Post a Comment On: Transplant Athlete

I'm having a bit of pre-Bike Sebring anxiety. On the positive side, I've been weight training, I've been using my Altitude Simulator pretty regularly, and I've got more aerobic and lactate threshold workouts in this year than in years past. This year the race is a bit higher priority for me than last year. My father and two of my RAAM 2007 crew will be down for the race. My morning body weight is 160ish, which is just a couple pounds heavier than RAAM 2006, but I've put on a lot of muscle (Let's hope I can use it during the race!). On the negative side, I'm at the end of a three week training cycle, so my body is ready for a rest week. That could mean I'll be putting out less power on Saturday than I am capable of (I was on the Life Fitness Bike at the gym on Tuesday and my lactate threshold interval was performed one level below normal - about 16 watts less). Because of the snow and generally cold weather, I haven't ridden a century in three weeks and lo and behold, the cold weather is following me down to Florida. Finally, I haven't put any miles on my Softride since destroying the ZIPP 202 during RAAM. I've raised the handlebar on my Softride, so the position won't be so extreme and I'll be taking my Litespeed down just in case, and I've been doing Active recovery sessions on the Softride to hopefully get my body re-acquainted. I feel pretty confident that I could have hit 400 miles last year if I had taken the race more seriously and I'd had a crew to keep me motivated; so, secretly, I've been hoping to push well into the 400's this year, maybe even coming close to the course record. I guess we'll see. I'll be leaving Thursday night and will post about the race on Monday.