New Team, cross season prep, and injury recovery

A new development for my upcoming race season is that I will no longer be racing with the orange and blue of Fiscer Plumbing. I will be in pink, blue, and charcole for Dyna Racing, a race oriented spin off of the very large and somewhat casual Fischer team. I'm excited to be on a more racing oriented team which will quickly build a reputation for fierce competition across the racing disciplines in categories from 4 on up to 1. I'm not big on hot pink as a primary team color but it's in style and it's a great team so I'll embrace it. I began work re-coloring my cross bike with hot pink vinyl and bar tape to match my new kit, which will arrive around the first of September in time for cross season:

I have made some changes to prepare for cross season. I scaled back mileage slightly and began adding a lot more high intensity training and intervals to become a faster short distance rider since cross races are only 45 minutes. This is also a good change to avoid training burnout. I must say, I feel the difference and I can actually compete with the faster riders around my hood on climbs and sprints again as a result of not being highly fatigued from the mileage. 

The other change I made was to start running. My second run of 3 miles on gravel ended up causing a sprained ankle. It seemed fairly minor as I didn't even notice it for an hour or two after the run. My ankle was just a bit un comfortable the whole time. Guess now I know it that happens again it just means I just have to quit 20 strides into my workout. This running is nothing like cycling. I took some ibuprfin but preceded to train as usual on the bike. I had one missed clip in on that side starting off from a stop light and my pedal rolled under that foot under pressure with a sudden jolt. Ouch! Well, the next few days I stuck to the road thinking that would be safe enough but it was not. One week and 200 hard fast miles out, i have a very swollen and painful ankle and walking/standing is a painful chore. Looks like if off the bike completely for a while. 2 days off and I'm still in a lot of pain. Ugg, so frustrating. I hope I can still race a full cross season. At this point, I don't know how long recovery will take. Hopefully I can get back on the bike soon but high intensity training is going to be out for probably at least two weeks.