Staying fresh for next weekends race at Castlewood. Eating tons, and worked from home a couple days to maximize recovery. Ploted Castlewood (see below). Based on the section i taylored my hill repeats to be 6 repeats of a bluff with equal or greater relief (in Blue River), and then ripped 'em back to back with about 5 mins recovery. Killer.

Going to bust out a middle body gym workout and 6 x 10 mins LT intervals today. Going to do the intervals off road at rolling terrain in Minor Park to simulate the rolling terrain between the 2 hills at casltlewood. That should cover me for this week, except for the race warm up on saturday.

Headed off to Columbia Mo this morning for the Sho Me State Games. Not an amazing expert open turn out, but at least 11 guys in the top category, about 100 others. Broke my chain in the preride and lost a link, which in turn broke again on the first lap, i fixed, then it broke again, and i fixed. Ended up loosing my ability to run the big ring, but still took 8th even after loosing a shitload of time. Laid down a killer second lap, under 30 mins on a 7.5 mile hilly course. Not a great result because of the mechanical, but I felt good, got my pre-race rutine right, and my heart rate was there. So, I guess I am a bit dissapointed but also happy I scored points in the series. What can I say, more fuel for the fire.

Based on time, without my 12 minutes of chain problems, I would have been battling for 5th or 6th. And for the first time today, I was 3rd in the holeshot and stuck with the top two guys for the first quarter lap until my chain broke...i could taste it...and better yet i proved to myself that they are human too, and beatable. Next time hopefully I wont have such mechanical problems.

I had two key mental preparations today. 1) I put tape on my bars and wrote words to remind me to attack and to remind me of my overall goals - VERY MOTIVATIONAL. I literally must have attacked 20 times today, all over the place, and it was successful in both keeping my pace up and demoralizing my opponents. 2) I mapped the course out in GIS, made a section and studied the course for the entire week before this race. Turns out that by doing this I took all the surprise out of the course, knew exactly where to attack, knew how long the hills were and at what gradient, and had mentally beaten the course before I even arrived. I am going to map out all the rest of my races and Jeff is going to tweak my schedules and workouts based on the courses. I can see me winning with this strategy.

I also had a successful routine. I started with Bcomplex, multivitamin, L-arginine, and a peanut bar first thing at 8:30am. Had a sausage biscuit, apple pie, and coffe on the road to keep my stomach full, top of the pre-race glycogen, and get everything going. I was at the course 1.5 hours before the race and had a nice leaseurly preride, not feeling especially whoptie, but hitting 170 and 180 pretty easily. I popped a red bull at about 20 mins till race time and put myself in the 190s one time for the last preride hill climb. When the race started, i hit 195 immediately, and basically stayed there for 1.5 hours, with a 201 max. I had 1 small bottle of accelerade, a tall bottle of water with vitamin tablet, and a jelly bean pack each lap, adding a flat coke on the 3rd and last lap. Bingo.

Went over to my uncles to do a recovery ride and when I got there the Mount Ventoux hill climb had just started ont he penultimate stage of the tour. Needless to say, we spent an hour "preride" in front of the flat screen drinking kick ass coffee, watching the climb, and speculating on the result...it was great. Then we went for nice hour or so recovery ride and i came home and pigged out.

Got a fresh haircut, super short and close to make sure I was sharp for tomorrows Missouri State Off Road Single Day Championships (aka the Show Me State Games). Just finished with a 2-hour nap (hopefully my body made some growth hormone) and Im going to wax up my ride and flip it down for tomorrows rumble at Rock Bridge.

Definetly not my finest day of hill repeats. Went out to bust my balls feeling good in the morn, but found out i barely had enough squeeze out 10 hill repeats. still managed to get my hr up to 180, but as soon as i got up in the 185s i started to feel cramps come on in my quad, so i had to back off.

I guess considering today was the end of 3 solid weeks of nailing my rides, commuting to work every day, 1 extra tough race, and this week i added in 2 middle and upper body gym workouts, this should probably not come as a surprise. Also, I cannot take all my vitamins at once at 3pm, there is not enough time for them to get into my body and I actually had a cramp in my left kidney, weird. That forced me to do my hill repeats on the road because I thought my kidney was going to explode every time I hit a big rock in the trails (and at Swope, that is like every .5 seconds).

On a good note, i know this fatigue is only setting me up for good form later, and i have to say that I am solid as a rock all over my body, but i hope im not overcooked for the Missouri State Games this Sunday. About 4 hours in the saddle today.

Its a beautiful day in the neighborhood and I already logged an hour just commuting. Feeling loose, but i am reminded how important a solid 8 hours of sleep is. Looking forward to ripping it up tonight, no holds barred.

Being my first season back in almost 7 years, without any real results yet this season, and being almost a decade past any real titles, I am expecting to continue sponsoring myself this season. Thankfully, my old sponsor - The BikeSource in Overland Park, Kansas - has agreed to help me however they can, but I will still need some serious coin to get a new 26er mtb. The reality is that I will need both a 26 full suspension and 29er hardtail to be competitive in this region - one for fast smooth trails, and one for twisty rocky trails.

I worked on booking several side jobs today to help pay for a new race rig - Hopefully a Specialized Epic Expert Carbon.

Commuted to work and back, 30 mins each way, then spun around the park to loosen up from yesterdays LT intervals. Dialing in my vitamins and minerals in conjunction with my workouts, working on timing for various ones. Added Magnesium in the eves to help loosen up.