Jennifer Dilworth Hynes — mtbchk

I just officially signed up for the Burn 24-hour race.

My first Solo 24-hour race.

I’ve done it the last two years on all-female 4 and 5-person teams, but never alone.  I did the Cowbell Challenge 12-hour race solo last year.  It wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be, so hopefully this will be the same. 

I went ahead and spent the extra $12 to get Brian his own event t-shirt.  Maybe he’ll remember that when I’m ornery in the middle of the night while he’s trying ever-so-patiently to be my support (emotional, culinary, and mechanical support).  I get cranky when I’m tired.  I’m pretty sure the t-shirt won’t cover all that he’ll give me that weekend, but hopefully it’s a start…

I haven’t posted in a while due to evening obligations.  Not much to report, though.

I haven’t ridden a moving bicycle in a week and a half — since LAST Tuesday at Beatty.  I’ve been on the Computrainer at Per4mance Training twice — the last two Wednesdays.  Other than that, That’s it.  Nothing.  Nada. Zip. 

I don’t know if my time off the bike affected it, (I’m sure it did), but this past Wednesday was the final assessment of my 12-week training program at Per4mance.  By my “midterm” in early February, I had gained 13%, or about 20 Watts.  I don’t think I did that well Wednesday.  I know I squeezed out a few more watts, but not 20.  I haven’t gotten the final results, but I don’t think it was more than 5 or 10 watts.  Had I been on the bike more in the week leading up to the “final”, would I have done better?  I don’t know.  Does it matter?  Not really.  They’re just numbers.  But, I like numbers.  Maybe it’s my competitiveness, maybe it’s my need for data.  I don’t know, but I wish I could go back and do it again.  I do know I gave it all I had that night.  I felt like I was going to DIE after the first four minutes, and it’s a twenty minute time trial!  I ended up taking another ice bath that night.  That’s like legal non-drug pain relievers.  10 minutes in ice, and the muscle pain is gone, with little to no soreness the next day.  Only the first 5 seconds are uncomfortable.  Wearing wool socks in the bath keeps the toes from freezing.

So, tomorrow is the Diva day trip to Uwharrie.  This will also serve as my pre-ride for the Uwharrie Race on Sunday.  I like Uwharrie.  It’s a short race, but not easy.  It’s a “sleeper”.  It’s in the middle of nowhere, but you feel like you’re in the mountains.  It has plenty of climbing, and some fun rocky stuff with a tough creek crossing and subsequent technical steep climb.

Uwharrie is the race I use to judge the effectiveness of my winter training.  I usually surprise myself here and do better than I expect.  We’ll see.  I know there are more people showing up for this race than in the last few years, as I’ve talked a couple of Divas into doing the race.  One of them will be in my class (Madonna).  Also, last year’s race was on Easter, so turn out was low.  At least with a good showing, I’ll have a better idea of where I stand…

So, I’ll report back after the race.

I’ve started so many new things training- and riding-wise in the last few months.  I’d like to think it’s all made a difference.  I definitely feel stronger, and I am almost sure I’m faster.

I’ve NEVER been a “roadie”.  I got the road bike for “training” and rode it a grand total of 11 times in the first year I had it.  These were all on organized group or charity rides.  Starting in January, I finally talked myself into riding at lunch *alone* on the *road* (gasp).  With all of my other duties and responsibilities, I found my evenings pretty packed, with MUCH less time for night riding and trainer rides like I did last year.  In fact, I think I’ve only been on my home trainer ONCE (!) since the first of the year.  So, daily road rides have taken the place of the night mtb rides and trainer nights at home.  I’ve found that I actually enjoy and look forward to these rides as a mid-day stress relief.  They are more entertaining than I would have expected.

When I ride on the trail, I’ve been riding pretty much just the singlespeed.  The poor Titus sits in the garage waiting for race season and some new fork seals.  I’m not really riding the SS for “training” purposes, but it’s just so much fun, and I like to tell myself I’m gaining power by riding it all the time.  With my earlier work hours and longer daylight, I’ve been doing a little more trail riding lately.  So, two rides almost every day.  (One road, one SS) Yay!

When I first got the SS, Jerry said I’d get big thighs.  I said “I already have big thighs”.  Well, now they are bigger.  But they are strong.  It’s not really like flabby — just more muscular.  I’d rather have big thighs due to muscles than little skinny thighs and no strength.  I feel “healthy”.  The only downside is that my “big” jeans are still too big in the waist, but get stuck on my big thighs.  Hmmm.  This is a dilemma.

Another thing I started this year was the weekly training specificity series at Per4mance Training.  It was slow at first, focusing mainly on “tempo” intervals, but for the last few weeks, Chad has really been kicking our butts.  Last night was Anaerobic Threshold Intervals.  30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, at 120% to 140% of our MSPO (Maximum Sustainable Power Output).  We did this for about 40 minutes.  OUCH.  My legs felt like jello and were on the verge of cramping the entire time.  I kept thinking, this will be great — it’s just like a mtb race.  Wrong.  MUCH less recovery time than in a race.  Less instantaneous power than a race, but sustained for a longer time.  Just enough time to really get the Lactic Acid kickin’.

When I got home, I had to do *something*.  The “stick” wasn’t going to be enough.  After taking a warm shower to knock all the sweat off, I hopped into an ice bath (cold water, with a full bucket of ice out of the freezer).  I stayed there for about 10 minutes or so.  Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I expected.  The only bad thing was that I couldn’t feel my toes for a few hours.  Otherwise, I think this did the trick.  “They” say the ice bath works to flush the Lactic Acid out of the muscles and reduces inflammation.  I’ll have to remember this little trick.  My muscles felt almost immediately better after the bath. 

So, with the road riding, singlespeeding and Per4mance Training, I really think I’m in much better shape than I was this time last year.  I’ve been roughly following the Morris Plan.  I think it seems more flexible than Friel.  I’ve incorporated a little of both in, I guess.  I’m actually having fun training. 

Now, if I can ever decide which races I’m going to do.  I’m still turning a couple of extra endurance races over in my head, wondering if they are do-able in addition to the other Cane Creek Series races this year.  More to come as I make up my mind.

Today was tough in our “team” training for work.  It seems my “team” doesn’t get it.  They expect me just to do everything for them, rather than them proposing solutions to THEIR problems.  A team is not defined by their coach alone.  Let’s see… the exercises we went through today…

1. Resolving internal team conflict — it seems that they are not willing to admit that they have any conflict, even though I’ve been told privately.  They danced around the issues all morning. 

2. Roles and Responsibilities — Nobody wants them.  They think that it should be all ME.  They figure that if I have all of the responsibility, they won’t have any accountability.  WRONG.

This is going to be harder than I thought.

On a brighter note….  I just got back from Per4mance Training (www.per4mancetraining.com).  Remember how I wanted to step it up a notch?  Well, tonight we had a re-assessment of threshold power.  Mine has gone up 13% since the beginning of January, and I’ve lost 5 lbs.  Whoo hoo!

I guess I’m making progress both Professionally and Physically, although progress in one arena is faster than it is in the other arena.  At least it’s progress.  All I know, is that either way, progress can be painful.