Training Blog
Every year, most of the riders at the TransRockies start line are doing their first TR. For them the biggest question is, “can I complete all 7 days of this epic”? But 2010 will be my 7th TransRockies, so I know that I can finish the race. In my 6 previous TRs my time has ranged from under 40 hours to over 60 hours. This year my goal is to finish in the top half of the overall field with a time no more than 50% over the winner in the Open Men’s category.
After 6 years of competitive mountain biking and 6 TransRockies I realized that while I could complete challenging single day and multi-day marathon mountain bike races, I had a big hole in my training. Far too much of my training has been “just riding around”. The advantage I have is that I live on Bowen Island, just off the coast of West Vancouver. The start of every ride I do on Bowen has a 60 metre climb over the first 330 metres. On Bowen you either get good at riding hills or you stop riding. The climate is also somewhat cycle friendly. As long as you don’t mind some cold and soggy rides, you can get out on your bike almost every day of the year.
But while my year-round “just riding around” has given me a great base and thus a pretty reasonable level of aerobic fitness, the unstructured nature of my training and lack of guidance means that my anaerobic fitness is pretty shallow.
So this year I’ve teamed up with Cory Fagan the founder of TCR Sports Lab in Calgary. In addition to his undergraduate degree in Physical Education and Masters in Kinesiology, he also completed the TR3 in 2009. So he has the book learning and knows what I’m getting myself in for with my 7th TransRockies.
Cory has put together a programme to maximize the benefit of the time that I spend on my bike. Cory is in Calgary and I’m on Bowen Island, so we’ll conduct all of our correspondence online. New training platforms and tools have made this long-distance coaching both possible and effective.
We’ll start in earnest in January 2010 and I’ll be blogging regularly about my training progress and how I do in the one-day races I enter. Until then I’ll be overindulging in shortbread and Christmas cake.
Visit Simon’s Training Blog at http://trtraining.blogspot.com/
Training Guide:
- PART 1 - TRAINING: What to Expect at Your First TransRockies
- PART 2 - FINDING A PARTNER: What to Expect at Your First TransRockies
- PART 3 - CYCLING CLOTHING: What to Expect at your first TransRockies
- PART 4 - EQUIPMENT: What to Expect at your first TransRockies
- PART 5 - CAMP CLOTHING & EQUIPMENT: What to Expect at your first TransRockies
- PART 6 - RACE PREPARATIONS: What to Expect at your first TransRockies
- PART 7 - RACE MORNING: What to Expect at your first TransRockies
- PART 8 - RACING: What to Expect at your first TransRockies
- PART 9 - AFTER THE FINISH: What to Expect at your first TransRockies
- PART 10 - TRAVEL: What to Expect at your first TransRockies
- PART 11 - EVENING MEAL: What to Expect at your first TransRockies
- PART 12 - SAFETY: What to Expect at your first TransRockies
