It’s been three weeks since my last post. I’m not doing to well with my pre-New Years resolution of weekly posts. Oh well, I’ll get us caught up.

Three weeks ago I was in Madison, Wisconsin for two days visiting the Trek factory in Waterloo. Through Wheat Ridge Cyclery, Trek flew me and three others out for a meet-and-greet of the Trek corporate folks and give us a chance to view the production facilities. To say the least it was very impressive and I left with a whole new perspective of Trek and their bicycles. Sadly I don’t have many pictures to show as cameras were not allowed in the factory due to all of the very sensitive proprietary goings-on.

I can share some pics from the Wall-of-Lance that greets guests as they walk into the lobby of the Waterloo facility. They have on display an actual bike he raced in each of his seven winning tours. Pretty cool. These were my three favorites.

The bike from his first win. It looks so old-school with the quill stem, clunky look pedals, Rolf wheels and 9-speed

Close up of the cracked cracked chainstay sustained from being ridden over by Iban Mayo in the “Musette Incident”

A photographic display of the “Musette Incident”

His TT bike from hid last Tour. Very sweet! Attention to aero-detail was incredible!

Following the Madison trip, I resumed my first round of base training. Nothing to earth shaking here. Just lots of swim, bike and run sessions. The swim and run sessions are going well with the added speed work. I am already getting faster and smoother in both areas. On the bike I am begining to put in longer miles and more climbing.

Today I got in 5 hours with 6500 feet of climbing in the mountains above Boulder. It was a little snowy in spots and the dirt roads I love to ride were fun as always. My Serotta “free-road” bike is working wonderfully on these long days in the mountains with mixed terrain. So fun! Here are some pics from today’s ride with Adam D. (aka the Wash Park Warrior).

Entering Boulder Mountain Parks

View of Boulder from halfway up Flagstaff Mountain Road

Mile 5, aka “the steep part” of Flagstaff. You can see Adam down the road on the 15% grade.

Some deer along the road checking me out

Views of North side of Gross Reservoir

Where are we?

That’s me along the south edge of Gross Res.

Adam on shady side of Gross Res. Dam Road

I’ll finish up this week with a few more swim and run workouts as well as another long day on the bike. Next week is a recovery week, just in time of for the holidays. If I don’t post before next week, happy holidays.

CW

After a few weeks of review, goal setting and planning I have my Annual Training Plan dialed in. With my perfected ATP in hand, I have the confidence and enthusiasm for my training and racing that lies ahead. I won’t go over everything in detail here (I can’t give all my secrets away) but I will shed some light on my thoughts and plans as I head into my second season on the Xterra Pro Tour.

After analyzing all my races from 2007 it was easy to see where my strengths and weaknesses lie. Every race last year went something like this: I come out of the water in 20-something place, 3-4 minutes down, before moving up through the field on the bike often into the top five to only get passed on the run by a handful of my more fleet footed competitors.

In nearly every race my bike was right in contention with the top-five. Now, my swim and run were different stories. I have identified my swim as my weakest area, typically losing 3 minutes in just 20-some minutes of racing, making me appx. 15% slower than the front group. On the run I again typically surrender about 3 minutes only this time in about 40-some minutes of racing, appx. 7% slower than the top five finishers.

Now that my weak areas have been identified, I know where I need to focus my attention to help get me into the top-five on a consistent basis in 2008. The off-season is the best time to make gains in weak areas for the coming race-season. My focus this year will be in SPEED! Over the last 4 years of my triathlon career I’ve been focused on building a base in swimming and running. Having never done either sport before this time, I knew I needed to have my body gradually adapt to higher and higher volume of training. This long-term investment was intended to ward off injury and give a better base which to build speed off of later in my career. This is a similar plan that my coach, Arnie Baker, had me do with my cycling several years back. Just like with your annual plan, build your base before building speed, it works the same way with your long-term “career” plan.

So now with a four-year base established in the swim and run to accompany my 10 years of bike racing, I now feel ready to get serious with speed work. My plan is to hit the pool 4-5 days per week with a very structured progression. Adding in 2-3 “speed based sessions” to my winter training should help me bring my times down a bit and more importantly get me out of the water fresher, with more energy to rip the bike. Similarly with my running, I will be doing some speed based training throughout the winter months. In years past it has always been long steady runs over the winter, so the added speed runs I hope to shave some time off the run in 2008 as well.

So that is my general plan for preparing me for another successful season in Xterra. I have set lofty goals for 2008 and will put in a lot of hard work this winter to help me achieve those goals. Stay tuned to read more about the workouts I’ll be doing and how my body reacts. Thanks for reading.

CW