One more day to go

Countdown is on. Tomorrow is the Rowdy Dawg


Bike is pretty ready. Some disc rub, but not going to mess with it. New rear tire seems sealed, new middle ring seems better for the chain suck. Easy day yesterday.

Today, 40-50mins on the trainer with 5x1min on 2min off intervals. Lots of visualizing, and just gettining pshyched. Legs felt good Thursday, though some wierd hamstring thingy is going on. My son has a fever today and I felt something yesterday but knock knock on wood nothing right now.

I know this course real well. The strategy is to figure out how hard is hard enough without it being too hard. And where on the course can I go harder than I should and where can I recover. Make sense? It's all about knowing your body and knowing what your limitation are. What your strengths and weaknesses are, and knowing how to exploit your strengths while limiting losses from your weaknesses.

One of my biggest fears is not racing hard enough, yet time and time again I end up going out too hard and cramp. Once I cramp, average speed plummets, and then it becomes survival to the end. So for me, the trick is figuring out how hard I can go so that I don't cramp until it's over. The first race of the year back in April
1st Win
seemed to work out perfect. I cramped while stopped for them to take off my number.

The problem is in a race, you just get caught up in the moment. There is that philosophy about mtb race starts, about being in the front at the single track. There is the "If I let this guy go I'll never see him again" vs "I am in over my head, I am going to blow"....

Early on in a race, my legs are good. Strong, they can turn over bigger gears at a good cadence. But each time I do this it takes a tool. One thing about this race is at the halfway point, it is still a LONG LONG way back home. Across the same single track we started on. And now the legs are tired. And now is when I cramp.

I want to hold back a little. But I can't go slow otherwise It's not a race. But by droppinig one gear lower, but spinnng a higher cadence I can save my legs yet still maintain a good pace. The trick is remembering to do that, and to sacrifice a little speed in order to save the legs for the top of a grunt. I want to be able to hit a hill, and have strong legs at the top so that I can grab one or two cogs, at the same spot that others will be backing off because they just burned a match to make it up the same grunt.

I want to save some juice, so that I can hit these sections hard:


I want to nail the beast.

Ride at that limit line, but not over my head. It is rougher than it has ever been, so those that have never been on it will have problems.

I'll report tomorrow.