Where to begin? Since this is a bike racing blog, how about bike racing? You may have noticed that I haven't done much of it this month. Sure, I went to New Britain, even doubling up and doing both the 35+ and the 45+ events, but that was more of a team-bonding experience than a serious attempt at racing. My guys love New Britain, and I'd never even been to a race there, so I went to see what the fuss was about. Winning a $10 prime in the 45+ and a $50 prime in the 35+, subtracting $57 in entry fees my day ended $3 in the black. Man was it a struggle though, confirming what I'd learned at Wompatuck the Tuesday prior -- I'm far from my best. This fact has been obvious since before Killington, really even back at Sunapee and Sterling. Originally my "plan" was to do one of those "peak" things we hear so much about during the month of May, with Sunapee being the mythical "A" race. At least to the greatest extent to which I apply myself to these sorts of things. Back in March and April, the plan appeared to be going exceedingly well. Without even really trying hard, I was flying. The first two Ninigret races I felt like I had a motor in my seat tube. I was pretty lean. My pedaling felt better than it had in years. And I hadn't even begun to "build" with a big "block" (don't I sound all scientific?) of "specific work." Surely by May I would be untouchable. Not.
What went wrong? It should have been obvious, as I've watched and mocked others do the same thing season after season, but I guess there's still nothing like first hand experience when it comes to lesson-learning. Plain and simple, I peaked too early. Way too early. And I failed to recognize this, mostly because I did it without really training (on the bike) that much. And since I'm really not all that great of an athlete, my "peak" performance level wasn't all that high. Nevertheless, in hindsight, it was as nearly as high as it was going to get at this time. Like so many others before me, I mistook my condition as simply "having a good base," honestly assuming that now I could begin to get really focused and get way more fit even though I was feeling stronger and fitter in every way than I had in years.
The problem is, the body, especially one as old and decrepit as mine, can only adapt to so much so fast before it needs a break. I did not take much of one this past winter. The last good one I took was back in September. Then I started racing cross, albeit in my casual I don't really give a shit about this stuff manner. In the fall I was doing my usual bunch of running races too, and between that and all the cx races, well, that was a lot of intensity. I was backing in to some reasonable fitness, and that was before going to the west coast for two weeks of training and racing in early December. The end result was way better fitness than I'd ever planned on having in the dead of winter. Which would have been fine if running hadn't been bothering my hip, because there are some good running races beginning in January that I could have applied my fitness too. But since that was out, I went back to the west coast for another two weekends of cross racing. Remember, we're still in mid-January here.
When I got back, I took a "break" of maybe two weeks without doing much, but there might have been a few four hour snowshoe sessions in there, stuff like that. And I was enjoying the gym. A lot. The place I go to had moved into a new facility with some big "functional training" rooms where I could do anaerobic stuff like box jumps and hurling medicine balls at a heavy bag until I collapsed. It was fun. And it was hard. And it pushed my fitness without me ever touching a bike. But of course by now it was February, the winter was mild, and I was touching my bikes a bit by then. Not a lot of hours, but probably more focus than in years past. And I'd given up on running for the winter to allow my hip to stop annoying me. When I stop running, my cycling performance gets way better. Normally I try do this in the early summer. But we're still in March. Funny how this all seems so obvious now.
So April was good. I even won a mass-start USCF weekend race for the first time in over a decade. Not a big race, and not a dominant performance by any means (can you say flukey?) but the field was high quality. In the other early races, I did not feel under pressure like I usually do in the early season. All systems go. Then things began to unravel. The first indicator was low energy. My twice a week gonzo sessions at the gym were leaving me wasted the next day. At first I figured it would just take me a few weeks to get used to increasing my riding volume. Sure, I was adding stuff, and not taking away much, but that's why we call it a "build" right? And sure enough, if I took a day or two off, it might be followed by a bright spot, a super day on the bike. But not a super week. I got into a cycle of one or two great workouts followed by four days of WTF is wrong with me? And by now we were in the thick of road race season, with Turtle Pond, Sterling, Sunapee coming up. Turtle Pond did not go too badly, but I could tell I wasn't nearly as sharp as I was there last year. But this was planned as the end of a block, and I was sitting out the following week because my club was promoting the Merrimac race. That gave me about five days without training, merely driving up to Haverhill and working on race stuff until the wee hours. That's what's known in the trade as quality rest...
Obviously, this strategy did not work out too well. My May performance sucked. I thought maybe I wasn't eating enough, so I began to eat more. And train less. I stopped going to the gym completely, because I was too tired to make it work. The result was predictable: my fitness continued to slide, and my weight went up. And I eventually figured out what was going on. I struggled through Sunapee, but I knew going I wouldn't figure in the results. We went to Killington too, what the hell. June was planned all along as a break month. And here we are. And break I have. Other than New Britain and one Wompatuck, I haven't raced. I haven't really trained either. My bike hours are going to be down about 40% or more from May's total of 55 (I rarely go much more than that, and usually on a couple of months each season are over 50). My weight is the highest it's been in five years. I know we male bike racers obsess about our weight, but this is weird.
I don't have a lot of plans on the horizon either. The Workingman's is next month of course, but I expect to be working the event, not racing, unless the team comes up with a plan where I'm not needed. There are some other good events in July, like Hilltowns, and a 40k TT out at Battenkill. Normally I would try to get fit for the WMSR, then hold it through August where the Mt A TT (a favorite of mine) and the Bow RR await. Then there is D2R2 for fun, and the season is more or less a wrap. But Bow is not on the schedule this year, I fear a victim of being too hard for most salon riders, and the season migrating further into the spring. I'm still doing D2R2 (the REAL D2R2, not the 100k kiddie-meal), so that gives me something to train for. I even rode out to Purgatory yesterday, a bit over six hours total, so that's a start. I'd like to get at least two seven+ hour days in next month.
Was that worth waiting two weeks for? Does the story sound familiar? I could have used the much more fashionable "I suck because I only care about cyclocross" line that we hear from so many so often. That is pure bullshit, and not only in my case. Very, very few of the riders at the sharp end of the cross fields are specialists who don't race road. Don't kid yourself. The riders who make the races are good athletes all year, competitive in whatever it is they choose to do. I have been here before too, back before 90% of you ever heard of cyclocross, I was already finding out that it takes special care to manage two seasons of racing in one year. It was so long ago that I forgot the lesson. Hell, I can barely remember back as far as when I started writing this entry. I'm cutting myself some slack. mmmmmm, slack. Thanks for reading.
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