Experiential Training and Racing Report from Stephanie Mayberg – o2fitness athlete and Rio Stada Cycling team member…<\/p>\n
This is my first season racing, and I started out with an injury that had me off the bike for two months.\u00a0 Once I was able to get back on the bike, I have made slow and steady progress regaining what I had lost and getting stronger and faster.<\/p>\n
I decided to try my hand at time trialing by going out to a time trial training ride, and loved it.<\/p>\n
I trained a few more weeks, then set my sights on my first official NCNCA event \u2013 a 10 mile individual time trial. \u00a0All week I visualized what I thought the course would be like; it was described as a 10 mile out and back with a “slight elevation gain” on the way out. \u00a0I felt fit and ready to race. \u00a0I talked over my fears and thoughts with Julie and had a plan. \u00a0I checked out my bike the night before, packed my car, reviewed my plan and went to bed.<\/p>\n
I woke up the next morning excited and focused. I drive down to the race, got checked in and warmed up. I was feeling great. I didn’t want to go out too fast, because I had made that mistake in the training rides. \u00a0First mile I was feeling great…then we started to climb. \u00a0This wasn’t a slight elevation gain – it was a hill! \u00a0I kept pushing, and then came panic and doubt. \u00a0“Why did I think I could do this?” \u00a0Someone on the sidelines said “take a deep breath.” \u00a0I did just that, I regained my composure and told myself that I wasn’t quitting and I wasn’t letting up. \u00a0I kept climbing knowing ( or thinking I knew) that the turnaround was just ahead and the rest would be downhill. \u00a0I hit the 5 mile mark, where I expected to see the turnaround, and it wasn’t there. My legs were screaming! \u00a0This went on for another mile and a half when the turn around appeared. \u00a0I turned around for the downhill portion, but needed to recover from all of the unexpected climbing. I finished the race totally exhausted.<\/p>\n
After discussing with Julie, I realized that while the fitness and mental piece were there, I needed to fine tune distributing my efforts.<\/p>\n
I stuck with my training plan and headed out for a Tuesday night twilight crit – my first crit ever. \u00a0I was determined to have fun and ride smart. \u00a0I also told myself I didn’t want to lose the pack. \u00a0We warmed up with a few laps, then took our place on the line. \u00a0The speed slowly increased, and I found myself at the back of the pack. We slowed and surged at every turn. \u00a0It took me one lap to know this was not where I wanted to be…we rode a few more laps, and I saw my opportunity. \u00a0The pack was starting to splinter. I moved up to the front one rider at a time. The speed was moving now. \u00a0For the next 30 minutes rode my heart out, learning where I could push and when I should conserve. \u00a0I thought about my discussions with Julie on cadence and pedal stroke, and somewhere in the race it all came together. I worked hard, I hurt, but I had a blast! Added bonus- I finished third and took a prime.<\/p>\n
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Experiential Training and Racing Report from Stephanie Mayberg – o2fitness athlete and Rio Stada Cycling team member… This is my first season racing, and I started out with an injury that had me off the bike for two months.\u00a0 Once I was able to get back on the bike, I have made slow and steady […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1681,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-1680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletes-blog","tag-stephanie-mayberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}