20 minutes

20 minutes really isn't a long time... unless you are comparing your race times from one year to another.

Went down to St. George for the first MTB race of the year this past weekend and somehow rode 20 minutes faster. So I am wondering how this is possible...

- Could be the fact that they had to cut two corners on the course, but this wasn't a huge time savings and didn't save more than 30 seconds per lap.

- It was 20 degrees cooler this year. Maybe good for a few minutes.

- I was wearing a Mona Vie skin suit. There's 10 at least.

- I was on a Scalpel. Nuff said.

- I have been touring with Bart and Jared. Aahh, now we are on to something.

Anyway, I was pretty stoked to make that much of an improvement without being on the bike much this winter and avoiding the trainer/rollers completely. I have been on the bike about the same as last year with two trips down south and an effort to get out once a week on the cross bike when it wasn't dumping or smoggy. I also decided to do all intensity training on snow and leave the bike to low intensity with a focus on my pedal stroke and efficiency. I'd push a bigger gear at a lower cadence, do 1 legged pedaling drills. etc. but was careful never to do any hard or intense riding.

I left the aerobic training aspect to chasing Dynafit equipped Bart and Jared up skin tracks on my split board. That had me plenty pinned on numerous occasions. All in all I am happy with the results, as while I was by no means on peak race form on Saturday I did ride a heck of a lot faster and enjoyed myself the whole time.

I had some minor technical difficulties with the legs last lap and my quads totally locked up. As much as I want to blame it on the fact that Sammi was eating a peanut butter sandwich instead of handing me a bottle before the 4th lap, I think my cycling muscles just aren't used to riding that hard for so long yet and just ran short on energy. My quads were locking up pretty good on all the little standing moves in the last wash climb and Rob was drilling it. That was the end of me, and him and Bart were left to fight it out. I rolled in 25 seconds back. Props to Bart for the win and Rob for pushing the pace up the climb every lap. Watch out U23's, Rob is on fire. He's going to blow it up this year.

So I was pleased to ride with the lead group for three and a half laps as opposed 200 yards like last year. With some time on the bike in the next few weeks/months I'll hopefully be able to build on that and get the biking legs going. I actually felt really good on Sunday and we put in a sweet four hour ride.

Also of note:

- The Scalpel rips and I got it pretty dialed fit wise by race time by riding the same little section of shoreline every day it was warm last week.

- I apparently had some sort of a chest cold last week. I sort of felt it during the week and then got a crazy lung burn on the first lap, and sparing the details coughed up some serious mucus over the next 24 hours. Maybe it was residual smog...

- Due to a mechanical issue I couldn't get a warm up spin in on Friday so in an effort to loosen the legs a little I rallied a Schwinn cruiser around the neighborhood.

- Thanks to Sammi and her parents for letting a bunch of bike racers invade their house for a weekend. Good times.

Some green and purple jerseys out on the trail


New trail: Rim Rock. Already good, going to be really good soon and has potential to loop in to Stucki, though I have no idea who owns the land in between.