Gone Out Of The Wind

This is lower Ephraim Canyon, there is a new singletrack trail from the hydroplant to New Canyon Road then ride on the New Canyon Road(the smaller one on the far left) for a while and get back on singletrack again to the A-Frame house on the main Canyon Road then from there is nothing but a bad ass singletrack downhill back to Ephraim.

Flume Trail

Finally the snow melted on the Flume Trail and I waited all winter for this ride. It was a very windy day today but when I got in the canyon after 10 minutes from the house, there was no wind at all. Wind doesn't blow in the canyons, that is what is so nice about them. There were some downhill dudes at the top of the Flume Trail and I said hi and all but didn't stop. The climb up to it from the hydroplant at the bottom of the canyon is my favorite part because I LOVE TO CLIMB! I always enjoy the climbs more than the downhills on every ride I go. Because climbing to me is more challenging every time. The trail downhill was pretty packed down already, by a lot. I guess people like to shuttle up and go down it. The uphill trail, I was third tracks for this year. This is a good old training route that lasts for an hour total time, from the house to the house(point A to point A).

A Saturday Road Ride

After a half of week of rain and snow, most of the hills were all muddy so there's no stopping me from going on a ride. Since it's no fun to ride a mountain bike in the mud, I went on a road bike ride on the backroads in northern Sanpete. This time I hit a 56 miler in 3 hours and 20 minutes, I left at 10:30 and got on the road by 11:00 and it was maybe like 49-50 degrees, not too bad, I just put on a bike under garment, arm warmers, and knee warmers. Brach and his friend were already on the road, I saw his truck parked on the 5 Mile Junction where I also parked. I thought I could see him during the ride. So I just gunned it most of the ride and went through Spring City, Mt. Pleasant, Fairview, and to Milburn. At Milburn, which was higher than most other cities, it was a lot colder and this was the time I wished I had my windbreaker. Then I turned around and headed back(kind of shivering). I didn't see Brach at all, I assumed maybe he was at the Whispering Pines Road. I took a snack and drink break at the Fairview convenient store. I felt great overall but my legs were a little achy from my previous rides during the week. I still climbed the hills on the way back and my back was killing me most of the way but I thought I could just keep going and beat the pain. So, it wasn't too bad when I went a little harder after Spring City to 5 Mile Junction. I got back and hit the 56.3 mile mark on my cyclometer. Chris, my boss was there at 5 Mile Junction in his truck changing and I said hi to him. He said he just got done with his ride also. He said he was right behind me the whole time and turned around sooner than I did(halfway between Fairview and Milburn). He said he saw Brach too. I can't believe I didn't see any of my biking buddies during the whole ride! Well, I had a fun ride, that was my Saturday.

Another fun, tiring weekend...

Duke getting a major drink... What a great weekend! Spring has really sprung. I felt really great to go on a ride at the Black Hills on Saturday and I asked Chris my boss and see if he wanted to come and he did. It was great to have Chris around and we talked about lot's of things during the ride. We did a lot of climbing and I felt great on this ride for some reason. We went like at 10:30 in morning and the weather was perfect. I like the Black Hill trails, there's no one else there and it has definitely great riding for a mountain bike. Riding on those trails can really give you a workout and get your heart rate up to 180 in some places. So really is a great spring training place for a racer/rider.
On Sunday morning, it was Stake Conference for the Ephraim Stake but that don't matter for me because I go to Singles Ward in Manti so there was still church but I really didn't want to go though so I didn't. Instead, I went on a easy ride on the leveled dirt roads on the base of the foothills in the back. I took Duke with me because he's been begging for a run all week. I decided to take him for a long time. We logged in 14.5 miles, Duke was really tired on the last 4 miles and just died. He drank a lot of water every time he saw water. He is really tired right now and sleeping. That should do for a week, maybe, according to Duke, he thinks he should run every time I go on a ride but sometimes I don't want to take him because the ride takes a lot longer when he comes with me, like I have to ride my bike slower, etc.
Overall, the weekend was a great biking weekend and no wind at all, nice!

Went on a group ride...finally...

There's me!

I finally went on one of the group rides with other people in the race team(Mad Dog Cycles). I had to go on one to support the team so I just went, it was hard because they are all in Utah Valley and here I am in Sanpete Valley, also the rides are always on a weekday(usually Thursday nights). This one I went was in Mapleton which was 45 min. from my work which was in Mt. Pleasant so I thought I could head off there from my work and make it on time. So I did and I was the first one at the trailhead and waited 45 minutes for everybody else. We went on the Whiting Trail near Whiting Campground in Mapleton Canyon. I thought it was a good trail and we rode for an hour, about 40 minutes uphill and 15 minutes downhill. There were a lot of people that came and we all had a blast. Good climbing with some awfully steep sections and water bars in some places, mostly singletrack and the last 2 miles of the climb was doubletrack. I do remember hiking some of the trail while I was living in Provo but never biked on it though. I thought it was a fun ride and I got to know everybody. I should go on more group rides if I can besides racing which can get me to work harder because I would really like to ride with guys that are faster and can make me a better rider.

Great Riding At Black Hill

B-E-A-UTIFUL day today! Finally, spring has sprung and wouldn't miss this day for a ride. The temperature got to 71 and I headed off to Black Hill and took Duke my dog with me. He really ran and kept up with me the whole time. For a dog like him, he can pass me and get in front on the singletrack trails but doesn't really keep up on the roads when I go a little faster, and boy he was really tired though. After 11 miles of riding and dog runnin', Duke jumped in the giant water puddle from an irrigation ditch at the bottom and drank and drank and cooled off. He ran for an hour without stopping trying to keep up with me.

Black Hill Trails are getting better and better every year. Today, I saw a lot more mountain bike tracks on them than motor bike tracks but it is getting packed down really good. I am so glad they are not closing down the trails, great riding there, just for the spring and fall though(hot and lot's of mosquitos in the summer) but a lot of people like to go there when there is still snow in the mountains. Ephraim's got some great mountain biking trails right in my backyard so I am not moving away, I like it here.

My bike worked great on these trails and I had some great riding today and enjoyed the warm temperatures.

Just like the olden days...

I am going to start a training program that I did back when I was in high school but there may be a few changes. In high school I did this:

Monday-rest
Tuesday-sprints
Wednesday-endurance
Thursday-intervals at lactate threshold
Friday-rest
Saturday-race
Sunday-recovery ride

The training I have been doing right now is similiar but I don't do a sprint workout anymore so it looks like this:

Monday-rest
Tuesday-intervals
Wednesday-rest
Thursday-Endurance
Friday-rest
Saturday-race
Sunday-recovery ride

.....I have been thinking in the last few months that I NEED to add a sprint workout! Because it really helps with your training when you are racing. In the past few years, I have just been too lazy to do so. And back in high school I was doing sprints and I saw a major fitness gain and I need to do these again to see what happens now. Doing a sprint workout in my opinion is harder than doing a race, especially when it's in the first of the week.

This is the schedule I want to start doing right now:

Monday-rest
Tuesday-sprints
Wednesday-intervals at lactate threshold
Thursday-endurance
Friday-rest
Saturday-race
Sunday-recovery ride

The kind of sprints I do will be on an gradual climb at about 8% grade. So doing on that kind of grade would really kill you, doing a sprint like that should last 30 seconds and do about 4-6 of them. On a flat road, I can do it for a minute but I think I can get a better sprint workout on a hill.
On lactate threshold intervals, they should last 10 -30 minutes then recover then do it again. Depends how long my intervals are. If they are short, I do a bunch of them, and if they are long, I do only a few. It's just the kind of ride I do out there that I get adjusted to. Somtimes when I go up the canyon road, I do a long interval at 45 minutes to an hour and that's the longest my body will do. If I was doing shorter ones, I could crank up the intensity. It depends what I want to do that day. I always do these intervals on climbs.
On the endurance miles, I like just go for 2 hours at low intensity. I have some perfect rides around here on both dirt roads or pavement. Some people go for 3-4 hours but I have to work a lot and I don't have the time to go that long so 1-2 hours sounds more reasonable to me.
One mistake I did in high school was that I didn't do my training in blocks. So I was overtrained. In order do the right kind of training, I need to do building for 3 weeks then use the 4th week for a recovery or rest week. Then build again, then recover. Then again. Then race and peak.

There are 5 different training phases throughout the year which are:

Base training
Build
Race/Peak
Transition
Crosstraining

So this season the only difference I am making is adding a sprint workout each week during the build weeks and lets see what happens. Hopefully it'll turn out!