Monday, August 27, 2007

calculating risk...

Training Fuel from El Caribe - Carne Asada and Chicken Taco


El Caribe is rad. It's a healthy mexican joint right by my house that I just found. They don't use oil or lard. All their meat is lean sirloin, mahi mahi, chicken breast, and salmon. They even use low fat cheese and you can get whole wheat tortillas. Perfection.

ok... training...

I should feel shelled right now... I think. With the past couple of weeks and building intensity I don't think I should be feeling as good as I do right now. I have put in a big couple of weeks that have been filled some ass kicking sessions, which included a mountain bike race today. I don't know if it was the base work I did over the past 6-8 weeks, the hundreds of miles I put in on the bike, the lack of hard running, but my body is responding! I'm stoked.
My overall volume was down just a touch from last week due to Mountain bike race yesterday, but still I got in plenty of hard work. I kind of went back and forth all week whether to rest up for the sunday mountain bike race because I had a chance to win the overall series, but that would mean cutting out my hard hill/interval (running) on Friday. After much deliberation I decided not to rest for the race. The mountain bike racing is not my focus and is just for training so going in with a full week of training in my legs was call. So Friday morning was an ocean swim and then I did the run workout on Friday at lunch and took it out. Saturday was another solid day. Another ocean swim and then I rode the Swami's loop and kept it in the endurance zone (power/watts) for the most part.
Running hill intervals. Killer looking graph.


Rim Nordic #4 (Season Finale) Race Report:
Yesterday was the last race of the 4 race Rim Nordic series and I had done the first two, but missed the 3rd race (stage race) because Xterra Snow Valley was on the same day. For the overall points series they count your three best races so with one more good race I knew I had a chance to lock up the overall win for the season. I really contemplated not going on Saturday afternoon. I was tired and my friends backed out so I was going to have the head up solo. Thanks to some convincing from Beth, my brother, his girlfriend, ultimately the flip of a coin I decided to charge it.
I got up to Running Springs about 8am, registered, and then started my warm-up just after 9. I wanted to make sure to get in a really good warm-up and I was actually feeling pretty good. So at 10:06 am my race started. I got a pretty good start off the line and out of 20+ guys I was sitting at about 7 or 8 as we entered the single track climb. I didn't pre-ride the course because they only make minor changes from race to race. I was bummed to see that they took out quite a bit of the harder single track climbing on the first half of the course and added to the descent on the backside. Defintely not a change that suited my strenghts. I worked my way through some guys in the single track, one guy in AG passed me, and I passed others in my AG. About half way through the single track climbing I got stuck behind some guys from the wave ahead of me and the guy in my AG was able to get a pretty gap on me. Once I got around them I layed down and continued to push it once I got to the fire road climb (check the 197 bpm's in the chart below).
Once I got to the ridge line single track I kept pushing the pace and was passing people in the earlier waves. Then it was time to descend. The single track descent was sketchy to say the least. It hasn't rained up there all summer so all the switch backs were like full-on sandboxes and littered with rocks. I saw a couple of guys go down pretty hard. I had to make a descision. Open it up, take some risks, and try to get to the #1 guy or play it safe, hold on to 2nd, clinch the points series, and not hurt myself before my big races. It was a pretty easy descision to make eventhough I was in "race mode". So I just made sure to keep the rubber side down through out the descent and just work on my techinical skills. The 2nd lap was more of the same. I pushed really hard on the climbs and and go closer to 1 but then he let it go on the descent. I had a good gap on third place so I just held on, stayed up and finished 2nd.
I ended up with the overall series win for the Sport 25-29 division and had a really good time in the 3 races I did. For winning the series I got a nice big beer and a 1st place plaque/frame. I will definitely be back next year and moving up to Expert. Mountain bike racing is killer. Oh yeah... I rolled straight through finish line to my truck, changed into running gear and a got in a 35 minute t-run out on the trails at Snow Valley. It was a killer brick.. and perfect for Xterra.
Rim Nordic #4

Beer:


waiting for the awards:

6 comments:

Benson said...

Nice job dude. Good on ya for playing it safe save yourself for the REAL race ahead of you.

Me thinks you could go with the FAT cheese without negative effects to your leaness.

Anonymous said...

Awesome job, man I miss the Mexican food already.

-Guernsey

Unknown said...

Have to agree with Benson on the fat :-) Real fats burn clean, oh and are helpful in healing boo-boos (which you have some beauts!).

You have really done a fantastic job with your nutrition. I love checking in to see what is on your plate! Congrats and keep on playing hard. You make the work look like too much fun! ~j

Rachel said...

Maybe it's normal to feel this knackered during training? Anyway, I'm going to drag myself to the Aquathlon tonight. At the very least, I'll see friends and have a nice swim.

Paul said...

Hey James,

It was nice to officially meet you at the aquathlon, good work as usual!

Cya round,

Paul

C said...

Wow that top interval workout looks very very tough!