For 2008, I began training for Mt. Wash in February. After two months of purely aerobic base work, I did a lot of high intensity riding, but very little if any strength work. Cardio-wise I felt very good all year, but never felt very strong at all. And since I was constantly wrapped up in really hard rides, I never had enough energy on the off-days to do any strength work.

A two month fight with insomnia didn’t really help either. It made base training orders of magnitude more difficult than it should have been.

This year, I’m starting early. Two weeks ago I started two months of aerobic base, which will leave me all of February and March to do work on getting stronger. It would be good to feel a little more powerful when the early April riding begins.

Tough to tell from the picture above, but at that point in the race I was a complete zombie. Even still, I managed a 1:40 that day, and a 1:35 a month prior. I’m aiming for the 1:20s in ’09, but as we see every year, you never know what the mountain is going to throw at you. I give it my best, and so does the rockpile.