What Happened, What’s Up & What’s Next

September was pretty much the wrap up of my mountain bike racing for the year and now I’ll be going into a bit of a recreational mode for awhile before doing some base training again. I’m still getting stronger and faster year over year, so my goal will be to not loose too much of my fitness during this fall period and then dive into some base training and build back up to a race in late spring or early summer again. Here are a few highlights notes from last month…

I kicked out another race report, My first Shenandoah 100 with a podcast.

The Marji Gesick 100 difficulty was ramped up with the heat and a few additional trail sections.

I’m starting to dial in a schedule of when I can be available at the various gyms. I’m also now working out of the North Branch and Rush City Snap Fitness, Minnesota locations.

Podcast Version Of This Report

This one has a podcast to go along with it…

August Training Summary

Cycling

September Mileage – 390 miles

2017 Mileage – 3,175 miles

September Duration – 40 hrs, 14 min

2017  Duration – 239 hrs, 30 min

My structured Training ended in August and then I took a recovery week prior to the Shenandoah 100. The Shenandoah 100 was my last big ride before the Marji Gesick 100 and the start of my taper down for the Marji Gesick 100. I couldn’t taper down exactly how I wanted as the Shenandoah obviously stacked up more fatigue than I would have ideally wanted, but that’s how things roll sometimes. I skipped any race simulation type riding during that week and then got back to it on the following weekend with a 4 hour trail ride.

I would get a couple of endurance rides in over the next couple of weeks to maintain my endurance and then every few days get a trail type race simulation ride in and continue droping the ride time as I got closer to the Marji. Things didn’t go quite as planned when I ended up sick the weekend before the Marji. I would have ridden a little higher intensity than I did, but stayed out of too much intensity as I wanted to keep the head cold out of my chest. Regardless, I still got out on the trail and worked on my trail flow and skills. I then skipped my last race simulation ride in exchange for a light gravel ride, as I was struggling to drop the cold, but didn’t want to go into the race completely flat.

At the end of the day I feel pretty dang good about my race finishes with the number of training hours and miles that I actually put in. 3,000 miles and 240 hours of ride time might seem like a lot to some people, but all reality, that’s definitely at the low end of the hours. I try to be efficient with my time as an example for folks with limited time. Yes, I put in 40 hours of ride time in September, but keep in mind that almost 24 hours of that is race time. So, my actual average training time per week is really low and outside of races… My long rides tend to peak out at around 3 hours with an occasional 4 thrown in.

I reference a variety of books when I’m putting together my training plans. I don’t really think any specific one actually nails it for me as is, but I’ve been able to pull bits and pieces from a variety of sources that help me piece something together than I think works well for my situation. Here is my recommeded book list or list of books that I reference for a variety of things related to training and fitness: Reference Books Page

Running

September Mileage – 1.3 miles

2017 Mileage – 113 miles

September Duration – 14 min

2017 Duration – 17 hrs, 26 min

My only run was a short run with my son around our neighborhood. I’ll probably be doing some more running this fall, but will likely give it another week yet.

Strength

I did very little work in this area, other than some very minor core maintenance stuff. I am pretty happy with the results of my changes to my strength routine this past year. I haven’t had any shoulder, neck or back issues on the bike and believe it’s due to the work I’ve been doing. I put a lot of focus on my back and shoulders this year and I think it has paid off. I’ll be diving back into it again soon.

I also plan to ramp up some leg work in the gym soon as well. I’ll probably give it another week before starting to ramp into anything serious, but I really want to work on some off the bike leg strength before I start hitting my heavier bike workouts again this winter.

Nutrition

Not much to say here at this point, although I will mention that I have had terrible cramping issues this year and need to look into it more. I think I cramped really bad, really early in just about every race I did this year, whether I went out hard or easy. I had backed off of a Magnesium and Calcium supplement earlier in the year, because I just don’t like being tied to supplements, but I can’t help but think that might have somethign to do with it. More to come on it I guess.

Upcoming Events

No races, but here are a couple events you might find me at…

October 8, 2017: Woolly Bike Club Family Day

November 5, 2017: Beat The Dark

Personal Training

I’m working out of the following gyms… Contact me for availability.

North Branch, MN Snap Fitness

Rush City, MN Snap Fitness

St. Croix Falls, WI Snap Fitness

Virtual / Remote – I also provide Personal Training & Fitness Coaching services for non-local or non-gym goers through phone or web video sessions.

New Podcast Episodes This Month

These can all be found on your favorite podcast players as well. If you can’t find it, please let me know. Don’t forget to subscribe and please leave a review in iTunes or wherever you listen to the podcast. Hopefully you can give it 5 stars, if not… please send your feedback my way.

I’ll also be working up a few new ideas over the next couple months as the race season/reports from my end slow down and I transition into a different season…

Ep 11 My First Shenandoah 100 MTB Race

New Race Reports

My First Shenandoah 100 MTB Race

New Tools & Resources

MTB Race Checkpoint Time/Split Planning Calculator

This was new last month, but I still think it is worth mentioning. I have a couple other things in mind that I can put together for race planning if folks find stuff like this useful. Let me know if you find this stuff useful and I keep adding to the tool pile.

Instagram Account

Link: Endurance Path on Instagram

Most Popular Post This Month

My First Marji Gesick 100

This post had a lot of traffic all year as people prepared for the Marji Gesick 100. If you haven’t checked it out, go ahead and give it a look and listen to the podcast. I’ll probably be another week before I have my report out from this year.

On To Next Month…

I’ll just be doing some recreational stuff and starting to plan out my next year or at least start looking at what events will be at the top of my list. If you have any questions about anything I shared, feel free to hit me up using my Contact Me page.

-Steve