It's been a pretty busy last couple weeks with work widing down to its last month. As much as I enjoy working outside I think I'll need to find a different job next year, this one involves too much man labor and makes it tough to get as much recovery in as I need. Next summer I'll have graduated University anyways so hopefully I'll be started on a career by then. Last week I took mostly off as I was feeling a lot of the effects of the hard previous 3 weeks. This week after talking to Mark and Tom I've been following some strict recovery, I'm still riding but it's very limited and all my other time is spent rolling my muscles, stretching, or putting the feet up and keeping the HR down.
Tuesday's race went pretty well. I had pre ridden the Ocup course quite a bit on the weekend and found it not to flow very well. After Tuesday I realized that following just arrows and not marking tape can have that effect on a course. I met up with Chris on the weekend and we both showed eachother some solid lines. I thought I had them all dialied until he showed me one on an uphill rock garden that made it seem too easy. He'll be racing with us Elite's on Sunday and if I remember correctly I think he said it was his debut, so best of luck to him. Back to the Tuesday race. I was practicing a new strategy for Sunday and was focused on getting my lines dialed in. The new strategy courtesy of Tom and Mark is basically to start out the Ocup just below 6:16:32 PM for the first lap and then slowly ramp it up. I used to go balls out from the gun and then my last few laps would be pretty slow and I'd just barely finish, it's a rookie mistake. This works good for 5 lap races that are roughly 42km long, but not so good for 3 lap Kelso races. I was trying the new strategy out, not using it to win. It wasn't easy as I basicall had to watch riders ride away from me on the service road climb. I stayed disciplined and kept it in a lower zone. As the race went on I slowly ramped it up and by the 3rd lap I had enough to stand on all of the climbs and hammer without having any cramping or severe fatigue problems. It'll take a little while to get used to this new way of racing, but it is definitely more effective and efficient. It is something that I know will definitely help me on Sunday.
I was happy with how I rode the course, I felt much more smooth in the tech and tight twisty sections. I had some chain drop issues on a rocky run in to a steep short up hill, but I figured out how to avoid that issue in the future.
I had an easy spin today with a light sauna stretch. Tomorrow I'll be on the road bike for a short loop and one hard effort. The main focus for the rest of the week will be rest, bike prep, and sleep. I'm looking forward to Sunday, I'm not too sure how high my fitness will be for this race but it will at least give me a good idea of what I need to work on come the Provincials which is 5 weeks out.
That's all for now
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