My mission

I'm planning to ride the 24 Hours of Allamuchy mountain bike race in New Jersey with some friends at the end of August this year. I'm no stranger to events like this, having ridden the 24 Hours of Adrenalin and 24 Hours of Summer Solstice in Ontario many times, as well as finishing some 36-hour adventure races, but it's been many years since I've even thought about doing anything like this. I really don't have any inclination to commit the time and effort to train for this race as I used to do back in my "serious" mountain biking and adventure racing days; whereas my old team raced with the intention of placing, my goals this time around are much more modest. I want to have fun, and I don't want to kill myself doing so.

So, first order of business: evaluate where I'm at in terms of equipment, skills, and fitness.

The good news is that I think I'm doing well on equipment and skills. I've never ridden Allamuchy before, but I imagine that between my two bikes (a 2007 Giant Anthem fully suspended cross-country rocket that I got cheap last March, and an On-One 456 do-it-all hardtail that I built up using the parts from my Santa Cruz Blur LT) I've probably got a bike that can handle the terrain. Now if only I could find my second light system I think I'd be set.

Skill-wise I don't do too badly either. I've been riding off-and-on for 12 years, and in my early career I relied on quick bursts of power, climbing ability, and fearless descending (for a cross-country racer!) to get me to the finish line, but my technical skills and endurance were never my strengths. However, I'm probably as strong now technically as I've ever been. When I took up biking again in 2007 after a 5-year hiatus, my primary trails were in Kanata Lakes, near Ottawa, Ontario - pretty much as rooty, rocky, and tight as they come and still be rideable with a cross-country rig, with lots of jagged bits to keep you on your toes. There's not much in Kanata that I can't ride.

Power and strength? Not a problem. I've been blessed with fast-twitch muscle fibres galore, and even now I can out-run and out-jump college kids 15 years younger than me (I play Ultimate Frisbee, the sport other than mountain biking I claim to have taken somewhat seriously). My cardio, on the other hand... There's no nice way of putting it: it sucks. I took my heart rate monitor with me the last time I rode Hartshorne Park (a relatively un-technical set of trails over rolling terrain) and was shocked to see my heart rate rocket to 185 bpm on very modest hills that back in the day I would've barely considered a warmup. Worse still, I wasn't recovering. In fact, I had to cut my ride short because I was afraid that I would do some serious damage to myself. (I later discovered that my disc brake caliper had somehow gotten knocked and was dragging very badly. Still, in terms of added effort the effect should've been no more than had I been carrying a backpack.)

So clearly I have to improve my cardio. There's no two ways about it: in order to build my base I have to spend many hours in moderate intensity activity to get where I need to be. The best way to do that is obviously road biking (mountain biking is too "peaky" for me right now to be considered cardio); only problem, I hate road riding. I just get bored on the roads, and while the traffic here in New Jersey does make road riding exciting in the wrong way, there's just no getting away from the fact that I can't motivate myself to ride on the roads. Remember my stated goal? Road riding is not fun for me, and I can't figure out a way to do it around here without putting my life in jeopardy, so it's in clear violation of what I want to get out of this endeavor. My solution? Go hiking. Surprisingly enough, New Jersey has a multitude of hiking trails that are all within a 2 hour drive of where I live. Loops are easy to do, I can control my heart rate/effort easily, and especially in the north along the Appalachian Trail, there's more than enough challenge and scenery to keep my interest. My plan is to do at least one hike of at least 4 hours duration every week. Rounding out my training program will be mountain biking (gotta keep up those skillz!), wall climbing (upper body and core strength), and ultimate frisbee (speed, power, intervals). As I get closer to race day, the time and effort I expend in each activity will change, but remember, I'm doing this for fun, so my tolerance for "close enough" will be pretty big.

In this blog I'm planning to post my experiences on the trails, both on two feet and on two wheels, as well as my thoughts on equipment that I use on these adventures. I may also venture into other topics that I find interesting, but I'll see how that goes.

Wish me luck!

- Trailrat999