Everest Challenge Revisited, Or It's Now the Off Season!

These arrived in the mail yesterday and I had to go out and wear them today, taking only my second climb since Everest Challenge.  For me, the off season officially began the moment I got off my bike at 10,150' of elevation, give or take, on White Mountain.  I did something I haven't done, ever.  I took four days completely off the bike, voluntarily.  Since then I've cut back on miles, and I just ride to enjoy myself.  Some times that means going fast and hard, and other times it means hardly going at all.  In a couple of weeks I plan to take more time off the bike and go camping and hiking in the desert for three days.  I'm looking forward to sitting out under the stars far from Las Vegas.

I'm thinking ahead to next season already, though.  I think I'll make the center of my racing year the four mountain stage races in the Eastern Sierras.  Probably no surprise there!  I'm considering working with a coach to optimize my training for the 2012 Everest Challenge.  In no real way was I prepared for what I did, but I have a sense of what I can do to improve significantly.  I think with the level of fitness I went in to that race, with a different approach to riding it, I could knock off around thirty minutes; with the right training and build up, I'm planning a goal of improving by an hour over both days.  I think I have it in me. 

I'm officially number two in the U.S. in my five and ten year age group in stage racing, which won't even be ranked next year by the new ranking rules.  My placing in the Everest Challenge would give me another 50 points, which would put me way out in front, but that hasn't happened yet.  So far, it's still unranked.  I wrote the USA Cycling person in charge of ranking, and am hoping this will be rectified.  After all, I earned it, and it's the last time I'll have this chance to be number one.  

And now a plug for Steve Barnes and Anti-Gravity Cycling, who puts on these races.  I've now ridden a total of six of them over the course of last year and this year.  Every time the level of support has been outstanding.  Steve always has a great corps of volunteers who always manage to hand up effectively water, food, and anything else one might want while riding these grueling events.  Steve is always friendly, funny, and on top of what has to be a big enterprise, i.e., managing the races, which will have riders spread out all over the Eastern Sierra, the pre-planning, meeting with officials and police, insurance, the USAC licenses, all of it.  If you have a chance to enter one, you won't regret it.  If you finish, you'll know you've done something awesome, and it will change you in ways you wouldn't expect.  Well, they've changed me, so I guess I'm speaking for myself.  But everyone else who has done the Everest Challenge knows what I mean.  There's nothing quite like it.