Come Visit Beautiful Tymor Park, and Alabammer ahead.

There's something to be said about racing a great mtb course, no matter how bad you feel physically, it keeps you going mentally.  That was the type of course I raced yesterday in Lagrangeville, NY.  With a ton of old trails, everything held up great to the rain the night before/morning of the race and helped seperate the skilled riders from the bunch.  Even though I ended up a distant 11th, I saw myself ride smooth and consistent and make few mistakes on a course that saw some people flopping about like squids on ice-skates.  After a long week in my final block of intense base training, I'm more than happy with that.  And I know that once I start race-prep my high end will wake up and I'll be able to match some of the harder accelerations that seperate the front from the rest.  

On tap this week is 24hrs of road and mountain biking.  No race for me this weekend, as I'll need to concentrate on putting 100% into this final base period in order to make sure my engine is as solid as can be this year.  Then it's on to race prep workouts and monitoring improvements and weaknesses up until the Mount Snow/Windham back-to-back weekends.

In it's middle phases are the travel plans down to Birmingham, Alabama for the Bump-N-Grind, stop #2 of the US Cup East.  This one should be a doozie with a lot of fast riders and a large(r) field.  The timing is good, as I'll have just finished up with the previous mentioned looooong training week and will be recovering the week before this race.  A few edits to the training plan and I should be snappy and ready to go!

Aside from cycling, I'll also be back on the Farm this week to help with more planting and such.  I'll be limited in my abilities as I have to make sure to stay rested, but it's so much fun hanging on the farm and working the earth that it's hard for me to stay away.  More from the Farm later!