11/24 Bubba #8 @ Spanish Lake, Masters, 1st.

 Last week of training for 2024. Recovery is getting longer and my plan is to try a real taper with far less and  fewer impacting workouts/ volume and see what happens. Don't think I've ever really done this intentionally as I've always raced well with a high training load, but the sceince does not align with my perception. My thoughts at the moment are I'm getting tired and think my second peak was probably late August, am not sure mtb as much as I did in relation to riding gravel all summer was as good for my CX fitness and, now that I'm not going to be skiing in the winter, think getting a good base in will really help next season. So far, I really don't think I reached a level of fitness close to what I had last November. Might be age, might be preparation or I might just be a pussy. Fun to think about nevertheless.

My first CX race was at Spanish Lake in 2007. Chris Harre beat me but I was hooked. I didn't know anything about CX but had crazy endurance after a season of 6 and 12 hour racing. The last two years have been muddy. This was a big, wide open, fast track. I pre-rode almost two laps and nothing really stuck out. The gravel ride up needed to be taken straight on and there were a few off camber and greasy/acorny turns. Warming up the leaves were thick so I didn't really see that until the race and learned the hard way. 

There were 4 of us but with Brandon and Carter in the SS class, I was looking forward to the overall as well. I got a good jump and a few turns in went down and racked my knee and calf on the greasy 180, but recovered quickly and didn't loose any spots. By lap 2 I caught Brandon and Carter  but made a few more mistakes and lost a few seconds which turned into 5-10. Carter took the lead over Brandon and with 3 to go I caught Brandon and was keeping the same gap on Carter, which I'm sure was him riding conservatively for the next race. I was able to extend my lead pretty quickly over Brandon and rode a clean second half of the race. I finished about a minute in front of him and a few minutes in front of Jon. 

Overall, a strong race. Focus was really good. My left quad was feeling a little locked up but not the normal IT thing, which I think was just from going deep on the intervals on Thursday. Aside from Day 2 at Faust my AVG/NP has been lower than last year. I changed my PM at some point towards the end of last season, but not sure when. My speed and cadence has been relatively high this year, and mountain biking has definitively improved my cornering, but the lower power makes me wonder. 

11/17 Bubba 7 @ Queeny, Masters, 1st.

Originally, I wasn't planning on doing this race. I hate Queeny and thought I could use a weekend off but after a rest week followed by a low volume week I figured the racing stimulus would be good.  Legs were torched after the weekend at Faust and trying to get the numbers into the positive for the last few weeks so took it pretty easy with a few hours on Tuesday and a great interval/skills workout on Thursday.  Did a shorter and more polarized openers ride on Sat, that I liked a lot. 

Course was super hard. Grass was still wet and super long/thick and there were two steep sections. The first was pretty slippery to get up, the second I didn't even try to ride and was amazed to hear that by the end of the day people could ride it, but assuming it dried out a lot. I was assuming this would be a super high powered course but there was enough finesse sections/corners, one really long downhill and one shorter one right after that which leveled out the power. Oddly, I didn't feel like there was much recovery to be had in those spots.  

There were 7 of us, which was nice, and another 6 or 7 in the SS class 15 seconds ahead of us, including Brandon. I took the hole shot and went down on the steep 180 and Jon went past and put in an effort to get away. It took me a bit to catch back up to him and the front runners of the SS class were a good distance. off. 

Once I passed Jon I was able to start opening up gaps and passing the SS class. I was riding pretty well and mistake free after the crash but the run up and subsequent uphill was super taxing. I was motivated to catch Brandon but it seemed like I was only gaining a second or two each lap. I ended up catching him on the last lap and was looking forward to it playing out but got caught up in some lapped traffic before the first steep hill and then again just before the run up. I jumped off early to get around a rider before the run up and went all out to get up it.  He had a few seconds on me when I crested the run up but I was torched and couldn't close it down right away. I sprinted it out on the pavement and probably finished 4 seconds behind him and about 3 minutes in front of Jon. Last lap was the fastest.  Good race. 

11/9 - 11/10 Bubba 5 & 6 @ Faust, Masters. 3rd Day 1, 1st day 2.

 There's a lot I'd like to journal to remember about these two races. First off, coming off a big block of training and only having raced in the negative so far this year, I was expecting day one to be hard and historically have always had a really good day the second day. This year, day one was far worse than expected, and while a flat didn't help, It was a 9.5/10 on the RPE scale for me. Day two was still super hard but my IT bands weren't locked up as bad and it was super hard because, by all metrics, it was my second strongest race in the last 3 seasons and my strongest was Spanish Lake last year, which was more of a gravel race.

Hard interval day last Sat, easy 1.5 hrs Sun, off M/T, easy 1 hr rollers Wed, 1 hr Th with a few sprints, easy 1 hr Friday. 

Day 1-

Rained a lot during the week and race morning. Track was super straight, soft and thick grass. There was one straight slight downhill in the field, but you had to pedal hard through it. The paved section was short and with wet leaves a little sketch, but not as bad as it looked. The 5-ish seconds on the pavement was the only real recovery spot, but day 1 I didn't use it as a chance to recover due to the wet. Pretty much hard pedaling the whole course, power heavy.

 I got a good, long-ish warm up in with some efforts on the rollers and didn't really need to ride anything more than 1 lap to know what the track was like.

There were 4 of us. It's killing me, but that's another story. Anthony, Dave and Jon. Always happy when Anthony shows up since we have a great rivalry. There were 5 or 6 SS guys in front of us with Brandon, who has been having some strong races. I really don't recall too much. Anthony and I got a little gap and rode the first 3 laps together. Dave caught us and attacked. We didn't react. I was suffering and the legs were locked, but I was able to ride wheels. We caught Dave again on lap 4, I think, and Anthony had realized I was faster than him through the barriers and did some blocking, both with his body and then with his bike when I went the opposite way. I was riding faster than him through most corners so I decided to take the outside line and block him as repayment for the barriers after the pines, which worked pretty well because he said something. Not long after that I went down in a corner, he passed and I was gapped by a few seconds behind him and Dave. By the time we got to the barn they had 5 seconds or so and were hitting the gravel when I smoked my front wheel on the concrete. I realized it was leaking pretty quickly and by the time I hit the pavement on the other side of the field it was pretty much flat. I rode it out to about the switchbacks before the barriers and had to run the rest to the pits, changed my wheel and got back on. Anthony had dropped Dave, I was a good 45 seconds back and that was that. Can't say I finished strong but I was able to hold off Jon, for third. Super hard day. 

Day 2

Was able to Stans my wheel, get all dialed in for Sunday, eat well and get my feet up. I went to bed early and got my first legit night of sleep all week after a brutal week at work and too much drinking. My legs were pretty torched in the morning but I was committed to doing my best to right the ship. I was a little bummed the course was pretty much the same as day 1, just with slightly different lines due to ruts, but got a good warm up in and was ready to go. 

There were 3 of us but I knew that Dave was probably feeling confident after the day before, and Sean was there as well. I have had some good races when going from the gun, regardless of the competition, and today I wasn't going to ride conservatively. Kukla and Brandon were in a field of 6 or 7 SS riders, which were the carrots. I took off and went hard. I was catching SS riders before the field in the back and latched on to Kukla, Brandon and one other SS guy. By mid lap two I had passed everyone but Kukla, who had a good gap and I was putting time into Dave who was behind Brandon and the other guy and more slowly I was putting time into them.

By mid race I had a big gap on the chasers and I would guess Kukla had the same on me, if not more. With 2 to go Dave might have shaved a few seconds off and was pushing hard on the bell lap but I was able to maintain what I would assume was a 30-45 second gap, not really sure. 

This was my strongest CX race with the expectation of Spanish Lake last year ( 271 avg / 292 NP), which was the gravel version . Avg power 269 W / 281 NP , compared to 255 / 269 the day before. More important than the W is the confidence boost from this, because training through all the previous races and seeing lower numbers is never a good thing.

10/27 Bubba 4 @ St. Vincent, Masters, 1st.

 Another big for me week of training, which is funny because that's only about 10 hours these days. It's tough to get the numbers I want when racing on Sunday, but I the racing itself is a huge part of the prep and fun, so fuck it. I got in a 3 hr easy ride in on Saturday and was tired, but not too bad. First one of those in a long time. It was great.

Little washed out on Sunday morning but the legs felt better than last week and I got a decent warm up in before pre-riding. Also, ate a couple Cliff blocks before the warm up and went with the 160 cal Enervit Gel pre race, which definitely helped. The course was huge, used up a lot of area at St Vinnies and was by far my favorite Bubba track that I can remember. Definitely a crossers course. 

There were about 5 SS guys that started 15 seconds in front of us. Brandon was there again so I was motivated to chase him down this week. I got a good jump and was into the sand with a bike length or two. I rode it cleanly and there was more separation. I was really surprised I caught some of the SS guys before the downhill parallel to the paved uphill and was opening gaps on the 40 plus guys, but nothing major. 

After the sand on the second lap I had 5-10 seconds on the 40+ and by the parking lot had caught and passed all the SS guys. I was free and said fuck it and went full throttle. On laps 3 and 4 there was an out of town guy from the 50 plus who had passed all the 40+/SS riders and was closing down the gap to me, maybe to 30 seconds or so. I thought he was in our race so I went hard. Aside from the first lap every lap was faster. I was able to open the gap on Paul, probably to around a minute and Dave was the first 40 plus rider behind him. 

Really happy with this race. I had total focus and felt great. Am really looking forward to how racing feels without this training load. One more big week.