Are You Living It?

The Tour of Utah will begin next week on Wednesday, the 13th.  It is going to be a very difficult race with the higher altitude and the hot dry heat.  It has been reaching the mid to upper 90’s each day for the past month.  Growing up in the West, I can say that I am used to this kind of heat, but haven’t raced in it much lately.  This race is going to favor the riders that are good climber’s at altitude on long climbs.  The second stage has over 10,000 feet of climbing in it and will be the first real shake up in the overall.  Then the last two stages, stage 4 and 5 will surely decide the winner.  Stage 4 has nearly 15,000 feet of climbing.  Follow that with a flat windy time trial the next day and it should be an good exciting race.

This season I have focused more on training for specific events such as Utah.  I have been using some events as training races and B priority to work towards my target races.  Earlier this season I trained specifically for the B.C. Races.  Knowing what the courses were like it made it that much easier to prepare with specific intervals.  The climbs in B.C. were short hard power climbs.  I spent many days doing 1-2 minute climbs over threshold power to get ready.  It seemed to work well.

For Utah, I have been working on my time trialing and also longer steady climbs at altitude.  I haven’t been in Durango much so my altitude training and acclimatizing goes back and forth.  Over the past month, I have tried to get into the passes for long sustained climbing up above 9,000 feet and on up to 11,000 feet.  It is very tough to recover from any kind of effort at this altitude.  I am hoping that these rides will help me next week in Utah.  I have noticed that my climbing seems to be improving and also my time trialing.

Now at this point with the race beginningin just five days, I am tapering down and just focusing on some good rest, with short hard efforts.  I may do a Mountain Bike race tomorrow in Dolores.  I found out last night that it is going to be a local world cup.  Todd Wells and his teammate Burry Stander (Burryis currently leading the U23 World Cup) are both in town before heading to Beijing for the Olympics. Not to mention the dozen other pro’s who will be in attendance.

With the Tour of Utah on the horizon, the season is winding down fast.  After Tour of Utah it is off to US Pro in Greenville, South Carolina and then maybe Univest.  From there, straight into Cyclocross before taking a break in October.  I am excited for this next block of racing and already thinking about next season.