Am I Ready For My First Road Race of 2008 - Cantua Creek?

So, am I ready for the Cantua Creek Road Race tomorrow, my first road race of the season?

Let's see...

1. Create a "secret training" program to reclaim some lost climbing fitness from last year.

Check.

2. Join the Bicycle Trip team for some of their Saturday morning hill repeats, as another aid to reclaim that lost climbing fitness (man, those workouts are tough!).

Check.

3. Try to ride virtually every day, starting around last December 10, when I began my "secret training" program.

Check. (I've ridden 52 out of 67 possible days since last December 10 - I had a streak of 26 straight days from December 30 to January 24 - wow!)

4. Discover my own hill repeat courses near work and work them into my training schedule each week.

Check.

5. Achieve some new PBs on some of the shorter climbs that I do - the ones under 1 mile long.

Check. (I actually established 6 new PBs!)

6. Do a final test ride where I do about half the distance of the Cantua Creek RR (the race is about 48 miles) and about half the total climbing (the race is about 1600 feet) in about half the time (the race will be about 2:05 or so).

Check. (Today I did a 20 mile ride with 1100 feet of climbing at 17.6 mph while averaging only 122 bpm for my heartrate in a time of 1:08 - how cool is that? - and you can see my MotionBased.com recording of that ride right here)

7. Lose 20 pounds so I can keep the Bicycle Trip guys in my sights on their longer climbs.

Check. --- NOT!

Well, 6 out of 7 ain't too bad, right? Gotta lose that weight now... !

But, the good news is - I think I'll be able to hang with the main pack tomorrow for the whole race - and if I play it *real* smart, I'll try to go for a top 10 placing, assuming I'm still around at the end of the race. Stay tuned!

A special "Thank you!" goes to Dennis Pedersen, for all his help and encouragement during the last few months - it's been a pleasure, Dennis!

I guess my next blog entry will be something about tomorrow's big race - Cantua Creek, here I come!