living in Durango is that there are so many fast people to ride with. Whether it’s the Tuesday night warriors like Charles Shaw and Michael Carol, or all my friends on team Health FX and my RMCF road team. They can always push me harder than I need to. Lately for some of my long rides I have been riding with Cale, Michael, and Charles. We rode up La Posta to Ignacio then Navajo Dam. That ride was hard because of all the big rollers and side wind all day. Plus they hammered the entire time for 120 miles. The day before that my TT bike was in the shop so I rode 4 hrs. On Sunday after Navajo Dam ride I went out alone to ride and ran into a group ride and ended up going pretty hard again for another 4 hrs. The good thing was I still felt strong after all that but started to feel my energy drop the next week. It took me an extra day to recover by doing an easy 3 ½ hr team ride with RMCF.
This last Sunday I did an awesome ride with Anthony, Miles, and Greg to Mesa Verde and back. The whole way out there we had a massive head wind, as Miles said it was like being in a wind tunnel for 3 hrs straight. This was the first time I have ever done this ride. The road up Mesa Verde was smooth with hardly any cars. You could see forever from the view at top. Those guys are strong - we got back quickly because of the tail wind. Well, I could go on and on about training rides this winter so I better stop here before this gets to long, like I said it’s dry outside.