TJ Woodruff ONLINE

Our MTB national series opener went off today and most things went fairly well out there. Early season racing is always hard to figure out but things were more ‘on’ than ‘off’ for me.  My plan was to manage the start by getting/maintaining good position while not maxing out the effort so that I could have plenty left for the duration of the five lap race. Given the demands of the course with the sizeable initial climb this was no easy feat, but things actually played out all right. Once to the top it was steady lap times and keeping on the gas until the finish – never backing off too much or surging too hard.  Finishing 31st will help with the Sea Otter call up and it gives me some confidence that things are close to being in order. I know that I’ve got more in me and even better results aren’t far off. Being that we raced a more demanding course this year it was good to get a result far better than any of my three previous Fontana performances. 

The 2009 season ought to be fantastic and Fontana was a nice way to start things up with the Adventure212/Specialized team.  Chris made the flight out so that he could get in a race prior to Sea Otter and placed well considering that most of his ride time has been on rollers coming from WI…  It’s been a fun weekend and the support of the team has been a great help.  Colt @ CyclingDirt.org has done well with creating the MTB dedicated ‘inside scoop’. If you haven’t seen the site, you’ve got to check it out – and often. The newly organized US Pro XCT series seems to have a good vibe going and the racing fields were as big or bigger than I’ve seen them during the past four years. I say this is the year that mountain biking starts it’s comeback!

Sea Otter is the next goal on the horizon.  Thanks for the support,  -TJ

Got in an amazing ride this morning as an unofficial ’stage four’ of the Tucson Bicycle Classic.  Overload was the name of the game and two trips up to windy point was the plan of attack. 80 miles and over 7k feet of climbing were tallied.  Somewhere out there I fell in love with my bike (and with suffering) yet again.

riding into the clouds above 6000 feet.

The Tarmac didn’t mind the conditions.

Fortunately this was my flipping point at milepost 14.  It was very dense so I was happy to head back down.

The second visit to Windy Point was less dramatic since the clouds had risen a couple thousand feet by then. The ride was a great way to follow up the race weekend and an even better way to kick off a new week. Life’s good on the bike!

The racing went well Friday through Sunday. I figured out how to TT fast and ended up 5th overall on the GC with a couple of top 10 stage finishes.  Good times and plenty of speed were had.  Thanks for checking back. I’ll try to improve my blogging ‘fitness’ now that my riding fitness is getting close to par…

-TJ

I’ve been in CO Springs since Thursday evening for a USA Cycling coaching conference.  The days have been simple since I’m staying on the Olympic complex and everything is in close proximity.  There’s time for a quick am workout, plenty of good dining in the cafeteria, and a lot of time sitting in on various lectures related to cycling. It’s been a good experience so far and employing a couple new secret interval workouts ought to be helpful once I’m back to Tucson. Necessary might be more like it since so much of the day is spent writing notes rather than being out on the bike.

Springtime is just around the corner and with it will be some more racing.  I’ll do a handful of events as a means of preperation for the bigger stuff to come later this season.  I’m excited for the Pro XCT events, the Tour of the Gila, and of course some the regional MTB stuff in Wisconsin. I race a lot in a year, but different places and different disciplines keep it fresh and exciting for me. Luckily fast racing helps to allow me to race fast in a snowball-effect sort of way.

Enjoy the riding,  TJ

Giddy.

Up.

Wow. These are some fine racing machines and I can’t thank my sponsors enough for helping to get things all set for the early road season.  TT early this afernoon so we’ll see how ride #3 goes aboard the bike. Hopefully it’ll be really fast since I’ll be wearing the secret weapon.  Back at it,

-TJ

Winter must end with January in Tucson since so far in February we’ve hit 80 degrees most every day. Afternoon riding is now down-right  balmy.  Lately I’ve transitioned to some more climbing oriented workouts so mount Lemmon has been a staple of the weekly routine.  For some reason battling a climb works for me mentally. A bunch of other battles work for me too, but a good uphill fight is always worth the while.  After a ride with Cole earlier this week I’ve learned that there are ways to go even faster on the descent too, so maybe I’ll have to start working on that some more.

Later today I’m going to do my first ever ride aboard a TT bike.  The venue for such a ride ought to be perfect too since it’ll be on the Tour of the Gila TT course. Chloe and are are headed to Silver City for a mini training camp and some recon work of the various stages. With all the heat here in Tucson the cooler temps there ought to be refreshing.  Should have 220+ miles in by Sunday evening…

More details to come after the weekend. There are a mountain passes to be climbed and miles to be ridden so I best get things packed for the weekend.  Next week will be the unveiling of some new gear.  Carbon will be the theme…

-TJ

the mountains await w/ fog

Saturday was a long 32×18 ride for SingleSpeed Arizona, my second ever singlespeed ride/race.  58 miles was the day’s tally, and yes that’s nearly 10 more than it should have been. The 9500 feet of elevation meant some tough going along the way.  Unintentionally I chose to add an extra loop in the first half of the race and I’ve now realized that such mistakes are part of the risk in trying to lead such a race – there’s no one there to confirm your navagational decision making. I went left instead of right which meant I decended far more than I should have while adding on an extra loop of sorts. By the time I reached a flowing (near raging) wash, I knew that I wasn’t on the originally intended path. After two or three knee-deep forges of the freezing cold water I made my way back up towards the planned course. Nearly two hours later I was on route once again after some seriously steep and rough jeep roads. At Redington road I figured that with AZ trail and Milagrosa awaiting I must go on despite already having a day’s worth of riding in the legs.  As I finished up the incredible singletracks some interesting people were met and each of the 70 or so added something to the day’s story.  

my kit from '97 made a comeback

DeJay put on a fun day of bike riding and it was great to get out there and try the singlespeed thing. Enjoyable yes, but equally frustrating at times. The simplicity of the bike is appreciable, but so is riding up steep trails with the aid of gears. Pushing the bike is never fun, especially when it would otherwise be a rideable trail. It was a new way to experience some of my favorite singletracks and it made for an epic ride that won’t soon be forgotten. The day started under a dense fog cover unlike anything I’ve seen in AZ before, but by early afternoon it was sunny with temps in the 70’s.  Couldn’t have been a a better day of riding.   Later,

-TJ

It might be late, but it’s still Friday!

Chamois: Something to be understood and respected, not something to be confused with ’shammy’ or any other mis-representation of Chamois.

Cycling garb has come along ways. Most pros are experienced enough to remember shorts that once included a leather chamois for padding. This was some high tech stuff and it wasn’t until the mid to late 90’s that synthetic chamois started to take over the market.  Likely for good reason, yes, but let’s not forget how the Chamois used to be.

With new high-tech synthetic chamois now the norm, many cyclists abuse ‘chamois time’ by hanging out in their kit for far too long. If they were to experience the leather chamois of  old, chances are they’d learn to change more rapidly post training or racing.  Lessons must be learned and chamois time is certainly not training time.

Respect the Chamois!

Throwback to the leather chamois commences tomorrow. Keep tuned!  -TJ

WhiteTanks Podium

Saturday Chris, Gattis, and I made the drive up to Phoenix to race the first MBAA series event. Driving across Phoenix can be horrible sometimes so it was a pleasantly uneventful drive this time.  I knew that White Tanks was a fun course and the race would be longish at five laps of the 7+ mile course. With some good riders in attendance it was a nice way to test the legs a little bit, but not too much too early.  The first lap we got things strung out and it was basically a three man race with me, Scott Keller, and Eric Salstrand at the front of the race. The pace was always steady but never too much. Late in the race I was able to maintain relatively consistent lap times and that let me slip away as we started the final lap.  

The course was run in the opposite direction this time which made the climbs more techinal along with some faster descending. I liked the combo and felt as if I was riding most of the stuff pretty well. The rigid fork was tricky in some spots, but overall not too bad of a setup. It was fun exchanging the lead while doing plenty of honest effort.  I’m happy for the win and equally happy that I felt strong for the full duration. Faster racing will surely happen, but this one was just what I was looking for.

Gattis and Chirs each podiumed in their races too so In-n-Out was well earned by all of us, especially after we  waited around for 2+ hours before results/awards were finally figured out.  A long, but good day at the races…

Sunday I followed things up with a small (as in 2-4 people) group ride out and back to Mammoth. This five hour ride is always a good one and includes plenty of vertical and wind for doing Tempo out there.  Good times on the bikes. This week it’s more of the same, but with a Singlespeed race on Saturday.  

Stay tuned,  -TJ

Train using the Metric System. Roadies and MTB’er alike.

Rather than quoting miles ridden or mph averaged, it’s best to use Kilometers.  Why you ask? Well the reasoning is multi-fascited.  It makes more sense than the US system since it works off 10’s and it’s easier to do the mental math.  We all know how challenging mental math can be while training or racing… 

Training stats are more precisely recordered and displayed this way.  Since .1km is a lesser distance than .1 miles, you can quote with less error just how pro your training was for a given session.  For pacing purposes this extra precision can be helpful when monitoring your kph’s. 

Most importantly, you’ll be working with bigger numbers since the units are relatively smaller.  32.2 kph sounds much more impressive than 20 mph does.  And if a 100 mile ride is impressive, how about a 161 km ride? Now that’s big time!

You’ll also be ready for that phone call to Europe when it’s your turn to go do the big races.  Getting there and having to ask for a conversion to miles would be embarassing.

It’s been back to full speed since returning to Tucson. I’m in the middle of a VO2 block that seems to be going quite well. More power and less sense of effort than years past. Today was the third day so I overloaded with a climb up Mount Lemmon. By the time I got back to the city temps were already near 70 degrees so it was quite warm being dressed for the 40 degrees that I left in.   

Saturday I’m going to do the white tanks race. It’s awefully early to be racing, but it should be a good time riding fast on some trails. More on that after the fact.  

B-Matter is looking fit and ready for worlds. He’s doing things right here in Tucson with a healthy balance of rest, riding, and paperwork. Today he killed my ink catridge while printing off USAC’s terrorist/war waivers… We might make it up Kitt Peak on Sunday – we’ll have to see about that one. Later,

-TJ