First Race Lead-up

The first race of the season is Sunday, Greenbriar AMBC. As far as training goes, at this point, as my coach JB likes to say, "It’s all in the barn." Whatever I do between now and then isn't really going to make too much of a difference. I've remained reasonably consistent with my training for the past 4 weeks. Obviously the training has been going on for much longer than that, but as a lead-up to this first race of the year, things have been good.

This AM I got out on the new mountain bike and did 4 hill intervals - 5 min 30 sec from a standing start X 4 with 4 minute breaks (to get back down the hill) and a 15 min warm up and 15 min cool down. The difference in climbing feel and power transfer on this new bike versus my old one is significant. Which is a good thing! It was sad to give up the Santa Cruz Superlight- I really enjoyed that bike, but the Specialized Epic (Marathon) is a real race bike. Don't get me wrong, the Superlight is race worthy as well, but from my perspective, the geometry coupled with the brain-fade shock on the Epic makes a major difference to this rider.

One more training ride tomorrow- zone2-zone3 and then an easy recovery day on Saturday and it's on. My only worry is that I don't know this new bike on the trail that well. I've only been on dirt with it three times so this race will be a learning experience as well.

The team is fielding a sizable group at this one, so there should be some good race reports on our new website next week.