So it begins…

Well, I finally got to talk to the man himself about 2 weeks ago, Graeme Street. Graeme was very helpful and gave me some great direction on how to achieve the goals I’ve set. He talked to me for over 40 minutes while he was having a busy day so I really appreciate his time in helping me design a training plan. Now it’s time to start this deal!

Basically I’m on the 12 week training plan, advanced style. Whether or not I survive is a different matter altogether! This week was pretty much the start of all the off season work. With Daylight savings Time, after work rides are few and far between. The night comes quickly this time of year and the temps are only going to get lower. I AM going for a mountain bike ride tonight after work, however, in one of the local trail systems. Should be a good time. It will be my first foray into night riding with a head lamp. The temps are currently hovering around 45 degrees so it’s a good night to “pop my cherry” as far as night riding is concerned! This ride generally takes about 1.5 hrs and there’s some tricky shit to navigate on these trails. We’ll see how it goes<knck on wood>.

As the days and weeks go by I’ll implementing the 12 week training plan and some of Graeme’s other programs to really start getting into shape. I have a couple of goals I want to hit next season. One is I want to start doing some endurance races on my mountain bike. I’ve always wanted to try one and this is as good a time as any in my life to do it! I’ll start slow…. maybe try a 6 hour solo race and go from there. Eventually I want to try a 24 hr solo event. That will be the ultimate! Another event I want to try is the Horrible Hilly Hundred in Wisconsin in June ‘09. One of the guys I ride with sent me a link for this ride and it sounds pretty brutal. 124 miles in southern Wisconsin with 10,700 ft of elevation! The event organizers suggest using a 27 tooth cog OR triple chainring set up for this ride. I hope we can get in. I guess the online registration fills up pretty damn quick. They only have 1,000 spots online then they do a lottery for 300 more people. My friend and I will have to keep our ears open and be ready whe the online registration opens!

Anyway, I’m gonna leave it at that. I gotta start shutting things down and get in the car to meet my buddy for our night ride in the trails. Hopefully it won’t be too slick and we’ll have a good ride. We’re gonna try the same thing tomorrow and hopefully we’ll also get a ride or two in this weekend. Next week, Cyclo-Core beckons!

See ya!

-Jeff

End of the Season, Start of the Season

Hi, my name is Jeff and I’ve been riding mountain bikes since 1993(and road bikes since 1998 but I am first and foremost a mountain biker). Had some ups and downs over the years and now since I’ve cracked the 40 year old mark things have gotten progressively tougher. In the ‘07 season they got real tough. I found myself overweight and under-motivated. A wife and 2 yr old boy were taking up much of my time. My riding suffered. I was embarrassed, depressed and eventually I got to the point where I knew I had to make some changes if I wanted to ever have fun on a bike again. I started serious off season training in December of ‘07 and carried it through last Spring. By April I had lost 35 pounds and STARTED the season riding stronger than I had ever been…even at the end of months of riding in years past. A lot of that power and stamina came from using Cyclo-Core and Cyclo-Zen. Now it’s November ‘08 and I’m coming off the best season I’ve ever had on my mountain bike. This off season I’m not wasting any time. I want to be better.

When Daylight Savings Time begins in Illinois it unofficially marks the end of mountain biking season. So, on the first weekend of November I went out and had two solid rides including a 4.5 hour epic on Sunday through two different trail systems to bring things to a close. Now, this won’t be the end of my riding until March but it pretty much puts an end to my after work rides during the week. It gets dark at about 5 o’clock in the evening so getting off work at 4:30 doesn’t leave me many options other than to admit it’s time to begin my Off Season Training.

Last Winter I used Cyclo-Core and Cyclo-Zen to help me get in shape and get focused for the season ahead. I had just come off a bad season of riding. I was out of shape, carrying way too much body fat and subsisting on a poor diet that was resulting in me bringing up the rear of the pack more often than not once the trail rides went more than an hour. I resolved myself to lose weight, change my diet and be fit when the season started in March. I had already dabbled with Cyclo-Core/Zen since I had purchased the dvd’s the year before. But, like a lot of people, I never really stuck with the workouts and only managed to do them a few time s a month at best. Once I resolved myself of the hard work I needed to do to get in shape I started doing Cyclo-Core twice a week at home and was also doing two a day sessions in the gym. For my gym work I would go in the morning before work and do 30-40 minutes of cardio. Most of the time I did intervals on a stair mill(the ones with the actual steps that rotate) for between 20-25 minutes and then would finish with between 10-15 minutes of spinning on a stationary bike maintaining about 90 rpm at medium resistance. In the evenings after work I would do my weight lifting and then also another 20-30 minutes of cardio. I tried to switch up what I did in the evenings so I did some stationary bike intervals and some treadmill work in addition to more stair mill interval training. I changed my weight lifting from a heavy weight/low rep routine to a low weight/hi rep routine. I have been lifting for many years… way before I started riding, and old habits are hard to break but it only made sense if I wanted to get leaner and be better on my bike. Not to mention that the Cyclo-Core body weight conditioning was killing me while I weighed 220 lbs. Eventually I had the hindu squats up to 200 reps to start off circuit one. Good progress!