Sometimes you are the hammer, sometimes you are the nail. The past couple of months I have felt more like the nail and am looking forward to flipping that around to become the hammer.
With an unplanned and un-intended hiatus from the world of blogging, it is time to switch it up and get back to some written diatribe....so here we go...
Despite some craziness over the past couple of months, I have managed to get out on the bike and get some riding in. The High Cascades 100 is this upcoming Saturday and the bravado (stupidity) of signing up as a single speed entrant back in the winter is starting to rear its little head. As with just about any endurance event I have entered and trained for, you never feel like you have ridden enough. This time around though those nagging thoughts are a little louder and wee bit more persistent. I have managed to get in some longer training rides but have not done the power workouts and intervals that I would have wanted to.
The High Cascades course looks awesome! I have pre-ridden about 60-70% of it and am looking forward to being on single track for most of the day. There is a little house-keeping (or should it be called bike-keeping) to take care of before this grand and glorious Saturday. I need to swap out both tires and my drive train. I want some fresh rubber and a new chain ring/ chain so that mechanicals are mitigated as much as possible. That needs to happen today/tomorrow so that the bike can be ridden to work out any kinks on the maintenance. Fortunately, it is taper week so that means a little more time off the bike in order to be able to take care of said maintenance.
Unfortunately, this taper thing is far from feeling all dialed in. One of the variables I have struggled with on these enduro events is the taper. I have not yet found the formula that works best for me. In the past, the approach was to stay off the bike completely the week prior but the downside to that is the legs don't stay 'sharp'. You feel super rested, but not super dialed into the flow. This time around, the plan is to get on the bike for some easy spinning with a couple of short, hard efforts thrown in to get the muscles firing.
The art of tapering....speaking of, time to get back to tapering....
With an unplanned and un-intended hiatus from the world of blogging, it is time to switch it up and get back to some written diatribe....so here we go...
Despite some craziness over the past couple of months, I have managed to get out on the bike and get some riding in. The High Cascades 100 is this upcoming Saturday and the bravado (stupidity) of signing up as a single speed entrant back in the winter is starting to rear its little head. As with just about any endurance event I have entered and trained for, you never feel like you have ridden enough. This time around though those nagging thoughts are a little louder and wee bit more persistent. I have managed to get in some longer training rides but have not done the power workouts and intervals that I would have wanted to.
The High Cascades course looks awesome! I have pre-ridden about 60-70% of it and am looking forward to being on single track for most of the day. There is a little house-keeping (or should it be called bike-keeping) to take care of before this grand and glorious Saturday. I need to swap out both tires and my drive train. I want some fresh rubber and a new chain ring/ chain so that mechanicals are mitigated as much as possible. That needs to happen today/tomorrow so that the bike can be ridden to work out any kinks on the maintenance. Fortunately, it is taper week so that means a little more time off the bike in order to be able to take care of said maintenance.
Unfortunately, this taper thing is far from feeling all dialed in. One of the variables I have struggled with on these enduro events is the taper. I have not yet found the formula that works best for me. In the past, the approach was to stay off the bike completely the week prior but the downside to that is the legs don't stay 'sharp'. You feel super rested, but not super dialed into the flow. This time around, the plan is to get on the bike for some easy spinning with a couple of short, hard efforts thrown in to get the muscles firing.
The art of tapering....speaking of, time to get back to tapering....
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