Christmas fun

Well its been a great week and christmas has been awesome. I've had loads of great food and received some great presents. Funny enough I didn't receive anything to do with motocross. I'm not sure if thats a good or bad thing.

I haven't been to the gym in over a week but I have been out on the bike twice and had two awesome sessions. The last session was with OC and we had a great time. We put in a few fast motos and then just messed around for the second half of the day. We found this little course that went through the woods and trees. It was great for bike handling skills. You had to have really good balance, brake and clutch control. It also gave your body a good work out. After a few laps you wouldn't be out of breath but you could definitely feel your arms starting to ache.
I also got in a little session on the mini bike down at bolehills BMX track. Couldn't really ride the main track as the surface was really soft due to the rain and I didn't want to rip it up, but I did manage to sneak in a run on the first straight.



Tomorrow I'm off to South Africa for 3 weeks with Hannah but not before I squeeze in a session at the gym early tomorrow morning. While I'm out there I should hopefully get some riding in and get to do some jet skiing which is always a good workout on the arms. Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in an update while I'm there. Until then, Adiós!

Unproductive weekend

The weekend was an unproductive one. There was so much I wanted to do and ended up doing none of it.

I didn't get to ride, I didn't get to train and I didn't get to fly.

That said, there's more to life then riding, training and flying, so the weekend wasn't crap. I went to my company's Christmas party accompanied by the incredible Hannah Oliver who was wearing a dress that left my jaw on the floor.

Sunday I sang in the church's christmas carol choir, bam!

Wobbly legs in the name of the GOAT

Well today I had another awesome session with DC. We both stepped it up again. My legs do feel very wobbly walking up and down the steps at work. It feels good though because it means I have trained hard.
When training I always think of the Ricky Carmichael video clip. He talks about doing extra sets and extra reps "Just to do it", so he can meet his goal. I do the same, just when I feel like stopping I go one more for Ricky, haha.

Progression!

So this morning I was doing my usual Thursday morning leg session with buddy D and I felt like things really went up a level.

I went bigger on squats, leg presses and dead lifts. Its really encouraging when you're able to step things up a notch, its definitely a sure sign of progression.

I'm away this weekend so unfortunately no riding will be taking place but I will use the time to recover and come back stronger next week!

I'll do a 6 lapper this time

The last two Sundays have been spent at Worksop. A nice little turn track has formed on one of the fields and it drains really well which means that even if it has been raining the whole week we can still go down and ride. Last week it was the AT vs DC show down which proved to be a fantastic day. You can read all about it on DC's Blog. Yesterday it was just myself and my little brother. It was a little more wet then the week before but I felt really fast this week. I've been doing 6 lap sprints to focus purely on speed and technique. Unfortunately the session got cut short due to my brother getting a puncture but we were still grateful for the short ride we did have. In the afternoon I decided to hit gym and get a head start on the weeks training regime.



I am proud to say that so far I have kept up with the training program. I'm still concentrating on strength training and conditioning. I think once I come back from South Africa in January then I will start with cardio work although I am doing a little bit of rowing at the moment.

Committed

Well the winter training is truly under way. DC and I have been meeting at the gym early in the morning before work. I think its crucial to have someone to keep motivation high. When you're doing it by yourself its too easy to skip it especially on a freezing, wet winter morning.

At the moment I am concentrating on strength so I am alternating between an upper body and lower body free-weight workout. I think its safe to say that motocross requires a good balance of both upper and lower body strength.

We planned to go riding on Sunday and have the infamous DC vs AT race. These are two of our mates who are into bmx and have both had the chance to learn and ride a motocross bike for one day. We came up with idea during the summer of making them race each other, one on my bike and the other on Cooper's bike.
Unfortunately the weather was terrible so it was cancelled. Fingers crossed that things will be better this weekend.

Punked!

Its been a great couple of weeks. I've signed up to the S10 Gym with DC and training has begun. We went for a nice swim the other night. It felt really good to be back in the water again. Swimming is such a fantastic form of exercise and I plan to do it regularly as I think it will help with my motocross and it will also help me when I go back to South Africa in December/January and get my surf on!

Here's a video of Travis Pastrana getting punked. It has no great significance to the motocross journey except for the fact that Travis is a legend in the eyes of most motocross riders. Enjoy!