Plodding Away

That is what I have been doing these last few weeks. Just plodding away, trying to follow my 10 Day Bikepacking Race plan from coach Linda. It worked well for the Tour Divide in 2015 and if I follow it as closely as I can (with a few modifications for carrying a bike!) I should be in a good place come April 5th.

I have sort of settled on taking my Cannondale Beast of the East for the race. I really don't want to buy another bike and I guess this will do the job. Especially now that I have carbon wheels on it and soon to come 2.8 width tyres (down from the 3.0 currently on it) I feel it will be a better rolling option. Still not as quick as a standard 29" 2.2/2.4 wide equipped mtb but close enough........

Another leg on the front and a dynamo hub in between and I'm set!

Now , where was I? Ah, yes, training.

To this end I have ventured back to an old favourite of many endurance riders, Brisbane Forest Park (or D'Aguilar Forest as it is known these days). 

It never looks as steep in a photo, especially a pano.

My first foray was on one of the hottest days we have had this year! It got up to 38C (100F) which is very hot for Brisbane. We normally only see low 30s, which with the humidity of the sub-tropics is plenty enough thank-you-very-much! As a result of the heat (and going too hard the day before) I struggled my way around the 50km loop I set for myself. I chose some of the steepest trails in there so that I could practice pushing my bike. Well, normally I can ride all of these climbs but that day I was definitely pushing on almost all of them while the Cicadas almost sent me mad/deaf with their high pitched screeching. I include a small snippet of their "song" for your hearing pleasure......turn your speakers up LOUD for the full experience as these things are easily over 100 decibels in the bush when they are in their tens of thousands!

After another week at work where I squeezed my training around life I decided to head out again for Round 2 of my BFP loop. I was really pleased to see that I felt waaay stronger and could have ridden all of the stupidly steep climbs. I had to force myself to get off the bike and push because that IS part of the training after all!

I was also rocking my new Camelbak Octane hydration pack. It is a lumbar model with the bladder being down low, across your hips. I hate wearing a backpack these days as it makes it very difficult to regulate your body temperature but I must say, the Octane sits there nicely and the relatively small "pack" section of the backpack allows plenty of air to get at your back, keeping you much cooler than traditional hydration packs with the bladder mid back. I chose this smaller version so that I won't/can't load it up with too much crap during the race. It will also form part of my bike portage system for the Grand Canyon crossing when it is combined with my Mountainsmith Strapetts. I just need to figure out how to actually do that......

Octane win.

On other fronts I have renewed the insoles in my mtb shoes as I found for the TD in 2015 that I needed a small "dome" attached to the insole to help spread my metatarsals and stop nerve pinching that feels like a hot foot after a while. They worked perfectly in 2015 so I thought I had better get onto that again so as to eliminate one possible cause of body failure.

I also jagged a trip to New Zealand during the week, where we have all of our heavy maintenance conducted. 

Empty 737.

I didn't get locked up on arrival so I guess there were no outstanding speeding fines from our 2014 motorcycle trip......

While the ferry was a bit of fun, the training ride on the gym bike wasn't! It was a hot day for Christchurch (in the mid 30sC) and there was no air conditioning in the closet-sized hotel gym. Suffice to say, after 2 hours of hard efforts I was fairly swimming! On the plus side, I did feel good after a shower (don't worry, no photos...)

Sweat box gym.

So, here we are, 8 weeks out from the race and I just have to get a standard suspension fork for my bike so that I can run my dyno hub. I then have to have that dyno hub laced into my new front wheel, then I have to load the whole shebang up and take it on a few overnight rides to shake down my gear. Oh, and learn how to set it up on a backpack so I can carry it 35km(22mi) across the Grand Canyon......plus I need to get started on my route notes.....

Shit, I need to get CRACKING.........

Cheers.

Starting From Behind The 8 Ball

Some good news last week regarding my riding plans for 2018.  My requested annual leave was approved! 

Great news, right? Well yes and no. The down side to this is that with our company, leave approval is always notified in the first week or so of January each year. Why the downside? Well, I was hoping (half heartedly) to get leave to compete in the Arizona Trail Race 750 (AZTR750) which is in early April this year. That would only barely leave me 3 months to prepare if my leave was approved.

Three months. 

That is not a lot of time. I had six months notice for the Tour Divide in 2015 and that was only just enough time to prepare. Yes, I realise that I could have been preparing during the closing months of last year but it is extremely difficult to push yourself through the torture er, training for potentially no reason. (I wasn't confident I would get leave at Easter, the most sought after time of the year).

Neil Beltchenko photo.

Another reason, if I am being honest is I guess I don't have the emotional investment in the AZTR that I had in the Tour Divide. I had watched the TD for four or five years before I made the leap to race it. While I have looked on at the AZTR for about a similar time it just hasn't struck a chord like the TD. This is partly because it is only 750 miles (it's really 800miles) and it is stupidly HARD. Every racer that has done both the TD and the AZTR says hands down the AZTR is waaay harder than the TD, mile for mile. I am wondering if part of that is people's thinking? I can see that if you have done the TD you might think to yourself "750 miles? How hard can it be?"  

John Schilling photo

Well, I am trying very hard not to fall into that trap! I am also giving myself a little bit of a mental out. While I am certainly no athlete, when I raced the TD I really wanted to push myself and see what the best that I could achieve would be. With the AZTR a competitive time for someone of my limited ability would be about 10 or 11 days. I have 28 days leave.......... and therein lies my race strategy. 

John Schilling photo

I will train as hard as I can in the next 2.5 months, get my gear setup as optimally as I can (TD experience does help here) and research the route much more thoroughly than I did the TD route. This will give me a fair chance of having a good outcome and in the back of my mind I will have the knowledge that if something isn't going according to script that I have time on my side. I can cool my jets if needs be and look after whatever ailment I pick up (oh yes, there will be at least one!) and hopefully continue on at whatever pace I can manage.

I also have a secret weapon in the form of Dave Wicks. Dave is an awesome bloke (for a Kiwi) :) and has done the AZTR 3 times in the past. He is also very generous with his advice and support so I will be leaning on him a little heavier than I would otherwise like but I am sure I can repay his kindness with some frothy beverages along the way! Dave will be doing this year's version so we can hopefully share a ride to the start line on the Mexican border.

Now, back to the three core problems for my race.

I am not fit enough

I don't have a bike

I don't know the route

Fitness

I am doing what I can on the fitness front but I did lose most of last week as I was/am still getting over this flu. I couldn't subject myself to the rigours of regimented training so I opted for some general singletrack riding, putting in bursts of effort where I could (the guys were probably wondering why I was charging up every hill like a demented xc racer). Unfortunately, these bursts just highlighted that I have simply no endurance in the upper rev range. I can diesel along all day at a slow rate but I really need to work on my upper rev range.

Bike

The bike thing. Yeah, kind of critical. I don't have a bike currently that is suited to the demands of the race and I don't need to make the race any harder by taking a knife to a gun fight! I also really like my current steeds and don't want to trash them. This has me on the hunt for a secondhand mount and I am currently searching for either a Norco Revolver FS or a Kona Unit X. Two very different bikes but two that can get the job done.

Research

For my route research I have joined the Arizona Trail Association and have the badge and a 2 for 1 beer voucher to prove it! Funds from membership go toward trail maintenance. Most of you know my feelings about trail care so any small help I can provide to brother/sister trail builders is money well spent.

Via the ATA membership I can extract trail Beta from their great website. As stated above, I will be leaning on Dave and I have also read back through multiple years of race prep threads that are in that treasure trove of information that is bikepacking.net, making many notes along the way.

The training rides are under way and one good thing (if there is a silver lining) to this scorching heat we are experiencing here in Oztraylia is that it is PERFECT training conditions to replicate a race in the Arizona desert!

Wish me luck because I am going to need it!!

Cheers and thanks/sorry to John Schilling and Neil Beltchenko for their awesome photos.

Ramping It Up

Well, with this silly little ride that I am planning on doing in June being a mere 138 days away (as I type this) it is time to get some structure to my riding/training. While I enjoy riding and just "ride lots" normally, this is to hopefully make the most of the limited time I have on my bike. 

I must be scared because I have re-read the excellent "Base Training for Cyclists" by Thomas Chapple and am trying to set up an appropriate training plan. I have also dragged the wind trainer out for the times I can't leave the house for a ride!

To self coach from my own limited structured training experience is a little tricky. By that I mean sure, I can set out a plan, I can follow it but the real art is knowing what is working and what isn't. I don't have a lot of time to waste on going down the wrong path through not noticing that I am training inappropriately.

The obvious answer is to engage a real live, personal coach. They have the experience to not only set an appropriate plan for you but to see if it is working as intended. If not they can make rapid changes that will benefit one's fitness. The down side to this coaching is that even a low-level plan is very expensive. 

Yes, I know I need to weigh up the total cost of this venture versus the few hundreds of dollars that a personal coach will cost. It is sort of like the analogy of a multi million dollar racing car team being brought to a standstill when a $2 part breaks. Yes, if you like, I am the $2 part and the coach is the multi million dollar team.....but I digress. I am looking at an online plan from the very reputable Training Peaks organisation in the US and that may prove to be a cost effective method to receive a level of personalised coaching. It is cost effective because they have coached tens of thousands of athletes and I am simply another 40 something that can use a 40 somethings plan for ultra endurance racing. I will keep you updated with regard to how I go here.

The main problem is that I don't have an open ended budget. This ride is requiring a new bike build, quite a bit of specific gear, flights, accommodation and food on the other side of the world and I am sure many other as yet unseen costs. I have to watch my pennies somewhere but I am burning time while I make up my mind.

Well, not totally burning time, more like burning calories over time. I have been on a solid regime of base building rides over the last few weeks. These have been solo efforts as well as group rides and I have to thank my riding buddies for accommodating my slower pace. 

Yep, I am keeping my effort level low and off the bike working on strengthening my core. My legs can't pump the pedals all day if they are held in place by a limp-noodle midsection. Can I just say though, I 'effing HATE core work! It hurts, it isn't glamorous in the least and there is no hiding the fact if you don't do it. I hate it!!

But the riding has been fun. We have had a LOT of rain this past week and it put paid to a bikepacking trip that was planned this weekend. So, a few of us went for a wet weather MTB ride along bike paths to breakfast, then return. 

88km(48mi) wasn't a bad effort for a day that was looking like a total write off. I managed to back it up with a 105km(65mi) road bike ride today. All riding was done at a gentle pace so took forever but both were with good company so it certainly was time well spent.

I am off to work tomorrow for the week but hope to get a few decent rides in while in Perth. I should have nutted out a fix to my coaching dilemma by then and have a solid idea of the way forward.

For now, cheers.

Borrowed without permission from the excellent blog of Val and Josh Kato. I hope they don't mind but happy to take it down if they do. ;)