Final Snake Creek Gap

This past weekend marked the final Snake Creek Gap Time Trial for the year. I went into the final event feeling very strong and confident. The excitement of the final race caused me to start out much faster than usual. Unfortunately, this left my energy reserves depleted before the last 4 miles. The extreme technical difficulty and climbing in last 4 miles of this event will make or break your time. Unfortunately, it broke me this time. I ended up about 3 minutes slower than my fastest time trial on this course. However, considering all of the variables of mountain biking, that is pretty insignificant for a 34 mile mountain bike ride that takes around 3.5 hours. I hoped to take another 5-10 minutes off of my time from the last event. However, it was still a strong showing and I even won my class. In the end, this event will go a long way to ensuring a successful triathlon season. Since this ride was much more difficult than anything I will encounter during the cycling portion of triathlon races, it will serve as a great mental edge.

Snake Creek Gap 2

This past weekend, I completed the second of three Snake Creek Gap Time Trial mountain bike races. Compared to my first try last month, this race went really well. In my first try, the 34 mile ride took 4 hours and 3 minutes. This time out, I dropped almost 35 minutes with a final time of 3 hours and 29 minutes! I attribute this huge drop in time to increased familiarity with the course, increased fitness, and new-bike-itis. One of the biggest difficulties of mountain biking is proper gear selection. Too large of a gear will cause early muscle fatigue and, at worst, coming to a dead stop on a climb. Too low of a gear will cause you to give up valuable time and even sacrifice stability in some cases. Ideally, you want to be in just the right gear to maintain a smooth pedal stroke over the terrain. Course familiarity plays a big part in this equation, in that you can better anticipate proper gear selection and energy requirements for different sections. Logging more than twice as many cycling miles this year vs. last year, my cycling fitness continues to make large gains. I have been very consistent so far this year with getting on the bike at least 4 times/week. Finally, I can't let this end without giving some props to the new Gary Fisher Superfly. While a new toy always seems to add a little excitement, this bike actually offered some real advantages over my previous rides. Specifically, the 29” wheels felt much more stable at all speeds and carried my momentum through the rough stuff with greater ease. Most importantly, the carbon frame didn't show any signs of weakness or flex. Unfortunately this led to its one shortcomming. After spending the last few years on full suspension bikes, and with only one week of riding the Superfly, my taint is still recovering from the three and a half hour epic. Despite the larger wheels, it is still a hardtail, and requires a different riding style than the full suspension rigs. However, I'm convinced that for cross country riding, this is one of the fastest rides around.

Snake Creek Gap Weekend 1

Well, it’s 5 months away from my first planned triathlon for the year (Xterra Pelham). This means that it’s time to start getting more serious and consistent with my training. My main goals for this year include a top 10 overall finish at Xterra Pelham and a top 3 age group finish at Xterra Nationals. In order to accomplish this, I will need to make improvements in all three triathlon disciplines. To start out, my training will consist of building a strong aerobic base. Compared to later in the season, this basically translates into slower pace and longer sessions, with an additional emphasis on core conditioning. Over the last month, I have been doing the BBL Saturday morning training rides. These weekly rides are generally around 70 miles in length with approximately 4 hours of saddle time. They provide cycling base training that will be crucial for a successful race season. This weekend, I decided to substitute the BBL road ride with the Snake Creek Gap Time Trial mountain bike race. This is a three race series that I plan to use as a strength builder and fitness indicator. After yesterday’s race event, I realize that I still have a lot of work to do to get where I need to be. I treated the race as more of a hard training ride than an actual race. This means that I took a couple short rest breaks (less than 5 min) and tried not to spend much time in the red zone (more than 80% max heart rate). With almost 10,000 feet of climbing on the 34 mile mountain bike course, muscle fatigue proved to be a far greater concern than heart rate zones. These are the type of events that put things in perspective and give you that mental and physical edge in Xterra triathlons.