Thursday, August 5, 2010

Christmas training

Christmas in August? Well, sort of.

Back in my swimming days, Christmas break was never relaxing. We spent the preceding months building up in yardage and intensity to that all important 2 weeks in December and January. We would spend the break from school swimming twice a day and going for 12 sometimes 15,000 yards a day. The state high school championships were usually about a month and a half away at that point. These crazy long and intense workouts were brutal but they set the stage for the next few weeks and signaled the start of a long taper to the state championships.

I guess that closely describes what I have been doing the last two weeks. According to Cameron Hoffman of winlotoja.com, a month out from LOTOJA we should be doing back to back long days in the saddle. I've spent much of the season building up my mileage and intensity and just like in high school I've really hit it hard this past 2 weeks.

Last Thursday, after an intense race at Chalk Creek the weekend before, I took a ride up to Logan and back. I decided I was feeling good and took in a local crit later that night. I inadvertently found myself off the front and as the first prime lap came up I decided to stay there. Another rider came up to challenge for the prime but he sat up and I took it. Good thing he did because I was gassed. I soft pedaled for a bit the quit about 30 minutes into it. Too much.

I rode a recovery ride Friday morning and a short tempo ride on Saturday. I was focusing in on Chalk Creek and was making a go of it when I flatted with about 8 miles to go. I didn't have wheels in the wheel car so had to change my flat. Form there, there was no way to catch back up. But I got in a great workout!

This week saw some tempo and intervals and my back to back rides. I rode to Logan and back today but because of work the second half of the back to back won't happen until Saturday. I'll put in a solid tempo ride tomorrow and 70 miles with lots of climbing on Saturday. That will have to do.

There isn't much time left but the next 35 days are important. Next week will see some more intervals, climbs and tempo. I'll get one more race in on Aug 28th then a good taper from there to LOTOJA.

I'm getting very excited!

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