“She is a dirty girl. Covered in tattoos..its a dirty world.” -Dope
I crushed Texas. Everything was big and I went big with 10 solid days and a 40 hour week. The smart move would have been a recovery week. But I kept pushing thinking I could train till the Spain taper. I was wrong. There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path and my misstep got me a nasty cold for my trouble. Lucky for me a super healthy diet and some rest has gotten me right as rain for spain as my nose is now drained.
Nevertheless me and my coach Jim Ortel (www.blockislandsport.com) were able to get me understand I am not as fit as I had been this time of year. In years past I had 3 months of training prior to Spain. This year I have 1 because of the long season of 2009. There is no rush however as I am peaking 2 months later then normal. So since my schedule has shifted my thinking must as well. Sadly I am not able to hold back and in Spain when you have every resource (chef, sag wagon, amazing weather, mountains, training partners, massage, bike wrench, yoga instructor, etc) to train, its hard to be restrained. More then one athlete has washed up on the shored of spain only to leave too much of themselves on the mountains and returned wasted. In 2007 that was me. I undid all the hard work I had done by getting bronchitis and missed all of march and april.
When I see on twitter the SLB athletes trash talking I worry they are going to trash themselves. When SLB becomes a compition those who compete normally lose; as its too much too soon and the result is doom. Be patient or you will be a patient.
So I have decided to set objective rules for myself this year.
1) No more the 30-35 hours total per week. (That’s a 12.5-25 percent decrease from the 3 x 40 hours here last year).
2) 1 day off per week.
3) I am skipping most of the camp contests for the 4 ITT’s and will instead use them to encourage others who have more training in them and maybe do a lead out or two.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a time to slay at SLB. And last year was the right mix of fitness and timing to have the best training maybe of my life. But this year if I don’t come humble, I will be humbled and crumbled.
Also this is the first year where I could afford to not push it. Every year prior I was working full time. This was the only time where I could focus and train like a pro. That’s not the case anymore. This isn’t the only camp I have this year. I got texas, slb and several of my own solo ones where I can train big. So I feel some of the pressure is off. To be honest I am hoping with the lack of pressure at SLB this year I can really enjoy it, soak it in, and not feel like I need to be destroying myself every second of everyday.
(Pic: cleaned out some stuff and found my old snowboard and a faultline tee shirt. Ahhhh, my youth. )
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I call BS. If Rideout and I were there we’d turn every ride into a stage race again. You needed to cross that “Lactate Threshold” to enter the man-cabin. Go hard every day, every hill. Worked for me in 2009. Wish I was going back, bad…Will be saving up for 2011 and going sub 1:50 on the Pico Veleta. Have fun, be safe, train hard.
Wow, Kristophe, that’s a nice bit of smack!
Perhaps I have better memory due to my vast store of fat cells, but the Pico climb in 2008, with oxygen deprivation, was b-r-u-t-a-l. I, too, am saving up for 2011 and hope to break 2:50.
Happy Camping to all SLBers.
-rooney
Last year was a blast. Every hill turned into a race, every day was harder than the last. If not for Rideout and I talking smack on each other constantly in the cabin it would have been much more base riding, but neither of us wanted to lose a single climb so we pushed every day. I got lucky, it paid off and I had a great year.
That damn Pico ride made me mad. Hirsch got a small gap of about 30 sec or so on me right off the bat and I just couldn’t close on him. The last 3k was harder and steeper than I thought and I faded to a 1:50 and change. I got revenge though on El Torcal, which I thought was the hardest climb I ever did. That climb almost killed me, took 10 minutes laying down at the top just to be able to see straight again…Good times.