"Personally, my body took a while to get going."
by Alison Powers, ALP Cycles Coaching
In February ALP Coach, Alison Powers, announced that she had signed up for SBT GRVL, a 141-mile race with 100 miles on dirt/gravel roads in Steamboat, Colorado. With race day approaching, she’s been blogging every day leading up to the race. She blogs about the specifics of her training, her preparation, headspace, etc. All the things that lead up to race day that not everyone gets to see or understand.
7 days to go - Sunday, August 11th
1 week to go! After months of planning, prepping, training, resting, eating, sleeping, the race is right around the corner.
This morning was an ALP Cycles Racing mountain bike team ride. We met at Tin Shed Sports and off we went. Most of the riders had raced yesterday or were on a rest week, so the ride was pretty mellow but didn’t lack in fun, beauty, or skills talk. We are trying to grow our dirt side of the race team. Our road team is strong and diverse and that’s what our MTB and CX teams are looking to copy. During the ride, we talked about body position and weight distribution, vision, steering with the knees, and relaxing and letting the body and bike flow. We were out for 2hrs and it was great.
Personally, my body took a while to get going. After two days off, I felt sluggish and slow. As the ride went on, I started to open up and feel a lot better (and my bike didn’t feel as heavy).
I came home and took a nap (!!). I don’t usually nap like I did today, so that is a solid sign that my body is still tired. Post nap, was a few house chores and then another solid roll and stretch session. I’m still tight but am starting to loosen up a bit.
