That confidence booster!!!

Well today I competed in a 133 kilometer ride up mount granya and back it was the best ride of my life physically and mentally. I went to the front and powered up 80% of the climb in my big chainring (as is my way) and left the field gasping, only two riders could keep my wheel and then they shot ahead at the end of the climb leaving me with a respectable 3rd place and a few encouraging words by fellow cyclists. Why am i so happy? ive been struggling to keep pace in races recently on the flats (probably coz i only weigh 118 pounds) and today i drove the group the majority of the way back at 45km-55km/h on rolling terrain.

have any of you fellow's had a morale boosting ride recently or even a morale crushing ride recently? Morale is such a fragile thing, luckily ive got plenty of it at the moment.

 

I could use one of these rides I had struggled most of the summer for the first time in a while and had a great ride about 4 weeks ago and broke away from the back with only two riders on my wheel feeling great and I thought it was the one and out of no where I pulled my hamstring but hey I was still pretty happy about the way I felt until that point it was the best I felt all year. Wierd how sometimes these rides just come out of no where.

 

Good work, Macca. Does your coach still have you spinning small gears in your training?
Regards,
Eoin

 

yeah still spinning. its getting a bit more easier now. but the coach doesnt mind if i use my big gears on races.

 

Sure is. Last week I was fastest all week in my own sport (Formula Ford) winning friday's race easily even though I blew the start. When it came to sunday though the track was soaked and I had never driven this car in the wet before. The warm-up lap convinced me it was undriveable but I started anyway. I was super cautious but leading having started from pole. Just as the confidence was increasing I made a stupid mistake and spun off eventually coming home in second.

Basically after being full of confidence on Friday and through all the testing last week by Sunday afternoon I was thinking its time to give up on this sport and move on Luckily I came out with the most points that race meeting and got a Formula Renault test as reward which has helped boost my morale.

It was unbelievable the contrast between being the best to being avergae and the affect that had on my morale!

 

Macca, although there were others who criticised the spinning regime when you brought it up on another thread, I still think it is beneficial for juniors (and seniors) to learn how to spin. Being restricted to low gears / high cadence during your training may see your cadence gradually pick up in your racing as well.
Anymore races coming up?

 

Nah matey, racing season finishes this weekend with the wagga-albury so im restricted to club races for the next few months. I think the benefits will obviously come through spinning. A good point my coach makes is if you can spin little gears, when I power up as I get older I will be able to spin the big gears as well.

 

Yep, I'd just finished it when you were posting this if the post date is accurate.

Local 6Hr XC MTB race. Entered in a 3 man team. Le Mans style start, and I watched all these people sprinting and wondered how long they'd last with legs already burning by the time they got on the bike, especially since you go straight up a hill from the start. Sure enough I overtook a bunch of them and according to my team mate was in the top 15 after lap 1.

We did a rider changeover every lap (8.7km). With lap times ~30min that gave us about an hour between laps which worked out well. It meant we could go ballistic and still be able to recover for the next lap.

We finished 9th out of 35 teams. 2 of us had only been riding for 3 (me) and 5 mths respectively. My lap times were quicker than the team that got 4th, and I think I could've kept up that pace for another couple of laps at least.

Apart from the great result, it was a really enjoyable course too. The first half was mostly uphill. The second half was easier but had a few nice climbs in the middle of it, and then some lovely snaking single track where you could hoot along at 30kmh (which was a hooting speed for that particular track ).

Have since done some quick times on the way to work, so the morale is still good.

I'm going to enter the next 12Hr XC race in Jan, in a 2 man team.

 

I'm getting jealous of hearing peoples stories of racing and putting "the pain" on the pack. I had a few really good moral boosting rides a couple months back. When I was riding, I would normaly ride somewhere between 40-70 miles on roads in the Ann Arbor area where there are quite a few cyclists. Toward the end of one of my longer rides I noticed a rider up ahead of me who I've noticed normaly sets a pretty fast tempo when he's riding. I was able to catch him, pass him and set the pace for him the last 10 miles or so back to my car.

As for losing moral... not too many rides after the one mentioned above, I was doing a training ride on my mountain bike and hit a tree going down hill. It ended up giving me a pretty bad sepparated shoulder. Since the incident, I've only recently gotten back on my trainer and started to do some spinning... Unfortunately, I think I've gained about 5-10 lbs of fat since I got pretty lazy.
The good news is, I've been reading a few books on how to train... apparenly fat is the bodies most concetrated source of energy. Instead of feeling fat, I think I'm just feeling a little more energetic

 

Hmmm... yeah, I've been having trouble doing long rides of 100+ km. They usually leave me feeling fatigued for days even in good (sunny, 20 degrees) weather conditions. Well last Sunday I rode 107 km at 27 km/h avg (with one other rider as company, he's elite here in Finland and has won a few RR's) in 5-6 degree weather. Then after I rode 11 km to the food store and carried a few kilos of groceries back up the 500 m long hill to my apartment and only felt somewhat tired. I stayed up till 6 am getting a project done, and slept 12 hrs the next day, but felt pretty good and ready to go another 100 km on Tuesday.
My endurance is finally getting better.

 

good on you bikeguy. yeah i couldn't imagine me riding 175km's last week when i started but its great when you finish the ride knowing you have achieved something good.