33 miles of Singletrack for 3300 calories

33mi for 3312 calories! That explains the awesome workout I had today at Markham. The “Heat” was completely off the meat hook, and I was swimming in my shoes by the end.

I went out Sunday morning for my long mountain bike training ride at Markham, and the usually suspects where there. Matt H, Luis C, Luis M, Danny, and Andres and his son were making circle while I quickly got ready. Andres lead the first lap out and he set a nice pace that eventually picked up in speed by the time we got to the 10 minute mark. It’s nothing like how Bob Mc whips up to race speed in 1 minute. I enjoy this lot better.

For about 5 minutes Matt is having a problem closing the gap on Andres, once we are heading into Rattle Snake Canyon, I ride right pass Matt and quickly surge up to Andres before he goes into the single-track. Coming around a turn my front wheel hits some gravel and it slides completely off the trail and I can’t save it so I bail out. By the time I get back to the bike Luis M, Danny, and Matt H are coming so I move my bike and give them all a shove to keep them going up to speed. I put my chain back on and get going. Inside 1 minute I have caught Matt and he is hurting, and he eventually lets me by. I enjoy the type of rider I am now, because if I’m gapped by a rider I think I can catch slowly, I won’t attack. My new riding style is to slowly make a surge, instead of attacking to get back on. The Andres, Luis M, and Danny group have about 30 seconds on me. I slowly pick up the pace and it takes about 5 minutes to bring them back.

I see Danny at the end of Rattle Snake, and by the time they go into to Outback Extension I’m back with the group. My heart rate is a little high, but I can stay on if I don’t make a mistake. I know that I’ll recover in the next 2 minutes. I do recover and it happens to be in Outback extension, Crime Scene, Jet Ski Hill, and Ted’s Twisted Trail, which are all steep switch back climbs. I’m on the group, recovered and just grooving it. The pace was still high, but my heart rate is down 10bpm. We head into Alligator Alley and I can hear someone behind me, and if it Matt then he cut the trail because I know he didn’t recover to bring it back that fast. I have to put a foot down, and when I get back clipped in Matt is behind me and I let him go because I’m no longer interested in ramping my heart rate up again. I finish the lap about 15 seconds back, at a time of 36:10 with an Avg HR of 161bpm. That is high, but with the heat and the condition of the trail it is to be expected.

Lap 2 rolls out just as nice as lap 1, and after the warm-up my heart rate is 136bpm. I’m actually closer to last this lap which I like. Matt, Dude on a Scott Spark, Danny, Luis M, myself, Luis C, and Andres and his son off the back. 3 minutes later my heart rate is 157bpm and we are going. Matt is turning on the gas and the dude on the Spark is getting gapped, Luis C, Andres and son are gone. We go into Rattlesnake and the Danny makes a mistake on one of the switchback climbs, and Luis C. and I pass him. As we are coming down the trail, the Matt is about 15 seconds ahead, and Spark dude is in between us. Luis and I slowly bridge to the Spark Dude, and the trail is too tight to ask him to pass but we are getting gapped because Matt does not ride steady, he puts in multiple attacks.

As we get to the U-turn part of rattlesnake spark dude does not make a climb and Luis M and I pass him. The pace quickly picks up as we are on the hunt for Matt. If this guy drops you, he’ll tell everyone. By the time it gets back to you, he pretty much dropped you in the warm-up loop. Just as we catch Matt at the end of rattlesnake he is pulling over and we can hear the air coming out of his rear tire. So Luis, myself and spark dude continue at the same “On the hunt “pace. I’m hurting, or I think I’m hurting but I’m in no danger of getting dropped. The heat is just unbearable in some sections, and it just feels like an oven. We all bring in the lap in 35mins, 48 seconds, with an Avg heart rate of 166. A little high, but not bad!

The 3rd lap is was only Matt, Luis C and I. I told Matt that I was not into riding like I’m racing, and of course he said he would not go too fast, like a big shot. Not even 5 minutes into the course Luis C is gone and Matt is riding has as fast as we did the 2nd lap and he is out of the saddle attacking. I can always tell when he is going to attack because he gets out of the saddle. Word to the wise, “Learn to attack in the saddle before you do it out of the saddle”. I love turning up the gas until a rider can no longer hang on. Then, if they are gone you can attack. I follow Geoff Kabush (The most dominate rider in North America), and that is how he puts it down. I think that way of an attack is much more potent than attacking for 45 seconds, looking back, only to slow down when I catch up. I think you should ride the person to the edge, then attack. That is how Lance did Jan when we walked away from him on all those climb in the tour. I think that can be applied to mountain biking.

After about 4 attacks I let Matt go, but I keep him 15 seconds ahead of me. I don’t think he knows how fast to ride if he can’t see or hear the rider behind him. After about 8mins, I see that he has not made the gap bigger, so I ramp up the pace and I’m with him in less than a minute. When I catch him my heart-rate is at 171bpm, and then it goes down to 157bpm. A whopping 14bpm is way too much to slow down. That means he is resting. Not long goes by and he is recovered and he is at again. This time I decide to keep it steady. Going up Crime Scene my chain pops and I have to dismount and walk up the climb. I know he is going to attack, and he does. Because I get back up to speed and he is gone. 3 minutes later I can see he is about 10 seconds ahead of me, and since the lap is over in 5 minutes I decide to indulge him and let him think he dropped me. I finish the lap at 36:20, and an Avg of 163bpm. My heart-rate Avg has gone down, and that is not usual. It has started drizzling which has brought the temperature down, and the trail is a little tackier and the small block eights were hooking up.

Once we get out of the trail we have this discussion about how to ride or race, and of course Matt says he is not attacking. I reminded him of what happened in Reddick when he caught me. If you have not read that race report he starts 2 minutes after me in the Expert category, as he races the 40+. He caught me at the beginning of the 2nd lap, and tried to drop me for the first 5 miles of the course. He gave up after that and let me finish the rest of the race with him in tow most of the time. I would ask him to lead a section just to keep him honest, but his pace had gone down too much and he was feeling cramps coming on. So it was not even in my interest to have us work together. That was the 2nd week in March and 5 and a half months later he is still riding that way. I think that if you are attacking rider, you leave your legs with nothing at the end of the race. We discuss concepts a little further and Luis C comes out and he is planning on going back in. Matt says he is finished as he has to get home to spend time with the family, plus I’m sure those legs are tapped out.

For lap 4 I tell Luis I’m not going to try to impress him. I will lead the lap to the gun range, and let him have it from there. I get going and I have a nice (Speed Pacer) flowing. I look down at my heart rate and I’m moving just as fast as the last lap with Matt, but without the attacks. By the time I’m at the gun range I’m at the same exact time as the lap before so I hand it over to Luis. He said he was hurting, and he takes it down to a crawl. When I say crawl, I mean we are baby crawling the climbs. We finish the gun range and we are over 2 minutes behind that last lap. He tries to get going, but he suggested that I pass him up. I say we should cut out all the big climbs that engage the deep tissue in the legs so we can keep a flow. He says he wants to do them all, so I pass him up. I know at that pace you can’t even hit the climb effectively and he will most likely have to clip out and walk them. He was on his 5th lap, and I was on my 4th, so I would probably be feeling the same when I’m on my 5th.

I want to do my 5th lap but I hear strong thunder every 4 or 5 minutes and that is starting to worry me as I’m at the end of my 4th lap. I don’t want to attract the lightening by be a wet conductor riding on a metal bike. I finished the lap and things look nice, so I dive right back in for my 5th and final lap without even getting another water bottle. I try to take my heart rate down into the 140’s and ride it out that way. Some of the climbs drive it over 150bpm, after that I would purposely back off to get it back down. I get to the gun range and I’m only 80 seconds off my time from the last lap and I’m not even trying to ride fast. I keep going at that pace and when I come out of the gun range I hear some very loud thunder that scares the Bejezzles out of me. Not even a minute later it happens again. I immediately exit the trail and take the fire road back to the car. This workout has gone way better than expected, and respect Mother Nature.

I quickly change, drink my strawberry soy protein drink, get in the car and head for home. I wash the bike, take a shower, and grab a quick bite to eat. I downloaded the chart and it is one of my more impressive charts. For 4.75 laps of high intensity riding, I was able to keep the same avg speed, and heart rate without dropping off. I went into my last lap knowing that my legs were fine. I never did any high intensity attacks or surges, and that I’m happy about. I was able to ride at a high pace without hurting myself. I’m not going to work on high end until after the first race in Tallahassee. I know that the first race is always a shock to the legs, so I’m going to let that race be my shock to open up all the anaerobic thresholds. Then I’m going to hit it hard. I’m convinced that I’m going to finish the season, and it starts right now.

Pacer Out!