Exciting News

I was inviting to the Paracycling Winter Camp in Chula Vista next month. This one is a team camp, a step above the developmental camp I was at in September. So US Para knows who I am and wants me at their camp. Awesome! But I won't be going because I have finals that week. Hopefully I'll get an invite to the spring or summer camp.

Aggression

I was feeling hyped up and ticked off about something yesterday, not really sure what it was. Maybe it was the rain, it was dreary all day so grabbed the mountain bike and headed to the fort. The trails on the fort are flatish with a lot of sand and pine straw. The addition of rain made them slick and fun.
I rode hard for about 50 minutes and hit the sand a few times. I finished up covered in wet sand and felt much better.

Rain riding is perfect of fat tire knobbies.

2009 Has Begun

The training for the '09 season has started. My weekend training was eventful. I went to Harbison Forest to do some mountain biking Sunday. The sun was shining, the temperature pleasant, a perfect day to ride. I proceeded to break my chain 3 or 4 miles from the trail-head. SWEET, I got to walk the bike back to my car. I got home and decided a road ride was in order since my mtb ride was cut short. I ended up riding 2 hours. All but the last 2 miles were done in the 42/14. I have bent my 52 so I will be in the 42 until I replace the chainring. I'm riding the single gear to build some leg strength over the hills.
I also did some spin outs. I hit 162 rpms which makes for a new cadence pr and maxed my speed at 35.6 on that drill.
After my ride I had to split some firewood for the wood stove. Count it as core strength and power?

Monday:
Rowing warmup.

Deadlift
3 reps
4 sets
200lbs
Limited by grip strength here.

Ancillary:
GHRs
Reverse Hypers 60lbs

Squat

3 sets.
7 reps.
145lbs.

Warmup was 3:30 on the C2 at 200 avg watts.
Ancillary work was Reverse Hypers and GHRs

Lessons Learned from Running

I realized something over the weekend. When I run I venture into the pain cave with reckless abandon. I'm not afraid of hurting myself because I know I can handle the pain and keep turning my feet over. I seem to be much more timid on the bike when I train solo or consider attacking a group ride or race. I have some self doubts that pop up and ask if I can really go that hard. I think the difference comes from experience; despite never doing any run specific training and only dabbling in races, I have always loved to run. Over the years I have become aware that I can push through the pain and not blow myself up, and when I run I like to run fast (for me, I'm not very fast). Mentally training myself to push hard on the bike for longer at higher effort will be a major priority in building up to and through next year's campaign.

Tempo

Babysitting this weekend while my boss' wife runs the USA Triathlon Long Course Nats in Vegas. Long Course is half-ironman distance, but can't be called half-ironman due to politics.
Training time has been limited but I put in a run today. Just tempo around the grass soccer fields. Goal HR was 175 which would fall into the "Sweet Spot" for my run training, but I averaged 173. The HRM did a good job keeping me honest and not letting my pace fall off.

Duration was 25:30

Cross Country

Today was supposed to be a rest day after yesterday's thrashing since my hamstring felt like death. But I walked into Strictly Running to ask about races and they said there was an open Cross Country race tonight. How could I resist? I have never run CX or a 5k so it was a 2 birds/one stone evening.
The result was 20:43 and good enough for 4th overall/2nd AG. I felt like it was a little slow, but then I always set high expectations for myself.
HR data:
Avg: 181
Max: 192

200m Repeats

Monday's workout was:

10 round of: 5 pullups, 10 lunges with 2 15# dumbells.
My pullups suck really bad right now which is why I had to sub a few jumping pullups halfway through.

Tuesday:

200m x 16:

All repeats were between 32 and 35 seconds but 2. #13 was a 35.7 and #7 was sub 30 because I was chasing a master's 200/400 specialist. Cool guy, much faster than me over the short distances.

Spastic

For whatever reason I am having spacticity issues. It's a common issue among those with Cerebral Palsy, but mine is usually predictable. Fatigue, nerves, and the cold usually set it off but none of the above are present.
My left hand wants to ball up into a death grip without my consent and it is not making me terribly happy. I wish I knew why so I could fix it but this time seems to be entirely random and involuntary. I've got my hand flat on the table but my fingers are still twitching and trying to curl up.

Word of advice to anyone reading this: Don't get CP, it will frustrate you.

Kona

Ironman World Champs in Hawaii take place today! It is a fascinating race, and I am always impressed at how fast those guys and girls can ride 112 miles.

Larry Rosa is photographing this weekend and I will link to some of his pictures because his work is absolutely phenomenal. He was the photog for 2008 Para-cycling nationals and I felt like a pro after seeing the pictures he took.

Run Aaron Run

It felt so good to lace up the flats and hit the road. I ran for 25 minutes on part of the Snowman loop. I'm feeling much better on foot than I did at the end of last season, and I had fun.

Diddly Squat

I kicked off the off-season training with Squats today. I stayed light with 135lbs for 5 sets of 3. My weak link is my left leg and my back, surprise surprise. Then I did some Single Leg Press.

It's time to get strong.

3 days

I haven't touched a bicycle in 3 days and I'm perfectly fine with that. I'll ride when I get the bug. I will do some other stuff too, I'm sure. A little bit of running to get back to my roots and I'll meet up with the barbell as well. I love Deadlifting and Squatting because the progress is always readily apparent. It's right there in kilos or pounds. If the number is bigger than last week you made progress. It's so controllable. Not so on the bike, I guess it's a different sort of progress. Ehh, the solid , indisputible, you made progress will be nice for a change of pace.

Life at the OTC: Part 2: Velodromes, Mountains, and Saying Goodbye

Picking up on Thursday Evening:
I was happy with my TT performance and I was giddy with excitement about getting on the Velodrome. I woke up Friday and I was more or less bouncing off the walls. We were only about a mile from the velodrome (!) so we rode our bikes to the track. They didn't let us ride track bikes since our track orientation was really short and the tandems were going to have freewheels and brakes. They cut us loose and I spent the first 3 laps timidly picking my way around the track on the pole line because the banking, at 33 degrees, was intimidating. As I picked up speed my inhibitions faded away and I started riding higher and used more of the track. Greta was training that day and pulled me around for a while. She took me up to the rail and dropped to the bottom of the track. That was fun. Then me, Matt, and Andy did some paceline work using the turns to peel off, Team Pursuit style. I had fun on the Velodrome, word is that my smile became progressivly larger the more times I lapped the track.

After lunch we rode up to Gold Camp Rd for some hill repeats. Those hurt a lot, but the view from the top was pretty spectacular. We were close to 1000ft higher than Colo Springs(6000ft) and could see the entire city and the plains beyond.

Saturday was day of truth. A timed 3k Pursuit foillowed by a timed Kilo. We used our road bikes but we were supposed to start in the gear we would ride the whole time. I started off well but put far too much juice into the first 3 laps and spent the last 6 trying to minimize my losses. My time ended up missing the Emerging Standard by less than 2 seconds. Even with my terrible pacing schedule I was in pain, 9 laps around 7-eleven is a long time. I expected to do better in the Pursuit than the Kilo so I had no expectations going into the Kilo effort. The result was me making the Emerging Standard with time to spare and the second fastest time of the day, and a nasty nasty hacking cough. I will be interested in seeing if I continue to be better at the Kilo as I progress or if I will gravitate towards Pursuit as my size would suggest.

I went a little crazy with the cookies and desserts that evening since the camp was over and my season was on the brink. Our meeting that night was a lot of fun, lots of jokes flew around the room. We watched some videos from the Beijing Paralympics at the Velodrome. It was fun and sad because we all knew we were leaving the next day to return to the real world.

The things I took away from this camp have a lot to do with my future in bike racing. I know that my goal is to qualify for Para-Cycling Worlds in 2009 and to live in Colorado Springs so I can be near the program and the Velodrome. After riding a better Kilo than Pursuit I am not as likely to try to box myself into one riding style or strength, and I think that I may turn my focus to track racing once I have access to a Velodrome. I can still race and train on the road, but US Para already has a CP4 (my disability class) rider who focuses on road. I think I can distinguish myself from Mike by being the CP4 track rider on the team.

Next season looks like this right now. Greenville Training Series, Walnut Grove, Rock Hill Omnium, Athens Twilight, any TTs I can find, graduate from college, and live in Colo Springs for 3-4 weeks leading up to track and road nationals which should serve as World Champ qualifiers. London sits off in the distance but it is always sitting in the back of my mind.

Addicted

Today I "won" the title of South Carolina U23 Time Trial State Champion. I was the only entrant in my age group so first was mine for crossing the line. I went 1:08:25 for 40k, not that fast. It was my first 40k and the course wasn't hard, but it wasn't a fast stretch of road. It's good to have a baseline of where I am to know wwhere I need to go.

My legs are sore right now, haha.

This winning thing is fun, I think I could get used to it. And with that I am closing out my season and hanging up the road bike. If I want to ride I'll grab the cruiser tandem of a mountain bike for the next few weeks. I'll start with base in November and do a bunch of Sweet Spot. We'll see if the hype about SST is true when racing starts next year.

My Better

I like it.

Life at the Olympic Training Center

Before I say anything, I have to say this.

I LOVE the Velodrome!

I am still in awe of everything I experienced this past week. For 6 days I lived in a facility that has been home to the greatest athletes this country has produced and they let little Aaron Trent come play for a week.

There were people on regular bikes (CP, amp, Spinal Cord Injury), Tandems with Visually Impaired Stokers and sighted pilots including a Cat1 out of Knoxville, and the wheelchair crew were on handcycles.

Then there was the staff that made our camp run smoothly save for the punctuallity of our rides, haha. Pam was the camp organizer, Ian works for USA Handcycling, Rick and Scott coached, Vanessa was plain awesome and drove the van and various other things, Ron helped and took meticulous notes, and Good Looking Johnny G was our wrench and he helped out with everything. All of the staff was great and I want to thank them for doing their thing!

Tuesday: Started at 3AM so I could catch my flight. When I got to the OTC I got my key and my cafeteria card (freakin sweet!) and built up my bike for a shakedown ride. This was my first experience with handcyclists and on our ride they were drafting me at 27 mph! I have so much resprect for the power those jokers than produce with their arms.

Wednesday: Skills and drills in the parking lot were pretty basic, but I picked up a few things about cornering and bumping. Our afternoon ride was out and back on a rolling highway. I drafted a handbike at +35mph down a hill on the way back.

Thursday: Morning time trial on the air force academy. Our camp coach, Rick, told us it was 10k and undulating. It was a lot closer to 13k and it was all uphill out and all downhill back. Not exactly 10k or undulating. I was dying on the way out and kept watching my speed. I was wondering why 16-17mph hurt so bad and I was wondering where on earth the turn around was. Finally, on the horizon I saw the white OTC van that signified the turn. I started on the way back and was absolutely hauling tail. It was all downhill! That's why the first half hurt so bad. I was running hard trying to make up for lost time and came into the home stretch and buried myself to the line. Ouch! The times and times per kilometer were posted at the camp meeting after dinner. My time/km was markedly better than I did at Nationals in June and I am knocking on the door of making the national standard so I was very happy with my effort. The National Team standard is based on the average per km time of the 6th place finisher in each category over the past 4 years of major races (Worlds and Paralympics); the Elite Standard is based on the bronze medal times. Hitting the national standard is the key to getting on the Paralympic Team and is my biggest goal for 2009.

Our evening ride was skills in the grass outside the Velodrome. We started off with bump drills and I was paired with Greta since she came out to ride with us. She rode right into me with a shoulder and I learned real quick how to shoulder back. I fell over a few times while trackstanding. Matt and Andy did the bump thing together. I haven't talked about them here but we hung out a lot and got the nickname of "the three stooges". We were the only people on regular bikes, there were 7 tandems, and 10 handcycles, so the 3 of us rode together a lot. I'll look forward to seeing and racing with them in the future.

It's late and I need to study, I'll write more later.

Vista Crit

I rolled up at 6:30AM to help set up. One of Scott's buddies had a bike I could borrow. Sweet! I would be racing after all. I was racing with the big scary Cat3's in the 3/4 race. We went off and I decided to play tail gunner because the brakes on Robert's bike are opposite of mine; I have the front brake on the right side and everyone else has their rear brake on the right side. 5 or 6 laps in we came around turn 3 about 30mph and I grabbed a handful of rear brake. Rear tires lock up very quickly and like to loose traction so I went sliding through the turn. I kept the bike upright, but I decided that this race wasn't important enough to risk crashing and pulled out.
The 2/3 race was very exciting to watch. Props to Sammy and Derek for their efforts.
The P/1/2 race was not quite as exciting but I got to ride in the pace car. That was fun! Jay Charels did pretty well in that race.
After the racing I helped tear down. It was quite a long day, haha.

I'm packing and doing laundry and I fly out tomorrow.

SST

I was recently introduced to the idea of Sweet Spot Training and the logic seems solid. I don't know if I'm doing it right yet.

Today's ride was about an hour on the TT bike, this whole sunset at 7:25 thing really cuts into ride time. I went out without a HRM or a power meter. I don't own a Power Meter and I think a sugar momma or adopted uncle is in order. Anyways, I was riding on Perceived Exertion and was solidly in zone 3 area, the SST range. I did a few gravity aided spin-outs and hit 148 and 144rpm, not bad for the TT bike. I felt pretty good the weather was gorgeous. This weekend is going to be fun; I'm participating in the Mud Run, helping at the Vista Crits Sunday.

That Was Unexpected

I got an email yesterday explaining that a few of my teammates are leaving the team next year to pursue another team project.  The rumors were true, I suppose.  I think the move is supposed to take effect next year.  I guess it doesn't make too much difference, the last races of the year are upon us and the season is coming to a close.  

The Vista Crits are Sunday, I'll the helping unless someone lets me borrow a bike.  

I leave for the OTC in a week.