big week

getting pretty amped about this weekends race in Fontana, NC! it's going to be a hard race even though it's short in distance...it'll make up for that in steep climbs and technical descents. if i remember correctly it's about a 6 mile loop w/ 1300ft of climbing. FUN...? at least i'm points leader now...i just got to mark ceazer throughout the race and try to beat him.

this past week was good and bad as far as training...i had good workouts when i was on the bike but basically missed 2 days...Wednesday was suppose to be an easy 1.5hr on the mtb...max wrecked and broke his shoulder about 10 min into the ride and sunday's 2.5hr ride got cut short due to the nasty rain that moved in on us. the rset of the weeks ride were great.

this week will be a few fine tuning rides with some recovery mixed in....can't wait until sunday!

called out

by mother nature that is...just about at the mid way point of the ride the bottom dropped out. it poured rain...as wesson would say..."Frog choker"...and it was indeed. still had a good ride just a little more clean up to do...bike and body are muddy and water logged.

it's been a pretty chill week for me. nothing but hour long rides with no effort all week...some mtb some road...tomorrow is another LT test for me so that should be some solid effort laid down. then sunday is a little longer ride at 1.5hrs but still nothing big. Next week is a solid week though...several days with effort(hill sprints and tempo rides) as well as more time on the bike. All build up for Fontana's XC. I really need to have a good ride that day. Only 1 point separates me from second...lucky i have the lead but regardless, I'll need to have a good ride and some luck to stay on top.

I plan to change gears a little once that race is over. I think i'm going to slowly transition over to the my base training and have a long, extended base season. I will still do lots of tempo work but only short hard intervals on the weeks of the remanding xc races...just to remind the legs how to go that hard. I really need to improve my endurance...i tend to fade at the end of the races so i need to work on that...my speed is good...i just lose power towards the end of the day so that's what my focus is on.

always got to improve...

Cheaha Mountain Trails - Anniston, AL

this was the 9th race of the SERC series and is always a very technical and challenging course. It's basically down the mtn, across the bottom, and then back up. It's shorter than most races but just as hard. The laps are only 6 miles but have about 850 ft of climbing each go around.

For me, I wanted two things to happen...stay steady throughout out the race and gain some points on Cesar(dude who is 2nd overall). Mission accomplished! I was able to stay steady on the climbs which is great and then take some time on the descents.

the first lap saw me enter the woods in 4th position. I maintained this until one dude dropped his chain and I slid around him into 3rd. The pace was fast but not hard so this allowed Noah(another guy who is 4th overall) to bridge up to us. On the way up the climb, Nathan(dude who always wins) dropped us. But I could also tell that Cesar wasn't riding as strong as he normally does...and since there was really no where to pass, i just conserved the energy and stayed behind him. It wasn't until we had gone through the transition area and were about to enter the trail that I made my move. I knew I was faster on the way down so I wanted to attack there and try to maintain any gap i got on the climb. And I got a gap...about :30 just on the first half of the DH...the 3rd and 4th lap would stay status quote. I ended up 2nd and was super happy!