I was out riding my MTB last year, clipped a rock with my pedal and went straight over the bars. A dude with long hair wearing baggies road past on his 5inch travel fun machine and with a big grin gave me some sound advice “Man, you just gotta stay loose bro”.
At the time I was tempted to pick up my bike and throw it at him but I thought about what he said and he is on the money. I can’t think of one situation in cycling (or life for that matter) where being tight and constrained will give you an advantage. In fact it is generally quite the opposite. A race can present any number of challenges and if you are tight in either mind or body you are bound to end up making bad tactical decisions or making a bad riding decision resulting in a trip to the first aid tent. If you plan to ride smart during a race, conserve on the flats and nail the hills, then find that you are burning your fuel too fast, you need to change your plan very quickly before it gets away from you. Stick to your original plan and by half way through the race your world of pain will be making the finish line seem a very long way off.
What the banana is all this about… Well I’m going to take the dudes advice and apply to it to my goals. I’m going to look at setting achievable long term goals but allow for enough wriggle room in the short term so I can stay loose and be poised to react to environmental factors that will influence how I can train and which races I can commit to throughout the year.
In 2015 I plan to race the entire CORC XCO 10 round series and my goal is to place in the top 3 of A grade. This is a huge challenge considering on any given Sunday riders such Daniel McConnell, Dylan Cooper, James Downing, Ed McDonald and Andrew Blair can turn up. All of whom race at National and International level events. I also plan to race at least two National XCO rounds during the year. Ideally I would like to race the Rocky Trail enduro series and a few rounds of the Chocolate Foot solo enduro series. I will race the Rocky Trail series in pairs and will aim to take out the series in 4hr Elite men’s category. However my racing partner and best mate Hamish recently broke his femur so I may need to find someone to replace him for the first couple of rounds. I will also captain the SenseCore team in the upcoming 2015 Mont 24 hour race, in which we aim to place in the top 3.
Subaru National Championship Series
http://mtb.subaru.com.au/
http://mtb.subaru.com.au/
Scott 24 hour
http://corc24hour.com.au/
http://corc24hour.com.au/
Rocky Trail Shimano MTB GPseries
Chocolate Foot Single Track Mind series
http://www.chocolatefoot.com.
http://www.chocolatefoot.com.
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