Lets see if I still know how to do this.

This week has been a combination of scraping off the rust on my race mentality. Brief high intensity workouts, and bike dialing.

On Sunday i made the trip out to Albion with Bizzle to get in a wholesome day of MTB action and to familiarize myself with the course. Everyone else was duking it out at Hardwood hills for the Canada Cup, which I was unable to attend to due to having wedding Dj obligations the night before.

Albion.

The course was fast with no extended climbs, save for some fast'ish uphill singletrack that will definitely hurt 40km into the race. Albion is my favorite venue because it suits my ride style. Its fast, and it rewards riders who are good at pinning fast corners and maintaining momentum. The few modest rock gardens serve no other purpose other than to punctuate between one fast flowy section to another.

We ended up doing 4 laps of the course and then some non race course singletrack to mix it up. All in all, probably about 50km on the day.

I felt comfortable handling the bike and railing corners at top speed, but was worried about how quickly i redlined on the uphills. I arrived at the top of the hills without that little bit left in the gas tank required to make an attack. It also took much longer for my HR to drop back to normal after hard efforts. Put simply Im not race fit. Im fit,as I have tons of miles under my belt, but I dont have that zone 5 kick that you develop only from regular racing. My last blog post describes this in detail.

I can only hope that the regular endurance rides ive been doing for the last 6 weeks have reinforced my endurance such that my pace is consistent across 5 laps.

By the end of the ride, I concluded that Albion will be a race of attrition for me. I dont have the top end speed to be competitive. Thoughts of dropping back to expert have crossed my mind. Ill make a decision after this race.

Monday.

Monday was an easy ride spent dialing my bike. Im a techy. I love tweaking, adjusting, avoiding stock settings etc. etc. I spent about an hour dialing fork and shock pressures, rebound damping, and tire pressures. I foresee there being a ton of brake bumps on the race course come race day, so I dialed my bike so that I can bomb those skittish descents at top speed.

Tuesday.

Tuesday was hill climbs. I made it out to a grassy toboggan hill in Guelph and proceeded to do 50 hill climbs in sets of 10. The hill is short and steep. The only time I use this hill is when I need to train my absolute top end. I generally sprint up the hill doing what amounts to probably a 15-20 second effort, ride down, and then repeat. After 10, ill go for a 5 minute spin, and then do another set. After the 3rd set I was getting close to my max HR, hitting around 199. The reason for this workout is just to let my body know that race efforts are coming, its time to get ready.

Wednesday.


Off day. Hung out on the balcony, Socialized with friends, drank alot of wine.:) (I wonder why im not in race shape...)



Thursday.

Commute to work. Was supposed to be an easy ride, but a hideous 40km/h headwind decided otherwise. Ended up averaging 28km/h into work at an average wattage of 244watts, which should give you an idea as to how hard the ride in was. Conversely on the way back I was humming along at 45km/h putting out maybe 100 watts.


Friday.

Not riding. Im at NV lounge tonight throwing down some tech-house and progressive. No top 40 bullshit, No Ke$ha, no cheese.

http://radio3.cbc.ca/#/bands/Feelgood


Tomorrow.

Hope to make it out to Albion to throw down two laps. One easy pace, one at race pace.

Sunday.

Race day. Goal is to survive, start out slow, and ramp it up as the race progresses. Focus will be on efficiency and energy conservation. No foolhardy attacks, no clumsy singletrack riding. What I lack in fitness I hope to compensate with through experience. There are alot of youngins in my field who have been racing for less than five years. In past races ive seen this inexperience manifest itself...I hope to capitalize on their mistakes.

A realistic ideal race would have me running back of the pack and then picking up a few positions towards the end.