last weekend it was a 3h race in a 5.5km circuit around a monestery. It was fun and really hard on the body, defenetely not used to MTB racing. I was rididng with the leader until the last lap where my back wheel broke, i passed the lap with 4 min to spare witch would mean an extra lap. that 4 min was enough to drop to 5th. Still a LOT of fun.

It has been a diferent preparation when compared to last years in every possible way. its far from super hot like in other places where i prepared, Las cruces, NM and San diego. im at 1900m high and unless i go to a tanning “shop” i will be in kona with an alpine tan…

training has been quite diferent as well, hard to explain, just diferent. lots of volume of course, lots of fast stuff, lots of hard training and workouts are arranged to give a diferent estimulation on the body….diferent. i feel great about my training and will look forward to see how it unfolds in hawaii.

Training in font romeu is absolutely awesome, i have everything within a walk or an elevator distance. 50m pool, gym, food, bed, track, running trails and of course roads and special category climbs, you name it and its here.

here are a few photos of the last few weeks

OOOOOOORANJE

nyway we got here alright but krep is defenetely sharing the driving on the way back in around 3 weeks :D

Today was very calm, just a short ride and short swim to get the feel of the altitude, the rest of the week isnt very tough as well but week 2 and 3 will kick my butt.

i was glad to wake up in the morning and looking at the window with a great day..

Of course at the time im writing this im having severe thunderstorms alert but i think its just a few hours :P

The last month or so where spent at a maintenance threshold, fast workouts to try find some extra gear and indeed i found one. 3 sprint races from the national cup and a kind of 24h MTB race kept me busy and at racing speed.

I starded with an out of the first result page at the sprint in Peniche, got an 7th in the sprint of Oeiras, got 9th at the 24h race with no night riding and ended up in 5th at the sprint of abrantes last weekend, thats a good curve of improovement in speed, although speed and Sergio doesnt quite match.

more soon

a few photos of a 24h MTB race where i rode as long as there was daylight… i still finished 9th overall ;D

Recovery was good, a lot better than i would expect. Post race week i had 2 days of rest after the race and “do what ever you want for workouts but dont get excited” for the rest of it. The first goal of the season was reached witch didnt happened last year for example and that is a good boost. Now its time to think about the mid season goal, The european Long distance Championships, in Prague, where i will represent my country (duuuh). Im going to have a block of fast stuff until the end of the month, i had to change some plans for june. At the end of june i will drive to the pirenees for a altitude training camp before the race and im really into getting very very fast :P

other than this everything is running smoothly and im having a peak in motivation :D

I Spent money in myself (timex joke) with a last minute car rental since race activity is between club la santa and puerto dela carmen, this way its a bit easier for me as im alone…unfortunately.

I went straing to club la santa to make my registration and came back to puerto del carmen where my hotel is located and around 10 min walk to race start finish. I slept most of the day, at least that was how it felt. woke up 5 am and had a nap while flying to madrid and then from madrid to lanzarote, that made the travel a lot easier but i arrived kinda tyred anyway, after the check in/grocery shoping i slept from around 5 till 8 pm, made some dinner and went to bed at around 10:30…woke up at 7:30 for breakfast. That was a great day of rest :P

Today after a nice breakfast i went for a 40 min swim, did the whole loop of the swim plus some short efforts in the beach. Built my bike and went for a 1:15 spin and rode a small part of the loop. Made a delicious pasta with meat sauce (im a great cook) and relaxed a bit while watching the giro, that was nice. After that i went to the breafing in club la santa and drove a part of the course…and here am i after another home made dinner. It is obvious the i have a lot of free time with this post eh?

Ok about the course, it is tough indeed. I only rode like 10% of it and in total i probably saw 70% of it. Its a course where the ones that had the chance of riding it while training or already know it from previous years have a great advantage, so being new here we will see how it goes, there are some very tricky parts but overall i think i will be just fine.

Im feeling great today after so much sleep so i cant wait until is sunday…

I was the fastest portuguese too witch is always good :D

this is a stilish photo of the race and here is an oficial video of the race

Click here to view the embedded video.

Back to the training camp, It will be called training camp but everything will remain around the same, only more work is added and most likely i will have my butt kicked with the fast dudes of the group. One month to my first Half Ironman Distance race here in portugal, in the island of Porto santo, Madeira. That will be my first test of the season and im looking forward to it.

Meanwhile i’m having a hard time with weather, it has been raining all day or almost all day for the past few weeks and the wind is flowing hard too. lots of Yellow Warnings here and there but i have been doing the work as usual, it just makes it a bit harder :P

The good news about training is my new swim PB on the 400m!!! 5:20 in a 3*400 set on wednesday, last time i remember i only was abble to do around 5:30-5:35 so this is nice to see. i only want to carry a good swim speed that i usually get in the winter to the racing season and let the legs do the rest :D