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7.27.2008

Cross is in the Air.


With about 1.5 months until my first cross race, it will creep up very fast. With the road season still chugging along with stage races, some crits, followed by more crits, sandwiched in between intervals, group rides, training races, rollers, the trainer, more intervals, recovery, more intervals and more recovery. I know it is getting close to cross and I can smell it in the air. What does it smell like? Well, it smells like me not caring about intervals anymore, not caring about training for the road. The powertap is not working well, I don't care. My bike goes from being connected to watts, heart rate and all that training data to being off the grid. I just do care about watt, kjs. The chain is dirty, the water bottles stinky and I just don't care. I find myself out on training rides and I want to find stuff to bunny hop. The road bike is itching to be a cross bike. I like to train for cross on my cross bike, this leaves me without the powertap, and I go on perceived exertion and I sort of like it like that. After months of staring at watts and and maximizing workouts, it is nice just to go out and just ride ride. With the MAC schedule mostly UCI races and that will mean that pretty much every elite cross race I do will hurt more than any road race I have done this summer. That road training will start to transition into cross training in a few weeks and I am excited, counting the days until that cross bike is the main bike in the stable and the training consists of short threshold and above intervals followed by some technical riding in the trails around philly. The hopes of cracking top 30 in the UCI races is what it is all about for me.

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