After the Joshua Tree Camp, my wife and kids flew down and we spent the week in Cathedral City. It was a great vacation and we enjoyed a little “down” time together.

The weather was great–in the 70s or 80s each day and the sunshine was strong enough to induce a nice tan even with spf50 sunscreen.
While we had never been there before, the Palm Springs area proved to be a great spring/fall vacation spot. After years of vacationing outside the USA, it was nice to feel like we were at “home”, too.

It was the kids first experience with swimming pools and they spent no less than two hours a day in the water. Lots of jumping in and even a little doggy-paddling!

On Monday and Thursday, I was able to meet with Juerg from FaCT Canada and do their full physio testing. This was definitely a highlight of the trip.

FaCT uses the Fitmate and Physioflow to analyze cardiac and respiratory biomarkers during a cycling performance test. The first test was done when I was relatively fatigued from the previous week at camp and the second after 72 hours of recovery. Hopefully the data will prove effective in future training efforts.

On Friday and Saturday I was able to do two great local rides. The first was a road ride beginning about 30 minutes west on the freeway and up over the San Jacinto through Idyllwild then back to Palm Desert. A beautiful ride through many different lifezones and lots of great climbing/descending.
Saturday I got up early and explored some of the local MTB trails. They are awesome and I look forward to our next trip so I can spend more time checking them out. Springtime was great for wild flowers but not ideal since many trails are closed for “lambing season”. Still lots to ride and the best part is that no car is required to access the trails.

Thanks for tuning in!
VP

After the Keyesville Classic, I continued my journey south to the town of Joshua Tree, California. This funky little spot sits just outside Joshua Tree National Park and about 45 minutes north of Palm Springs. It was the site of the 2009 Balance Point Racing spring training camp.

BPR is a group of dedicated athletes from Canada–most hailing from the Okanogan Region of British Columbia. They compete in many different disiplines of endurance competition, but those in attendance were either triatletes or cyclists.

http://www.balancepointracing.com/

We stayed in two adjacent vacation homes with comfortable beds for each of us. Joerg for Magic Places (bike tours) catered, shuttled, and looked after our every need. I hope to join him soon on one of his “real” trips, because he did such an awesome job!

http://www.magicplaces.ca/

Coach Andrew spent time each day helping us determine our training plans as well as teaching us more about the FaCT Canada training system. The FaCT system fundamentally differs from conventional (old school) methods because it doesn’t base training intensities on max heart rate, lactate thresholds, or VO2.

Instead, effective training is accomplished by knowing one’s “balance point” or the HR at which lactate is stable in the blood. This means the body is producing and using lactate at relatively the same rate.

We did performance testing–both to learn about ourselves and effectively administer the tests. The rest of our time was spent training and the weather was simply beautiful all week long. It was great to collaborate with the other athletes regardless of their age, category, or disipline because the FaCT system works or everyone willing to use it!

In the end, I probably left camp with “more questions than answers” and likely more hours of training than I really needed. However, learning more about the FaCT system after 5 years of “using” the test in training inspired me to “think outside the box” again. It reminded me of my days working in manufacturing when it was so easy to accept limiters and road blocks as the status quo rather than diligently seeking continual improvement.

Hopefully my newly rekndled desire to dig deeper into my body and find different ways to improve my fitness will equate to even more success throughout the rest of my cycling career!

I was heading down to CA for the Balance Point Racing camp in Joshua Tree. It seemed right to start the week with a little racing, so I hooked up the Keyesville Classic to try to knock some cobwebs out of my system after nearly a month of steady training. The event has been around since the beginning of MTB so why not give it a shot?

I also finally got my new Scott Genius built up just in time to set it on the back of the Jeep and embark on the 12 hour journey to Bakersfield. Woke up early and got to the race site just in time to register and finish adjusting a few things on the bike.

There was plenty of local talent and even a few fast out-of-towners in attendance so the cross-country event got off to a fast start. After a little bottle-necking, I discovered that Max Plaxton (ShoAir) and Kris Sneddon (Kona) were nearly out of sight, so I spent the first two laps finishing my suspension tuning and getting aquainted with my new ride. By then, I was comfortably in third place so we enjoyed the next two-lap session together!

The course didn’t really do the Genius justice, but we still had a great first date. Even hours of waiting around for awards didn’t wipe the grin off my face after blissfully shredding the each downhill section…

Keyesville Classic has a great competition within called the “All Mountain Race”. This basically meant you paid a package entry for cross-country, short-track, and two downhill runs, but had to race the same bike for each stage.

The ST and DH races were the following day, so I again I was up early just to sit around most of the time waiting to ride. The ST went well, but again I was off to a slow start and couldn’t close the gap to the leaders once I fought through traffic. There was also some confusion with different numbers for the all-mountain racers. Since the CAT 1 and PRO were all riding together and we had started lapping the field I didn’t realize that the guy ahead of me was in fact a PRO due to his different number plate. Instead of blowing his doors off on the last lap, I sat behind him. Oops, turns out I should have been racing and lost $75 of prize money for that mistake!

The DH was a little lame since the runs were sub-three minutes and we had to push out bikes up the course. That meant we ended up waiting up-top for everyone else to race before we got to make our runs. Some extra sun tanning I suppose.

It was a good reminder why I don’t race DH anymore especially after I started screwing around with my suspension and rode off course both runs. I still finished in the middle even against the full-on DH crew so I was pretty satisfied.

Overall, I managed to hold on to third place in the “All Mountain” and the prizes paid for my gas and lodging. Most importantly, I thoroughly enjoyed my first weekend alone with my Genius!

Thanks for reading,

VP