It’s time to set new goals for 2017! This year, I’m going to try something old and something new: higher volume and having two peaks in the season.  One of the biggest things I noticed when I was racing in college was that even if I wasn’t getting a ton of intensity in or if I was sick, having the extra volume seemed to buffer my fitness and allow me to have a lot of extra gas in the tank as the year progressed.  For this reason, I’m looking to shed some of the intensity I did this year in favor of volume.  However, this won’t just be mindless riding, I’ll include plenty of tempo intervals with some neuromuscular efforts.

Physical Goals:

• Increase TTE to 50:00
• Raise mFTP to 300w (season high: 273)
• Raise 1min power to 700w (season high: 568)
• Gain/Maintain a weight of ~150lbs (currently: 144.6 lbs)
  • Gained through strength training
  • Mostly an experiment since most great cross and XCO racers carry a higher weight for raw increased power
  • It’s OK if I’m a little below this as long as I’m not carrying loads of dead weight (low body fat)
• Body fat less than 10% by “A” mountain events
  • I would like to use a DEXA scan, but the cost might require me to continue to use my scale
• Raise CTL to between 75-85 by “A” mountain events and rebuild that for the cyclocross season.

Misc. Goals (Nebulous):

Normaly you don’t want goals that are nebulous, but some of the skills I need are nebulous (such as comfort offroad)

Skills that Make a Better Race

• Learn to bunny hop barriers
• Need to include a few minutes of skill work during endurance rides
  • Doesn’t need to be super structured
• Need to include more neuromuscular work to reduce co-activation of muscles during the pedal stroke
  • High cadence intervals (120+)
  • Cadence Pyramids

Do more offroad riding on my cross bike

• Dirt roads and mountain bike trails count
• Generally looking for more comfort than anything specific

Racing Goals:

• In the road/mountain events, finish in the main field
  • Need goals to keep motivation high and to avoid just doing continual base
  • High placing is a bonus, but these events are for fitness, motivation and skills
• Upgrade to Cat 3
  • Missed this goal by a wide margin last year; I won’t make the same mistakes again
  • I believe if I hit my physical goals, this will fall in line
  • However, I also will try to target smaller races to follow the path of least resistance

With lofty goals set, I want to go over some equipment changes that I want to make. This year was mired with technical issues. Desipite feeling good physically, I DNF’d 60% of my races due to issues with Specialized’s tubeless tire lineup.

Equipment Change List:

• Acquire Tubular Wheelset
  • Hopefully I can afford two: one for mud and one for all around
  • Likely will go 35mm for increased stability since UCI rules don’t apply to me yet
    • Will have to change that if I qualify for Nationals or race in the open field
  • If I have to stay on tubeless, will need to experiment a lot with tires, so I don’t have the same problems of tires burping during hard cornering
• Get a bike stand
  • This was supposed to be done earlier this year, but wasn’t due to finances
  • Life would be easier if doing my own repairs was easier