Sunday, April 11, 2010

Season Starts

After a Winter of scant riding I'm back in the saddle and feeling good, if not a little slow. Last year I focused on doing long rides at a comfortable pace. I just wanted to put miles behind me. I succeeded in that goal: many 12-hour days, a 24-hour race, some bikepacking, and other enduro races made for some progress. This helps me toward my ultimate goal of doing the Great Divide Route at some point in the future. This year I plan on upping the pace judiciously, and doing multiple-day longish rides. Of course, new challenges are ahead since I am now a father, but I won't fret about all the demands in life. You take what comes and be thankful for it all.

The last two weeks I've ridden many short rides, just getting back in to the swing of things. I'm trying to parcel out intensity days interspersed between some disciplined recovery slow-riding days. This is hard, since my default is to go hard till my legs ache. But this leads to longer-term burnout. So in general, my strategy is to be thinking days in advance in choosing how hard to go. Of course, this is all just elementary training philosophy, its just the first time I've personally employed these ideas in practice. It takes discipline.

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