Now What?

I've been spending a lot of time on the couch letting my various problem spots heal up. What's funny is that they seem to heal in the order they started bugging me in: the foot/calf healed first and now I'm working on the right hamstring/gluteal. The hamstring/glute proves stubborn and I'm working on getting in for a massage Friday to help speed the recovery.

After nearly 4 weeks of not training,cabin fever got the best of me and I hit the pool Monday and set my threshold pace for the month...it's slow. Tuesday I hit Penasquitos Canyon for a night ride with some guys and my light crapped out on me. Great. I borrowed one from Mark and we continued on until my bottom bracket came loose on my single speed. WTF? I just had it adjusted! Whatever...EBB fixed and we kept going until the batteries on Mark's light that I borrowed came loose in the holder. One more stop for mechanicals and we finished the ride with no further problems. Why I have problems at night and not during the day, I'll never know.

So Wednesday I took my light back to Niterider, hoping they can fix it and I won't have to buy a new battery. It's not holding a charge and the customer service guy said it's probably the circuit in the battery that controls the charging. Furthermore, it should be under warranty since it's less than 2 years old (not that I bought it new, but whatever!). Still, my plans to race the 12 Hours of Temecula on a 3-person team are in jeopardy unless my light gets fixed before that.

Saturday I hit up Sycamore Canyon with another random riding buddy (Brian) and it felt good to ride the geared bike and just cruise. Perfect temps, not too crowded and a great ride all things considered.

As for "Now What?" let's talk 2009!!

I've put together a tentative race schedule and a plan so I know when to start prepping for my "Base" work. "Prep" phase starts Nov 1st and "Base" in early December. I'm still working on how I'm going to continue to pay my coach for 2009 and right now it doesnt't look good. I may have to coach myself; which is BAD since I'm not very objective when it comes to my own training. Let's see if I can scrape the cash together and keep my coach. I don't think I'll make my season goals otherwise.

Speaking of goals, I'm setting time goals at key races this year instead of "get on the podium". Placing goals don't work unless you know exactly who you're racing and how their season is going. With time goals, I have a solid benchmark I can compare myself to. Those are staying a secret until AFTER I do those races, by the way, so my competition won't be able to use it against me. Not that anyone ever reads this crap...

So here it is:
March 7th: Vision Quest (racing Luke)
March 29th?: Xterra REAL
April 13th: Xterra Castaic (if it's an Xterra points race)
May 3rd: Idyllwild Spring Challenge XC MTB (racing Luke again)
May 17th: Xterra West Championships

Arizona Xtreme that I did in 2008 has been cancelled because they are no longer allowed to use the highway as part of the race course. So after 8 years, that race goes bye-bye. Suck, I had a SOLID race there last year.

So that takes me up to my first peak of 2009. Things are bound to change since the Xterra schedule has yet to be announced. Back to the books.

E.