It rained so much Thursday and Friday, that the trails were not dry enough to ride until Sunday. Even got caught in a hail storm on Friday in an underpass. Saturday the sun came back and I got in some quality specific work in the morning then dropped the wife off for a spa treatment and then the kids and I went to the park. Never a dull moment.
Then on Sunday Gavin lined up for a 400m hill climb (bergsprint). Now this was the under 11 crowd, and I saw better kits and bikes on this line than many races I have done. They are not messing around, there were no 100 pound Walmart bikes, and a few were sporting some spd action. Last year I bought Gavin a pretty nice Specialized with a front fork that actually was tuned to his weight, but the selection in the states for light kids bikes is crap. Over here, they are plentiful, the manufacturers cater to the crowd, and the crowd starts at a very young age. Awesome.
Gavin started a little hesitant, but finished strong, he really needed some more kilometers.
Angela went off next, with plenty of confusion. I kinda forgot to mention to her that this was a 5km hillclimb, so she thought she was doing this hill a few more times. She rode conservative and I take full responsibility for the mistake.
This was a nice little kickoff for her anaerobic system, since she is now just approaching the time for these kind of workouts. She still has plenty of muscular endurance to work on.
On a coaching/workout note. Forge your training to mimic your race, how many times in a race do you follow a 15min at LT span with a 5 min recovery span? How many times in a race do you perform anaerobic ladders? Never. So what I’m saying is don’t approach a workout with rigidity, be flexible and creative. When the gun goes off, you should be able to turn the autopilot on and concentrate on tactics and nutrition, because your body already knows what it feels like to peg it for the first hour.
