Getting Busy

Okay so it seems like the summer riding/racing is in full swing.  The EFTA New England Championship Series kicks off tomorrow with the Weeping Willow.  I'll be heading down nice and early to help out with the race as my sponsor shop Riverside Cycles is putting on the race and the team will all be there helping out.  Should be a busy day as it looks like the race has been sold out for over a week.  The Elite field looks to be absolutely STACKED with some of the fastest guys in New England, so this should definitely be a rude awakening- I actually might just unofficially change the name of the race.  Riding 4 hour marathon tempo is one thing, but being able to go all out at the gun is something completely different, so we'll just see how that goes and I'll get a review after the race.

Aside from the racing I've got a lot of other little side projects going on as well.  I'm starting to do a lot of writing and presenting on cycling.  I've been working on a monthly education series "Getting Ready for the Dempsey Challenge" looking to reach out to folks in my area who have signed up for The Dempsey Challenge, great charity ride here in Lewiston.  The first two sessions were a little light on attendance, but with the help of Central Maine Medical Center's communications department I'm hoping to reach a much broader audience (there is a reason why this is their full time job- they are GOOD at what they do).

Also starting to work on articles on injury prevention in cycling for an upcoming website geared towards Gran Fondo riders.  Totally fell into this one on LinkedIn, someone posted that they were looking for contributors, I wrote back, and low and behold they wanted me to send them some stuff.  So I'm excited about getting that up and going.

After that I've got a HUGE trip coming up in June where I'll be heading out to Colorado Springs to work with the Rocky Mountain Devo junior development camp, a regional camp put on by USA Cycling.  I'll be out there for a week working and riding with juniors (btw, in USA Cycling they consider juniors to be 14-22...interesting), many of whom I'm sure are looking to get selected to attend a national training camp later in the summer.  Best of all, we'll be in town for when the Pro XCT tour rolls into town for the Ute Valley Pro XCT race that the juniors will compete in.  I'm really excited to have this opportunity to work at an event of this level and I can't wait to see what experience I gain from this and what doors this may open.

Lastly, (holy crap this was supposed to be a short update) I'll be helping a good friend and fellow racer Andrew Freye get ready for his summer Maine Youth Bike Series .  They'll be held at a new venue in Falmouth, ME this year and I think everyone is pretty excited about the change.  With this event I'll be wearing a couple of different hats- prior to the race I'll be acting as a coach organizing skills sessions where kids can practice their bike handling/racing skills while waiting for the race to start.  Once the race begins I'll change hats and go into athletic trainer mode and be providing the medical coverage during the event.  These are going to be some busy summer nights.

Okay, that's enough for now.  Off to enjoy a great Saturday and get ready to race tomorrow.  I'll be back with a post on how the Rude Awakening/ Weeping Willow turns out.

Greenbrier Challenge Marathon!

Greenbrier Marathon Race Wrap Up

Earlier this year I got an email from USA Cycling with "upcoming events in your area" for mountain bike races.  Apparently I had indicated to them that Maryland was "in my area" and so I got all of the mid-Atlantic races sent to me along with New England events.  One that caught my eye in particular was the Greenbrier Challenge to be held in Greenbrier State Park in Boonsboro, MD.  Would I normally travel over 10 hours one way for a 4 hour race? No... But we do have friends who live in Frederick, 20 min away, and I had yet to visit them.  So I figured this would be a great opportunity to see friends and get in an early season training race.

The race was on Sunday and we drove down on Friday to check out downtown Frederick.  Saturday I knew I needed to stretch the legs so well all decided to head out to the Frederick Town Forest to run the dogs and I would get in what I thought would be a nice 45 min spin on multi use trails just to loosen up the legs.  Before I can even get to the race- let me just say this:  If ever the opportunity comes up to go ride in Maryland DO IT!  The riding and the terrain down there is fantastic.  Just to get to the trail head my friends were nice enough to kick me out of the truck at the bottom of the hill and left me with a nice 20 min dirt road climb just to get the to trail head.  Legs felt like lead so I didn't try to force any kind of pace.  Once at the trail head I dove into the woods and was pleasantly supprised to find not just a bunch of double track, but very well-built technical, rocky singletrack with tons of climbing.  I started thinking to myself "I know this is day before the race, but c'mon- you can't pass this up!"  Long story short- an easy 45' spin turned into almost 2 hours of playing around on some ripping trails and the legs were starting to feel better and better.  After that I'd caught the Maryland bug and was ready to race!

Okay, so the race itself.  Interesting format- basically a 12 or 24 hour race format, only 4 hours long.  Greenbrier Challenge had multiple events going on throughout the day.  marathon started at 9:30, Cat III XC at 10:30, Cat II's at 11:30, and Cat I/Pros at 1:45.  The marathon was formatted so I needed to race all the way until 1:15- once 1:15 hit if I came through the finish chute, I would be done.  If I rolled through at 1:14, I'd be allowed to finished the next lap.  So winner would be based on 1) how many laps, then 2) fastest time if multiple riders on same lap.

Being the first race of the year, and a long one at that, the gameplan for me was get in long quality hours on the bike.  My goal was to start strong, staying in a lead group, but not be the one setting the tempo.  I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to blow up after 3 hours and then wimper into the finish for the last hour.  To me its always a challenge to figure out when to attack, so I wanted to really sit in on this one and watch things play out a little.  I thought things would end up really interested since bikereg indicated that 40 riders had pre-registered for the marathon- by far the biggest field of the day!

Lining up for the start was a little eerie- nobody wanted to be in the front.  I came into the starting chute with only two riders on the line and a whole crowd behind- apprarently everyone else was just as apprehensive about the start as I was.  The gun went off and we were rolling- a few hundred yards of field before dirt double track climb.  I had the inside track and kept looking over my shoulder to see who was going to come by- finally a few riders went ahead and I was happy to let them set the tempo.  By the top of the climb it was a pack of three of us and we began making our way down a fast down hill with log drops and rock gardens strewn throughout.  going through one of the gardens I heard  a lout "clang" and started thinking, 'dang, I almost flatted there'.  After taking a peek at my rear wheel I looked ahead and the leader was doing the same thing- only he was running on a flat, so he peeled off to repair.

Interesting...so my gameplan had now completely gone out the window.  Here I was 8 minutes into the race, and starting the first big climb of the lap looking back I already had a 15 second lead.  So much for sitting in and seeing how things pan out.  Okay, new plan time!  Since I'd built this lead essentially following someone elses tempo, I decided to just go with it.  I got into the mindset of riding strong, not sitting up, but not putting in heroic efforts on climbs or flats to widen the gap.

The rest of the lap consisted of a few long climbs with some absolutely ripping technical downhills taking you past campgrounds with little kids cheering, a flat section across a resevoir wall with some people fishing, and coming through the start/finish loop.  As I rolled through starting my second lap I was able to take a long look back at the end of the lap and didn't see anybody, so I knew at this point if I could remotely hold this tempo and was mechanical free I could take the race- and thats essentially how the rest of the day played out.  I was able to keep my lap times consistent, fought of the beginning of fatigue cramps for the last two laps and finished with 9 laps (close to 46 miles) in about 4hr 10min, one lap up on the field.

If they hadn't taken forever with the awards,
I'm sure the rest of the podium would have been there.

One of the nice parts of this format actually was being on course while all the other races went off.  I was lucky that I never came through the start finish while a race was trying to start, but I saw plenty of Cat 3, Cat 2, and other marathoners on course, and it was great seing people on course, cheering people on as I rolled through, passing along words of encouragement.  Great start to the season, pumped to build on this as I work towards some 100 milers later on this summer!

Off-Season, Recovery, and Foam rollers

So here is something that I'm finding out: the good habits that you develop during the racing/riding season to take care of yourself are very easy to fall out of, particularly when it comes to recovery from workouts. In season its easy to form great habits of stretching and using a foam roller almost every night. Its easy to remember to do at the time- you had ridden long,or hard, or long and hard, and you're left sore, tight, and tired. Now that the off season is here and workouts aren't as intense, it's easy to forget to do that stuff.  Further, this time of year is a great opportunity to try different events to keep things fresh.  Here are some thoughts about off-season conditioning and recover to help make sure that the winter stays injury free.

The good news is that this time of year (meaning preparatory work for building a base) the workouts are extremely variable.    Weight lifting, cycling, running (fine, IF WE MUST) and as soon as the snow flies snowshoing and skiing do a great job of stressing the body in a variety of ways.  While its great to do something different and you may be carrying great cycling fitness into the winter, its important to remember that many of these tasks are considerable new and different from a season of sitting on the bike; so its important to start off slow and listen to your body.  Soreness from new activity is to be expected, and is actually good as that is a sign that the body is being stressed. As long as you allow yourself the time to recover from that soreness the body will adapt and get stronger.   Remember, this is the off-season:  this is when its good to just go do whatever activity and have fun.  No sense in killing yourself in December/January and getting hurt, that will just hinder your conditioning later on in the late winter/ early spring when you'd rather be on your bike.

While we are taking this time of year to get introduced to new activities, this is a great time to continue to take care of any chronic issues you are prone to during the riding season- be it IT band syndrome, low back pain, or take-your-pick knee pain- and give them a chance to heal.  As I said before, this is still the time to maintain those good habits during the regular season.  Keep up with daily stretching and/or soft tissue work.  For doing soft tissue work getting a foam roller is a GREAT way to start working out the knots and soft tissue tightness.

If you haven't used a foam roller before my recommendation is to start with a basic model.  There are a number of companies that have a wide variety of foam roller products.  These range all the way from the basic closed cell foam that has a little bit of give to it, all the way to the plastic tube wrapped in a very firm foam (and is virtually rock hard) to firm foam with ridges that looks like it has a tread pattern.  My recommendation is to start out with the basic closed cell foam.  They are usually the cheapest, so if you try using it and you HATE IT then you're not out a ton of dough.  They are also a little softer than the more expensive models,  which for muscle and soft tissue that have never had this work done, is going to be more appropriate than the discomfort you'll get from the tire tread designs.  If after a while you find the basic roller isn't enough, then upgrade.  That way on days you want to be really aggressive about loosening up those knots, you use the really nice roller.  If you're super sore, then you still have old faithful standing by (oh yeah, if you upgrade, dont' through out your old one).

So, points to take home:  The off-season is a great time to get out and enjoy all the other activities that you don't have time to do when you ride your bike all summer.  When getting into these off season activities remember to start off slow and listen to your body to avoid injury.  Remember to stay focused on resting and recovering, don't let good habits that you developed during the summer fall by the wayside; and if you haven't started a rest and recovery routine yet, well then there's no better time than now to make a habit of it!