Taking a break, hanging out in a lab and joining DBC

About three weeks ago was the last race i did. My body told me that is was the last race I should do for awhile due to the thorough butt-kicking I took! We all reach that point and it was time to get off the bike for a little bit. I went home, visited my family and spent my birthday in Michigan. Enjoying a lazy week.

When I came back I went to Sac State to volunteer for a study one of my roommate's classmates was doing. Not being a masters student myself I don't fully understand what the study is about but saw it as a good way to enjoy some free testing, and it sounded fun. First I did a VO2 max and VO2 submax test, Then I spend two weeks spending 3 hours a day in an altitude chamber. Every other day I did between 4 to 7 windgates before I went in the chamber. What are windgates? Well they suck, thats what they are. They involve doing 30 second sprints with a massive amount of resistance then a 4 minute cool down in between. The first session I nearly threw up!! You go as hard as you can for what feels like the longest 30 seconds ever, then you get to do it again 4 minutes later, and again 4 minutes after that, one day doing 7 straight windgates! I complain but it was kind of fun at the same time taking yourself to that pain level and fighting through it. Usually I took a exhausted nap in the altitude chamber afterwards or I watched Flight of the Concords episodes on my laptop.  After two weeks of that we retest my VO2 max and my submax to see how it changed. It's been neat to be involved and look forward to learn more about how different training exercises affect my fitness level.

In other news, last night Chris Hopkins and I drove to Davis to go to a Davis Bike Club race team meeting. After hearing some people talk and meeting some people on the team we joined.  I know Keith enjoys racing for DBC and I think there is a group of Cat 4's that can work together and support each other's goals during next season. This will be the first time I've raced for a team on the road bike and will have a lot to learn. But I look forward to having people to train with and learn from. So next year I will be racing on the road with a DBC team kit on. We will have to wait and see but hopefully I also get re-picked up by GT and get to continue to fly the GT colors on the mountain bike.

Overall this has been an amazing season, I won a lot of races, some of which were total surprises! Now it is time to start prep for next year. Time to hit the weights and get in some base mileage. I think I'm also going to flip the hub on the old fixie, put some nobby tires on it and make it into a singlespeed CX bike too have fun at a couple of cyclocross races!