19 Degrees

arghhh. I am still cold from today. Today is the official start of 2009, sorry you missed the champagne toast at midnight. As part of every season and year, coach and I start off with a Lactate Threshold Testing in the field. This is not like a lab based test, but consists of a 20 minute time trial like effort, usually up a solid climb to keep pressure on the legs and figure out what they have in them. I was not expecting big numbers today, but managed to produce some really great ones anyway. It sets a solid base to work from for the year.
This weeks training focus will be mostly endurance and basic components of on bike fitness: sustainable strength, cardio-vascular fitness, and maybe some cadence work...nothing fancy: no anaerobic intervals, no cool pyramid schemes to over tax the body...just basic base training to get the legs, lungs, and heart ready for what is sure to be a brutal early season of long steady distance, sustained power intervals, and basic hill strength....I look forward to it.
Thank you sir, may I have another!!

-Shawn

R.I.P.

The longest running bike team sponsorship in history.
Too bad it is over.

-Shawn

Sun...?

Forecast looks like the sun might come out sometime next week. Plenty of rain. Plenty of muddy trails. But warm!

Anyone with the jones to get out and get dirty, consider staying off of Walnut and OHill. Drop me a line and we'll line up a rally out here at the rancho relaxo (private land, OK in mud.) Then we can order new drivetrains in bulk come spring.

I've got a friend here who doesn't mind a widdle rain:

Holiday Time

If you have not seen the decorations at Bike Factory, you should go check them out!!!
http://www.bikefactory.com/steel_blue_009.htm

Mark, Kyle, and Marcus seem to be in the spirit of things over there.

-Shawn

Live Life-Ride More

Got in about 3.5 hours today. Solid Endurance paced riding. Trying the 29er thing pretty serious, and I think I am starting to dig it. Time will tell. Todays ride was a bunch of dirt gravel roads near Earlysville, Whitehall, and Free Union with the mandatory climb over a mountain or three. Really cold to start with, then warmed a little, rained a little, dried a little, cold a little more.....it was a little kinda ride.

Tomorrow is gonna be another story!!! I was hoping for a good endurance ride of about 4 hours or so...but the weather is making me wonder. Hypothermia is never fun on a bike.

Cross Race

Got this wacky idea to do a cross race yesterday. Nothing like a full hour of "what the hell are you doing to me" for your body during the off season. Man, that was fun!!!
I managed to pull of 4th place in the collegiate category on a Full Suspension 29er. Kind of not a cross rig at all....but you ride what you know and what you are comfortable on....so I loaned the Cross bike to someone else, and rode the mountain bike.

All will revert to normal starting this week though: It is Base Miles Time!!!!! I love this time of year, a reason to hop on a bike, and pedal for hours on hours. During these rides, I have solved such things as world hunger, poverty of third world nations, and the perfect suspension design....alas, by the time I finish I am too tired to remember what the answers were though.

I guess the thing I love the most about being a competitive cyclists is base training.

Let the fun begin!!!

-Shawn

The Heckler

3 years old this Christmas. That's about 4 times longer than I've ever managed to keep a bike without breaking it. Taking bets on if she gives up the ghost in 2009.