P.U.R.E. BIKE COACHING

ROUBAIX!!!!

2011-04-07T16:17:00.002-07:00

Well, I hope everyone had enough time to set some goals! Most people probably had time to set and accomplish goals since I posted last. Oh well, such is the way of the inconsistant blogger. With Roubaix finally just around the corner I couldn't contain my excitment any longer and decided I needed to post something. I haven't been able to race yet this season, so Roubaix will be my first test to see how the occasional (almost nightly) trainer sessions have paid off. I hope I'm ready to suffer, and I hope the Gods of Roubaix take mercy on me and hold off on the flat tires for a change. Myself and a few other PURE athletes will out there testing the legs and the competition. Should be fun. I hope to see all the usual suspects, and hopefully a few new faces on Sunday as well. Brad

SETTING SOME GOALS

2010-12-21T09:35:00.010-07:00

Let's talk about setting some goals for your upcoming cycling season. Setting goals is a very important step in not only setting up a training plan, but helping you keep the fire and motivation as the season progresses. I wrote a bit about goal setting this time last year, and it can be read here. I would like to expand on that a bit this year, maybe help a bit more as you try and determine your season goals, as well as give some additional info on what to do, or how to help achieve those goals.

So, first things first. What do you hope to accomplish this season? Are you new to racing and just want to improve some skills, get comfortable in the peloton, and maybe finish a stage race for the first time? Or, perhaps you've been doing this racing thing a while, and it's time to step it up and battle with the big boys, upgrade to CAT 2 and have a realistic shot at placing high some races. No matter what the goal, first and foremost it MUST be important to YOU. It doesn't really matter what other people want or expect from you, when the going gets tough, the training gets hard, and the distractions are everywhere, what you're going after MUST be important to you. Bike racing is hard. It doesn't matter if you're a CAT 5 just starting out, or CAT 2 capable of winning state or regional races, it's just plain hard. If you want to be successful, you have to be willing to work. If you don't really know why you're doing this or what you hope to accomplish, it is way to easy to just throw in the towel and go back to playing golf or whatever else you can do that doesn't require as much physical and mental preparation (and pain!) to be successful. So, the goal has got to be important, and YOU gotta want it, and want it BAD.

Another thing to consider is that the season goals have to be realistic. I used the Tour as an example of a dream in my other goal setting post. It's great to dream and think that someday you could be riding in the Tour de France, but for the vast majority of people, that is a dream, not really a goal. It's great to dream, and I think it is even good to have a dream goal. A dream goal is something that is most likely out of your reach, but something you really, really want and if everything happened just perfectly and you got really lucky, who knows, it could happen. Example might be to someday get noticed and signed by a pro team, or win a national championship. For some people, those are realistic season goals, for others, they are dream goals. A dream goal is something you can use to help motivate you when times get tough. You gotta keep working, you don't want to give up on your dream, right? So, it's great to dream, but your season goals are most important. They must stretch you, make you work hard and maintain focus, but they must be something that could realistically happen for you THIS season.

OK, the season goal(s) must be important and realistic. To me, these are the most significant qualities to have in a goal. If you have something that is important to you, and realistically possible, you will be willing to do what it takes to accomplish them. They also have to be something you can control. A goal of "winning the Tour de Bozeman" might be something that is realistic and important to you, but if Alberto Contador and his tainted beef show up, you're probably not going to reach your goal. I'd rather see the goal worded as "have the ride of my life at Tour de Bozeman". That way, it's possible to accomplish your goal and feel like you had a successful season, even if you don't get the win. It's ok, and even good to have more than one season goal, but try and keep it down to three or four, otherwise you are giving yourself to many different things to focus on as you move through the season.

Once you come up with some goals, you have to think of what it will take to accomplish them. These will be the things you need to focus your training on as you move through the season. Back to the Tour de Bozeman example, if that is your goal event you will probably need to improve your climbing ability, considering the nature of the course. You may need to work on training consistency, improving the structure of your training, improve TT position, drop a few pounds to reach a desired racing weight, or hire a coach to guide you on your journey. You will also want to come up with some short term goals to help you along the way. Some example of short term goals might be to cut one minute of your best climbing time up your local hill, achieve racing weight by April 1st, improve functional threshold power to xxx watts by a certain date, attend a week long training camp early in the spring, etc.

Once you have put some thought into this process, the next thing you NEED to do is write down your goals and tell people about them. I have a goal setting worksheet that I have my clients fill out. They have to write down there dream goal, season goals, what it will take to achieve them, and some short term goals that will help them reach the season goals. I not only have them fill out the worksheet, but ask them to write there goals down in other places, as well, For example, one of my goals this season is to drop a few pounds to get back to a leaner racing weight, so my goals are posted on the refrigerator. Every time I reach for a snack, I see my goals and it helps me decide whether I really need to eat now, or not. In the film "A Ride with George Hincapie" George talks about how he has his goals written down and hung in his closet, so every day when he dresses for his training rides he looks at them and it helps him focus his training. Write these things down everywhere you can, and tell as many people as will listen what your trying to accomplish. Once the people around you know how important your goals are, not only will they possibly be more understanding and do what they can to help, but it helps hold you accountable. All these people now know your trying to accomplish a certain goal, you don't want to let them down, so maybe you'll get that ride in today instead of skipping, even though you really feel like going to bed. See what I mean? It may seem like a bunch of mental mumbo jumbo, but trust me, it all helps.

As an example, and to help hold myself accountable, I will post my season goals here. I know Jason and Tomas will see them, not sure if (or why?) anyone else still reads this....

Dream Goal- Master National Cyclocross Champ

Season Goals:
- Have the ride of my life at Masters CX Nats, leading to a top 10 finish
- I have a specific MT road season goal here, the people around me will know
it, I just don't want Herzig to know, so I'll not post it here
- Be strong enough to be a factor and help the team at Elkhorn

What will it take to achieve these goals?

- focused and consistent training
- determination
- improved climbing ability
- improved bike handling for CX
- improved power to weight ratio

Short term goals to focus on throughout the season:

- Be fit and in the mix for a personal or team win at Roubaix
- Achieve racing weight by mid April
- Improve functional threshold power to 350+ watts by June
- Stay with the lead group on the climb heavy Cow Country course
- Consistently finish on the podium at Montana CX races

There's all the goals, etc for my upcoming season. I can now use this as a blueprint for where to focus my energy during training. The training will all be geared towards accomplishing these goals. Posting them here really will help hold me accountable, and strive even harder to accomplish them. Doing something similar could help you, as well.

Pick important goals, tell people about them, write them down everywhere you can, and work your tail off to make sure they happen. Time is wasting, now is the time to decide what your going to do this season. Better get to it.....

'TIS THE SEASON

2010-12-05T15:31:00.002-07:00

Ah, December. Winter in Montana, and time to be doing almost anything but biking or training, right? Well, I guess that depends on your situation and upcoming season goals. Some hardy MT racers are still going hard, with sites set on Cyclocross Nationals next weekend in Bend, Or. I had hoped to be one of the hardcore racers still grunting out intervals in December to prepare for battle at Nats, but, as always seems to be the case, life got in the way and my cyclocross season came to an unplanned early end. Other racers out there have been taking it easy for a while, recovering and recharging the batteries after a long season. Even though it is the dead of winter, they are probably itching to get back on the bike, or a least back to some sorta training regimen.

Really, a training regimen in December when the first races aren't until early April? Well, like I said, that depends and situations are different for each individual racer. For me, I raced and trained pretty hard up 'til about a month ago. Once I realized 'cross season was over for me, I decided to take a bit of a break. I took three weeks totally off the bike. I didn't even think about cycling or racing at all. I just hung out, did some hiking and hunting, and took some time to do other things that get neglected while training, and enjoyed life. Being the cycling junkie that I am, after three weeks off the bike I was ready to ride and start thinking about next season. As a CAT 2 racer with some lofty goals, crazy strong competition, and a strong team to try and support, starting serious training in December is pretty much a necessity. Even though the training is serious, it's starts out fairly relaxed with some easy riding, a bit of weight training, and hopefully plenty of cross training in the form of running, skate skiing, and hiking to try and minimize the time spent on the trainer or rollers. That said, I still spend the vat majority of my available training time on the bike. All the other activities are great, and will help build endurance, but if I want to excel at bike racing, I gotta spend time on the bike, even if that means riding the rollers for a couple months.

I have been doing this for a few years now, and I know from experience that I am mentally strong enough to handle a training schedule like this. Others may not be able to, and if they start to early, they may lose motivation and fizzle out before the races even get here. When to start and how hard to train are very individualized situations. If you are an experienced cyclist with lofty goals like myself, time is a wasting and you had better start thinking about what those goals are and how you are going to achieve them NOW. It'll be time to toe the line again before you know it, be sure you are ready. Newer racers may want to wait a bit to get serious, but as I said that is dependant upon the individual. No matter what your situation there really is no off season. Even if you aren't training seriously yet, it's always good to remain as active as you can and enjoy unstructured aerobic activities to help maintain fitness throughout the year.

So, enjoy your winter. Whether it's climbing ice, hitting the slopes, skate skiing, or even riding the trainer in a basement like I will be doing, you gotta stay active and start thinking about next season now. The first thing you need to be doing is coming up with some goals for next season. More on that later. Until then, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Training Year. I hope it's a great one.

MSU/GAS crossed, Thunder struck, and Kali bound

2010-10-22T21:41:00.002-07:00

As expected, it's been a while since I've made time to post on the blog. The last few weeks have gone by pretty fast, with lots of racing, a little training, and the other usual life events. I've found that if I don't post this stuff right away, it just doesn't get done.

By now, everyone who cares about the Bozo cross weekend and rolling Thunder knows what went down. Both events were great. The GAS and MSU guys put together a great two day race weekend in Bozeman at an exciting new venue. The courses were tough, yet fun and led to some good racing. For me, it was a tale of two days. Day one I started fast, took the hole shot, and almost immediately began to fade rapidly through the field. The beach section was killing me, and I just felt like I had nothing. I was totally disappointed with my ride/fitness that day. If my kids had not been there, I'm pretty sure I woulda threw my bike into the pond and possibly left it there for good, never to utter the word cyclocross again as long as I lived. Again, saved by the kids. Day two turned out much better for me. I again took the hole shot, wanting to be near the front as we hit the beach. After the first lap it was just Curry, Doll, and myself then a good gap to the chasers. I held on for a while, but again was foiled by the sand section, as I bobbled the tough turn coming off the beach. Curry and Doll got a gap, I tried to chase back, but with Curry drilling it around the pond, getting back on their wheel was pretty much a lost cause. I did my best to stay close, and eventually Doll slid out on a tricky gravel corner, allowing me to overtake him for second. JDoll suffered a mechanical in the crash, and was out. Curry was long gone, then me with Scott Herzig in hot pursuit. Either I began to fade again, or Herzig picked it up, because he was coming fast. It was beginning to look like a good battle for second, but with maybe two to go, Scott pretended to have a pedal problem so that he didn't have to get beat by me. I woulda waited for him to fix the pedal, but I had already waited for about two laps to allow him to catch me in the first place! Just kidding Scott, I think we both know you were gonna get me, but I was sure gonna try! Anyways, thanks to Doll and Herzig I was mostly gifted second place, but at least I felt like I had a descent ride for the first time this season. Plus, I won some cool gloves and a doughnut! Thunder was looming....

Thunder was great. Congrats to Radley and the crew for another super day of racing. The day started early with Mariah, Benji, and Griffen all repping GAS in the junior race. They all raced hard. Benji is getting faster each year, and I saw Griffen killing the tricky s turn descent, riding it fast and clean, just like eventual winner and pro mtb rider Sam Schultz-watch out Sam, in about seven or eight more years he's coming for you! And, Lisa Curry wasn't the only GAS rider to win at Thunder. Mariah was again crowned junior girls Thunder Champion. Way to go, Mariah! It was a tough course, imagine trying to ride it as 9 yr old girl (OK, I rode it LIKE a 9 yr old girl, but not AS one, there's a difference there). Mariah then hoped into the kids race. With a giant field of 20+ kids, Mariah and trey went one-two, both showing off their hard earned remount skills in front of a good crowd. Then, they got candy. It was a good day to be a kid. Heck, it was Rolling Thunder, it was a good day for anybody! In the 4/5 race, PURE athlete Aaron Johnson fought hard to finish second. He had a great ride, and is looking forward to this weekends racing up in the Flathead, where second place just won't do..... Once darkness fell, it was time for the elite race main event. I was surprised to get a front row call up, but took advantage of it by again getting a solid start (those short, hard practice start efforts are paying off) and was beat to the first corner by only Sam Schultz. He went fast, and I stuck on his wheel...for a while. I was a bit distracted by his acrobatic entrance and high speed going into the tricky s turn descent. Trying to match his speed on that feature was a bit much for me, as I bobbled a bit at the bottom and had to put a foot down. I had trouble clipping back in while powering up the off camber climb. This allowed Toby to get by and a gap to open. So much for that $220+ 1st lap prime ....From there I again began to fade. The fitness actually felt pretty good, but the tight loose turns were killing me. Too much time on the trainer, not enough time in the dirt...something for me to work on. I fought hard, but lost a few places over the next few laps. I was still comfortably in the top ten with four to go when I broke a spoke on the s turn and had to run about a half lap to the pit. The spectators were awesome. Some cheering me on, saying there's just no quit in him, great job, etc. while others said it was over. I should just quit and have a beer, it's the American way-hilarious. I ran it out, got lapped, got a wheel, and finished Rolling Thunder dead freaking last. Not what I had in mind, but that's racing.

OK, now we're up to date. I spent the last week working, got a couple good training rides in (trying to address this mid race fad, we'll see if it works) and looking forward to the Kalispell weekend. Woodland cross tomorrow am, with Heron Park on Sunday. I'm not sure who all is going to be there, but I don't think Mr. Curry will be, so we all get a chance to race for first overall, instead of first behind Curry! Who is gonna step up and take advantage? My money is on PURE athlete Jesse Doll. He had a great ride at Thunder, and just took another W last week at the Missoula Wed night series. So, if I was a betting man, I'd go with him. But, my heart says I can take him. See you in the morning, Jesse....

MOOSECROSS, FUEL TO THE FIRE

2010-10-05T14:39:00.003-07:00

The boys from Victor Velo once again put on a great weekend of racing at MooseCross. Great courses, top notch competitors, food, beer, prizes, movies, and even a place to crash (stay the night, that is, there are plenty of places to "crash" on the course and I found a new one again this year)-pretty much everything you could want from a cyclocross race. The GAS/Intrinsik team showed up in force, and a great weekend was had by all. Victor, Idaho is a pretty cool little town just outside of Jackson, Wy. It has small town charm and beautiful scenery. I wouldn't mind living there if it weren't for the crazy reverse angle parking on Main Street. I don't know how they ever got that passed. The city council must be out of there mind! (just kidding Dave, we pretty much all agreed the reverse angle parking was a sweet set up).

I hitched a ride down in the Curry van. I secretly hoped that just being in close proximity to Mr. and Mrs. Cyclocross, as well as Mrs. Freight Train would somehow make me faster. I tried to absorb all there 'cross secrets and knowledge on the ride down. Turns out even all there secrets and knowledge couldn't make me any faster. In fact, it seems to have made me slower, if that's possible. Thanks for nothing, John, Lisa, and Amy. Guess I'll be getting my secrets elsewhere in the future.....

Some highlights from the weekend, other than what mtcx.com already listed include:

* A dramatic crash by Tomas. He slid out at high speed as he hopped onto the sidewalk. I was right behind him, and it looked BAD. Kudos to Tomas for dusting himself off and getting back in the race in a big way. There's no give up in him.

A probably almost a s dramatic crash by your truly as I somehow managed to step into my front wheel while dismounting. This resulted in me flipping over into the barriers (ouch!) nearly taking out JDoll in the process, breaking spokes on my carbon tubular wheel (sorry Aaron, I know I promised to take care of your babies when I purchased them from you, hopefully it can be brought back to life with some new spokes and some TLC). Once I got my bearings about me, I had to run over 1/2 lap to the pit for a spare wheel. Needless to say, the race was over for me, but I decided to stay out there and at least get a workout and some much needed practice. The cool thing was I ended up back in right where I probably would have been without the crash. I caught a couple people, then had my sights on PURE coached athlete JDoll, but he proved to be to strong, and simply rode away from me the last few laps. The results show me in 6th place, but I was a lap down, and should be listed DFL.

*PURE coached athlete Jim Nallick had a strong ride in the Masters race. Turns out some of my ignorance must be rubbing off on him, as he chose to then hop into the CAT 4/5 race for another strong showing. Way to use that hard earned fitness, Jim.

*Junior GAS/Intrinsik racer Benji Nallick takes the hole shot, and holds on for the W in the junior race. Way to go, Benji!

* Day one ended with food, beer, awards, raffles, movies, and keg tossing. My right arm was a bit sore from my crash, otherwise I'm pretty sure I coulda took the keg toss W from Eric Horn. Next time, my friend, next time.

*Day two had an epic three way GAS/Intrinsik battle for domination of the masters race. Tomas, Alex, and Jared duked it out for the whole race with Alex coming out on top.

* To hop, or not to hop? There were some cool "shorty" barriers in day two's course. Racers were practicing and nervously deciding whether or not to risk hopping them. Hopping them proved to be faster, but a bit risky. It seems it turned out to be about 1/2 and 1/2 as far as hoppers vs. runners. LCurry showed up the women's field, as she was the only one hopping. It worked pretty good for her, except for that one time, whoops....

* PURE coached athlete Jesse Doll once again put the hurt on the coach as he rode to a strong 4th place finish behind some very fast dudes. I didn't crash this time, and at one point early I was right on his wheel. He simply rode away from me again. The student becomes the master...Guess we know who's doing there work and who's slacking.

It was a great weekend of racing. I gotta admit that I left there a bit disappointed in my performance. I feel like I have been training pretty hard, and thought the fitness should be coming around. It seems I'm right about where I was last season- just a touch behind the fast guys. Oh well. I will turn the disappointment into desire and train a bit harder. The season is long, and I still have time to make some improvements. I skipped out on work today and got in a solid workout of 5 minute VO2max intervals, which actually felt not to terrible. Now I'm off to GAS/Intrinsik Tuesday night cross practice to see if I can improve the skills enough to at least not crash into the barriers this weekend. Bozeman cross weekend is coming, will you be there?

TRAINER BOUND.....

2010-09-29T22:57:00.002-07:00

Man, can you believe this weather, It was incredibly nice here in Belgrade today. Not very "cross like", but I don't hear to many people complaining about it. Unfortunately for me, between work and shuttling kids, I didn't get a chance to enjoy it with a ride. So, another trainer session for me. As much as I complain about riding the trainer, it sure is an awesome training tool. You can really cause some serious self inflicted pain on those things. Since you don't have to worry about traffic, running into a tree, or even keeping your balance, you can really put the hurt on. At the end of some of the intervals, it's all I can do to keep from falling off the bike. I tend to make a few moaning, groaning, even cussing noises when I really push it. My wife said it sounded like I was having a baby down in the PURE coaching studio tonight. I told her what I was doing was probably much harder than having a baby. I don't think she liked that. But man, if having a baby is harder than what I was doing on the bike tonight, it must be pretty intense! OK, for all you mothers out there, I am sure having a baby is much harder than my little trainer ride, just saying I was hurting....I know you can hurt yourself out on a ride as well, but on the trainer, at least for me, I can take it just a touch farther it seems. I'll still complain about having to ride the damned thing, though, probably as soon as tomorrow if I'm unlucky.

KROSS KICKOFF- VICTOR, ID

2010-09-27T21:56:00.008-07:00

I spent last weekend down in the Jackson hole area. We headed down there for a soccer tournament that my daughter, Mariah, was in. It was a great weekend. Mariah got to play tons of soccer, I got to do some riding AND racing, Trey got to fish, Tawnya got to see one of her bestest friend in the whole world (besides me, of course) and we also got to make some new friends with some of the other soccer families. Awesome.

Like many great weekends, it started with some time in the car. Not always fun, but at least we were traveling through some of the most incredible places on the planet, so it wasn't all bad. We took a short break along the Gallatin so my son, Trey "Fishbrain" Morgan could wet a fly or two. He though he may have had a couple nibbles, but alas, no fish for dinner. Bummer.

More car time. We headed down through Yellowstone, saw a few critters, herd some bull elk bugling, and generally speaking had a grand old time. Everyone was impressed, as always, by the sight of the Tetons. Once in Jackson, we had a few hours to kill before meeting up with friends at the hotel, so we did the tourist thing and walked around downtown a bit. Fishbrain spotted a fly fishing shop, as usual, so we spent some time in there. The proprietor of the store was so impressed with Fishbrain's excitement for the sport, that he gave Trey a free fly box. Talk about making a kids day. Other than the fly shop, we pretty much decided downtown Jackson was crazy, expensive, and overly crowded, even this time of the year. If anyone is interested, we did spot a T-Rex skull fossil for sale. The sign said it was real, and only $375,000. Everyone should have one of those, right?

Next up was dinner, hotel, visiting, and sleep for an early am start to the tourney. Although the weather was awesome all weekend, being on the soccer fields at 7 am on frosty grass made for a chilly morning. The u10 Bozeman Blitz girls did their thing and played hard, coming out on top of game one, with Mariah scoring the winning goal. Next came about a 30 minute wait to get McDonald's for breakfast. The town was SO busy we couldn't get in anywhere without a huge wait, and even McD's had a line basically out the door. Crazy.

After that we headed back to the hotel, where I prepared to embark on my adventure. There was a 'cross race in victor, home of Moosecross, that I was interested in attending. To make it into a solid training day, I decided to ride to and from the race as well. Google said it was 27 miles from my hotel to Victor, but google didn't tell me about Teton Pass! Wow, that is a great ride. I think the sign said 10% for 5 miles on the Jackson side, and 10% for three miles coming back over. The climb up and over was great. I tried to keep it dialed back a bit with the racing ahead of me, but it was steep enough that I had to go fairly hard just to keep moving.

It really doesn't look like much in the photo, but that is a solid climb. Then, descending the other side was scary. Steep and fast, and the first time I'd done something like that on the cross bike. It felt like I could feel the lower psi tires just rolling around under the rim. Needless to say, I had to take it kinda easy on the way down.

Now the (supposedly) fun part, cyclocross racing. Lucky for me (or not) I arrived early enough to do the Masters race first, then the 1/2/3 race later in the afternoon. Shortly after arriving, I met up with Peter, another one of the "soccer dad's" from Mariah's team. I had told him about the race just that morning. He had brought his cross bike, and hoped to do a little riding over the weekend. Since he is a cyclist, and therefor slightly less intelligent than your average person, he, too, decided to come on over and do some suffering (HE was smart enough to drive over, though). I registered, dropped off a bunch of crap from my "commute" that I didn't need for racing, and went out to check the course.

The race was at the same venue as Moosecross, and the course was mostly the same as last year, with a few tweaks here and there. Next weekend is the annual Moosecross race, and anyone who goes can expect a good course with some of the same features as in the past, including the double barrier into the run up, the "narrows" (a twisty bermed section), a triple barrier section, the green monster (slightly different, and I'd say tougher than last year with some tight and off camber turns) and of course there will be loose dirt and plenty of bumps to contend with. There is a little more pavement added, as well a a trip around the brewery on some sketchy gravel to keep things interesting.

First up was the masters race. I started a bit conservatively, giving up the hole shot so I didn't have to be the early leader. After about 1/2 lap, I couldn't stand following anymore, and put in a solid dig. When I finally took a look back, it was me and one other guy, Troy Barry, WAY off the front. Near the end of lap one, troy got tired of following and took the front, I was quit content to sit on him, as I new he was super strong from previous years at Moosecross. He put in a few digs, but I stayed glued to his wheel for a couple laps. He was faster through the double barrier/run up than I was, and eventually opened a tiny gap there. But, once he had the gap, he took advantage, and I was unable to close it. I dug deep, and tried to limit the loses, thinking he may fade near the end. I stayed close enough to apply pressure, and he eventually went down in one of the corners. This allowed me to close the gap a bit, and I continued to push hard. Troy fell again over the green monster, and when I overtook him, he told me he was done, broken derailleur. With Troy out, and the next rider maybe 2-3 minutes back, I was able to cruise the last couple laps and save a little for the 1/2/3 race later in the day. This ended up being my first ever cross victory. I've been close, but never got the W. I always joked that the only race I would ever win with knobby tires on the bike was the dirt crit in Helena. Since they aren't doing that race this year, I figured I might go win less. My goal is still to win one of the MT races, but damn, some of you guys are freaking strong, and I just don't know if I can make it happen. I will try though, oh, I will try.....Also, great ride by soccer dad Peter from Bozeman. He rode strong, and held on for fourth place. Way to go. He was then smart enough to get in his truck to drive back over the pass to watch the girl's next soccer game. OK, so we know he's smarter than me, but does that make him a better dad, too?

The 1/2/3 race didn't go so well. Troy was able to get his bike repaired, and apparently didn't want to toy around this time. He took the hole shot, and went HARD from the gun. I stayed glued to his wheel, but this time only for the first couple laps, then he was GONE! I cracked big time. I went from "this aint so bad, I can do this all day," to "holy crap, I think I'm gonna die" in about one minute. Instantly I was done, and basically soft pedalling around the course. It didn't take long for Dave Bergart from Victor to fly past me, and eventually another racer rolled easily by as well. I did find the strength to put in one last hard dig to keep fourth place, but all in all it was a pathetic showing on my part. I can only hope it was a product of a hard week of training and the hard riding that day, because I'm gonna have to be MUCH better to battle with the MT boys. Time will tell.....

I knew as I struggled to the finish line that I had a good ride ahead of me to get back to Jackson, and I was worried. I figured I could manage, but the thing that worried me was that I didn't have a lot of time before the sun went down. So, not only did I have to drag myself back over the pass, but I couldn't do it leisurely or I would be caught in the dark. I probably could have scored a ride back, but what fun would that be, and again, I'm not that smart. So I put my bottle cages back on and set off. Nice and easy. Ate some bars, drank some water, felt...ok, until the road went up. That was the hardest climb I have ever done. I seriously had to stop, lean over my handlebars, and cuss outloud about five times before finally cresting the top. I was cold and hungry. I think the bonk caught me about half way up, and I'm not sure if I've shaked it yet. I have never been so glad to be done climbing, never. I took a short break at the top, added some layers, took a few photo's, and wished I had some more food....

From there I pretty much had it whooped. A screaming, scary 5 mile 'cross tire darn near rolling off the rim descent, trying not to kill myself, but chasing the sun at the same time. Once off of the main descent, I was able to ride the final eight miles or so on a bike path. This allowed me to slow a bit, as darkness wasn't quit as big of an issue since I was off the highway, but I still had to get back before I couldn't see where I was headed. I rolled into the hotel/resort area just after dark. Tawnya and the kids hadn't made it back from dinner, so I was locked out of our hotel room, still cold, and still hungry. Luckily there was a gas station near by, with some much needed calories to bring me back from the brink. The gas station attendant asked me how long I had been riding. I said, "To long." To which he replied, "Ya, it looks like it." A Snickers bar and some chocolate milk never tasted so good. Eventually, the family showed up with some dinner for me. Tawnya asked how I enjoyed my ride back. I lied and told her it was great, but I don't think she believed me.

Turns out Mariah's team won game 2, and she scored two goals while I was being a bad dad and racing my bike. What can I say, it's a sickness. Tawnya said it was the best game her team had played. They were in the championship game for sure, but still had one more bracket game before that. Both games would be against the same team from Boise. Bozeman started strong, but you could quickly tell the girls were outmatched by the Boise team. Those Boise girls played some great soccer. The spread the field, passed with precision, and made our girls chase the whole game. Although Bozeman fought hard, they were beaten handily by the Boise squad. The girls had a couple hours to rest and think about what to do different, and then they had to play the same team for the championship. I'm not sure what changed, but the Bozeman girls battled hard and made a game of it. They were led by a super effort from Alla "The Wall" in goal, but all the girls contributed and fought hard to stay in the game and keep it close to the end, finally losing a close battle 4-1 after a couple late goals from the other team. Mariah scored the Bozeman goal, and hustled her little butt off trying to help her team. Even though they lost, that was a great team performance, and a blast to watch. Great job, girls.

Well, that was about the end of the trip, with the exception of some more less than fun car time on the way home. We all had a great time, and can't wait to go again next year (I think I'll bring more food on the ride next time!) Next up, right back to Victor, ID for Moosecross next weekend. I'm excited to try again, this time focusing on the 1/2/3 race, with no master race or Teton Pass to wear me out first, hope it makes a BIG difference!

AND SO IT BEGINS

2010-09-24T07:38:00.002-07:00

Cyclocross season is finally here! I know there have been races going on in other places, and some hardy Montana racer have even travelled many hour to suffer with the best, but the Montana season starts tomorrow! The traditional (at least as long as I've been racing here) opening weekend in Butte gets thing rolling once again this year. Psyclocross and Copper Mountain Cross are both great races. I'm assuming most of the serious MT racers will be on hand to mix it up and see how they stack up against the competition this season. I know most of the racers are stoked and ready to get racing. Should be an exciting couple of races. I, for one, am ready to get the racing started. Unfortunatly for me, I will not be there for the Butte races this season. Mariah has a big soccer tourney in Jackson Hole, WY so we're headed there instead. Should be a good time, but I'm gonna miss throwin down with the boys and seeing how I stack up (or if I even stack up!) so far against the fast men of Montana. If I am lucky, I may get a chance to do a cyclocross race in Victor, ID (home of Moosecross) this Saturday while I'm down there, so at least I'll get some training and a little race experience under the belt. Good luck to all you racers, and especially to the PURE coached athletes that will be mixing it up. I'll see some of you next weekend, back in Victor for Moosecross, and many more of you the following week in Bozeman. Race hard.

Brad

BIG PLANS, BUT DENIED AGAIN

2010-09-19T21:55:00.002-07:00

Well, it turns out that at least Tomas reads this, so I better keep it going. Had big plans for today, but they didn't happen. Originally, a few weeks ago the plan was to be at Starcrossed/Rad Racing this weekend getting dirty and with the big boys of cyclocross, just to see what it's like. I trained pretty hard so I could at least not totally embarrass myself, but I just couldn't totally commit due to work, family, etc. Turns out my daughter Mariah had soccer games in Helena Saturday, so as soon as I found that out, the Seattle trip was off. At least I'd have one more good weekend of training before the racing starts, with one last chance to get in a solid long ride to boost the base fitness before changing things up to more short, high intensity cyclocross type efforts. Best laid plans.....

Mariah had been sick most of last week, but started to feel better Friday afternoon, conveniently enough so she could play soccer Saturday. She awoke Sat am saying she felt great, let's go play some soccer! I, however, woke to the beginnings of a sore throat and a bit of congestion, not good. Turns out that Mariah was also still feeling it a bit once she started running for the game. It slowed her down quit a bit, but she was a trooper and fought through both games, even scoring three goals along the way (she's a total stud) I actually didn't feel to bad for most of the day, and thought I may have gotten off easy, so I still planned on going for a long ride on the 'cross bike from my house out in Belgrade, up and over Flathead Pass, down Bridger Canyon, and back home. I did it last summer. I think it was about 90 miles, plenty of which is on gravel, with some solid climbing along the way. Well. no such luck. I woke up feeling much worse this morning. I was far from being on the death bed, but had a pretty bad sore throat, congestion, and headache to boot. No way I was dragging myself out of bed at 7 am for a long ride. I chose instead to try and sleep it off. I lazed in a few more hours, but felt pretty much the same as the day wore on. I was up and functioning, and thinking I could probably go for a ride, and I really wanted to. But, I knew what advice I'd give to a client in this situation. Rest and get better. Do not dig yourself a hole by training hard while your body needs the energy for healing. It's a long cyclocross season, and though it's frustrating to miss training days when your motivated and feeling strong, it's much smarter to take a few days off/easy and get over the sickness. If I can get through from now all the way to Nats in mid December with just this little sickness as a set back, I'll feel pretty lucky. Chances are I won't be that lucky. So, no training the last two days and probably nothing for tomorrow. Hopefully I'll feel better in time to go play with the rest of the GAS crew and other Bozemanites that are crazed for cyclocross on Tuesday evening for the GAS cyclocross practice. Good times practicing the skills and drills, and chasing Curry around for some practice laps, should be fun.

I'm back.....hopefully

2010-09-15T23:23:00.002-07:00

Ok, I'm obviously the worlds worst blogger, no surprises there. Time for the David EEEEEE time capsule to get pushed aside. My guess is there will be more to write about Mr. E in the future! I've been meaning to start posting again for about a month or so as I, as well as many other hardy Montana racers began preparing for the greatest time of the year, cyclocross season. I was stoked, training hard, and wanted to help get MT racers fired up for the season. Well, it just didn't happen. Now cyclocross season is basically here. Good thing Radley over at mtcx has been stoking the fire, 'cause I sure haven't been. Work, life, kids, training, etc is a full plate, and finding time to write useless crap no one really cares about is the easiest thing to put off, so that's what I do. I'm sure no one really missed my once a month ramblings, but I'm gonna try and bring them back. I'm going to try one last time to see if I can come up with some semi frequent blog posts throughout the cx season, and if I can't, then I will put this little show to rest for good. Ok, that's it for tonight. I don't want to use up all my ideas in one post, plus I gotta get up in five hours for some serious training. Tomorrow is gonna be some hard, fast(hopefully) practice laps, followed by a solid threshold session to finish things off. Then, as luck would have it, I get to go to work. Anyone care to sponsor me so I can quit my tile job? I need lots of money, and I'm not that fast. Just checkin'.

Keep it PURE,
Brad

DAVID EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

2010-05-02T22:59:00.005-07:00

David E leading the way at the Rocky Mountain Roubaix
www.jpsphotos.net

Who?

David Ellenberger, PURE coached athlete and GAS/Intrinsik racer solos to victory on the queen stage at the American Prarie Classic stage race in Malta, MT. I don't have all the details yet, but I heard that David went off the front with about 25 miles to go and held on for the win. I couldn't be more excited if it had been me taking the W. David is the perfect client. He works hard. No matter what kind of torture, I mean training, I send his way he gets it done- no excuses. I gave a brief "warning" to all you other CAT 4/5 racers early this year, but didn't want to say to much about how strong he was and make him a marked man. His season started pretty good with a decent showing at Frozen Flatlands, but was derailed slightly with a flat in Roubaix. I know he was riding super strong at Roubaix, and I was totally bummed to hear about the flat, but he handled it well, and continued to train hard. Well, the secret is probably out now. I'm telling you, don't give that guy an inch, because he'll turn it into a gap you can't close. He's packed with PURE power , and he's not afraid to use it.

Here's the email I reveived from David this evening:

Wow Brad...Today was the most excellent day of all my years cycling. Soloing to victory over the field was a thrill that I'll not soon forget! Thanks for all the help and encouragement this year and it looks like the hard work paid off big time. I'll give you a call tomorrow and we can chat about the weekend if you like.

Looks like he's giving some props to me, but he's the one doing all the work. Sweet spot rides, climbing repeats, threshold intervals, I name it, he does it. I am so glad to see it's paying off, because he deserves it more than anybody I know. However, I am a little concerned, because he said he wanted a coach so he didn't have to finish all the races on his own. I guess I'll have to hope he's OK with finishing alone off the front!

Congrats David. You deserve it.

SO DO YOU RACE INTERNATIONALLY?

2010-03-29T20:35:00.004-07:00

That was one of the questions that I was asked after winning the Downtown Billings Crit last weekend. I went off the front from the gun and lapped most of the field, which gave me quit a bit of notority with the crowd. I was like a big time celebrity after the race. People taking pictures, asking questions, and telling me how great I was. I tried to be humble and downplay the win as much as I could, telling people I was probably a little more serious about this racing thing than the rest of the racers, and that I usually can't win like that in a race against more equal competition. It was basically like picking on a bunch of CAT 4's, but hey, It's still fun to be king for a day once in a while.

The day started with a 5k run. I am most certaintly not a runner, but my daughter sure is. She wanted to do the 5k, so I did my best to keep up with her. She ran it in 25:54, taking first place in the 15 and under girls catagory (she's 9), and beating probably 3/4s of the adults in the run. She is quite the little athlete.

Next up, after killing a few hours in the big city, was the crit race. It was a cool event with a good crowd. There was a beer garden and lots of excitment. The course, however, was shall we say, not quit traditional. It had four, yes four, U turns, yes, U turns, per lap. My biggest concern was getting crashed out, possibly getting hurt, and missing some of the "real" racing that is just around the corner. Against my better judgment, I decided to go ahead and race. The "expert" catagory (it was not a USA Cyling event) had about 15 guys, most of whom were kitted up and looked pretty fit. I figured the best way to stay out of trouble on a totally sketchy course was to try and get off the front and ride solo. A NRO rider, Jeff, I think, got the holeshot, but I got around him after a couple corners and never looked back. 45 minutes of microbursts later, I had lapped most of the field and took the win. The crowd seemed to be impressed.

My wife Tawnya was up next in the "beginner" crit event. I got changed out of my GAS kit, and headed back over to the course to cheer her on and take pictures, and thats when the paparrazi hit. I felt like Lance Armstrong trying to get through a crowd. I was unprepared, and even left my bodygaurds at home, bummer. Tawnya was looking good and riding hard, but I had a hard time watching her as so many people wanted to talk to me about how great I was. I assure you, this doesn't happen everyday, so I tried to oblige and give everyone a chance to get a question or two. OK, it wasn't that bad, but I was pretty popular all of a sudden. People were patting me on the back, asking about how much I ride, taking pictures, even asking if I race internationally. I assured that lady that I definatly wasn't that good, and in a normal event I would have been racing with more experienced racers, and in fact, there were other strong racers, right here in Montana that could have even beat me. I could tell by the look on her face that she didn't believe me, though. Yes, I was king for a day. But, back to Tawnya. She had a great race, riding strong for the duration, finishing 3rd woman, and beating many of the dudes. Way to go Tawnya, looks like all that spinning is paying off. Next up for her, the Peaks to Prarie cycling event. Better get that aero position dialed in!

The day wasn't over yet, as Mariah didn't get enough from her little run, and decided to hop into the "fun" crit to end the day. It was awesome watching her race. She was so serious, almost sprinting from corner to corner to corner to corner (you get the point), riding aggresive and having fun. She even got to sprint for the line against a guy on a red cruiser bike, barely nipping him at the line (thanks to a well timed pull of the brakes, thanks dude on the red cruiser!) Again, a great job by Mariah. She's the defending Rolling Thunder junior girls champion, as well as MT state Champion, girls age8 bmx racer from last year, and I predict some big things from her on the bike this season.

So, we all had a great day at a fun event. My 1st place prize was a bike donated to World Bicycle Relief in my name, which I thought was pretty cool. I talked with several of the racers, and some people who helped put on the races. Hopefully next year they can get more streets closed, make a better course, and some more of us racers can go put on a real show. I think I will ask for an appearnce fee though, since I'm such a superstar.

My head swelling didn't last to long, as the next day was spent chasing Frykmans wheel all around the Bridgers. Back to reality and the realization that racing is hard, and I am definatly NOT the king. The fun and pain of Roubaix is coming soon. I have been dealing with some knee issues that have kept me off the bike a bit, so the training has faltered a little lately. I plan on being as ready as I can be, though. Maybe I'll bring the bodygaurds this time, just in case....

My TSS is through the roof this week

2010-03-05T22:12:00.002-07:00

Unfortunately, the TSS I'm talking about is tile stress score. I'm dealing with some looming deadlines on a couple big tile projects I'm working on up in Big Sky, so the tile stress is high. The real TSS that is important to a cyclist is training stress score. When you train with power, each ride is given a training stress score, based on the duration and intensity of the ride relative to your functional threshold power (it can also be estimated based on heart rate and/or perceived exertion). You can use TSS to plan how much training you do every week, or over a longer period of time. The TSS can also be used to build a performance manger chart, which is an awesome tool for tracking fitness, freshness, and fatigue over the course of the season. It's kind of a snapshot of your recent training, and can be used to help plan future training and peaking periods. More on this later, right now I have to much tile stress to deal with. No ride tonight, but tomorrow I get my aerobic workout from grouting 500 square feet of slate floor, not the best way to spend a Saturday.

ANOTHER GREAT WEEKEND

2010-02-28T23:56:00.003-07:00

To bad it has to come to an end with another Monday tomorrow! Mariah, Trey, and I spent ALL day Saturday at the rink in Billings for Mariah's figure skating competition. She had three events, did awesome,and came home with two gold and one silver medal-way to go Mariah! Tawnya had to stay home so she could teach a charity spinning class at Gold's gym in Bozeman, which was also a big success. She really enjoys teaching spinning, and already has a reputation for being the "tough" instructor. I haven't had the pleasure of taking one of her classes yet, but from what I hear, I may not be able to handle it! If you're from the area and looking for a good workout, check her out at Gold's or Manhatten Athletic Club, just be prepared for battle when you show up.

Today ended up being a beautiful day. Mostly sunny, and probably about 40 degrees so I got out for a long ride. I had a great ride with GAS teammate Tomas and GAS teammate/PURE coached athlete David Ellenberger. They were both riding strong, pulling hard, and we had a great time cruising around the Gallatin Valley, we even threw in some gravel roads for Roubaix training. Many of you Montana racers may not know David, but I predict he will make a mark on the CAT 4 field this season, and everyone will soon know who he is. Consider yourself warned! They called it a day after about three hours, but I rode on for a couple more, all mostly easy stuff, just putting in the miles. I made it to the 5 hr mark, and also hit just over 100 miles for the day. That's pretty good, at least for me at this time of the year it is. Some seasons I don't hit 100 miles all year, so I'll call today a success.

My season training is off to a pretty good start. Here my performance manager chart up to this point. The CTL is rising, just hope I can continue that trend for a while longer.

Another good week of training is in the books, unfortunately it's back to the world of tile, mud and Big Sky in the morning. Lucky me!

Burrr

2010-02-21T23:04:00.003-07:00

Things have been going ok with the training recently with a few exceptions. Last week was a rest week for me, which was definitely needed after four solid weeks of training. The only problem was I took rest a little to seriously, and ended up only getting in a few rides for the whole week. It was way to easy to convince myself that I could skip that day, since it was a rest week, and next thing you know I had skipped three in a row. Oh well, I needed the rest, and seemed to come back pretty strong this week. At least until we had a team meeting on Thursday evening, which was to include a "short, easy, run." I guess a short easy run for someone who runs can be a battle for survival for someone who doesn't. Actually, the run wasn't that hard, but since I haven't ran a step since cross season, it basically left me hobbled for a few days afterwards. I couldn't believe how sore I was, guess I'll have to skip the run next time. Ouch! Other than the run, the meeting was great. We decided on a few things for the upcoming racing season, mainly that we WILL dominate the Montana race series, consider yourself warned if you dare race against the mighty GAS/Intrinsik machine! Just kidding, we do hope to have a good season, though. If only we can get Frykman to do some training. He looks to have gained about 25 lbs and hasn't touched his bike for months. Not sure what his problem is, maybe it's because he's so old? And Curry, he is still just reminiscing over a great 'cross season, and doesn't seem to think it's time to train yet, hope he comes to his senses soon. Tomas and Lussier do a little climbing and skiing, but that's not really training, is it? Sebastion is to busy hanging out with his son Willy to really care about training. All he does is change diapers and play peek-a-boo all day, not sure how fast he's gonna get doing that. Simmons says he's just racing against the college boys, because you Montana boys are just to fast for him. Only Jason D seems to be on the right track, as he has hired a coach (yours truly) and started to get serious. So I guess this season it will be the Brad and Jason show until about July when the rest of the guys get fit, if they ever decide to. Hope we can pull something off, but it doesn't look to promising.

Anyways, I tried to do my part to help the team by putting in four hours in the sunshine today. To bad it was only a little over 20 degrees or so. Things like bottles, fingers, toes, and beards got a little icy! Also to bad none of the rest of the guys were man enough to join me, they missed a good, although slightly chilly ride!

NO PAIN, NO GAIN, RIGHT?

2010-02-10T22:33:00.003-07:00

No pain, no gain, we've all heard that before. Far to many cyclists take this to heart. They believe if they aren't killing themselves with super hard efforts, they are not going to get faster. I'm sure in some instances, no pain no gain is correct, but in cycling, it couldn't be further from the truth. Pain and suffering are, of course, huge parts of what makes competitive cycling so beautiful. To do well in this sport, you have to be willing to suffer. Yes, if you didn't know, there will be suffering. You have to put your body through sometimes excruciating pain, dig deep, as they say, into the suitcase of courage, ignore the pain, and keep pushing. I hate the pain, yet I love the pain. I can't really understand that love-hate relationship, but if you're reading this, you know what I'm talking about. So, to win, yes, there will be pain, guaranteed. But, to make gains, to get better, to become faster, more efficient, more technically sound, more tactically smart, no real pain is necessary. Oh, it requires plenty of hard work, a little dedication, perhaps a pinch of insanity and an almost unnatural love for riding and racing, (having an understanding wife helps, too) but it doesn't have to hurt. At least not all of the time, not yet.

We've all also heard about building the base. This is the time of the year when we should be working on building our base. I think most people know that, but many aren't sure the best way to go about it. Some people will take this to an extreme and do nothing but long slow rides for a few months, and others will totally ignore the concept, saying base is a myth, and just ride hard. In certain instances and situations, both concepts could be correct. For most cyclists, finding a bit of a happy medium if probably the best approach.

To help understand why base building is important, it is helpful to know a little about the adaptions that take place within the body as a result of this base training. It is important to know that, yes, you can get faster by riding slow. Why? Because you are training your body to work more efficiently. Cycling is an aerobic sport, meaning most of the energy required for you to make the bike move comes from your aerobic system. To train the aerobic system, you have to keep the intensity somewhat low. Aerobic training starts in zone 2, which is a fairly easy intensity that you can sustain for several hours, but the aerobic system continues to see benefits from higher intensity training as well. As you increase the intensity of the workout, the rate of most of these adaptions also increases, up to about threshold or so. The trade off is that the higher the intensity, the more recovery your body needs to reap the benefits from the workout, and be able to train again. So, you can ride zone 2 every day, recover easily, and see some improvement. Or, you can ride a little harder, for a little less amount of time, get the same benefits, but, you have to take more time off the bike to recover. You can't just go out and do threshold intervals without working up to that point, otherwise your body will be cooked after one session, leading to several days off the bike as you recover. This is another example of how you can get more benefit from a couple of easier rides, than one hard ride that forces you off the bike for a couple of days. Finding the right mix is the critical part.

How does this all work? As you cruise along at a fairly easy, say zone 2 pace, your body is adapting. There are several things that happen, here are just a few in fairly simple terms. Your heart is actually getting bigger, increasing the stroke volume and maximal cardiac output. Basically, your heart pumps more blood with each stroke, which means more oxygen is delivered to the working muscles where it is needed. You are also increasing the size and number of the mitochondria in your blood. The mitochondria are basically little power plants, converting oxygen into energy. The more of these little guys, the better. You are teaching your body to use more fat as fuel. We all have plenty of stored fat (even Frank G and Scotty H) to supply our bodies with energy for a very long time, but as we increase intensity, less and less of our energy demands are met with the stored fat. So, by riding somewhat easy, the body becomes more efficient at using the stored fat. This spares the use of the muscle glycogen, which is needed for higher intensity efforts and is depleted faster. Once depleted, it has to be replaced in the form of consumed carbohydrates. These easy rides also increase the muscle's ability to store glycogen. By using less glycogen and storing more, you will obviously have more available for longer periods of time when you need it to supply the muscles with energy. Even while riding easy (no pain), your body is adapting to the training. All of these adaptions lead to a more efficient aerobic system, which will lead to you becoming faster rider (GAIN!).

But what about the many higher intensity efforts that are required in a bike race? They, too, benefit from this aerobic training. Even when you're going all out, some of that energy is being supplied by the aerobic system. Once any efforts gets past about 30 seconds, you've used up all your stored or readily available energy and the body has to produce more, some of that is supplied by the aerobic system. The bigger your aerobic engine is, the harder you can go during those higher intensity efforts. Sure, later in the season you will have to start doing some of those harder, pedal until you almost puke efforts to get you ready for the demands of racing, but for now it's best to focus on your aerobic base.

My recommendations for this time of year are to mix things up, but keep it pretty easy. I do as many long, fairly easy rides as I can make time for, but I also do plenty of shorter tempo paced rides. Consistency is important. Make every day count, whether its a training day or a rest day. Throw in some cross training, do a little on the bike leg strength work, build up to sweet spot and eventually threshold intensity efforts, and by the time spring shows its face around here, you should be pretty fit, and ready for the pain.

2010-02-03T23:56:00.004-07:00

Another two hours on the trainer tonight. Visions of gravel climbs danced through my head....

Can't wait for the Roubaix. I'm training hard, are you?

WINTER/SPRING TRAINING PLAN

2010-02-01T21:40:00.002-07:00

I hope everyone out there is starting to get some good training in. I have been pretty consistent with getting some time on the bike over the last month. The CTL is rising, and I'm starting to feel pretty good on the bike, I only hope I can keep it up as the season approaches. I've been keeping busy with work, the family, and doing some coaching, so it's hard to squeeze the training in. I try and make it a priority, and often neglect other things that need done (like sleep) so I can ride. Trading sleep for training isn't the best plan, but I have to take what I can get. One of the projects I've been working on lately is a 14 week training plan. It is designed to help cyclists build an early season base and get them ready to start racing in the early spring. Here is a brief description-

This plan is written by Coach Brad Morgan, a Level 2 USA Cycling Coach, team coach for the GAS/Intrinsik Architecture Cycling Team based out of Bozeman, MT and a CAT 2 road and 'cross racer. For more information about Coach Brad or the GAS team, go to purebikecoaching.blogspot.com or gascyclingteam.com. Any Montana racers may contact me for a promo code to receive this plan at a reduced cost. This training plan is built for a cyclist that is racing at the CAT 4/5 level and wants to finally make that CAT 3 upgrade, or maybe a new CAT 3 hoping to become more competitive at that level. The 14 week plan is designed for late winter/early spring base building, and will not take you to your peak fitness, but it will get you strong and ready for the early season races. This plan has race weeks planned for weeks 10 and 14. This base building plan starts off fairly easy with zone 2 rides, adds in some leg strengthening rides, then builds to tempo, sweet spot, threshold, and eventually some climbing and higher intensity workouts in the later weeks. All workouts are on the bike, or strengthening your core. The training weeks are tough, and weekly training volume is in the eight to ten hour range. If you follow this plan, at 10 weeks you will not be at your peak, but you will be ready to race. More importantly, at the end of the plan you will have a strong foundation on which to build your in season and late season fitness. You will be able to take your peaks higher, leading to a more fulfilling and successful racing season, with perhaps a few podium appearances along the way. Happy training.

As mentioned in the description, the plan has race weeks planned at week 10 and week 14. I had hoped to have this done a couple of weeks ago, but didn't quit make it. So, for you Montana racers, if you start this week, that puts the race weeks in line with the Montana Roubaix, and the Belt Omnium, two of Montana Cycling's early season classics that everyone hope to do well in. This is a one size fits all plan, which mean that it is probably not perfect for any one racer, but should work well to be sure you heading in the right direction with your training. I still have room for maybe one more full time client if you would like a more personalized coaching plan designed specifically for you and your goals. The 14 week plan is for sale on the training peaks website, and can be previewed and purchased here . The plan is 1/2 price for all Montana racers who contact me for a promo code. GAS race team members, you can contact me to receive the plan for free.

Time for another trainer ride,
Brad

RIDING THE TRAINER

2010-01-20T22:54:00.002-07:00

Everybody loves riding the trainer, right? Ya, right. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a necessary evil for some of us. Winter time in Montana isn't the best for a cyclist. The weather and road conditions usually cooperate at least a couple times each month, but for the most part riding outside is limited. If and when you can't ride outside, there are tons of other activities that you can do to get in a good aerobic workout. Things like skiing, hiking, snowshoeing, ice climbing (for you brave souls), and running are just a few ways to get outside, embrace winter, and get a good workout in. The GAS Team puts on a great Tuesday Night Headlamp Crosstraining Series where people meet up and do many of the above mentioned things as a group. Good fun, and good training to boot. However, for some of us, it's hard to fit things like that into the schedule, so that leaves the option of no workout, or the trainer.

We've all heard the great advice out there on how to make the trainer rides more exciting, or at least bearable. Things like having a fan, drinking plenty of fluids, watching television (I prefer hockey, go Avs!)or cycling videos, listening to good music, doing specific workouts, and keeping the ride short are all great ideas. For me, the hardest part of any trainer ride is just getting on the bike. It's way to easy keep putting the ride off until it's to late to do it. Or to tell yourself you feel a little tired, skipping today is probably best. Some days, if you really are to tired, taking a rest day IS best, but using it for an EXCUSE to avoid the trainer just leads to decreased fitness, and increased chances of getting dropped when the racing starts. Remember, every day counts, even the days that you don't feel like riding the trainer. The thing that best helps me avoid those missed rides is focusing on how good I feel after a ride, rather than on how bad it sucks to have to ride the trainer. I always feel great after a good ride, whether it is on the trainer or outside. I know if I skip the ride, I'll feel like crap for cheating myself, and if I do the ride I'll feel great afterwards. It may seem cheesy, but it works for me. There are not a lot of positives about riding the trainer, but try to find one that works for you and use it to your advantage, so you can get the most out of your training in these cold, dark winter months.

Keep it PURE,
Brad

THRESHOLD TEST-OUCH!

2010-01-13T21:53:00.002-07:00

With the new racing season looming on the horizon, I decided it's time to get a little more serious about my training. I've been doing some riding for the last few weeks, but nothing really serious or structured, just putting in some easy miles. I think it's only 13 weeks until the Montana Roubaix in Missoula, and I want to do what I can to be ready to race by then. The Roubaix is always a tough race. Everyone has been training hard(unless you ask, then no one has been on their bike for weeks, maybe months) and they're itchin to test their fitness. The course is challenging, and the weather is always a question at that time of the spring. GAS was a dominate force in the race last year, taking 1st and 2nd overall, and we will definitely do what we can to repeat that this year. The Freight Train is already rolling. Flurry Curry is coming off a crazy good 'cross season and will be flying. Hardman Lussier is keeping fit climbing ice and skiing, and will probably not even look at his bike (other than his commuter, of course) between know and April, yet he'll still be killing it. New dad Sebastion is probably chasing little Willie around non-stop, but I'm guessing he'll find time to squeeze in some quality training, so he can be ready to ride away with the race if the opportunity presents itself. Tomas also has kids to chase around to keep him in shape, that is when he's not chasing or leading Alex up some crazy ice climb. He, as well as Jason D. and the rest of the GAS crew, will be ready to race for the win, or support the team goals. We may even have a surprise or two up our sleeves this year, time will tell. 13 weeks seems so far away at times, like when I'm riding the trainer and wondering why, but it'll be race day before we know it. I, for one, am excited. I heard from a reliable source that Sam Krieg was planning on racing the Roubaix this year. When I heard that I told my wife I wasn't worried about it and my new moto is " I'm not afraid of Sam Krieg." Then, I ran downstairs and put in an extra two hours on the trainer! (OK, I'm a little afraid)

Part of being more serious with the training is testing. I did a threshold test last Sunday, and boy did it hurt. I train with power, so the purpose of the test is to determine my functional threshold power (FTP). I then use the FTP to determine different training zones. The different training zones are used to set the intensity level of each and every ride I do. The intensity at which you train helps determine the adaptions that take place in the body as a result of the training. The adaptions that take place in the body are what leads to you being fit, or not. Once you know more about what happens within the body as a result of the training you do, you can train smarter, and get where your going (achieve your goals) faster. More on this later. So, back to the test. The test I choose to do is hard. But, I like it for several reasons. It is repeatable, it can be done alone, (although having a coach or another rider there to offer advice and motivation can be helpful), and the numbers don't lie. There is no human judgement involved. Some tests may be physically easier, but they rely on a coach or the test administrator to determine threshold based on watching breathing patterns or by having the tester to give out perceived exertion numbers. These tests can be good if both the coach and rider are experienced enough to give accurate responses, but sometimes this is not the case. My test simply relys on your legs to push the pedals, and a power meter to record the data. There is a specific test protocol that I go through, but the FTP is based on a twenty minute time trial. You go as hard as you can for twenty minutes, and if you do it right, it hurts. Well, I must have done it right, because it hurt. I felt like quitting after about 5 minutes, but stuck it out and found my rythme. I felt better in the second half, but it still hurt. I actually threw up when the twenty minutes ended and I started to soft pedal. Wow, I haven't done that for a long time. That sets the bar kinda high, now whenever I do a test, if I don't throw up I won't think I went hard enough. Oh well, I'm just glad it's over and I don't have to do it again for a while.

Throwing up was the bad news. The good news is that the FTP number is higher now then it was mid February last season. So, If I can continue to neglect my job (which I plan to do) and get some good, solid training in over the next couple months, I should be ready to go wheel to wheel with Sam Krieg in April, at least for the first lap or so!

PROOF THAT MONTANA CYCLING IS TOUGH

2010-01-07T23:21:00.009-07:00

TJ Van Garderen is living the dream. Many of you who have raced in Montana for a few years will remember TJ. He spent some time living and racing both in Bozeman and Missoula when he was a young up and coming racer. He put the hurt on us old guys many a time while he was here. Just for the record, I did beat him once at a road race in Helena. He was maybe 15 years old, and I had a teammate to help me, but regardless, I still crossed the line ahead of a future pro! Pretty sad that barely beating some young kid in a bike race is my claim to fame, but you take what you can get! I believe he is America's next hope for a future Tour win. Here's a link to a recent interview he had with cyclingnews.com as he prepares for his first season as a protour rider for Columbia-HTC. Go get 'em, TJ!

THE "OFF" SEASON

2010-01-05T21:32:00.003-07:00

I was down in the PURE Cycling Studio (cold, dark, unfinished basement) the other night riding the trainer when a good friend of mine called. He asked what I was doing. I told him I was riding my bike. He kinda giggled and said "Why are you doing that. It's only January. Isn't this the off season?" My friend is new to cycling, having just bought a mountain bike last summer. He still thinks cycling is JUST about having fun. Maybe he's one of the lucky ones, and it will always just be about having fun. For some of us, it turns into something a little more than just fun. Sure, it starts out innocently enough. You go for a ride, get some exercise, have a little fun. Then, you realize, the more you ride, the faster you can ride, and the MORE fun you can have. Pretty soon, your riding more, just so you can ride more, makes sense to me. Then, somehow, some way you decide to do a race. Game over. Now your a competitive cyclist, you'll never be the same. Now, it's more than just fun. Your going to go through a slight metamorphosis. Subtle changes, like watching what you eat, trying to get more sleep, drinking more water and less beer. Ya, crazy, I know. Other changes are not so subtle, and you may receive a little bit of disapproval from people close to you. Things like shaving the legs, spending large chunks of cash, and usually credit on cycling stuff, wearing lycra and neglecting work, family, etc to get in a long ride or race. You're no longer only riding, you're training. Before you know it, you find yourself down in your basement, riding a bike on a trainer, pedaling fast, but going nowhere, in January. Believe it or not, to me, at least, that can still be fun. I've gone through that metamorphosis, so for me, there is no off season. There are breaks, and time away from the bike, but to get faster, you gotta ride. Here's a short list, in no particular order, of some of the many reasons you'll find me on my bike in January- Josh Tack, Scott Herzig, Clint Muelfeld, Frank G, Matt Butterfield, Ben Parsons,and Matt Seely to name a few. And there are more. Montana may not be a "hotbed" in the cycling world, but we have some strong riders, and most of our races are pretty intense. All those guys are beasts, and if I'm not training, I don't have a chance of competing with them. Not to mention some of the strong men on the GAS team-John Curry, Alex Lussier, Seb White, and Brian Frykman. If I don't ride my trainer in January, I won't even be able to hang on their wheels on a group ride later on, let alone try and help them win some races. So, ya, for me, there is no off season. Enough blabber, I gotta go ride.

LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD

2010-01-02T23:23:00.005-07:00

Welcome to the start of another year. This is the time of year when many people look back on the past year, reflect upon how things have gone, and make resolutions to try and improve different aspects of their lives. I've never been much of a resolution person. It seems most people tend to make resolutions that are a bit unrealistic, and pretty tough to stick to. I am, however, a goal oriented person. I think everybody should have goals in their life. Whether it's for cycling, work, or just life in general, having something to strive for is important. Setting goals is one of the first steps in designing a season training plan. Goals should be specific, challenging, realistic, and something you REALLY want to achieve. Winning the Tour de France, at least for anyone who might be reading this, is probably not a realistic goal. Now, that said, it's great to have dream goals, as well. Something that is borderline crazy, but if everything fell into place and you worked your hardest, it just might someday, somehow be possible. In that case, winning the Tour might be a dream goal for some of you out there. My son is five years old and plays termite hockey. He has already said that one day his name WILL be on the Stanley Cup. Hey, I'm not gonna squish that goal. In fact, I'll do whatever it takes to help him get there. The odds are obviously against him, but it's great to dream. Your season goals, the things you base your training on, should be much closer to the realm of possibility. They have to be important to YOU, not to anyone else. Having the support of other people in reaching your goals is great, but you gotta wanna do it, otherwise it's just to darn hard. So, set some goals. Decide what you want to accomplish with all this training you plan on doing, otherwise, you might just wake up one day and decide it's a lot easier to not train. Set some goals, and don't give up on them.

Here's where the looking back comes into play. You've set some goals, you're excited to train and have a successful racing year, now what? You need a plan. One of the first things you should do while planning for the upcoming season is look back at last few seasons and ask yourself a few simple questions. Did you meet your goals? Did you have a plan? Did you follow through with your plan? What went well with your training? What went wrong with your training? Did you give it your all? Can you, or are you willing to, give more to meet your goals? How can you use these experiences to improve your training and racing this year? So, crack, or click, open your training journal/log and start checking things out. Did you spend adequate time building your base? Was your training load unrealistic, and you missed/skipped many sessions? Did you allow for adequate recovery? Did you feel consistently tired, or perhaps never tired? These questions and many, many more can be answered by going through previous years training journals. You did keep a training journal, right? If you didn't, you're missing out on one of the most valuable training tools you have at your disposal. With no training journal to look at, you will have a hard time answering some of those questions. If you don't know when you were doing what, for how long, and if it worked, your basically starting from scratch. Even if you've been doing this a few years, and think you have a good idea of what you did, you don't really now what to change to get the improvement your hoping for. Keeping a journal can seem like a chore, but it doesn't have to be. Make it part of your routine. Once it becomes a habit, it's not that big of a deal, and later on when you need some info, it'll be there.

Those are the first basic steps to getting your season started. Set some goals, come up with a training plan that will get you there, and use your past seasons training journals to help you decide which route to take to get there. Of course, there will be many obstacles and decision to make along the way. Hopefully, I'll be around to update the blog more than once a year, and I will post a little more advice on many things related to training. If you've got specific questions, or anything you would like me to write about, leave a comment or send an e-mail. Otherwise, I'll see you on the roads. I am really looking forward to this season, and have already started my little training journey. I've picked up a couple new clients for coaching this season, and I'm stoked to help them achieve there goals and rip some legs off of the rest of you Montana racers as well. I only have room for one or two more full time clients, depending on the level of coaching involvement desired. Contact me if you're interested. Here's to a great 2010, for me, at least, it's gotta be better than my injury and illness filled '09.

BUSY WEEK, TIME TO RACE AGAIN

2009-10-03T12:33:00.002-07:00

This last week has been a busy one for me. I'm in the middle of a big project in Big Sky for work, and with the drive back and forth every day and trying to spend a little time with the family, there is barely any time left to train. I better get used to it, since I will be working up there from now until well past the end of the CX season. Lucky me.

After my results from last weekends races, I was ready to train hard again this week and hopefully start to make some progress on my high end fitness. My ability to repeat those hard efforts for an hour is definitely my weakness right now. I had high hopes of getting in a decent ride Sunday evening after racing that morning, but life got in the way, and that was another ride missed. Monday was back to work, then coaching Mariah's soccer practice for Tawnya, as she had her first spinning gig come up that evening, which is cool. So, no ride again Monday, which wasn't to big a deal, as it was just going to be an easy spin anyways. I woke up way early Tuesday and went for a good one hour run with the dog. I did a few short hard sprints and also ran hard up the one little grass hill by my house about 10 times. I still hate running, but it's getting easier. Tueasday evening I did a trainer workout, which I call the hour of power. After a good warm up, I did 2 min at about 120% threshold power, then 2 min easy, repeat for an hour. This doesn't sound to bad, but it gets pretty hard at the end. I cooled down and did some stretching, realized it was midnight, and had to hit the sack. Another busy day Wednesday led to another evening trainer session. This time it was an hour of sweet spot with a short hard burst every five minutes, recovering only back to sweet spot power. I was feeling a little fatigued, and only lasted about 40 minutes with this one before throwing on the towel and spinning easy for the rest of the hour. Thursday night, you guessed it, another late night trainer ride. I had planned on doing some microburst efforts, but could tell right away that I was to tired for that. The long work days with little sleep, along with the couple fairly hard rides earlier in the week had caught up with me. I decided to skip the intervals and just rode tempo for about an hour and a half, then hoped onto the treadmill for a short hard run with the treadmill set on the highest incline possible. Midnight again, so no core work. I need to make sure and get more of that in next week. Friday was a scheduled rest day, and I think it was needed, even though my training hasn't been to tough this week.

That brings us up to today, where I planned on heading over to Helena for the omnium, but have decided that I have to much stuff to get done. I am skipping out today, but plan on racing the two races tomorrow. Mariah will also be making her junior cyclocross debut, hope it goes well for her. In preparation for tomorrow, I just finished an hour easy ride with about five short hard sprints and a little time on some single track to open up the legs and work on the bike handling. I feel pretty well rested and ready to roll.

Tomorrows race should be a tough one. I expect all the heavy hitters to be there, and that Helena course is tough and technical. I think I'm a little better at the running this year, so that should help on that course. I remember my back aching and feeling totally wasted after the race last year. It'll be hard from the gun, hopefully I can hang with the leaders a little longer this week. The dirt crit following the cx race is pretty cool also. I won that last year on a solo break, wonder if I can do that again?

Brad

PSYCLO AND COPPER MOUNTAIN CROSS RACES

2009-09-27T21:14:00.002-07:00

The rest week is over, and my first races of the season have come and gone. It was 'cross racing, so you know two things took place, fun and pain. Check montanacyclocross.com and the GAS website for race reports. I started strong and raced with or near the leaders for about the first half of both races, then faded back as the races went on. I think I finished in 8th on Saturday night, and 5th on Sunday. The course on Sunday suited me much better, as I think I lost a ton of time Friday night on the descents. With the training I have been doing, that is just about exactly how I expected my first races to go. I have spent the last month trying to raise my threshold power, but have spent very little time above that power. One of the key components to any training plan is specificity. That is, you have to train specifically for the type of event in which you will be competing in. Cyclocross racing demands much time above threshold in the form of short, hard bursts of power, a little recovery, then repeat again and again and again. Now that I have put some time into building that threshold power, I can now start doing some of the shorter, harder interval work that will help me be able to repeat those hard efforts. I will still spend some time working on my threshold, but the majority of my hard training time will be in the form of short hard intervals with little recovery between efforts. These training session will be hard, and they will hurt. I see lots of pain in my near future. Hopefully, the pain will be worth it, and the races themselves won't hurt quit as bad as they did this weekend. Well, that's not true. The races are always gonna hurt pretty bad. The hope is that while it's hurting that bad, I'll at least be closer to the front of the race. So, three more hard weeks coming up. Follow along and I'll try and explain some of the interval type work that I recommend for 'cross racing, just remember, you gotta like the pain!

Keep it PURE,
Brad

RECOVERY TIME

2009-09-21T21:30:00.002-07:00

After four pretty hard training weeks, it's finally time for some rest. Yesterday I did a morning run, but then was pretty busy for the rest of the day, so it was hard to squeeze in an afternoon ride. I almost skipped out, but I knew this was my last chance to get some good training in before recovering for a while, so I hit the dreaded trainer at 9:30 pm to try for one last threshold workout. I was shooting for three twenty minute efforts right at threshold power, but figured that might be tough to do, so I was just hoping for the best. Once I was good and warm, which doesn't take long on the trainer, I ramped the power up to threshold, expecting it to feel hard. To my surprise, it actually seemed fairly easy, so when 20 minutes was up, I ramped the power up slightly and I kept on pushing. I held 10 watts above what I had previously tested to be my threshold power, on the trainer, without much difficulty, for a whole hour, and at the end of a HARD four week training block to boot. Obviously, my threshold power has gone up since my last test. I will take that as a sign that I'm doing something right. Getting in some miles and raising my threshold power were my goals of this training block, mission accomplished. Not only that, but that trainer ride that I almost skipped was a huge confidence booster for me as we dive into the beginning of the cyclocross season here in Montana next weekend with the Butte races. At one point I had decided to not race this season at all, and now after a little hard work I almost feel as if I'm right where I need to be. Here are a few stats from the last four weeks.

55 hours on the bike
5 hours running
3200 TSS
CTL ended at 88.2
TSB ended at -34.3, but was at an all time low of -52

It has been a hard training block, easily my hardest four weeks all season. I'm ready for some recovery, but for some reason I actually still feel pretty good. At the beginning of this week I felt very tired, and missed a few training opportunities, but I feel good right now. I almost feel like I can do more, and I WANT to do more, but I KNOW I need to REST, so that's what I'll do. Rest and recovery are needed for the body to reap the benefits of all the hard training that you do. Without the rest, the body cannot recover, adapt, and grow stronger from all the hard work. REST IS CRITICAL! So this week will be fairly easy, here's a general overview of what I plan on doing. Today I did a one hour neighborhood ride with Trey that was super fun and just the right speed for some serious recovery. Tomorrow's ride will be skills and a couple hard laps at the GAS team cyclocross practice which should be super fun. Wednesday will probably be an easy zone 2 paced ride for an hour or so, and Thursday will be a day totally off the bike. Friday's ride will again be mostly easy, with a few short hard efforts to remind the legs that they are needed for this weekends racing. Then this weekend is the Butte double header, with Psychlocross Friday night at Homestake Lodge, and Copper Mountain Cross Saturday in Butte. I'm sure all of the usual suspects will be there, fired up and ready to make an early mark on the upcoming season. Hopefully I can hang in there and battle with the big dogs for a while at least. Time will tell, I'll let you know how it goes.

Keep it PURE,

Brad

SUNDAY MORNING RUN

2009-09-20T09:23:00.002-07:00

Started the day of with a one hour run this morning. Man, I hate running. It's getting better over the last few weeks, but I would still much rather be on the bike. Increased my run time to one hour, and did a few hard sprints up the one little run up hill close to my home. Feel like I have a pretty solid running base now, and will have to find somewhere else to run where I can get in more 'cross specific running, like short steep run ups with the bike. Also worked the core pretty good when I was done running. Great way to start the day. Time to get cleaned up, then it's off to Mariah's soccer game. Hopefully I'll have time to get in a good ride this afternoon.

Brad

ANOTHER HARD WEEK

2009-09-18T16:11:00.003-07:00

After Mondays much needed rest day came the first of this seasons GAS cross practice sessions on Tuesday evening. We had a pretty good turnout for the first session and spent the evening working on barriers, run ups, dismounts and remounts on the bike. There was a mixture a newer and more experienced riders,and we all tried to help each other out with technique, skills, etc. We had a couple people just learning the technique of getting on and off the bike at speed, and with just a little instruction and practice, they improved dramatically. I also learned a thing or two at practice. This will only be my third season of 'cross, but I felt like I was getting pretty good at the barriers. It can be helpful to have others watching you practice, as they can pick up on things you don't know you're doing right or wrong. It didn't take GAS teammate Tomas "Ubersmooth" Dumbrovsky long to see that I was dismounting and running through the barriers kind of on my heels. He had me point my right foot toward the ground as I prepared to dismount, which automatically got me more on the balls of my feet as I ran through the barriers. With a little more practice, this will definitely make my barrier sections smoother, which will make them faster. Thanks, Tomas. Next Tuesday I hope to have my video camera set up so people can see how they look going through the barriers. That way, they can see for themselves what they may need to work on. I also learned that even though it's been three months since I broke the collarbone, shouldering the bike is a little painful. I may have to devise some sort of pad for either the shoulder or the top tube to help alleviate some of the pain. Of course, in the heat of the battle, there will be enough other pain that I may not even notice the shoulder! Hope to see more people out next Tuesday, when we will probably do some practice laps as the racing season is pretty much upon us.

So, since Tuesday's ride was spent mostly working on technique, I decided to get in a good run that night. I did 45 minutes on the treadmill, with a hard 2 min hill interval every five minutes. Not the same as a cross run up, but better than nothing. It was a pretty tough run, but at least I'm getting to the point that my whole body is no longer sore afterwards.

Wednesday was a day to pick up the intensity a little. I've spent the last few weeks building up my threshold power and getting in some good time on the bike, but now it is time to ramp it up a little. I started the ride with a good warm up, then did a 5 minute blowout effort. I did a lot of these efforts last year, so this could give me an idea where I am at compared to last year at this time. The 5 min blowout is basically an all out effort for 5 min. I definitely started a little to hard, and faded badly at the end. The 5 min power is still a touch below where it was last year at this time, but was higher than I expected. And, this is my fourth hard week in a row. With a little recovery I can expect that to be a little higher, which may put me closer to where I was last year at this time. However, I won a grand total of 0, ya that's right, ZERO, races last season, so I need to be better than I was last year. It's a long season, so hopefully I can continue to improve. After the blow out I recovered fully, then did three minute power intervals. Wow, those hurt bad. For power intervals, I basically go as hard as I can for three minutes, recover for three minutes, and repeat for about 5 intervals. Once again, I overestimated the power I could hold for the interval and faded badly by the time the three minutes was up. Ouch! So I dropped the power I was trying to hold, but still faded. On the third interval I could barely hold threshold power for three minutes, so I called it a day and spun home easy, because that's all I could do. Totally cooked!

Thursday I decided to do some tempo riding, and to help get used to the constant speed changes and acceleration in cross, I threw in a 20 second all out burst every five minutes. Two more hours on the bike, and another hard ride. I warmed up, and actually felt pretty good, then started the tempo/burst work. I lasted 45 minutes, and then I blew up pretty bad. Unfortunately, at this point in the ride I was on a gravel road that was freshly graded and felt like the gravel was about 3 inches deep. It was all I could do to keep the bike moving. I had to push pretty hard just to get down the road. Once back on the asphalt, I cruised the last hour at zone 2 power, once again, because that was all I could do.

Friday was another much needed recovery day. I did an easy ride on the town trails in Bozeman with Tawnya and Trey. It was fun to just chill out, ride easy and hang with the family. Trey and I also went into town that evening to get in some BMX practice. He has been to a couple clinics with some pro riders, and he decided I needed a clinic that night. It was hilarious. He would demonstrate a technique a few times and make me watch, then he'd park on a certain spot on the track to watch me try it, then give advice. He was so serious, and such a good little teacher. It was awesome! Thanks Coach Trey.

Saturday was back to some hard riding. Time for some microbursts, 15 sec on, 15 sec off for ten minutes. Recover, and repeat. I once again started out with the 5 min blowout effort. This time, the power was up there with last seasons efforts, which I take as a good sign. I rode easy for a little recovery, then came the first 10 minute session. It hurt, but wasn't to bad. The second 10 minute effort hurt a little worse, of course. I decided it hurt to much. I planned on doing three, but called it after two. I tried to tell myself the power was down, I'm fatigued, you're better off to not do the last effort, but basically, once the ride was over, I felt like I just quit and should have done it. I'll have to remember that next time I want to quit early! Once recovered, I did a good solid 30 minutes of Sweet Spot riding on the way home, which confirmed the fact that I had the ability to do another microburst interval. I'm such a quitter! Oh well, all in all it was a great ride.

So that gets me up to date. Right now as I write this, I'm watching the live updates from Starcrossed, where teammates John and Lisa Curry are battling it out with some of the top cross racers in the nation. Good luck, John and Lisa! Wish I was there! So far no mention of them, but I'm sure they're doing well.

Keep it PURE,
Brad

TIME TO WORK ON THE SKILLS

2009-09-14T21:19:00.002-07:00

The GAS team will once again be holding cyclocross practice on Tuesday nights throughout the fall. Come join us as we work on cyclocross skills including dismounts, remounts, barriers, bunny hopping, off camber turns, etc. We meet at around 6 pm at the softball complex in Bozeman. We'll have some barriers set up, work on skills for a while, then we usually set up a short practice course and do some hard laps or mock races. Everyone is welcome, from the beginner to the expert. Come learn from the people who have been doing this a while, or if you 've been doing it a while, come teach others your secrets to success! It's a great time, and a good workout, too. Hope to see you there, and don't forget to bring a friend! Here's a link to a cool video showing why you need some skills, enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWGnM_1ViZA

A MUCH NEEDED REST DAY

2009-09-14T20:27:00.002-07:00

Today was a much needed rest day, so I have time to blog rather than go down and ride on the trainer! Last week was my biggest training week of the whole season, thanks to the fact that I only worked for two days, and did a 6 hr 330 TSS ride on Saturday in Ogden, Utah.

My goal for this training block is to work on threshold power, get plenty of time on the bike, and raise the CTL a bit more before I start doing the shorter, harder intervals that cyclocross racing requires. In a perfect world, I'd have the threshold work done and be doing the cross specific work already, but I'm a little behind and trying to play catch up.

Last Thursday's ride was supposed to be threshold intervals, but I had to work a little late then take the kids to bmx. I almost went down to ride the trainer at about 10 pm, but ended up skipping it. I tried to justify this by telling myself I was a little tired and needed a rest day, but the truth is I was just to lazy, and I missed a good opportunity to put in some additional work. I didn't make this day count, but I tried to make up for it a little on Friday. Friday was scheduled to be an easy recovery ride as we had to travel to Utah. I only had about an hour to ride, but got in a good one, doing about 50 minutes of sweet spot riding, with a good hard burst every 5 minutes, then right back to sweet spot. This ride only lasted about an hour, but I was cooked. Spent the rest of the day in the car traveling to Utah with Tawnya. She was going to take her spinning certification course, which would be all day Saturday. The kids stayed home with grandma, so I had all day Saturday to ride. I looked up a ride on map my ride for a basic idea of where to go. I rode for a solid 6 hours, and there was tons of climbing. At one point on a hill in a residential area, I had to swerve back and forth across the road because it was so steep I could barley keep the bike moving. I also did a cool climb up to Snow Basin ski resort, followed by a screaming descent. I did some good hard climbing, and just enjoyed the ride, it was awesome. Unfortunately, after the 6 hr ride came the 6 hr drive home as we had to get back for Mariah's soccer game Sunday.

So Sunday I went to the soccer game, which was also awesome. Tawnya is the coach, and she does a great job motivating and working with those girls. They played like a team, and had a great game. Mariah played hard, scoring six goals and hustling her little but off. She is sure a little athlete, and she plans on doing a few cross races this fall as well. I can't wait to see her out there tearin' it up. After the game I squeezed in another 2 hr ride while Tawnya and the kids hung out with grandma. I felt surprisingly good considering the long ride the previous day. I did 30 minutes of threshold work, 5 min at threshold, 1 min recovery, repeat. After that I spent some time on a little single track trail working on bike handling and other 'cross skills. Then I finished the ride off with Trey, cruising around the neighborhood. Another great ride to cap off the week.

I ended up with 1003 TSS for the week, by far the most of any recent training week, and actually probably a little more than I should have done. Adding to much training load at once, or bring up the CTL to fast, can be less than ideal. However, I feel that I have sufficient base and a training history that can support this increase in training load. Hopefully I'm right and I don't end up getting sick! This hard week brought the CTL up to 85, and the TSB to a whopping -52, so like I said, today was much needed rest. Next week will be more of the same, with a little more intensity added in to start to prep for the racing that is just around the corner. The following week will be a recovery week, which comes just before the racing starts. Dig the hole a little deeper this week, then rest, recover, and hopefully come out ready to race. Only time will tell if my plan will work!

Keep it PURE,
Brad

BACK AT IT

2009-09-09T20:36:00.004-07:00

Yesterday was a much needed rest day. I still did a short, fun 'cross ride around our neighboorhood with the family, but it was totally chill, no training load at all. So, today I had to get after it. Woke up early this morning for a 45 minute run with the dog. Then spent some time drilling the core and lifting my cx bike a bazillion times. Trying to get the busted up shoulder a little stronger before the racing starts.

Later in the afternoon I had time for a long ride, so I jumped (literally) on the 'cross bike for a 3 hour adventure. There are a ton of fun gravel/dirt roads around Belgrade that have some good short hard climbs on them. The route I chose was constantly up or down, so that makes it tough to get any sort of organized intervals in. I rode tempo whenever I could, and did all the climbs, and there were a bunch of them, at threshold or above. It was an awesome ride, just shy of 200 TSS, and I was pretty worked when I was done. Then, I got a quick bite to eat, and went to help with Mariah's soccer practice- more running for me! Another solid day of training in the books. Depending on how work goes tomorrow, I will either be doing more threshold intervals if I have to ride the trainer, or perhaps I'll get in some never pleasant microbursts. Friday will be a short recovery ride, then Saturday Tawnya and I will be in Ogden, UT. Tawnya has a class all day, the kids will be with grandma, and I'll be spending as much time as possible, shooting for 5-6 hours, exploring the roads and climbs around Ogden. It looks like there are some good ones, I should be able to make it hurt, at least a little!

Later, Brad

LABOR DAY

2009-09-07T21:25:00.003-07:00

Spent the morning at the BMX track with the kids. They raced hard and had fun. I had enough sense to stay off the track this time! Got in a pretty good ride the afternoon. Did about 2 hours on the 'cross bike, with some dirt and gravel roads thrown in the mix. Most of the ride was tempo pace with a few hard effort on some dirt climbs. After the ride, the kids and I did some barrier practice in the yard for about 1/2 hour. Mariah and Trey are both getting pretty good at dismounts and remounting their bikes. It's pretty fun to watch them. I, on the other hand, am definitely a little rusty, and need much more cx skills practice over the next few weeks. Finally, since I skipped out on my run last night, I took the dog for a 30 minute run, then came home and did some bike lifts and core work. It all added up to about 190 TSS. All in all a pretty good way to spend a day off of work. Tomorrow is a much needed rest day, then back at it hard on Wednesday.

Keep it PURE,
Brad

THRESHOLD WORK

2009-09-06T15:02:00.002-07:00

Today was a great day. Started out early this morning with a couple hours of hiking up in the mountains with the wife and kids bow hunting for the elusive wapiti. No wapiti today, but we had a great time hiking and letting the kids blow the elk calls. We saw some elk tracks, a wallow, some deer, and got some good old fashioned excercise to boot.

This afternoon was so nice that I wanted to go out for a fun ride on the mountain or 'cross bike up in the woods, but I did that yesterday, and today I needed to get some good threshold work in. We (me and my 'cross bike, Chili) headed out to a flat section of highway where there's room for some good long intervals. I did three 20 minute full on threshold efforts. The first wasn't to bad, the second one hurt a little, and the third one was torture. I wanted to quit after about 5 minutes, but tried to ignore the pain and pushed it hard 'til the end. It's times like these that I always remember a saying that my old high school football coach used to tell us, "The body can go longer than the mind wants to let it." I think most competative cyclist know the deal on that. Often times when it's hurtin' bad, all you want to do is stop pedaling. You have to ignore the pain, or even learn to like it, and make yourself keep going. You have to train your mind, as well as your body to be a cyclocross racer, because usually about 5 minutes into a 60 minute race you're on the rivet and hurting bad, but you gotta keep pushing. I have a little mantra I repeat over and over in my head when it gets tough, "Gotta suffer to win, gotta suffer to win." Doing something like that can help take your mind off of the pain, and if you don't think about the searing pain in your legs and or lungs, it's not really there, is it? Easier said than done, I know.

Anyways, I had a great ride today and did the work I needed to do. 2 1/2 hrs total with the threshold intervals and the rest mostly zone 2 or 3. The TSS ended up at 193, and I am going to try and squeeze in a little run and some core work this evening, since I havn't done that for a few days. More fun to be had.

Keep it PURE,
Brad

CYCLOCROSS IS ALMOST UPON US

2009-09-05T20:13:00.002-07:00

OK, so I'm not sure if anyone actually reads this blog, especially since I got fired by Shaun at MTCX.com and removed from his favorite blog list. But hey, this summer has basically sucked for me, so blogging was the last thing on my mind. Due to a couple crashes on the BMX track, my road season was basically non-existent. Between injuries and mechanicals , I only had one race that went smoothly, in Belt, at least I took advantage of it and got the win. After that, things went south. Once I finally recovered a little from the broken collar bone, I decided to jump into the Tour de Bozeman, knowing I would get spanked. Having a flat just before the climbing started only made things worse. At the end I was cramping so bad I thought I was going to have to walk across the finish line. Not good. A week later, the family and I went to Missoula for the Zootown Throwdown. Eight year old Mariah jumped into the 10 yr old junior race, and held her own against a boy a little older than her. Trey then smoked the other youngsters in the 5 and under race, showing off the sprinting skills he develpoed at the bmx track. Then, both Mariah and Trey did the 6-10 race, Mariah winning and Trey hanging right in there with the older kids. Even my wife Tawnya couldn't resist the lure of the Throwdown, she raced in the women's field, and did great. I think she had fun, but you'll have to ask her to be sure. So, that left me. I woke that morning feeling a little sick, but decided to try and do what I could to help the team. My luck hadn't changed. About 5 laps in my bottom bracket seized up, race over. Those few hard laps really made me feel sick, and it turned into a three week sickness that had me feeling like crap. As my luck would have it, the illness brought on something called Bells Palsy, which causes the muscles in your face to become paralyzed, usually temporarily. For about a month now I have been unable to move the left side of my face. Can't blink my eye, can't take a drink without spilling it all over, and sleeping is a real chore. Probably the worst part is the vision in my left eye is always a little blurry, as I can't blink it and it seems to "water" all the time. This, more than anything, kept me off the bike for a while. This whole deal sucked pretty bad at first, but I'm starting to deal with it a little better now. And, today I was able to get just a teeny-tiny bit of movement on the left side. Hopefully, my daughter will only be able to call me "Half-face" for a little while longer.

So, where does that leave me know? In my last post, many moons ago, I was super stoked for 'cross season. Then I got sick and missed three weeks of training, when I was already behind. At that point, I threw in the towel. No 'cross and no training this fall, that's what I decided. Done deal. Once I made my mind up on that, it was almost a relief. I wouldn't have to experience all the pain of doing threshold and microburst workouts. No riding the dreaded trainer in the basement on those cold dark nights. No racing in the rain or snow. I could use my time to do so many other things. Well, after three weeks off the bike, it only took one short, easy ride for me to change my mind. What was I thinking? I live for the pain that training and racing provides. There is no way I can miss cyclocross season. NO WAY. I am a full fledged addict, no doubt about it. So I am gonna race, and have been back to training for a couple weeks now. I am way behind, and will have to be realistic and adjust my goals a little. I will not be doing Starcrossed, RAD Racing GP, or Crossvegas as I had planned. Those happen WAY to soon for the shape I am in. The early season races will be a little humbling for me probably, as I try to get back into racing shape. I still hope for a strong showing at Rolling Thunder, but that will come a little before I am able to reach peak fitness, so we'll have to see how it goes. I'm hoping to surprise myself. The good thing is that it is a long season, and hopefully this late start will help me maintain the motivation to train and race into December, and I'll be flying by the time Nats rolls around.

Now that I am back to training, I will try and post more frequently, and plan on at least adding a little info, perhaps daily, regarding my training. I figure that if at least one person is reading this, (wishful thinking, I know) and I have to post my workout, it may help me decide to get on the trainer instead of getting in bed and skipping a workout, which I cannot afford to do at this point. My cyclocross training motto for this season has become "every day counts." Really, this is true at all times in your training. Every day you skip is a missed opportunity to gain fitness or technique on your rivals. Of course, I'm not talking about rest days. Taking well planned rest days or blocks is an integral part of any training plan. When you rest is when your body adapts to the training load you have applied, and that's when you get stronger. So, every day counts, and I plan to train hard when I need to, and rest even harder when I have to. I can't wait for the real pain to start!

Being so far behind, I have decided to use a couple of weeks to build my threshold power before moving on to cyclocross specific drills. The last two weeks has been basically getting in some miles, riding tempo, and a few harder efforts here and there, nothing crazy, yet. Today's ride was a long ride with some sweet spot intervals. I did a 3 1/2 hr ride up Little Bear outside of Bozeman, almost all on gravel, with about 2 hrs of constant climbing. During the climb, I did several blocks of about 20 min where I maintained my sweet spot power, and went harder when it was steep. The legs didn't feel especially fresh today, and this was a tough workout. The hour descent was pretty sweet, though little bumpy on a cross bike. TSS for the ride was 165, bringing this weeks total so far to 590, and moving the CTL to a measly 72.3. Gotta get that higher over the next couple of weeks. More hard training coming up tomorrow, as well as a morning bow hunt for elk with the kids, should be fun. Thanks for reading.

Mid-Season Break

2009-06-26T20:24:00.004-07:00

Almost every cyclist that trains consistently can benefit from taking a mid-season break. As serious cyclist, the last thing we think can benefit us is a break. We hate to miss a single workout, thinking there will be dire consequences and we will never get caught back up. The concept of taking an extended break from the bike just doesn't seem right. Even if your training is a little less structured, a little break can help. It can give the body a chance to recover from all the hard training and racing you've done up to this point. More importantly, I think, is that it gives you time to focus on other aspects of your life, get away from "having" to do those intervals or miles, and just relax. This will help ensure that you don't get a serious case of burnout. Take a week away from the bike, and instead of dreading to go out and do your intervals, you'll be looking forward to it. A break will help you maintain your motivation to train through the end of the season, and not give up your focus before you had planned.

Over the last couple seasons, my training was a little unstructured once race season arrived. With the other aspects of life demanding time, often times workouts would be missed, or cut short to fit everything in. I didn't think I needed a break, because I didn't think I was training that hard to begin with. The truth is, even though my training was a little inconsistent, I did train hard when I could. Since I didn't schedule regular recovery periods into my training, or take a mid-season break, by the time July rolled around, I was pretty much cooked. I would race when there was a race, and try and train hard, but I just couldn't find the motivation to keep at it. So, this year I decided that a week away from the bike was in order, since I planned on being in top form and ready to rumble for Montana's biggest race, Tour de Bozeman in late July.

When should this break occur, and how long should it be? Well, as always, that depends, and it will be different for each individual racer. It should occur after a good period of racing and training, probably at the end of a cycle where you would be taking a recovery week anyway. When in the season depends upon your season goals, and how long the racing season is for you, and when you star to lack motivation. As for how long, most people can handle a week away from training without significant loss of fitness, and the increase of motivation and desire to go out and hit it hard again will more than make up for what fitness may have been lost.

My mid-season break was kinda forced on me, due to injuries from my lack of BMX skills. I took a couple hard falls at the BMX track over the last month. The first one resulted in a very sore back, which I'm still having a little trouble with, but supposedly no significant injuries. That is, until I got the bill from the emergency room visit. That is a pain won't go away for a long, long time, OUCH! I wasn't quit so lucky on the second crash. I went down pretty hard. I'm not even sure what happened, but I broke a couple ribs and my collarbone. So, I've pretty much been on forced break for the last month, and won't be able to ride hard again for a few more weeks. My road season is pretty much shot, and I won't be able to help the GAS/Intrinsik team dominate the Tour de Bozeman, but something tells me they'll be just fine without me. GO GAS! One thing is for sure, I am motivated as hell to train again. The break has definitely helped my mind, and once the body is ready to roll, I'll be back out there, focused, and ready to inflict some pain upon thyself. To bad the road racing season will be pretty much over by then, but there's always cyclocross. That's right, 'cross baby! So, as a way to turn my wasted road season into a future success, my cyclocross season starts now. I've been doing some easy rides over the last week, finally feeling a little stronger today. I'm going to give myself a little more time to heal by resting hard and riding easy. Then, I'm going to start to ramp up the training again. I will spend some time with some base training, then try to build up the functional threshold as high as I can, and finally doing some short hard 'cross specific work when I'm ready. The goal will be to be super fit and ready to fight for the covted top hay bale at Radley's Rolling Thunder in October. I consider myself a long shot to win, with all the heavy hitters that are sure to be at the greatest 'cross race this side of Belgium, but you gotta have a lofty goal if you're going to push yourself to the limit, and perhaps a little beyond. Which, is of course required in 'cross racing. I will try and document most of my training between now and then here on the blog, follow along and see how bad I can make it hurt.

Rolling Thunder '08

John Sieber Photography

BMX Racing?

2009-05-18T22:17:00.004-07:00

Trey getting ready to rumble

My son started racing at the bmx track last fall after we saw it on the Olympics. He loves it, and now that the weather has finally gotten better, the racing has started for the season again. My daughter has decided to give it a go as well. They race on Tuesday, Thursday, and most Saturdays throughout the summer, so we spend quit a bit of time at the track. The local bmx organization is awesome. All of the people are super nice, and it's just a great atmosphere. It's all about the kids. That said, they let the old guys play a little, too. Some of the "older" racers knew that I was "sorta" into biking, and have been trying to get me to do some racing. I thought it looked like fun, and besides, how hard could it be?

First off, thanks to Mr. All Things BMX, Bill Drysdale, track director at GVBMX for letting me borrow his sweet bike. I threw my Time mountain bike pedals on it, clipped in, and headed out around the track. Turns out it actually is pretty hard. I was always wondering why everyone was breathing so hard after their races, now I know. It probably only takes about a minute to go around the track, but it's all out, standing up, and for a newbie like me, pretty much wrestling with the bike and hoping to not end up on my head. There are definitely some skills involved, and I don't seem to have any. Everyone said I looked pretty good, but I felt like the old fish outa water, that's for sure.

After a few practice laps, I started to feel a little more comfortable on the bike. Balancing and coming out of the gate is a little awkward at first, but I got better as the night went on. Still, most times during practice the 12yr olds could get the holeshot on me, nothing like being schooled by a kid! Eventually, practice time ended and it was time for the motos to start. I raced in the old guys Novice division. It's just like road racing, in that you start out as a novice, win races and upgrade to race with more experienced and faster racers. Luckily, there were only three racers in that division, so I didn't have to worry about it being to crowded out there. Since I don't have any skills to speak off, I had to rely on my fitness to get me around the track. I was able to power away from the other racers in the few areas of the track that I could actually pedal through. We raced three motos. I was 1st, 2nd, then 1st again, for 1st place overall. Mariah also raced for the first time, placing third, and coming back strong after a hard crash in her first moto. Awesome.

Mariah's first race!

I'm sure I'll be back for more. It was a blast, and good training, too. I figure ripping around on the dirt can only help my bike handling skills when 'cross rolls around again this fall, not to mention the benefit of the short, all out efforts required to get around the track. I think it seems like a fun way to get some sprint efforts in, so I can be ready for the Downtown Sprints at the Tour of Bozeman this summer, unless I skip it to race BMX!

Rockin' the GAS jersey and the wranglers on the bmx track, but I am in the lead

Trophys for the first time racers. Since I got 1st place in my first race, they gave me a huge trophy. Trey was jealous!

Once a week?

2009-05-11T20:53:00.002-07:00

Well, so much for updating the blog every week. Things have been a little hectic around the Morgan household lately. Between work, family, trying to get some training in, and helping a couple cyclist with their training, the blog seems to be the thing that gets neglected. Oh well, guess I'll have to try harder.

So, what's happened since my last post. I think I was whining about not being able to go race at Walla Walla because I had to work. Well, as usual, I found a way to put off work for a long weekend and make it to the race (it's good to be the boss!). That race is brutal. I thought I was pretty fit, and I got my ass kicked. Wow, some of those guys are fast. I rode what I think was the best TT of my life, I felt great, the watts were way up there, and it was only good for like 38th place, bummer. The crit just about killed me, and then I had a mechanical right at the start of the final road race. Got the big DNF.

Roubaix was a little better. I suffered mightily after having a couple flats and having to chase back on. I managed to get back on and try to help the team by following a late race move by Verticle Earth, only to flat again after we had a good gap. The team got the overall win with Brian Frykman. He kinda just rolled off the front after the first lap and rode away with the race. I noticed at Belt this last weekend that no one wanted to let him roll off the front again. Lesson learned I guess. John Curry ended up in the pink leaders jersey for finishing 1st in the CAT 2 competition. The win was a team effort, with both Sebastion and Jason stopping early in the race to help Brian when he flatted. Sebastion gave up a wheel, and Jason killed himself to help pull Brian back into the race. Tomas later stopped to help me when I flatted, giving up his wheel and ending his race so my suffering could continue. Thanks Tomas, next time can I get in the car?

The Belt Omnium this last weekend was another great race for G.A.S./Intrinsik. This time, I got the W after riding a pretty good (very painful) TT and getting some great team support in the road race. Shaun posted a great report on http://montanacyclocross.com. Seb, Brian, John, and Nate all took there turns attacking, pushing the pace, and covering moves so I could basically sit in and enjoy the ride until the time came to put the hammer down. Thanks for all the hard work guys, it was a pleasure, except for the last 20 miles or so anyways. With the win, it puts either myself or John C in the series leaders jersey for a few more weeks.

Also this last weekend was the season opener at Gallatin Valley BMX. Nails Jr. swept the 5 yr old novice class, winning each heat and the main event. A couple more wins and it's time to upgrade to the intermediate class. Way to go Trey. Not to be out done, Mariah scored two goals during her soccer game the following day. My kids are studs.

So what's next? Probably just some more racing here in Montana. Hopefully, I can keep up with the training. It seems in years past once the racing season got here, all I did was race and recover. This year, I hope to remain a little more focused on the training. A couple races are probably really going to hurt, as I will come into them with a high CTL and low TSB. What's that mean? I will go into that in a future post, but basically means I'm not going to rest before every race. For some, I will come into the race basically wasted, probably working for other teammates as my form just won't be there. I won't be giving up precious training time to come into each race fresh. I will continue to push the fitness higher, resting on a scheduled or needed basis, and peak for a goal event later in the summer. Only time will tell if my plan will work, but so far, I seem to be ahead of where I usually am at this time of the year. Having a good training plan, and following it as best I can with minor adjustments here and there due to life getting in the way seems to be working for me, and it will work for you, too. Shoot me an e-mail at coachbrad@bresnan.net if you need help developing your training plan, and I'll see if I can help you with your Pursuit and Understanding of Racing Excellence.

Keep it PURE,
Brad

2009-03-28T21:28:00.005-07:00

Here's Elliot from NRO showing me how to win a sprint at the training race in Clinton last week. He played it just right, and once he came around me I had nothing left to get him back. Great job Elliot, guess I'll have to be better next time. Photo - nrocycling.com

Another week has passed, and the races are sneaking up on us. The second training race in Clinton was today. I'm not sure how it played out, as I was unable to attend due to the dreaded "work" problem I have. I guess I should be thankful that I even have any work to do, with the way the building has slowed drastically here in the Bozeman area, but it sure gets in the way of training and racing. I hope everyone is getting in some good, structured training in preparation for the upcoming season.

My training has been pretty good so far this winter and early spring. I have been more focused on getting my rides in, and have had more structure in my training than in years past. I feel pretty good at this point in the season, and seem to be a little ahead of where I was last year at this time. I had hopes of racing at some early stage races like Walla Walla and Frozen Flatlands to test the fitness, but don't think I'm going to be able to make it happen. So, for me, I get one more good solid block of training in before the Rocky Mountain Roubaix race outside of Missoula in late April. Hopefully, my busy work schedule won't derail my training to bad, and I can come into the Roubaix in decent shape. Time will tell. I had one minor setback earlier this week, when I somehow tripped and fell while climbing up the side of a bouldered deck at work. Ya, graceful, I know. I managed to land awkwardly on my left leg, resulting in a painful "charlie horse" that won't seem to go away. It forced me to take a couple days completely off the bike, followed by some easy riding to "spin" the leg out. I was finally able to ride hard again today, but there's still some soreness. Prior to that, I felt great. I had an awesome ride on the trainer early in the week where I was shooting for 1 1/2 hours of sweet spot training. I felt pretty good, having just come off a rest week, and was able to up the power a notch or two, and ended up riding for 1 1/2 hours at what I thought was my functional threshold power, with a pretty low average heart rate. Obviously, my training is working to some extent, as I am definitely getting stronger. Today I had some high hopes of getting in some good climbing miles, as my current job site is near the Norris Hill outside of Ennis, MT. I was going to go up and down that bad boy several times, trying to climb at or slightly above threshold power. I though that would be some good suffering. Unfortunately, just as I finished up with work, the weather turned nasty, and I was forced abandon my plans and head home without doing the ride. It looked as if there was another long, boring trainer ride in my near future.

Once back in Belgrade, the weather was a little better, though still cool, gloomy, and spitting a little rain off and on. I decided to sneak out for a short ride on my 'cross bike before dark. I have a little loop I do that keeps me close to home in case the weather gets bad, has a mix of dirt/gravel paths, sidewalks, grass, roads, and subdivision streets. It is super fun, and much better than the dreaded trainer. I ended up having a great ride, got a little wet and muddy, and did some solid race simulation type efforts. Most of the ride was in zone 3, but I did plenty of hard riding to keep it interesting. I did a few 1 min hard effort around our subdivision loop. There is virtually no traffic, and I can hit the corners as hard and fast as I dare for some good cornering practice. There are a couple long gravel stretches where I did some good threshold work, and tons of tight corners. The corners are great for bike handling practice, and also for working on your acceleration as you power out of each turn. I had a sprint point on each loop so I could get in a few good, hard sprint efforts, which I need. I also did some short hard efforts to simulate an attack, or closing up a gap. This is a ride that I do a lot in the fall to prep for 'cross, but also serves as a great ride this time of year to help prepare for the constant speed changes encountered when the racing starts, plus, it is killer fun. I also do it a lot of times at night, with lights of course, which for some reason makes it even more fun.

Well, that's what's going on in my little world. I was hoping for a good long ride tomorrow, but it sounds like more snow is on the way. I better go put my bike on the trainer.

Here's Trey "Nails Junior" Morgan, #532 showing Dad the proper way to end a sprint, in front!

photo- Tawnya Morgan

Keep it PURE,
Brad

Clinton Training Race

2009-03-22T18:50:00.003-07:00

First off, a big thanks to Shaun over at montanacyclocross.com for the interview and for adding this blog to his "favorites." No one has ever thought I was worth interviewing before, so that was pretty cool. I think he just needed something to post that day! Mtcx.com is where you can go for all the latest and greatest info about Montana racing and the inside scoop on Montana riders. I know I check it daily to see what's new, and you should to. Shaun has already posted his race report from the Clinton race, and it was informative and entertaining, as always. Thanks, Shaun

As Shaun reported, Brian "Freight Train" Frykman let people in on a little secret we've been aware of here on the GAS team for a while. He's a freaking animal. He picked the right time to attack, had a little help, and pretty much rode away with the race. I know Brian has a good training plan and has been training consistently throughout the winter, and it looks as if it is paying off. It's a fine example of what having and following a training plan can do for you.

This is the first time I had ever attended one of these "training races." There was a great turnout, as people are obviously itching to get the racing underway. These early season tune up races are a great opportunity to see where you're at with your training, as compared to your rivals. Although everyone has different goals and training schedules that will have them peaking at different times during the season, it's never a good sign if everyone your racing against can put the hurt on you, even if it is early in the season. If this happened to you, it's a good sign that you may need to reevaluate your training program, and see if there are things you may need to do a little differently to get your fitness level up to that of your competition. Of course, having a coach is a great idea, as he/she will be able to help you understand what you need to be working on, and why.

As for my race, it went pretty well. I put in a couple hard attacks early on the first lap. They didn't really accomplish much, but they did hurt. I did get a little gap just before the turn under the overpass. I had never been on the course before, and wasn't expecting that corner. I came in pretty hot, and had just dropped down into my "aero" position with arms on top of the bars, and suddenly had to shut it down as I realized there was a sharp, very gravelly corner to negotiate. That pretty much ended may "break", but did set Brian up to ride off the front as I was brought back into the group. GAS strongman John Curry had a "mechanical" issue, and was forced to stop momentarily, pretty much ending his race with the group. Never one to miss out on an opportunity to suffer, he still put in a hard effort chasing solo for three laps. With Frykman off the front and Curry off the back (Curry off the back-that doesn't even sound right), I just had to try and cover any strong moves off the front, and there were quite a few. I was confident in Brian's ability to get the W, so I was happy to sit in and see who would chase or attack. I covered a few moves, and tried not to get swallowed up by the sea of NRO green. The whole group pretty much stayed together. When we came down to the finish, I stayed right near the front. I was itching to give it a go from a couple K out, but decided there was just to much horsepower in the group to get off the front and hold it to the line. So, I was forced to use my "sprint," which, as usual, came up just a little short as Elliot from NRO shot past me and rode away to the finish. Sprinting is definitely one of my weaknesses, and that is something I hope to improve on this season by focusing a little more on that area of my training. All in all, I felt good. I never really had to dig to deep, and felt comfortable for the whole race. This is a good sign that my training is coming along as planned.

The best portion of the day came after the race, when the GAS team loaded up into the big green van, and headed out for a lap on the Roubaix course. We wanted to check out the road conditions, and a couple of us had never been on the course before, so this was a good excuse to put in a few more hard miles. The ride started out pretty mellow, as we were all feeling the legs after racing earlier, then sitting in the awesome van for a while. Once we got to the gravel and the first little climb, we hit it pretty hard. Curry and Frykman did not disappoint, as they cranked it up and handed out a little pain. I tried to reciprocate, and like to think I dished out a little as well. The best part of the ride was the rain and mud, not to mention a little cold thrown in before we were all back at the van. The rain came down hard, and we were all totally soaked, caked in mud, had bike that wouldn't hardly shift, and almost hyporthermic after a late ride stop to fix a flat. An epic ride for sure, one I was glad I got to be part of. Mud, cold, rain, and suffering, what a great way to spend a day.

Keep it PURE,
Brad

Spring Training

2009-03-15T17:19:00.002-07:00

Spring is upon us. If you live here in Montana, that means the racing season is finally about to commence, and it's also probably stll going to snow a lot more. The first Missoula training race is a mere week away, with the "real" season close behind. The always challenging Rocky Mountain Roubaix has been pushed back a couple weeks from the previous years. This only means it's going to hurt a little more, as racers have a few more weeks of hard training in their legs, as well as some solid racing miles already in the bag. Many hard core racers, including some of my teammates on the super motivated GAS/Intrinsik Cycling Team will be attending Frozen Flatlands in Spokane, and the always brutal Tour of Walla Walla out in Washington. Racers will come into the Roubaix fit and ready to put the hammer down. Will you be ready???

Where should your training be at this point in the season? Well, as always, that is highly individualized and depends upon your overall goals. If you're following a periodized training plan, and if your goal race is mid summer, like say the very prestigious Tour de Bozeman at the end of July, then, generally speaking, at this time of year you should have a pretty good base established and be starting to ramp up the intensity in your training.

Hopefully you took a short break following the end of your season last year. This should have been long enough to rest and recharge your body and enthusiasm for the sport and training, but not to long as to allow all your hard earned fitness to completely disappear. Then, you began putting in some nice easy miles on the bike, as well as enjoying some cross training to help beat the dull drums of endlessly slogging away on the trainer. Some time in the gym to build muscular strength and some solid core work would also have been a wise way to spend part of the long, cold, dark winter months. You may have started with some nice long endurance rides, adding in some on-the-bike-strength-work, gradually building up to tempo rides, and occasionally adding some sub-threshold, threshold, and some climbing work into your training schedule. If your goal race is mid summer, this should be done, or very close to it.

So, what should you be doing now? With races starting to pop up in April, now is a great time to focus more on building your threshold power. Although you may have been doing a little threshold work throughout your base building period, now is the time to really focus on it. Before doing full on threshold work, a few weeks spent doing sub-threshold intervals, or sweet spot training is advisable. Sweet spot work is done at 88-94 percent of your functional threshold power, and is a great training intensity to help push your threshold power higher, without inducing quit as much fatigue as full on threshold work. Throw in two or three 12-20 minute sweet spot intervals during a couple of your weekly endurance rides, and you'll be ready for some full on threshold work after six to eight of these sweet spot rides. Once you've progressed to full on threshold intervals, which are done at 96-105 percent of threshold power, you can gradually increase the amount of time spent in this zone. Depending on your level of fitness, you can start with 2 x 12-15 minute intervals, then progress to 3 x 15 minute intervals, followed by 2 x 20 minute intervals, and 3 x 20 minute intervals. These are hard efforts, and require some recovery, but can be done up to a couple times a week. You should eventually be able to ride for 1 hour at this level of intensity, but it will hurt. A great workout for this time of year is to do a sweet spot or threshold ride with some high intensity burst thrown in. While riding in your sweet spot, do some bursts of 20 to 30 seconds every 2 to 5 minutes up to about 120 percent of functional threshold power, not allowing your intensity to drop out of your sweet spot or threshold zone after the burst. This is a great ride to help you get ready for the constant speed changes you will encounter in your races, as well as helping with being able to recover slightly, even at a fairly high intensity. Another area to address as the racing season approaches is short term power. Doing a few short, 1 to 2 minute intervals of high intensity will also help you prepare for those speed changes, and perhaps give you the ability to create some separation from the pack to start a breakaway, or hang with the peloton as those breaks are constantly being chased down.

Althougth the first races of the season may not figure into your overall goals, if you've done your work up to this point, you can still be competitive and get in some good racing miles. There will be some racers who are in exceptional shape, even this early in the season. If you're following a periodized plan you may not be one of them, don't let this discourage you. Use these races for training. Get in some good, solid miles at race intensity, and some good racing experience. Get used to riding in the pack again, throw in some attacks, chase down some breaks, try some things you may be afraid to "risk" doing in a race that "counts". Most of all, have fun, whatever that means. I still haven't figured out what the fun part is, as most of the time I'm suffering to bad for it to be even remotely fun, but, regardless, I'll still be paying my hard earned money to toe the line, and see what I've got week in and week out, hope to see you there.

Until then, keep it PURE.
Coach Brad

Welcome

2009-03-07T00:18:00.003-07:00

Racing excellence. I think that is one thing many, if not all, bike racers are striving for. But, what is racing excellence? Is it winning every race? Is it not getting dropped two minutes into the race? Is it leading out your teammate for the sprint or chasing down the break for your team leader? Surely it can mean different things to different people. I am going to define racing excellence as being the best you can be, on the day you need to be your best. Sure, everyone wants to win, but we all know that everyone is not capable of winning. Everyone is, however, capable of being the best they can be. How good is that? How good can YOU be? What is YOUR best? That depends on many factors- genetics, age, time constraints, nutrition, family support, and mental strength (willingness to suffer) to name just a few. One of the big limiters of how good you can be is deciding how good you want to be. How BAD do you want it? How much time are you willing to give in pursuit of your goals? Are you willing to change your lifestyle to become a better racer? Maybe you are, maybe you're not, but either way, you can still be the best you can be. The simple fact is, the more you're willing to give to the sport and your training, the better your best can be. Most of us have busy lives that require us to do crazy things like work 40+ hour a week. We have families, kids' sporting and school events to attend, relatives in town, yards that need mowed, etc, the list goes on and on and on. This is a limiter to how good your best can be. So, we can't all be the next John Curry (awesome Montana racer, I'm sure you've all heard of him), but we can figure our limiters into our plans to set real and attainable goals. We can asses our current life situations , fitness level, training history and DESIRE to race, train, and win and use all that information to help us be the best we can be on the day we need to be our best. We can look to science, past experience, course profiles, strengths, weaknesses, and goals to help understand and guide us through the training process. Once we decide how much we are willing and able to give to get to our best, we can tailor our training plan to fit into and around our busy lives. We can plan our season and workouts so we are at our best on the day we want to be, not on some random Wednesday while we're out hammering on a group ride, but on the day of our goal event when it counts. This can all seem a little overwhelming at times. Should I ride or rest today? Should I go hard, or just spin the legs? Do I have a plan to get me to be the best I can be on the day I need to be my best, or am I just "riding around in circles"? Most self coached racers have asked themselves these questions. I know I certainly have. Having a coach can help put all of this together. A coach can structure a plan that fits your individual needs, and help guide you to your goals. A coach can focus on how hard you should or shouldn't train at any given time, so you can focus on doing the training to the best of your ability. A coach can write training plans and review training data to keep you on track, or reroute you if you get derailed by an illness or other situation. A coach can motivate and inspire, teach and mentor. Virtually every bike racer can benefit from having a coach.

Though I'm new to coaching, I am not new to riding and racing, I spent a few years "riding in circles" and still had some decent results, but wanted more. So, I decided to learn how to get more from what I could give. I've read all the training books, experimented with different training plans, learned from others, and taken seminars on training with power. With the increase in knowledge, came an increase in results. Here are just a few:

former Montana Road Race State Champion, CAT 3
former Montana TT State Champion, CAT 3
former Montana Criterium State Champion, CAT 2
former Montana Series Points Champion, CAT 3 and CAT 2
1st place GC, High Plains RR, Devils Tower, Wy, CAT 1,2,3
3rd place TT, State Games of America, Colorado Springs, CO, CAT 1,2
1st place, Helena RR, CAT 1,2,3
2nd place, Big Sky Cyclocross Race, CAT 1,2,3
1st place, Rolling Thunder Cyclocross, CAT 3

I was able to accomplish all those things and more over the past few years, even though I have a fairly busy life. I am married to my lovely and supportive wife, Tawnya, who puts up with all the hours on the bike, the leg shaving, the skin suits, the traveling to races, and all the other things being a bike racers brings into ones life. And, we have two young children, Mariah 8 and Trey 5, who are very active and keep us running in circles on a daily, almost hourly basis. I also own a tile installation business, that usually keeps me busier thanI want to be. My family, of course, takes priority over my cycling, and unfortunately, my business does as well. I have also had to battle back from a fairly serious injury recently after suffering a broken hip in a TT crash a couple of years ago. So, I know what it takes to fit cycling into a busy life, be fairly successful at it, and still be married, (thanks for the support Tawnya). I know what it's like dealing with adversity. I know what it's like to want to give more so you can get more, yet being unable to do so. I had to prioritize my goals, and focus on training smarter, not training longer or harder, so I could be the best I could be.

Most recently, I have attended a USA Cycling level 2coaching clinic where I learned a ton about sports science, nutrition, training plan design, and also had a chance to interact with and learn from about 30 other USA Cycling coaches. With that, I feel that I'm at the point now where I can do all those things a coach needs to do to make someone a better racer. I think I can help racers with their pursuit and understanding of racing excellence. All I need now is someone to be my first success story. Let me know if you're interested, it could be you.

So, welcome to my blog. I plan to use it to relay some coaching and training information to those who are interested, as well as write about my own training and racing throughout the season. If I have athletes who are willing, I'll post some of their training data and info as well. There will probably be some race reports from my team, GAS/Intrinsik Cycling, as well as a few tidbits on what my family is up to, since we all race bikes of some sort. Hope you enjoy it, and let me know what you think.

Coach Brad