Every morning for the past 9 months (what is time anymore?) I sit at our kitchen table and should-shame myself for not putting out a blog. I take another three minutes to brainstorm what I’m going to write about This Time, but nothing comes to mind.

So let’s talk about doing things because we want to and not doing them because we think we have to, or in other words, “shoulding” ourselves.

I don’t have to write. I don’t have to post a weekly blog. But I tell myself I should be posting a weekly blog. For all those readers…

Typically, I write a reflection about the past year and I guess this year is no different but also completely different.

This year I had the goal of a sub-9 Leadville 100 finishing time. I joined a new mountain bike team, RaceCo/The Bikery. I wanted to Cat up in Zwift. And I didn’t volunteer for anything to give myself a break from the constant volunteering for the past 6 or 7 years.

And then we all know what happened in March.

From this shitshow of a year, I can thankfully sit here and say I survived. 341,000 people cannot. I…

Last weekend had me wondering what’s in a team. And why do people join teams instead of racing rogue?

After the drama with pedal, I thought I’d stay unattached this year. I wasn’t interested in dealing with team politics when biking should just be biking. And trust me: there are a ton of politics in cycling, even on amateur bike racing teams.

I ended up joining RaceCo, a mountain biking team.

Bike riding is supposed to be fun. I was talking to a friend/teammate the other day who reminisced on one of his stupidest but most fun rides. He was…

I’m not one to spend a lot of money for myself. When I saw the price to sign up for Lee McCormack’s full-day mountain bike clinic, I hesitated. I’ve never spent that much for a bike clinic. I’ve never spent seven hours practicing skills, truth be told. I knew about Lee through the grapevine (TrainerRoad interviews, people mentioning him and there, etc.) but I didn’t know how good he really was. You never know what something is like until you experience it yourself.

I signed up because I had reached a point in my mountain biking where I didn’t have…

I tried not thinking about this race leading up to it. Racing on Zwift is hard enough without adding nearly 6,000 feet in elevation gain within 29 miles. Let’s just break that down for people who don’t ride up a ton nor in such a short period of time. Elevation gained from Idaho Springs to the top of Mount Evans is 6,260 feet in 27 miles.

So I damn near raced up Mt. Evans from my bike room, going nowhere.

A course for the lighter racers

But not only did I do that, I had to race against women faster, stronger, and lighter than me. And…

I ended up in 57th out 88 racers and all I could think after the race was, “What the fuck was that?” Both in part because of my lackluster placing as well as how the race unfolded. This felt way harder than Monday.

Let’s look at the numbers

TrainingPeaks gave Monday’s race a training stress score (TSS) of 107 and an Intensity Factor (IF) of 1. Thursday’s race TrainingPeaks gave it a TSS of 98 and an IF of .98. So for all intents and purposes, the data says Thursday’s race wasn’t actually more difficult than Monday’s.

Based on my body, my average heart rate…

The Competition

Knowing that I was competing against 90 strong AF racers, I had no idea how I’d do. My goal was to hold on for as long as I could. It’s disappointing not to be able to realistically have the goal of winning. The racer who won averaged 4.2 w/kg which was 245 watts for the hour-long race. Scroll all the way down to my name and you’ll see I averaged 3.5 w/kg which was 213 watts.

Looking at the 45 racers ahead of me, I was the only one who held 3.5 w/kg. The rest were all higher. Sure, there…

I learned that Kelly’s routes are short yet surprisingly tough and maybe that’s because gravel is deceptively challenging. You wouldn’t think riding 45 miles on dirt would be difficult. You wouldn’t think it’d feel like you actually rode 70. You wouldn’t think your hands would be covered in blisters and your watch would cut into your wrist either. But I also think that gravel is more about the adventure and less about “sending it” or getting gainz.