'cross season begins.....

About a 2 month agos I had the realization that 'cross season was closer than I thought. I hadn't even touched my 'cross bike much since last season. I decided a good starting point would be to ride my 'cross bike as much as possible. So I started commuting to work with it--so much so that the little knobbies are almost entirely worn off.

Next I decided, I should actually go out and start riding on the dirt. Leonard had some crazy urban\'cross loop he did in the Citay so I hit him about shown it to me. Man it was crazy. I was all over the frick'n place. The geometry felt so different from my road and mountain bikes.

So now I'd been riding my 'cross bike around, but hadn't done any really 'cross training. I figured it would be a good idea to re-build my endurance(base) after tearing my muscles down with a full road season and a few mtb races.

Last year Lauren Constantini invited my to come out to do a 5+ hr 'cross ride, with other fellow 'cross enthusiasts. The ride started at the GG bridge and took us into and through the Headlands, we hit trails like middle green gulch trail, coyote ridge trail, coastal trail ...in anycase, this ride has become known as the Elmo ride.

Any who, long rides on the 'cross bike were in order so contacted Brian Rodgers who I knew would be familiar with the route. We finally connected one weekend and did the epic ride, which as it turns out, would really be the kick-off for my training. Con incidentally, it was also Meredith's first time on her 'cross bike for that many hours and on those kind of trails. She was a trooper and stayed strong throughout the ride. She also became familiar with the arm\hand numbing, triceps aching descents with a rigid fork. I think she's already realized how fun 'cross season will be ;-)

About 4500 ft of climbing and 5hrs later we were done with the ride and back in my hood. We both salivating at the thought of real food and decided to ride straight to Rosamunde's Sausage Grill about a block from my house. We rolled up ordered some Brat's and German potato salad. Suddenly our days effort was re-payed and it was good ;-)


The next day I did another 3hr's on the road from SF to Santa Clara to meet up with Meredith and a bunch of friends for a BBQ! With to big days in my legs I felt really motivated to train for 'cross. Monday was a commute in and out of work for a total of another 3hrs. Tuesday I took the day off to rest my legs for a thrashing at Funke's GGP cx ride.

We'll it's a good thing I rested my legs 'cause there's nothing like going anaerobic for a few laps to make you realize that nothing but 'cross racing get your ready for 'cross! Showed up and saw lots of familiar faces. We did a warm up lap, a couple recon. laps and then did 3 hot laps. Holy crap! I seriously feel like I haven't had my heart rate pegged like that for a long time. The little bits of running really peaked my HR. However, I was able to recover and stay close to Funke, Nick and a couple other fast 'cross dudes. We took a break and did another 3 hot laps. Again it was utter pain, but at the same time bliss. My legs held up, I was able to go hard and some how recover, and maintain position at the front of the pack.

I know it's still early in the season, but it felt good to go hard and be able to keep up with some of the faster guys out there. I'll continue getting in some large volume training rides and then start tapering into shorter more intense rides as we head into peak season in October.

So I got a couple more road races: Giro Di SF and possibly challenge. I'm planning to keep up the mountain biking to keep the technical skills sharp. Will probably switch to riding the SS mostly. Then enter October and we will be fully immersed in 'cross! Can't Wait!