Bent, but not broken....yet!

The past couple of weeks have been brutal! I am still getting in my 2 workouts a day. the 5:30am lift, or run, and then my daily 3 hour ride. About 2 weeks ago I decided it was time to dust off the old war pony, the old Zaskar LE, and begin to increase the intensity in preparation for the upcoming race season. For the past couple of weeks I have been going out to camp Alexander a couple of days a week, and doing laps out at the trails. Doing the steep technical climbs out their is the first attempts of high intensity training for the year. All I have to say is WOW.....it is really kicking my butt! The intensity has been great, but after two weeks of this, I have come to the conclusion that I am in need of rethinking the game plan a little.

The day's that I have been going out to camp, I am riding the zaskar, and several other day's a week I have been taking the cyclocross bike out on the gravel hills for some good old zone 4 training. The problem was this..... the body is not quite use to the zaskar yet, and because it puts you in a different riding position, the intensity felt like it was about to rip my legs off. To end last weeks training, after my weight training session I went out on Friday and did a 2 hour zone 4.4 cyclocross ride that had about 2,000 feet of climbing. The ride was super fast, and I was quite pleased, but the kicker was Saturday! On Saturday me, Lelan, Andrew and Chris went out to camp and laid down some laps for 4 hours non stop! WOW did that kick my butt, I rode well but the legs felt like they were about to fall off, then when we were finished I had to ride the 5 miles home into a 30-40 mile headwind. By time I got home I had crawled so deep into the pain cave that I felt like rolling up into a ball and crying like a little baby.

Well, on Super Bowl Sunday, while I was enjoying the first day off of the bike in 6 days, I was rethinking the game plan. I remembered one important thing that I had not taken into consideration..... GET USE TO BEING ON THE WAR PONY BEFORE THE TORTURE SESSIONS!!! Well, this week, since my legs were trashed from the last 2 weeks of repeated torture sessions, I was going to spread the love around a little more than originally planed. You know how the old saying goes, you dance with the one that brought you, well me and the Zaskar have some pretty big dances coming up this year, so her dance card has filled up for a while! Now that we are so close to the season the cyclocross bike is going to be hung up for a while.

This week is a well deserved easy week, so I spent the first 3 days riding an easy zone 3 on gravel hills on the war pony, and today I picked up the pace a little bit. The legs are just now coming around and I am feeling much more comfortable on the bike. I am going to take it easy one more day, and then I think that one of the days this weekend I am going to do a 6 hour gravel grinder to get some quality saddle time. By the end of next week, I think that I can pick up the pace again without tearing myself to pieces. Hopefully next weekend we can have a rematch with camp Alexander with better results, after all the first race is a 6 hour event March 14! TIME TO ROCK AND ROLL!!!

On another note, I have "Officially" add another race onto the calendar! The condo has been rented in Breckenridge for July 1-5, for the Firecracker 50. The "for sure" races for the year are the Bone Bender, Ouchita Challenge, Dirty Kanza 200, Firecracker 50, Rapture in Misery, and the Kansas City Cup. The other possibilities, Hills of Hell, Wilson Lake Fat Tire Festival, Cruise the Blues, Tour De Lizard, and maybe some others down in Oklahoma! Just have to wait ans see. Well, I am kind of tired of doing this for today, so stay tuned next week.

Peace out!