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.