Dave arrives in St George today and tomorrow starts the big ride week. We're both racing solo at 24-hours of Old Pueblo on Feb 18-19, about a month away. This is the big volume week followed by a 3 week taper into OP. Joe Friel calls this kinds of week "crash" training. I hope not to do any kind of crashing. I like to call this type of week binge training 'cause that's what it really is. We are having a bike binge.
Dave is used to riding faster than me but I'm used to riding for longer than him so we are going to see if we can get a lot of fun riding done without blowing each other up before the end of the week. Learning to ride together day after day is a key aspect of doing well at Trans Rockies. We are also going to try out a ton of ideas we have to make us faster as a team. Any cool suggestions? Leave them here and we'll try it out...
Here is the plan
Monday we are riding the road up to Gooseberry, about 40 miles and 2:30. Then we are meeting Steve with the mtb's for a lap on Gooseberry, about 3 hours.
Tuesday is an Epic mtb day, about 6 hours, lots of climbing, lots of jeep roads and places for Dave to tow me :-). The route is from my house, along Church Rocks slickrock, Prospector single-track, Red Cliffs, Silver Reef, 3,000 feet climb up to Oak Grove then jump on the Turkey Farm jeep road for a fast roller 30 mile descent back to the house.
Wed is a day off the bike for me. Too much going on to take the entire week off from my real life.
Thursday is 2 laps on the Jem trail about 47 miles of single-track and probably about 5 hours of saddle time. Fun, fun, fun trail. This will be a good day to see how it is riding technical stuff together where he can't tow me.
Friday is a huge Epic that I've cooked up with Google Earth but never ridden before. Looks to be about 100 miles and all off road except for the first 3 miles to the trailhead :-o Lots of jeep roads for Dave to tow my a** along.
Saturday is open for whatever is left in our pegs.... and then the OP taper begins.