Monday, July 30, 2012

Something(s) Different

I mixed it all up this week; did some different things. I need to get my fitness more rounded, you know, even things out going into CX season. I had a pretty strong week, though it was probably a little short on pure cycling. But I'll get back into that in the coming weeks.
I began mixing in some walking/jogging and general core/upper body exercise(s). For a while now I've been looking at those "fit core" stations that are on walking/jogging paths and thinking about things I could do on them. You've seen these things: monkey bars, pull up bars, dip bars, etc. There are two within a 5-8min (depending on my walk/jog ratio) of my house. I threw together a couple circuits that involve monkey bar crossing, ladder climbing, balance beam walking, dips and pull ups. Nothing crazy, but something different. Plus I am working on hanging leg lifts and some other "killer ab workout stuffs" for inner core strength.  
Also this past week I did some different bike riding as well.
I have kind sorta had riding the Schooner Trail at BCSP on my to do list for a while. For those unfamiliar, Schooner (or Schoo-gnarr) is a the super-black-diamond-ultra-mega-advanced trail at BCSP. If you can ride the whole trail, you are legend. (and I've only heard of one person who has actually ridden the whole trail, and a couple who can ride "nearly" everything) Anyway, this trail consists of several natural obstacles like crazy downhill rock gardens, etc that are specifically made to be extremely difficult to ride at any speed, but they're generally set up so you carry no speed into them. It's not my type of riding at all. It was about 30min of putting my foot down, dumping my bike and crashing. It wasn't too fun really. But I'm glad I gave it a shot so that I can now say I have done Schoo-gnarr. If I'm totally honest: it was way harder than I expected it to be.
Sunday I met a teammate over in Story, IN to do some gravel road riding. I had planned on doing a gravel ride form home anyway, so when this opportunity popped up, I though 'what the hay?'. It turned out to be a lot of fun. We rode some roads I've ridden before and some neither of us had. We ended up right around 3hrs with lots of climbing and mostly gravel. We did have to hike-the-bikes in a place or two though because it appeared as though a tornado moved through there Friday. There were stretches that had tree after tree down across the roads. The because these are rarely traveled gravel roads, there's no huge hurry to clear them. Oh well, it made for an adventure.
This week will probably look pretty similar: "fit core" stuff, some different types of riding, etc. Then next week I'll probably re-introduce some intervals. Light stuff at first, then work up. CX is like 6 weeks away or something...
  
      

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