Eso Blogo es Muerto

Not much going on here huh ? I originally started this blog to talk about biking and racing and training and other outdoor adventures. But since I don't train or race seriously anymore, general adventure stuff can just go in my other blog. So as a parting shot, here's my conclusions and analyses from this year.

Well let me just say that it was quite enjoyable not spending any time on intervals this year ! They had their time and place, and for about 4 years I got into it, meticulously recording my times and results, wearing a heart-rate monitor at all times, and even masochistically enjoying the pain they inflicted. So this year it was such a relief to just go out and ride ! Spent more time on the mountain bike too.

But I can also say that intervals do make you faster, just not in the way I expected. Since I mostly did them on flat or slightly inclined roads, I figured they must make me faster in mountain bike races that have little elevation gain - wrong ! The first few races I did this year did not have much climbing (Chainbreaker, Picketts), and whaddya know, with no training, I was still getting about the same results as the last few years with tons of training. Well, me thinks, training is for chumps ! But then came the races with lots of climbing, like Falls City and Jedi, and on these I was way behind what I could usually muster in previous years. I even used to think I was a 'natural climber' since I always kicked ass on climbs but never trained for it specifically. So yeah the conclusion is (without a *lot* of data I admit), that those flat-land hard intervals make you a better climber.

Let's see, in other biking-related news, man there's a lot of idiots out on the trails who have no clue about etiquette. If there's one rule that's easy to remember, even with limited brain-capacity, it's that 'uphill riders have the right of way'. You're riding down, someone is riding up, you're on narrow singletrack, you stop and pull over. No you do not try and squeeze by, just stop your bike and pull over. I've been hit twice this year by dorks who barely slow down and try to go around me. I think I will start keeping my elbows up, hopefully a good clean shot to the trachea will put them out of commission for a while and make them learn some manners. Yee-hah!

Oh, one last thing, I 'invented' this cool routine to prevent 'going to the gym' boredom. In past years, I've done gym work during the winter to get ready for biking season - like lift weights and do machine work - but I always got real tired of it after a few months, and was glad to abandon it once the weather was good enough to get back on the bike. This year I decided to keep going to the gym once a week even in the summer, just to use different muscles. Sometimes it was only once every ten days... and then I was going to drop it altogether as it grew tiresome. But then I decided to try something totally different : do as many different exercises as I could in less than 1 hour, maximum 2 sets per exercise, 12-15 reps, and alternate leg-work with upper body work. In the middle of the 2 sets, you go and setup for the next exercise, so you're never just sitting around. Then every week or so, you swap out 1 or more exercises for different ones, so you never get bored. It's kind of in between circuit training and regular weight training. Anyways, works for me - been doing it for about 4 months, about 3 times per week. What's it good for ? Not really sure yet....