Tag Archives: James Tait
Training for the Retro BMX State Titles
It is that time of year, when everyone is stepping it up a gear and training hard for their state titles, this year I will be racing my Retro BMX in both the Tasmanian State Titles and the Victorian the week after. Training for me is now at the hardest intensity that it will be over the next week or two and then I will start to back off a little to give my body a chance to recover and be fresh as I possibly can be, to give the best performance that I can. I have no illusions as to my ability and am staring down the barrel of last place at the Victorian State Titles and quite possibly the Tasmanian titles as well, but you never know, if someone takes their foot off the gas, I will be there to pounce and will happily pass them as I
The pointy end of the season
The end of the 2017 BMX season is fast approaching with a few large meets left for the year, Knox Thunderdome, Tasmanian State Titles and the Victorian State Titles. After travelling all over Victoria this year, racing the Victorian State Series in which I placed 2nd for 40+ retro, I am excited to be going on my first interstate trip to race retro BMX at the Tasmanian State Titles in the second week of November. In reflection, my year was an interesting one, it had a change of trainers, from James Tait to Luke Cristiano, it was full of niggling injuries, loaded with self doubt and apprehension and my mind in overdrive with thoughts of the crash in 2016 that had me out of action for a while, it was these mental battles that I had to overcome as I was getting faster. I can now say that I feel
James Tait, I swear tries to kill retro racers
Tonight saw myself back training with the dastardly James Tait for the first time this year, fellow retro racer Michael Herceg was also in attendance and rumor has it that retro racer Brendon Marshall was a no-show after training last week where he was brutalized and too scared to return. Our warmup started with some relay run throughs of side steps, butt kicks, grapevine shuffles and jumping, seriously what is with the jumping lately, last week with the secret trainer and this week with James, I think I may have given him some ideas with my last post, I am definitely going to have to avoid that in future. With Michael and I on opposing teams, it was game on and the grapevines were serious business, I busted out the dance skills from when I was a teen back in the 80s and grapevined shuffled like a champ, Michael was
Rebuilding old bikes, rebuilding old bodies
The last week has been an interesting one, whilst I had planned to step up the number of days I was going to train, I found that I was without a bike, the old Vortex Cruiser has gone through a rebuild and the crank bolt that goes through the chain wheel and into the back of the crank, turns out I had accidentally sent to QLD, when I traded my 180 cranks for 175s, fortunately the bolt was sent back express post and I received it Friday and had my Vortex BMX built just before race time. Tuesday saw me back with the secret trainer, doing further strength training, mixed in with a bit of cardio, whilst I feel the muscles around my knee getting stronger, the training doesn’t get any easier, the weights build up and with the bit of cardio mixed in, I am constantly out of breath
BMX training for an old guy
I don’t know why, but after last weeks James Tait led torture session, I decided to go back to Knox tonight for another crack at it and try to get this old guys body BMX fit for the 2017 season ahead. Whilst last weeks session was very physical in regards to endurance, this weeks session was more skills based and getting my body moving the right way whilst riding. Sounds pretty easy, but my goodness I am feeling muscles that I didn’t know I had, I am sitting here with my legs screaming at me, “what the hell have you done to us” what torture did the evil one devise this week you may ask, pump drills. We start off from the start gate, pedal to the first jump and pump the rest of the track, which probably wouldn’t be so bad if I would actually commit to the Knox