Thursday Cancelled. Weekend Details

Coupla things here folks.

Thursday practice is CANCELLED for everybody EXCEPT for the Valley racers. It was going to be an MTB endurance ride for 24Hour racers, but there’s a high likelihood of rain this afternoon. So no mountain biking. VOS racers still have practice, we’ll be spending some time on the rollers. If you’re a 24 racer and your bike needs some work (road or mtb) or you wanna patch some tubes or something, the clubhouse will be open during it’s regular hours.

Weekend:

There are a lot of rumors and guesses and theories floating around the team right now about training and the best way to train, etc. I love a lively discussion as much the next guy, but when it comes to training… trust me and Ben. We come up with the training plan so that you DON’T have to speculate about what to do. The training plan is designed with a rider who comes all 5 practices/week in mind. We only expect you to be at 3 as a younger rider on the team, but know that those 5 practices are what we design the week around. Skipping practices for rest is just skipping quality training time. You’re not outsmarting the training plan, you’re just doing detriment to yourself. There are exceptions to this, but those exceptions come with a conversation with Ben and me about chronic fatigue or burnout or sickness.

Highly related to that is this concept I’ve heard from a few riders about how riding back to back days is bad for you, or “tapering into the crit on Sunday” or whatever. One of the most impactful things you can do in your training is back to back days of training. It forces your body to adapt in the best ways and will make you stronger. Period. Full stop. Hands down. No joke. The race on Sunday is a TRAINING RACE. That means that we are NOT targeting it as a major goal. If you can’t be at practice on Saturday for family or school reasons, that’s fine, but I do not want to hear anybody talking about “tapering” or “resting”. Beyond that, even if we WERE preparing for a huge race on Sunday (for the sake of argument), there would STILL BE PRACTICE ON SATURDAY! Because your body performs better like that.

If you are EVER confused by the training plan, or hear conflicting information from different sources, come talk to me or Ben. We are more than happy to have a conversation about training, listen to your concerns, and explain our point of view. You might be surprised by what we say.

So.

This weekend.

Saturday:

6:45 Meet, 7:15 Leave, Old Man Shootout. If you got dropped before the bridge last shootout, you’re back on the B ride. Otherwise, you’re on the old man. Back by 10:30AM
7Meet, 7:30 Leave, Big Boy Shootout. Sam, Izaac, Myles, Quinn, Sotelo. If you get dropped, you will ride alllllll the way around. After the shootout, we will do one A mountain effort for time. Back by 11AM
Meet 7:30, Leave 8, B/C team ride. Back by 11AM

Sunday:

Crit Racers: Meet at 4AM, leave 4:30AM. Home around 7/7:30

We have racers in the first and last crits of the day. The first crit of the day is Juniors 9-12 and 13-14. That’s at 7:30AM. We need to be on site an hour early, at 6:30AM, and the drive is about 2 hours. So leaving the clubhouse at 4:30, meeting at 4. The last crit of the day is Men’s 3/4 which ends at 5PM. Two hour drive home, we should be back around 7/7:30.

Things to bring:

Positive, race ready attitude. No grumpies!
El Grupo Kit, helmet, shoes, road bike, gloves
Lunch and other snacks. We’ll have PB&J for you, but we’re gonna be gone for 15 hours sooo I’d bring other food
Homework. You will have plenty of downtime to work on your school stuff