2017 USA Cycling Marathon Nationals Week: Tuesday

Tuesday 5/2/17

                Today’s purpose is to sharpen the skills on the bike. I prefer fast and flowy single track, tight and technical trails frustrate me. I’m not a fan of the slow bump and grind with trees and rocks. However, I acknowledge in order to be a menace of a mountain bike racer, I need to eat my vegetables and ride the techy stuff... It’s what’s good for me. Today wasn’t painful, Highland (the closest techy craphole trail) has a unique vibe to it. Since it is pretty hard to hit warp speed out there I found myself really taking it all in and enjoying the fresh leaves. It really makes one wonder why more people don't do this. Disclaimer: I recognize that sounds really Eco-douchey but it is what it is.

"Why travel all the way to Arkansas to just ride 50 miles?"

Here’s the numbers:

Miles: 12.7

Time: 1:25:25

Average Watts: 150W

Average Heart Rate: 132 Bpm

Total Climbing: 1699’

KJ per Hour: 543Kj

Green AF

Wet and Green AF

2017 USA Cycling Marathon Nationals Week for Scotty: Monday

Monday 5/1/17

                Monday’s training started with picking up a brand new Specialized Epic from Cycletherapy in Waterford. Cycletherapy is my hometown bike shop and has treated me very well over the years so I am really excited to partnering with them for the 2017 season in addition to 3T Q+M Team. Additionally Uncle Sam (Tax return) bought me the bike so that is extra exciting. Training was short and had the purpose of spinning the legs, getting a little sweat going and getting me bearings of the bike. One 46:00 minute lap at Pontiac Lake was all it took to get a good feel for the bike and play with the suspension settings. Today’s average heart rate was 143 bpm, I haven’t put the power meter on so a kilo-joules per hour count and average watts data was unavailable. Weather was brisk and rainy… but that’s Michigan. It is easy to overthink a race during the week, leading to mental fatigued without even pedaling. I combat that by keeping my mind occupied as best I can by taking each training session one day at a time. Obviously this is easier said than done, then I must remind myself that the race is Sunday and i'm not measured till then... so keep it in your pants chief.

Stay thirsty my friends.

Dane, my apprentice mechanic giving it a once over.

Hometown kid goes back to where it all started.

Cactus

Training in Arizona has been going well. I'm building better training habits and taking advantage of the great weather and abundance of climbing. This drive out was a huge success. Seeing the country was one of the coolest things I have experienced. I felt like every cross country road trip movie had it spot on. Plus it seemed like each song on the radio was the soundtrack to my journey. Really killer stuff. I left Waterford Michigan, drove to Oklahoma City, then to Albuquerque and finally ending in Sierra Vista Az. Sierra Vista is a pretty chill town. It's a military town so there really isn't a ton going on. Thats great for training. Nothing to do but train and eat tacos. A little update on the weeks to come. The next race is True Grit 100 in Utah. It'll be my second 100 miler and I am more optimistic about this one than Lumberjack 100. Lumberjack was fun, but I bonked hard. I didn't take my nutrition seriously and committed to the wrong fuel source. This time I have more miles and nutrition experience under my belt. It's been fun and I look forward to the rest of the time here.

Post VO2 Max workout. I was really trashed. 

A little hike to a waterfall with Jason. Unreal views. 

Worst Blogger Ever...

    I'm a bad blogger. That's not really an update, but this is. I'm currently one week away from ending my off season and starting my great 2017 Arizona adventure. After Iceman I continued to ride and train somewhat effectively. My intention was to train until the weather got too snowy. Two weeks ago the snow came to Michigan. I'm lucky enough to live really close to some of the best Nordic Ski trails in southeast Michigan. During the super snowy weeks of year I don't really like to ride my bike for two pretty big reasons. Firstly in the winter the road shoulders are pretty nonexistent and drivers do not even think to look for cyclists. Secondly the roads are icy and the training isn't as great as the risk. Instead I ski. I can get a pretty good workout in. Eventually I would like to put more time into the skiing craft but the past few years something gets in the way. When I first started skiing I was doing it on the weekends, offseason and mornings when I was running for the University of Michigan. Then Last year I skied during the only Snowy week (we were lucky to have a super mild winter). Now this year I am on the verge of skiing a lot but am lucky enough to go to Arizona in about a week. Someday, possibly when I am older I will ski race, however, for now I am happy to ski just for the enjoyment.

  

    In 2017 I will be starting off the year in Sierra Vista Arizona. I will be staying with family friends for from 1/2/17 till the first week in March. It is going to be very exciting. I intend to make the most out of the trip and train as much as possible. The biggest goal of the trip is to close some of the gaps between my competitors who have been cycling for many years and myself who is still pretty new to aspiring to reach elite level cycling. I have had a lot of help this year and see no reason not to continue to make everyone proud.  

Sierra Vista, I think (I googled it)

Skiing

The 3T Exploro built up.

Mid Snow Storm Skiing

One Week Out

We are into the last week of my season. Iceman is Saturday and this week is all about recovery. Last week was a bit rough for me. I had one of those weeks where I'm not sick but i'm not exactly well. My heart rate was at least 20 beats higher than it usually is and I was a bit congested. This really showed at bloomer this weekend. I had a good start but eventually went into damage control to finish 5th overall. I spent the second half of the race trying to prevent a masters rider from passing me. After a brief period of a strange mix of embarrassment and anger I eventually refocussed and held him off. I'm not butthurt. Some races all you can do is just maintain position, and make the person behind you really earn it. The rest of the weekend was spent recovering, getting aquatinted with the couch and sleeping. The rest of this week will be spent being disciplined. Not riding too hard, going to bed on time and not thinking too much about Iceman. It's been a really fun year, and I really hope to close the year off with a good one.

Hurting a little

The Results

  The race is only as long as the race is.

Scotty Albaugh

Week In Review/Pre Weekend Update

This past week I have been overly tired. I can't put my finger on why, but I am guessing it is because of a hard last week of training. Therefore this week I took as a major recovery week. There really isn't huge gains I can make between now and Iceman so why dig myself into a hole for no reason. This week consisted of a max duration of a 70 minute ride and lots of rest. As I have stated before I have a hard time tapering and recovery in general. So I spend a disproportionate amount of time reminding myself that Iceman is what I do this for, not just for the enjoyment of training. I'm feeling more rested and under control come today. This is good because I am racing the Bloomer CX race in Rochester as a tuneup for Iceman. I am pretty excited to race it, firstly because I really enjoy cyclocross but also because CX at Bloomer has quite a history that I am just now learning about. In one of the first runnings of Bloomer Jeremey Powers won it. Very cool. I'm excited.

Jeremy Powers National Champ.

Jump before the barriers, not after.

Scotty Albaugh

Road Racing Can Be Super Lame.

Lowell 50

Road racing can be so damn lame sometimes. Since I'm pretty new to bike racing at a more serious level this was the first time I felt used and abused. As i've mentioned many times I would like to be a roadie at times...but i'm not. This past weekend at Lowell 50 I felt used. An early break happened. A few of us strong guys eventually chased it down. Then another very well executed attack happened that I didn't make, I didn't have the legs, I didn't taper for it and continued to train hard through the week. After the initial attack they were not far up the road and moving forward much, so I thought we could catch them. I'm with a group of maybe ten racers, so i'm thinking the guys who broke away have no chance, we can chase them down. Only a few of us got the memo. Myself and three at most different people were working to close the gap, a big part of it being me. Fueled by anger and slight embarrassment that I didn't make the break, I was charging hard. I got really mad at some of the riders in the pack. I get that when one of your teammates makes the break it's not cool to help competitors chase your boy down, but don't try and impede the race. It's not the tour, don't be a tool. Get in back or pull off immediately and don't slow the train down. Additionally, I thought it was pretty lame that after the majority of dudes sat in the train and did not help, to attacked for a non-podium finish at the end added insult to injury. I'll admit that I'm only pissed off because i'm inexperienced and this was the first time in my life my soul was wheel-sucked out of me. For that reason i'm not sure I could ever be a roadie. For me the race was 57 miles, not till I missed the break or till the gaps became to big to close. In my opinion calling the race early isn't or acceptable or admirable, no matter the reason. Anything can happen so why wouldn't you keep pushing? Lowell wasn't all bad though. I did enjoy myself. I wanted to race like I train and I felt like I accomplished that. I took some risks, I got burned a little bit, I attacked, I tried to be relentless. I can sleep at night knowing I gave what I could and didn't call anything too early. Plus it's always great to spend time with two of the nicest and positive people Mike and Michelle Simonson.

Sunday: Taytertot, a Brisk Tempo and Ruining Peoples Mornings at Island Lake. 

Sunday morning I met Taylor AKA Taytertot at Island Lake for a two loop light tempo workout. The purpose was to get the heart rate up for around 100 minutes at about 155 to 169 beats per minute for the duration and to have fun riding with my Boy. Island Lake is always a good place to get a sustained effort because its relatively flat, not very technical, and is fun. We somewhat accomplished the goal of the workout. We were hindered quite a bit by other riders. I really like seeing other people out enjoying the trails and getting the same connection with nature that I do, however, that doesn't mean that passing some people isn't painful. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I made someone crash because of me passing them at the wrong time. Therefore both Taytertot and I are patient when passing in the single track. Most people are really great about it. During faster workouts we come up on people really fast and they can see and recognize that the faster we get around them, the less time we waste. Typically we yell out that faster riders are coming up to them fast and they get over. This past Sunday was not typical. There was a ton of people on the trail for how early and how cold the morning was. The workout splits were pretty slow compared to the effort put out. For the first time it took a lot of time and emotional energy to pass what seemed like ever rider. My favorite pass was when Taytertot and I were told we could pass when he said as long as we didn't suck. But as annoying as that was I would rather have a busy well used trail than a dead one. Despite this the workout's intention was accomplished. Iceman is now two weeks away. The taper has started. The next race will be Bloomer CX. I'll be using it as the last tuneup before Iceman.

Tayter Tot in all his glory.

Uphills are scientifically proven to be longer at the end of a 6 hour ride. Look it up.

Scotty Albaugh Jr.