Where have I been?

Where have I been the last couple weeks? When are started this I was sitting at a Hotel in Hawaii, and now I’m somewhere else. I’ve been around. Exploring life. Traveling, colaborating, coaching, being inspired. Some say adventure is the spice of life. I think the spice of life is whatever you sprinkle onto it that makes it uniquely yours.

As the Cascadia Dirt Cup Enduro Race Series approaches I’m finding myself diving into modalities of cultivating optimism to heighten my athletic performance. Progressing from a successful 2017 season by cleanly finishing every race. Learning from last season where I could improve both physically and mentally. This season my intention is to cleanly finish every race and do the very best I can in each race. Physically, I’ve been in the gym training with intention focusing on my agility, power, and mobility. On the bike I’ve been focusing on bike specific agility and confidence with sprinting and high speed braking. Monitoring my performance and progression using power and heart rate has been a tremendous help in preparation. Mentally, I’ve focused on isolating areas where I mentally sabotaged myself before even starting a race. During transition (riding from one stage to the next) I stayed very calm and maintained a steady pace and heart rate, but when it came to racing stages I never made the shift to race mode. So, this seaon my focus is on shifting from Eco to Race when it’s time to race, and Race to Eco when it’s time to recover between stages. At the end of each stage, I was never really spent, at the end of a race I could have ridden the course again. My monitoring equipment showed a similar story. My heart rate never got that high, I never broke 800 watts, and my race times agreed with the effort. I’ll be elaborating on this section in MTB Strength Journal, but I’m introducing it here because I’m exciting about my growth from last season. I’m highly optimistic that my work will pay off and I’ll be satisitied with the improvements.

As I write this section I’m sitting in a cafe in Norfolk, VA called Cafe Stella at 9:00pm. I’m here because I’m attending the NSCA Tactical Strength and Conditioning Annual Training. It’s my first time at this event. It is very eye opening. I’ve always been intrigued by training the tactical population. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was open to whatever happened. My big take away is that the tactical population, specifically the military has a small group of people from varying companies with military experience doing their very best to implement the principles of strength & conditioning, and exercise & sport science to transform the way the military trains. It’s very inspiring and something I’d love to be involved with, but as I sat listening to the presentations with the urge to want to get involved, I reflected by on my projects and my path. I can’t add anything else to my load. However, I can support, encourage, and open lines of communication to show my support. I feel in my heart they’re pushing tactical strength and conditioning in a healthy direction. They need our support and encouragement.