OK, just so you know, I don't plan on actually being competitive or anything. As a matter of fact, as a favorite coach of mine, Chuck Yonker of ZEHS Girls' XC fame, puts it, I plan to be "a completer, not a competer." But it's officially a race, and I am officially registered. Along with about 3,999 others.
It's called the Bell's Beer Iceman Cometh Challenge, and it runs from Kalkaska to Traverse City in northern Michigan. Totaling about 30 miles, the race is ridden over "paved roads, dirt roads, two tracks (the majority of the course), abandoned railroad beds, and the world famous Vasa Nordic ski trail" between the start and finish points. There is also apparently something known as "Ball-breaker Hill," which I am really looking forward to...
This race is one of those bucket list-type events for so many people that it clogs the interweb on the day registration opens. Tales abound of how many hours people
Except now there's pressure. I know, I know, I'm not going to win, place, or even show. But there's something about the word race that makes me think differently or something. And it's 30 miles on an MTB over all kinds of terrain, and the thing I have the best chance of doing is blowing up by the halfway mark and not finishing...
So yesterday as I was riding at the Fort Custer MTB trails I got to think about several things. Mostly not falling down and breaking myself, but others cropped up as well. Like superstition. And I am not at all superstitious, except for when I am totally superstitious.
Yesterday was the "two weeks until the event" mark. Last time I was two weeks away from an important cycling event I crashed and burned and screwed up the event and much of my summer. So you can bet that I was plenty cautious as I picked my way through the roots, rocks, and mud. (Except for the three out of four times I took the "hard" way arrows through the course. I was successful on 2.5 of those three times - I ended up walking down one hill where I was pretty convinced that I had made a wrong turn and missed the trail. But about halfway down I saw what the route was, and then I was glad I walked anyway... On "hard way" #2 I really impressed myself with my handling skills, but fear of death or injury frequently improves those.)
I also thought a lot about the differences between road and trail riding, and since this blog is supposed to be about some training things and such, I thought I'd try to explain those.
On either bike the biggest muscle group used is obviously the legs, right? On the road, the vast majority of the time you are using what people call "slow twitch" fibers, or those which basically allow you to ride, walk, or do whatever you're doing pretty much all day. Fast twitch fibers, on the other hand, are the ones that you use when you sprint. Well, on the MTB the slow twitch ones stay pretty quiet. LOTS of climbing, lots of fast twitch fibers helping you navigate from one place to the other.
The other huge difference I have noticed in the woods is the amount of arms and core I end up using. There's a lot more steering and direction changing involved on the trails, which may seem obvious, but think about how you might do that on the road. Nice, slow, sweeping turns at 15-18 mph are replaced by shoving the handlebars quickly from one direction to the other, frequently while climbing over a root or descending through rocks. Which is where the core muscle group comes in. I can pretty much ride on the road all day without engaging too much of my core. Balance is balance, after all. Point me in a straight line and I am set for miles. But in the woods I am reminded of the old high school football cheer: "lean to the left, lean to the right, stand up, sit down, fight, fight, FIGHT!"
The nearly two hours I rode yesterday took me 16.5 miles through some pretty sweet trails at Fort Custer. My Garmin registered that my heart rate was mostly in the "race" and "holy crap" zones. The same amount of time on the road would give me about 30 miles, with heart rates in the "training" and "racing" zones, or as I like to refer to them, zones 3 and 4. Pretty sure in a couple of spots yesterday I invented a Zone 6. (You've heard the maximum heart rate thing, right? "220 minus your age"? It's either way off or I have died several dozen times over the years...)
And today Dana and I rode about ten easy miles on the road, spinning out the legs and returning the muscles to a normal state. It's nice to have a cooling off day occasionally, but this time of year those are too easy to take; with a race coming up (did I mention I signed up to actually race?) I need to make sure I keep up my fitness level. Perhaps I should figure out some sort of plan to work up to peak by next weekend and then "taper" until race day. Tapering could involve some nice relaxing days...
Quite possibly the coolest thing about mountain biking, though? The sights. The smells. The air. The lack of automobile traffic. You can only experience one of those via this electronic communication, so I give you these:
