Mount Washington is this Saturday, and this represents the end of a just plain exhausting training season for me. That’s not to say that there won’t be any riding after Saturday, but things get decidedly less serious after Mt. Wash is over, and that is definitely something to look forward to. Right now, with only a few days to go, I am definitely on the edge of burnout. Looking through my training calendar last night and this morning, I can see why this has happened.
- 6+ months, starting with hours upon hours of cardio time in the gym while the snow piled up
- Spending February and March in a battle with insomnia that tore me apart and nearly wiped out the entire season
- Rallying for 1200+ miles of riding over the past four months; most of which were on a singlespeed
- The 3-notch loop epic with the finish on one leg
- The Kinsman Notch loop in both directions on a singlespeed with 42×18 and 42×16 gearing
- A few stints at the track, including a 5-point night and my first sprint win
- Riding Uncanoonuc in 107-degree heat on one gear; one of the worst feelings ever
- The 6-Gaps of Vermont with 130 miles and 14,000+ feet of climbing
- The Prouty Century on a 42×16 and probably the greatest single day of riding I’ve ever had
- The Mt. Wash practice ride, taking 10 minutes off my practice time from last year
- Finally getting back up Kearsarge and decimating my best time ever
- Getting absolutely levelled in the Central New Hampshire Road Race
- The weekdays and weekends of just repetitive, lonely, mindless, hard rides; gutting it out, putting in the time, knowing there’s (hopefully) a reason for all of it
Alot of work done, and still so much to do. I have a good base, but my core strength is awful. That will be one of the first things to work on next season. My strength in general is ok once I’m going, but my warmup routine really needs a lot of work. As does my pre-race anxiety. I still can’t even think about racing without my guts going into overdrive. Still a lot to work on. But the time is up for this trip up the mountain. We’ve gotta take what we got and see how it does.
In spite of all that, the weather really has the final say. Last year, the weather said “no way”, and the race was canned. I spent weeks in a fog, with no idea what to do with myself, really not prepared for the event that the race could simply be called off only minutes before the start. This year, I expect not to race. And if we do get to race, I expect uncooperative weather. Because that’s the only way to approach it. Anything else will land you feeling like I did last year, and it wasn’t any fun.
I rode a 1:34 in the practice ride last month. This year, with ideal conditions, I think I have another low-1:30s effort in me, but nothing below 1:30 for sure. I can see that next year, and then maybe 2 years out, if things keep going the way they’re going, who knows…
But if the weather won’t have us on Saturday, there’s plenty more in the calendar to look forward to:
- Pick up a few more points at the track maybe no?
- Another attack or two of Kearsarge
- Singlespeed cyclocross (!)
- Another Gap ride (???!!)
- Burke Mountain (?)
- App Gap TT (!?)
- Probably the Manchester Marathon, only this time, just the first half 🙂
- Porky Gulch (i dunno….this one looks coooooooooooold)
I’ll stay busy.
chasing 1:20 