Soldier Hollow

I think it was two years ago that I showed up at Hurricane and got killed by Holley and Bp. I resolved then and there to fix things.

I laminated the race-results (times) onto a little card and I carried it everywhere with me in my pocket. The (successful) intent was to remind/inspire me to train more. I trained so much that at 5 mile I finished a dismal 9th (expert) and continued to suffer, not posting a good race till mid-July at Snowbird.

I learned two things that year. The first was that motivation just isn't one of my problems -- and never really has been. Just one of those things, I guess. The second was that it is easy to grasp at fitness with such force that you just strangle and kill it.

At 5 mile this year, my average HR for the single lap I did was about 158. It has been crazy low for a couple months. I also was feeling terrible whenever I'd step up the intensity, so I was trying to build base hoping the good feelings would come back, but there were not.

I thought about 2006, and concluded that my problem was probably a combination of:
1) My fitness was really good in December
2) In January and February I was really busy with work and the weather was lousy, so my training was both sporadic and poor quality
3) I came out of February ready to train hard
4) Ramped the volume back up too fast and killed my legs
5) Tried to cut a little weight at the same time as 4, and double-killed my legs


With this in mind, I cut ALL of my big rides, and have been doing short rides with intervals several days a week. I planned to keep the rides short until my HR has returned to my normal ranges. Seems like it has worked.

The first couple rides were not much fun because the intensity was uncomfortable and short rides just don't provide the satisfaction of the big ones, but I've been feeling better and better. My power is still not back to January 1 levels (sad), but today at the race I felt fine and started OK.

I raced with KDay on my tail for a while. He eventually caught me and moved on up pretty quickly. At the end of the second lap I Bp and KDay were not far in front of me, and I was feeling fine, but my arms(?) were getting quite tired and I was getting distracted.

On the third lap things didn't go so well. I dropped my bottle on an early downhill and had to stop and run back up the hill to get it. I also dropped my chain and had to put it back on. Then, near the end of the lap, I started cramping big time and that was really it. I slowed down and got rid of the cramps, but I lost another position or 2, falling back to 9th/15. A lot of people talk about salt and dehydration, etc. relative to cramps, and I did lose about 5-6 lbs during the race so I don't think I drank enough, but my experience has been that cramps are primarily correlated to fitness (or lack thereof). I hardly had any cramping issues last year when I was stronger.

Ah well. I'm really satisfied with today's race because I felt pretty good for most of the race and it seems like for now I'm on the right track again.

Besides, I had a heavier rear tire on today, and if I'd had a light one, I'm sure I'd have taken Bart for the win (uh huh).