Zach Bell Interviewed

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Canadian track racer Zach Bell appeared on Vancouver television for a lengthy interview after returning from the Beijing World Cup where he won a silver medal in the Points Race.

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The Thursday Workout: I was pressed for time (who isn’t)… 2-hours recovery rollers (45-minutes SLTs left only, 60-minutes out of the saddle high cadence).

The Friday Workout: I gave my scrawny chicken legs a savage beating on Wednesday and they are dead logs today. I hope to spin for 4-hour of base, or at least 2-hours base and 2-hours of just burning some calories (Post Script - Late Friday Night: The deed is done. That was a mentally challenging session on the rollers, alternating 60-minutes bouts of seated and standing, very high cadence efforts). Racing Saturday night will depend largely on how much studying I can put in rather then how recovered I might be (Post Script - Early Saturday Afternoon: I had hoped to put in another 3-hours of spinning Saturday morning. A lack of protein, and a last night, not enough sleep and long training week with a break through workout has emptied the tank– after 25-minutes of warming up on the rollers I packed it in. Time for some time R&R away from the bike). Let’s face it. An ice cube would have a greater chance of staying frozen in hell then I would winning a match sprint. The idea of pushing 52-11 boggles my mind. I would be nice if we could have a rollers series. Perhaps one a month from the end of the Cross season to the beginning of the Mountain Bike season in the spring.

As it stands the first Mountain Bike race is on the 26th of April at Grand Beach. I am running out of time! It takes 8-10 weeks of training to have any real, significantly, measurable and lasting training effect. I refuse to train out of fear so every training session-workout is golden from here on in. At 20-hours a week that is a potential 260 hours in the saddle. However, with exams, papers, presentation, marking, work and family commitments I will be happy with anything close to 200-hours. Effectively that means I only have a good 1st and an Ok 2nd gear by the 1st race. I have never been able to kick it up at Grand Beach. It is not until late June or July that I have a strong 3rd gear, and since sprinting it not a requirement for racing mountain bikes I never work on developing a 4th gear.