Training... Or Is That Testing Days

Here I am, well into Week 2 of my base training for the CTR and it is seemingly going well. I am coming off a low base fitness this year, which my Threshold Test confirmed with quite low heart rate zones. The Threshold Test is never much fun as it involves a 50 minute warm up then 20 minutes of going as hard as you can - and by that it means finishing just as strongly as you started - which can be pretty tricky to judge. I think I went a bit easy at the start as I felt quite strong still by the end but it can be a very fine line and I didn't want to stuff it up thereby having to punish myself and do it again. At worst, my zones are on the low side which is safer from an overtraining point of view. I will get the pleasure of doing it again next month though as your zones change as you get fitter.....looking forward to that one..... :(

It has actually been nice to enter a structured training plan as well. I think I need to have a goal with my cycling. Whenever I don't I feel like I am just going through the motions to some extent and the last few months my mtbing has been a bit stale. I am also enjoying the little bit of strength training in the gym as a distraction from the bike. I can already feel the muscle memory coming back from the last two big training efforts in 2015 and 2018.

This has been exacerbated this year by a challenge that Dean Anderson (he did the AZTR750 in 2018 with me) threw out there late last year. He challenged all of us on the Strava platform (think Facebook for cyclists and runners) to ride for at least 15 minutes, EVERY day of 2020. 

It sounded like my kind of challenge!

But do you realise how hard it is to ride EVERY day? No? Well, I can tell you it has been pretty tough some days, seeing me out on the bike at 2340 some nights just to squeeze that 15 minutes in because once you are out of the challenge, you are OUT!!

Dean at Kelvin Bridge in the 2018 AZTR750 race

Anyway, I am pleased to say that I have not missed a day and this CTR training is making it far easier to meet the challenge. Not that I have any excuse as despite the rain here, it is not the -13C that Dean is dealing with in Canada!

January efforts

February so far.....

Today's training ride saw me cop a drenching but at least it is warm here. 

Speaking of the rain, it just hasn't stopped for a week now! We have had seven days of constant, heavy rain and our total here is somewhere in the 400mm(16inch) range - give or take a few. To say the contrast from ten days ago to now is dramatic is a massive understatement. We went from still worrying about bushfires to having floods in the space of about four days!

Mid December - but it could have been last Wednesday - just 8 days ago! 

Today - the 13th of February 2020!!

That's not to say that the whole country is enjoying some rain. I witnessed a pretty intense dust storm last Friday on my way to Perth. It was somewhere in the Riverland region of South Australia and was still impressive from 34 000 feet!

Speaking of work, this bloody Coronavirus - Covid19 - to give it it's newly minted name is wreaking havoc with inbound tourism here in Australia. Working for an airline does have me worried about the knock-on effects that are yet to be played out. Bus, accommodation and general tourism operators who rely on Chinese tourists are doing it very tough already. Anecdotally, as a company and from what I see, we are very reliant on the Chinese as well and this thing is going to knock us all pretty badly for the rest of 2020. (Bloody gut feeling was right - see comments on this post)

On another note, I was made on offer too good to refuse on my beloved BMW. Here she is, going to a new master just before the rains hit last week. She will have a good home as he is not only an a/c engineer but a fellow mtber.

Now don't panic because that was always the plan. Find an inexpensive adventure bike to see if I liked it, then if so (HELL YES!!!) to buy a more capable (read expensive) adventure bike. I am now working on Stage 2 (as I hope are the Covid19 vaccine scientists) of that plan so watch this space. 

Thanks for checkin' in.

Cheers.

Time For Another Crazy Race ?

It has been almost two years since I last completed an epic/crazy bikepacking race and it would appear that the planets have aligned again. Yup, I have had some more long service leave approved from mid July and I aim to complete my "lifetime triple crown" of  THE original, grandaddy bikepacking races. Already having the Tour Divide Race and the Arizona Trail Race 750 under my belt, it is time to cap it off with the tripartite of the Triple Crown  -
The Colorado Trail Race (CTR).
Note - the Triple Crown is technically completing ALL three of these races in one year, hence my "lifetime" triple crown as I would never get enough time off in one year to have a crack at these races all in a row.

(Maurizio Doro photo)

The CTR is the shortest of the three at just 525 miles (845km) but as you can see from the link above, what it lacks in distance it makes up for in climbing and elevation of the trail itself! 72 500ft of climbing is still two and a half Mt Everests - sea to summit - plus much of the race is around the 10 000ft elevation mark. The highest point is an eye watering/lung busting pass at 13 270ft. This will be challenging for a sea level dweller such as myself. Don't forget that a large portion of it is also single track.
There is nowhere to train for that elevation here in Australia so I will just have to train as best I can, then try to get over to Colorado a week before the big event to try to acclimate somewhat....

(Maurizio Doro photo)

So, to the training.
I have my Lynda Wallenfels training programs that I followed for the TDR and AZTR750. They worked well for me then and I have no reason to doubt that if I follow them rigorously that they won't work for me now. I have one week until the official training starts and to assist in the process it will be back onto a strictly nutritious diet with no hollow calories. This will be tied to a zero alcohol policy - especially easy sounding today as yesterday was Australia Day and perhaps one or two too many beverages were partaken in......

(Maurizio Doro photo)

The rules of the race are the standard unsupported bikepacking ethos that accompanies each of these ultra endurance style races. No dedicated, outside support that isn't commercially available to everyone. So, just ride your bike from Denver to Durango by yourself, with no help.
Sounds like crap doesn't it?
Well, I happen to really love the challenge of doing it all by myself, with no help. It requires you to plan ahead, prior to the race, with a frenzy that might only have been matched by the D-Day planners but you know a lot of that planning will be worthless once into the race because "I" will be the uncontrollable factor. I might feel awesome and rip ahead. More likely, I will feel like crap and make some dumb decisions despite knowing better. Then it will be up to me to roll with those decisions and make the best of it - all while being rooted out of my brain.
Fun, no?!

(Maurizio Doro photo)

What bike will I take?
Well, it is very early days yet and while I always try to take the most route specific bike to these races it may just be a case of run what I brung. At this stage I am thinking that I will use the Cannondale Beast Of The East that I used for the AZTR. I will remove the Lefty and put a Pike fork on it for strength and so that I can run my dynamo hub. While a hardtail, it does have Plus size tyres which should give me a little bit of plushness over what looks to be pretty rocky terrain. This choice may well be totally inappropriate so watch this space on bike selection....

(Maurizio Doro photo)

So, I guess that is my declaration. I am committing to this thing. Let the training begin..... (next week)

Below is a moving pictures version of the 2018 race by Aaron Johnson. Check it out if for no other reason than to ogle the scenery!!

Thanks also to Maurizio Doro from Italy who tackled the CTR in 2019 and from whom I have borrow the above photos - without permission...but I hope that is ok Maurizio?

Cheers.