Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Chopped Venison

Woke up Tuesday morning early enough to actually get some shizit done before work. Got out the mower, turned the corner to start mowin' and found half a deer in the front yard. Okay, it wasn't really in the front yard, more like on the berm, but a few choice parts did jettison themselves about and were subsequently sent through the mower deck.

Colin and I have been leading a cross class on Tuesday nights and its a heck of a lot of fun. Last time we hit the loop where they hold the Philly 2-day race and tried to make everyone barf up a lung with some intervals before progressing to the whole dismount/mount thing that is essential to cross racing. I'm always excited by the progress I see my athletes making and so far everyone is progressing real nice, getting more fit, eliminating hitches on the remount, getting comfy with the dismount, and getting psyched up to race.

I'm thinking about trying some cross racing this year. It'll work on my biggest weakness for sure with all the high intensity and that ought to help out for next year. Actually, I suppose my biggest weakness is that I'm not actually getting to the races this year, but we're (Cadence) doing this combo thing with CycleOps at a lot of the cross races this fall and that should let me get to at least one per weekend.

We'll be coming out to the events with a warm up tent featuring trainers from CycleOps that everyone will be able to use to prep for their races. We'll have a Cadence 'cross warm-up protocol for anyone to use and will also lead a lap of the course to preview with folks a few times throughout the day between the races. We're working to put together a PowerTap demo for the races too. Riders will be able to race with a PowerTap and then one of the coaches will go through a short analysis with the athlete post race. Pretty cool.

It is sweet when work and racing come together this well.

5 comments:

Chris Mayhew said...

I don't wanna bring anybody down but I don't think you'll find power data from 'cross races much use. I can provide you with some files and it's a perennial topic on Wattage.

Good luck with the season. Your Osterling farm races years ago was such a big inspiration to try "real" 'cross racing.

Unknown said...

crap, now you're making me want to race 'cross.

zayne braun said...

do teammates get some preferential treatment? pretty please

Frank Brigandi said...

that's a great idea Mike, the warm up before any race (especially a full on sprint that is cyclocross) is the key to enjoying the racing more versus focusing on the suffering and begging for a bullet from a spectator after each lap.....
Dismount/remount, very important. Lots of mountain bikers have zero clue as to why or how to dismount and hold some speed coming into an obstacle or technical area that they wish not to ride, it makes for solid decisions in racing instead of the last minute portage and subsequent bike hunt, or limb hunt...y'know?

Panascakes said...

Just two weeks left to grind yourself into a delicious racing paste and bake it into a 60mile iron cross worthy cake.