How to get better.

They say to get better at something you should train with people who are better than you.

 (Pic: bicycling.net)

With my climbing I have this covered with my trad partners, my sport partners, my winter/ice and alpine partners.  With my mountain biking I also have plenty of people to get out and ride with, who push each other and offer loads of encouragement.

The gap would be with my road cycling and with this in mind and a mate Steve sending me a link to an informal training session, just down the road from me, I thought why not.  If it doesn't make me a competitive roadie it will help improve the MTBiking.

So I headed down to the second of the Mint Training Session organized by Justin from Felt/Colbornes. It was dark, some of the corners on the lanes the route took weren't great and it was getting colder.  On arrival I met Justin, big Steve turned up with some goodies from Mavic (Thanks Steve!), another chap Kevin turned up and that was the it.

The 3 of us set off and with a few easy laps, which I found hard, go figure, the pace started to slowly creep up, but seemed more manageable. The course wasn't too hilly at all but had one hill that for whatever reason seemed to bight the same amount no matter the effort put in.  The course wiggled and turned and had a few corners that one needed to take care on.

After several laps of the pace creeping up and some chat getting to know each other, Justin suggested two laps a bit harder and one easier to finish on.  So at the bottom of the hill, off he went, a turn of pace like a Schleck is all I could compare it to at the time.  In a bit of time myself and then Kev caught Justin's wheel and we kept the pace higher than previous laps.  The next lap would prove to play the same scenario out.

However, on these two laps my legs finally felt good, my lungs, well another question chasing Justin up the hill, recovery was better and quicker than expected.  We rolled around for another easy lap enjoying the crisp clear night.

In all it was a great session, great easy going company and I'll certainly be back over the coming winter months.

Now for the first of the Brass Monkey's 4hr enduro's, possibly in the snow.  :-)