The Velodarma

I know there aren't exactly a lot of people reading this blog, but for those few who do and don't already know it, there's a benefit for the NSC Velodrome happening on Saturday at One on One in Minneapolis. Here's some of the details:

VELODRAMA
Saturday, March 1st
7 - 11 pm
One on One Bike Studio - Minneapolis Warehouse District
Admission $10
Silent Auction
Cycling fashion show
Alleycat sprint races (sign up at the event)
Beer by Rush River Brewing Co.
DJ Millions Billions

Come out and support the 'drome of you can!

The last 500 Meters

Trying to motivate yourself to really go all out when riding on a trainer is not easy. There's no competition. There's no wind in your face or pavement under your wheels. There's no surge with pedal strokes or balanced tension you feel when both wheels are spinning. Music helps, for sure, and I built a play list so that I could alternate intervals and resting with each song. But even the most aggressive songs don't allow me to sustain an all out effort for longer intervals.

So visualization is a requirement. On the road, I can find a spot to sprint for, or visualize trying to close a gap. On the trainer that doesn't work. I have to go for the track. There's 500 meters left and I'm off the front, but not by much. Don't look back. Just keep it buried and try to accelerate even though you can't. I can see the black line and the red line and I can hear the boards and feel the press of the banking.

Visualization works. Now I just have to keep myself from hurling.

Why gaining 5 pounds was the best thing that ever happened to me

For the first time in at least 12 and probably more like 18 months, I'm looking forward to doing intervals. I know that's crazy. When I first started bike racing in 2005, I did intervals in the spring with vim and vigor. I loved the hurt. I looked forward to the screaming lungs and legs. I relished the time I spent above lactate threshold. But I was afraid. Afraid I'd loose it. Afraid I'd slip backward, so I never really took any kind of break in the fall of 2005 and decided that if I really wanted to be competitive in 2006, I needed to seriously up my mileage.

And so in the winter I did. I rode the highest volume that I ever had. Long rides on the weekends (and some Friday afternoons as well). Up to 2 hours of Tempo on the trainer. And it payed off. I won the Masters 4/5 group at Ken Woods and I was feeling pretty darn good. But I was also feeling pretty tired. I did some track racing and got upgraded to Cat. 3 on the track. Also good! Then I crashed at the track. Not so good. It took me a long while to recover mentally and was much harder on me physically than I thought. So I went into 2007 still feeling worn out, still afraid of loosing my fitness.

I trained pretty hard during the off season, and then I got this nasty flu. I was off the bike for 3 weeks+. And I was horrified. I knew that I had lost it. But I wasn't exactly being rational at that point. I just started bailing on everything. Opening night at the track. I didn't race. Ken Woods. It was 70 degrees! and I didn't race. The summer wore on and I tried again and again to get to the track for a race night and I just couldn't do it. The truth was I just wasn't motivated.

Then fall of 2007 rolled around. I had been doing some intervals and training over the summer, even though I wasn't racing, thinking I'd stay in shape. The first snow hit in November. I wasn't going to ride outside, and I just couldn't get myself on the trainer. I did some cross training with weights, but I was down to 3 hours a week maximum training. Then over Christmas we visited my family in Maryland and I didn't exercise at all. For almost 2 weeks. I ate great food and gained 5 pounds and a notch on my belt.

Then in January, things started to change. Maybe I'll ride outside some. Maybe I'll hit the trainer, just for an hour. Maybe I'll spend 30 minutes on the rollers. Maybe I'll do some weights, just to get back in shape. In a periodized training program, that's called the preparation period, even though I didn't realize I was doing it. So by February, I was ready to try something harder again. And I started doing some intervals and trying to get longer rides in on the weekend. Wow, now I'm suddenly psyched about intervals. Weird. And I'm looking forward to doing some racing.

Turns out that I needed to really, deeply recover. But now I'm back. And I may not be as fast or competitive as I was in 2005/2006. But I'm sure as hell going to try.