PSYCLO AND COPPER MOUNTAIN CROSS RACES

The rest week is over, and my first races of the season have come and gone. It was 'cross racing, so you know two things took place, fun and pain. Check montanacyclocross.com and the GAS website for race reports. I started strong and raced with or near the leaders for about the first half of both races, then faded back as the races went on. I think I finished in 8th on Saturday night, and 5th on Sunday. The course on Sunday suited me much better, as I think I lost a ton of time Friday night on the descents. With the training I have been doing, that is just about exactly how I expected my first races to go. I have spent the last month trying to raise my threshold power, but have spent very little time above that power. One of the key components to any training plan is specificity. That is, you have to train specifically for the type of event in which you will be competing in. Cyclocross racing demands much time above threshold in the form of short, hard bursts of power, a little recovery, then repeat again and again and again. Now that I have put some time into building that threshold power, I can now start doing some of the shorter, harder interval work that will help me be able to repeat those hard efforts. I will still spend some time working on my threshold, but the majority of my hard training time will be in the form of short hard intervals with little recovery between efforts. These training session will be hard, and they will hurt. I see lots of pain in my near future. Hopefully, the pain will be worth it, and the races themselves won't hurt quit as bad as they did this weekend. Well, that's not true. The races are always gonna hurt pretty bad. The hope is that while it's hurting that bad, I'll at least be closer to the front of the race. So, three more hard weeks coming up. Follow along and I'll try and explain some of the interval type work that I recommend for 'cross racing, just remember, you gotta like the pain!

Keep it PURE,
Brad

RECOVERY TIME

After four pretty hard training weeks, it's finally time for some rest. Yesterday I did a morning run, but then was pretty busy for the rest of the day, so it was hard to squeeze in an afternoon ride. I almost skipped out, but I knew this was my last chance to get some good training in before recovering for a while, so I hit the dreaded trainer at 9:30 pm to try for one last threshold workout. I was shooting for three twenty minute efforts right at threshold power, but figured that might be tough to do, so I was just hoping for the best. Once I was good and warm, which doesn't take long on the trainer, I ramped the power up to threshold, expecting it to feel hard. To my surprise, it actually seemed fairly easy, so when 20 minutes was up, I ramped the power up slightly and I kept on pushing. I held 10 watts above what I had previously tested to be my threshold power, on the trainer, without much difficulty, for a whole hour, and at the end of a HARD four week training block to boot. Obviously, my threshold power has gone up since my last test. I will take that as a sign that I'm doing something right. Getting in some miles and raising my threshold power were my goals of this training block, mission accomplished. Not only that, but that trainer ride that I almost skipped was a huge confidence booster for me as we dive into the beginning of the cyclocross season here in Montana next weekend with the Butte races. At one point I had decided to not race this season at all, and now after a little hard work I almost feel as if I'm right where I need to be. Here are a few stats from the last four weeks.

• 55 hours on the bike
• 5 hours running
• 3200 TSS
• CTL ended at 88.2
• TSB ended at -34.3, but was at an all time low of -52

It has been a hard training block, easily my hardest four weeks all season. I'm ready for some recovery, but for some reason I actually still feel pretty good. At the beginning of this week I felt very tired, and missed a few training opportunities, but I feel good right now. I almost feel like I can do more, and I WANT to do more, but I KNOW I need to REST, so that's what I'll do. Rest and recovery are needed for the body to reap the benefits of all the hard training that you do. Without the rest, the body cannot recover, adapt, and grow stronger from all the hard work. REST IS CRITICAL! So this week will be fairly easy, here's a general overview of what I plan on doing. Today I did a one hour neighborhood ride with Trey that was super fun and just the right speed for some serious recovery. Tomorrow's ride will be skills and a couple hard laps at the GAS team cyclocross practice which should be super fun. Wednesday will probably be an easy zone 2 paced ride for an hour or so, and Thursday will be a day totally off the bike. Friday's ride will again be mostly easy, with a few short hard efforts to remind the legs that they are needed for this weekends racing. Then this weekend is the Butte double header, with Psychlocross Friday night at Homestake Lodge, and Copper Mountain Cross Saturday in Butte. I'm sure all of the usual suspects will be there, fired up and ready to make an early mark on the upcoming season. Hopefully I can hang in there and battle with the big dogs for a while at least. Time will tell, I'll let you know how it goes.

Keep it PURE,

Brad

SUNDAY MORNING RUN

Started the day of with a one hour run this morning. Man, I hate running. It's getting better over the last few weeks, but I would still much rather be on the bike. Increased my run time to one hour, and did a few hard sprints up the one little run up hill close to my home. Feel like I have a pretty solid running base now, and will have to find somewhere else to run where I can get in more 'cross specific running, like short steep run ups with the bike. Also worked the core pretty good when I was done running. Great way to start the day. Time to get cleaned up, then it's off to Mariah's soccer game. Hopefully I'll have time to get in a good ride this afternoon.

Brad

ANOTHER HARD WEEK

After Mondays much needed rest day came the first of this seasons GAS cross practice sessions on Tuesday evening. We had a pretty good turnout for the first session and spent the evening working on barriers, run ups, dismounts and remounts on the bike. There was a mixture a newer and more experienced riders,and we all tried to help each other out with technique, skills, etc. We had a couple people just learning the technique of getting on and off the bike at speed, and with just a little instruction and practice, they improved dramatically. I also learned a thing or two at practice. This will only be my third season of 'cross, but I felt like I was getting pretty good at the barriers. It can be helpful to have others watching you practice, as they can pick up on things you don't know you're doing right or wrong. It didn't take GAS teammate Tomas "Ubersmooth" Dumbrovsky long to see that I was dismounting and running through the barriers kind of on my heels. He had me point my right foot toward the ground as I prepared to dismount, which automatically got me more on the balls of my feet as I ran through the barriers. With a little more practice, this will definitely make my barrier sections smoother, which will make them faster. Thanks, Tomas. Next Tuesday I hope to have my video camera set up so people can see how they look going through the barriers. That way, they can see for themselves what they may need to work on. I also learned that even though it's been three months since I broke the collarbone, shouldering the bike is a little painful. I may have to devise some sort of pad for either the shoulder or the top tube to help alleviate some of the pain. Of course, in the heat of the battle, there will be enough other pain that I may not even notice the shoulder! Hope to see more people out next Tuesday, when we will probably do some practice laps as the racing season is pretty much upon us.

So, since Tuesday's ride was spent mostly working on technique, I decided to get in a good run that night. I did 45 minutes on the treadmill, with a hard 2 min hill interval every five minutes. Not the same as a cross run up, but better than nothing. It was a pretty tough run, but at least I'm getting to the point that my whole body is no longer sore afterwards.

Wednesday was a day to pick up the intensity a little. I've spent the last few weeks building up my threshold power and getting in some good time on the bike, but now it is time to ramp it up a little. I started the ride with a good warm up, then did a 5 minute blowout effort. I did a lot of these efforts last year, so this could give me an idea where I am at compared to last year at this time. The 5 min blowout is basically an all out effort for 5 min. I definitely started a little to hard, and faded badly at the end. The 5 min power is still a touch below where it was last year at this time, but was higher than I expected. And, this is my fourth hard week in a row. With a little recovery I can expect that to be a little higher, which may put me closer to where I was last year at this time. However, I won a grand total of 0, ya that's right, ZERO, races last season, so I need to be better than I was last year. It's a long season, so hopefully I can continue to improve. After the blow out I recovered fully, then did three minute power intervals. Wow, those hurt bad. For power intervals, I basically go as hard as I can for three minutes, recover for three minutes, and repeat for about 5 intervals. Once again, I overestimated the power I could hold for the interval and faded badly by the time the three minutes was up. Ouch! So I dropped the power I was trying to hold, but still faded. On the third interval I could barely hold threshold power for three minutes, so I called it a day and spun home easy, because that's all I could do. Totally cooked!

Thursday I decided to do some tempo riding, and to help get used to the constant speed changes and acceleration in cross, I threw in a 20 second all out burst every five minutes. Two more hours on the bike, and another hard ride. I warmed up, and actually felt pretty good, then started the tempo/burst work. I lasted 45 minutes, and then I blew up pretty bad. Unfortunately, at this point in the ride I was on a gravel road that was freshly graded and felt like the gravel was about 3 inches deep. It was all I could do to keep the bike moving. I had to push pretty hard just to get down the road. Once back on the asphalt, I cruised the last hour at zone 2 power, once again, because that was all I could do.

Friday was another much needed recovery day. I did an easy ride on the town trails in Bozeman with Tawnya and Trey. It was fun to just chill out, ride easy and hang with the family. Trey and I also went into town that evening to get in some BMX practice. He has been to a couple clinics with some pro riders, and he decided I needed a clinic that night. It was hilarious. He would demonstrate a technique a few times and make me watch, then he'd park on a certain spot on the track to watch me try it, then give advice. He was so serious, and such a good little teacher. It was awesome! Thanks Coach Trey.

Saturday was back to some hard riding. Time for some microbursts, 15 sec on, 15 sec off for ten minutes. Recover, and repeat. I once again started out with the 5 min blowout effort. This time, the power was up there with last seasons efforts, which I take as a good sign. I rode easy for a little recovery, then came the first 10 minute session. It hurt, but wasn't to bad. The second 10 minute effort hurt a little worse, of course. I decided it hurt to much. I planned on doing three, but called it after two. I tried to tell myself the power was down, I'm fatigued, you're better off to not do the last effort, but basically, once the ride was over, I felt like I just quit and should have done it. I'll have to remember that next time I want to quit early! Once recovered, I did a good solid 30 minutes of Sweet Spot riding on the way home, which confirmed the fact that I had the ability to do another microburst interval. I'm such a quitter! Oh well, all in all it was a great ride.

So that gets me up to date. Right now as I write this, I'm watching the live updates from Starcrossed, where teammates John and Lisa Curry are battling it out with some of the top cross racers in the nation. Good luck, John and Lisa! Wish I was there! So far no mention of them, but I'm sure they're doing well.

Keep it PURE,
Brad

TIME TO WORK ON THE SKILLS

The GAS team will once again be holding cyclocross practice on Tuesday nights throughout the fall. Come join us as we work on cyclocross skills including dismounts, remounts, barriers, bunny hopping, off camber turns, etc. We meet at around 6 pm at the softball complex in Bozeman. We'll have some barriers set up, work on skills for a while, then we usually set up a short practice course and do some hard laps or mock races. Everyone is welcome, from the beginner to the expert. Come learn from the people who have been doing this a while, or if you 've been doing it a while, come teach others your secrets to success! It's a great time, and a good workout, too. Hope to see you there, and don't forget to bring a friend! Here's a link to a cool video showing why you need some skills, enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWGnM_1ViZA

A MUCH NEEDED REST DAY

Today was a much needed rest day, so I have time to blog rather than go down and ride on the trainer! Last week was my biggest training week of the whole season, thanks to the fact that I only worked for two days, and did a 6 hr 330 TSS ride on Saturday in Ogden, Utah.

My goal for this training block is to work on threshold power, get plenty of time on the bike, and raise the CTL a bit more before I start doing the shorter, harder intervals that cyclocross racing requires. In a perfect world, I'd have the threshold work done and be doing the cross specific work already, but I'm a little behind and trying to play catch up.

Last Thursday's ride was supposed to be threshold intervals, but I had to work a little late then take the kids to bmx. I almost went down to ride the trainer at about 10 pm, but ended up skipping it. I tried to justify this by telling myself I was a little tired and needed a rest day, but the truth is I was just to lazy, and I missed a good opportunity to put in some additional work. I didn't make this day count, but I tried to make up for it a little on Friday. Friday was scheduled to be an easy recovery ride as we had to travel to Utah. I only had about an hour to ride, but got in a good one, doing about 50 minutes of sweet spot riding, with a good hard burst every 5 minutes, then right back to sweet spot. This ride only lasted about an hour, but I was cooked. Spent the rest of the day in the car traveling to Utah with Tawnya. She was going to take her spinning certification course, which would be all day Saturday. The kids stayed home with grandma, so I had all day Saturday to ride. I looked up a ride on map my ride for a basic idea of where to go. I rode for a solid 6 hours, and there was tons of climbing. At one point on a hill in a residential area, I had to swerve back and forth across the road because it was so steep I could barley keep the bike moving. I also did a cool climb up to Snow Basin ski resort, followed by a screaming descent. I did some good hard climbing, and just enjoyed the ride, it was awesome. Unfortunately, after the 6 hr ride came the 6 hr drive home as we had to get back for Mariah's soccer game Sunday.

So Sunday I went to the soccer game, which was also awesome. Tawnya is the coach, and she does a great job motivating and working with those girls. They played like a team, and had a great game. Mariah played hard, scoring six goals and hustling her little but off. She is sure a little athlete, and she plans on doing a few cross races this fall as well. I can't wait to see her out there tearin' it up. After the game I squeezed in another 2 hr ride while Tawnya and the kids hung out with grandma. I felt surprisingly good considering the long ride the previous day. I did 30 minutes of threshold work, 5 min at threshold, 1 min recovery, repeat. After that I spent some time on a little single track trail working on bike handling and other 'cross skills. Then I finished the ride off with Trey, cruising around the neighborhood. Another great ride to cap off the week.

I ended up with 1003 TSS for the week, by far the most of any recent training week, and actually probably a little more than I should have done. Adding to much training load at once, or bring up the CTL to fast, can be less than ideal. However, I feel that I have sufficient base and a training history that can support this increase in training load. Hopefully I'm right and I don't end up getting sick! This hard week brought the CTL up to 85, and the TSB to a whopping -52, so like I said, today was much needed rest. Next week will be more of the same, with a little more intensity added in to start to prep for the racing that is just around the corner. The following week will be a recovery week, which comes just before the racing starts. Dig the hole a little deeper this week, then rest, recover, and hopefully come out ready to race. Only time will tell if my plan will work!

Keep it PURE,
Brad

BACK AT IT

Yesterday was a much needed rest day. I still did a short, fun 'cross ride around our neighboorhood with the family, but it was totally chill, no training load at all. So, today I had to get after it. Woke up early this morning for a 45 minute run with the dog. Then spent some time drilling the core and lifting my cx bike a bazillion times. Trying to get the busted up shoulder a little stronger before the racing starts.

Later in the afternoon I had time for a long ride, so I jumped (literally) on the 'cross bike for a 3 hour adventure. There are a ton of fun gravel/dirt roads around Belgrade that have some good short hard climbs on them. The route I chose was constantly up or down, so that makes it tough to get any sort of organized intervals in. I rode tempo whenever I could, and did all the climbs, and there were a bunch of them, at threshold or above. It was an awesome ride, just shy of 200 TSS, and I was pretty worked when I was done. Then, I got a quick bite to eat, and went to help with Mariah's soccer practice- more running for me! Another solid day of training in the books. Depending on how work goes tomorrow, I will either be doing more threshold intervals if I have to ride the trainer, or perhaps I'll get in some never pleasant microbursts. Friday will be a short recovery ride, then Saturday Tawnya and I will be in Ogden, UT. Tawnya has a class all day, the kids will be with grandma, and I'll be spending as much time as possible, shooting for 5-6 hours, exploring the roads and climbs around Ogden. It looks like there are some good ones, I should be able to make it hurt, at least a little!

Later, Brad

LABOR DAY

Spent the morning at the BMX track with the kids. They raced hard and had fun. I had enough sense to stay off the track this time! Got in a pretty good ride the afternoon. Did about 2 hours on the 'cross bike, with some dirt and gravel roads thrown in the mix. Most of the ride was tempo pace with a few hard effort on some dirt climbs. After the ride, the kids and I did some barrier practice in the yard for about 1/2 hour. Mariah and Trey are both getting pretty good at dismounts and remounting their bikes. It's pretty fun to watch them. I, on the other hand, am definitely a little rusty, and need much more cx skills practice over the next few weeks. Finally, since I skipped out on my run last night, I took the dog for a 30 minute run, then came home and did some bike lifts and core work. It all added up to about 190 TSS. All in all a pretty good way to spend a day off of work. Tomorrow is a much needed rest day, then back at it hard on Wednesday.

Keep it PURE,
Brad

THRESHOLD WORK

Today was a great day. Started out early this morning with a couple hours of hiking up in the mountains with the wife and kids bow hunting for the elusive wapiti. No wapiti today, but we had a great time hiking and letting the kids blow the elk calls. We saw some elk tracks, a wallow, some deer, and got some good old fashioned excercise to boot.

This afternoon was so nice that I wanted to go out for a fun ride on the mountain or 'cross bike up in the woods, but I did that yesterday, and today I needed to get some good threshold work in. We (me and my 'cross bike, Chili) headed out to a flat section of highway where there's room for some good long intervals. I did three 20 minute full on threshold efforts. The first wasn't to bad, the second one hurt a little, and the third one was torture. I wanted to quit after about 5 minutes, but tried to ignore the pain and pushed it hard 'til the end. It's times like these that I always remember a saying that my old high school football coach used to tell us, "The body can go longer than the mind wants to let it." I think most competative cyclist know the deal on that. Often times when it's hurtin' bad, all you want to do is stop pedaling. You have to ignore the pain, or even learn to like it, and make yourself keep going. You have to train your mind, as well as your body to be a cyclocross racer, because usually about 5 minutes into a 60 minute race you're on the rivet and hurting bad, but you gotta keep pushing. I have a little mantra I repeat over and over in my head when it gets tough, "Gotta suffer to win, gotta suffer to win." Doing something like that can help take your mind off of the pain, and if you don't think about the searing pain in your legs and or lungs, it's not really there, is it? Easier said than done, I know.

Anyways, I had a great ride today and did the work I needed to do. 2 1/2 hrs total with the threshold intervals and the rest mostly zone 2 or 3. The TSS ended up at 193, and I am going to try and squeeze in a little run and some core work this evening, since I havn't done that for a few days. More fun to be had.

Keep it PURE,
Brad

CYCLOCROSS IS ALMOST UPON US

OK, so I'm not sure if anyone actually reads this blog, especially since I got fired by Shaun at MTCX.com and removed from his favorite blog list. But hey, this summer has basically sucked for me, so blogging was the last thing on my mind. Due to a couple crashes on the BMX track, my road season was basically non-existent. Between injuries and mechanicals , I only had one race that went smoothly, in Belt, at least I took advantage of it and got the win. After that, things went south. Once I finally recovered a little from the broken collar bone, I decided to jump into the Tour de Bozeman, knowing I would get spanked. Having a flat just before the climbing started only made things worse. At the end I was cramping so bad I thought I was going to have to walk across the finish line. Not good. A week later, the family and I went to Missoula for the Zootown Throwdown. Eight year old Mariah jumped into the 10 yr old junior race, and held her own against a boy a little older than her. Trey then smoked the other youngsters in the 5 and under race, showing off the sprinting skills he develpoed at the bmx track. Then, both Mariah and Trey did the 6-10 race, Mariah winning and Trey hanging right in there with the older kids. Even my wife Tawnya couldn't resist the lure of the Throwdown, she raced in the women's field, and did great. I think she had fun, but you'll have to ask her to be sure. So, that left me. I woke that morning feeling a little sick, but decided to try and do what I could to help the team. My luck hadn't changed. About 5 laps in my bottom bracket seized up, race over. Those few hard laps really made me feel sick, and it turned into a three week sickness that had me feeling like crap. As my luck would have it, the illness brought on something called Bells Palsy, which causes the muscles in your face to become paralyzed, usually temporarily. For about a month now I have been unable to move the left side of my face. Can't blink my eye, can't take a drink without spilling it all over, and sleeping is a real chore. Probably the worst part is the vision in my left eye is always a little blurry, as I can't blink it and it seems to "water" all the time. This, more than anything, kept me off the bike for a while. This whole deal sucked pretty bad at first, but I'm starting to deal with it a little better now. And, today I was able to get just a teeny-tiny bit of movement on the left side. Hopefully, my daughter will only be able to call me "Half-face" for a little while longer.

So, where does that leave me know? In my last post, many moons ago, I was super stoked for 'cross season. Then I got sick and missed three weeks of training, when I was already behind. At that point, I threw in the towel. No 'cross and no training this fall, that's what I decided. Done deal. Once I made my mind up on that, it was almost a relief. I wouldn't have to experience all the pain of doing threshold and microburst workouts. No riding the dreaded trainer in the basement on those cold dark nights. No racing in the rain or snow. I could use my time to do so many other things. Well, after three weeks off the bike, it only took one short, easy ride for me to change my mind. What was I thinking? I live for the pain that training and racing provides. There is no way I can miss cyclocross season. NO WAY. I am a full fledged addict, no doubt about it. So I am gonna race, and have been back to training for a couple weeks now. I am way behind, and will have to be realistic and adjust my goals a little. I will not be doing Starcrossed, RAD Racing GP, or Crossvegas as I had planned. Those happen WAY to soon for the shape I am in. The early season races will be a little humbling for me probably, as I try to get back into racing shape. I still hope for a strong showing at Rolling Thunder, but that will come a little before I am able to reach peak fitness, so we'll have to see how it goes. I'm hoping to surprise myself. The good thing is that it is a long season, and hopefully this late start will help me maintain the motivation to train and race into December, and I'll be flying by the time Nats rolls around.

Now that I am back to training, I will try and post more frequently, and plan on at least adding a little info, perhaps daily, regarding my training. I figure that if at least one person is reading this, (wishful thinking, I know) and I have to post my workout, it may help me decide to get on the trainer instead of getting in bed and skipping a workout, which I cannot afford to do at this point. My cyclocross training motto for this season has become "every day counts." Really, this is true at all times in your training. Every day you skip is a missed opportunity to gain fitness or technique on your rivals. Of course, I'm not talking about rest days. Taking well planned rest days or blocks is an integral part of any training plan. When you rest is when your body adapts to the training load you have applied, and that's when you get stronger. So, every day counts, and I plan to train hard when I need to, and rest even harder when I have to. I can't wait for the real pain to start!

Being so far behind, I have decided to use a couple of weeks to build my threshold power before moving on to cyclocross specific drills. The last two weeks has been basically getting in some miles, riding tempo, and a few harder efforts here and there, nothing crazy, yet. Today's ride was a long ride with some sweet spot intervals. I did a 3 1/2 hr ride up Little Bear outside of Bozeman, almost all on gravel, with about 2 hrs of constant climbing. During the climb, I did several blocks of about 20 min where I maintained my sweet spot power, and went harder when it was steep. The legs didn't feel especially fresh today, and this was a tough workout. The hour descent was pretty sweet, though little bumpy on a cross bike. TSS for the ride was 165, bringing this weeks total so far to 590, and moving the CTL to a measly 72.3. Gotta get that higher over the next couple of weeks. More hard training coming up tomorrow, as well as a morning bow hunt for elk with the kids, should be fun. Thanks for reading.