This spring this blog will begin to become a little more consistent. After a pretty lax late summer and fall I've got the itch to race again. I wanted to race cross more than I did this fall but the travel got to me. If I was in KC, cross would probably be my primary season, but here it's going to have to take a back seat. Now, due to logistics, I'm going to focus on MTB racing and throw in some road where it fits. There are more MTB races in the area than road or cross and the longer length of a MTB race makes traveling 2+ hours more justified. In addition, I think road and crits aren't as much fun as MTB or Cross racing.
The snow has been falling here in Wisconsin, and the cross country skiing is good. It's also more muscularly and aerobically demanding than riding. By far. We skied the Birkie Tour on the famous Birkie Trail in northern Wisconsin. Very pretty, but very tough. Lots of hills and rollers - which in skiing is a lot tougher than climbing hills on a bike. The skiing really keeps my legs strong. While it's not the exact same muscles, it's close enough. I am looking forward to riding weather again - Although I have some snow and cold weather to come before it gets decent outside.
Doing my first gravel race this coming May. The Almanzo 100. 100 miles of gravel, free to race. That should be interesting. I need to get tons of miles in before that one so I don't blow up in the middle of Southeastern Minnesota. Hopefully doing that race will set me up aerobically and with my legs for the rest of the season. I want to get really fast again - kind of like I did 2 summers ago. Since that summer of racing, I really haven't been close in fitness to what I could do. All I did that summer was race myself into shape. This year I hope to race into shape with experience and come out really fast. We'll see.
