I think it was about halfway through cyclocross race No. 2 last Saturday when cottonmouth turned to metal mouth. If you’ve raced, run or just ridden hard, you know what I’m talking about — that sickly taste that’s akin to chewing on aluminum foil or gargling pennies. It usually pops up around the same time your legs turn to jelly, your motivation evaporates and you feel like puking.

Needless to say, I didn’t have the greatest race (mid-pack finish). But that was about as expected, considering it was my second race of the day (more on that later), and I’d spent most of the previous two weeks shuttling around the Mexican state of Chihuahua with the two-headed mission of covering the seven-day Vuelta Chihuahua road race, and, in classic Griswold-family vacation style, taking in as many tourist sites as possible (a necessary evil when the state’s tourism board picks up your travel tab). In the span of two weeks, I lost count of the old churches, historic missions and scenic overlooks we stopped at.

Feeling the burn in Mexico.

Photo: Enrique Arteaga

That meant south-of-the-border ride time was limited to the last two days of the trip when I finally scored a bike and got to play chicken with smog-belching buses and aggressive taxi drivers on the mean streets of Chihuahua (the city and state capital). If you’ve never ridden in a busy Mexican city, but are considering it, my advice is, don’t. I’m usually fairly comfortable dodging in and out of traffic, but my personal Tour de Chihuahua was straight up scary. Drivers there are not used to bikers on the road and it showed. I got buzzed more times than a platoon of recruits undergoing basic training on Parris Island.

That’s not to say there’s no good riding in Chihuahua (the state). On the contrary, during our clockwise trek around Mexico’s largest state we saw some amazing terrain, both road and mountain. Among the area attractions is Copper Canyon, a truly massive swath of jagged earth that’s yielded some spectacular rolling roads and a ton of fat-tire trails.

Getting up there is worth the trip.

Photo: Jason Sumner

Of course there’s one major knock right now on traveling in Chihuahua — or anywhere in Mexico. The country is in the throes of a major drug war, and while most of the record-setting violence (3500 dead this year and counting) can be chalked up to gang warfare and the bad guys’ battles with the cops, you can’t help but take pause when considering vacation destinations. It definitely curtailed my nighttime activities, and I had several Mexican racers concede that they don’t go out as much as they used to. The general sentiment was it’s just not worth the risk the.

It also gave me a new appreciation for the impact of America’s seemingly insatiable appetite for illicit drugs, and the ease with which people can buy automatic weapons in the U.S. According to several reports I read in the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere, most of the bad guys’ firepower comes from gun shows in U.S. border towns such as El Paso and Nogales. Why there is a need to sell such weaponry to anyone but the cops and the military is beyond me.

Anyway, I’m way off topic here. But it’s worth noting that there’s a small but very enthusiastic band of bike racers in Mexico, and if you can stomach the country’s instability, Chihuahua is a pretty amazing place to ride. Besides watching the racers race and touring around the city, I managed to find a short, nastily steep climb on the outskirts of town that ended with a great panoramic view.

Race No. 1, OK; race No. 2, not so much.

Photo: Marty Caivano

Back home, fitness on the wane, I decided to do the double at last weekend’s Blue Sky Velo cyclocross event, signing up for regular 4s and 35+ 4s. I’ll skip the play-by-play and leave it at this: Twice is not nice. Race No. 1 went okay, but No. 2 was spectacularly painful, metal mouth an all. An hour in between was definitely not enough recovery time, but Coach said I ought to get a decent fitness boost out of it so what the heck.

(On a side note, the Blue Sky event was A1A all the way — great course, good post-race grub, and a huge turnout. According to the race website, there were 586 race starts, including 105 in the cat. 4s and 82 in the 35+ 4s. Props to the whole VeloNews squad, which tied for eighth in the team participant standings with nine.)

Coach Neal and I have also been talking about how to manage this time of year, which for many means doing a little end-of-season accounting.

“It’s a good time to look at what was good and what was not good in terms of training, racing and coaching,” Henderson explained. “Not everything is going to be all roses, so you need to figure out what goals you hit, what you missed, what you could do better, what your coach could do better. And then try to apply all that to next season.”

Travel — and the inevitable training disruption — has been our biggest bugaboo. When Coach was over in Beijing for the Olympics my ship went a little wayward. When I was on the road, Coach lost track of me.

“In the big picture it’s important to remember that a coaching relationship is a learning process,” Henderson continued. “It can’t just be a dictatorial deal where you read and follow without any thought. You should always be thinking about what you are doing, and if there is a time when your schedule doesn’t match, or you can’t get in touch with your coach. You should be able to craft a reasonable week based on what you’re getting ready for or what you’ve recently done.”

I’ve been sucking on pennies. …

No questions this week (is everyone done for the year?), but if you’d like to ask Neal Henderson a question, please send an e-mail to CoachNealQandA@gmail.com. Remember to include your name and hometown. Questions may be edited for content and clarity.

Editor’s Note: Jason Sumner is a 37-year-old, 170-pound freelance writer and Cat. 4 bike racer who is working with a cycling coach — and training with power — for the first time in his life. Sumner underwent a full battery of lab tests at the beginning of the season, producing a 250-watt lactate threshold, a 3.2 watts per kilogram score and a VO2 max of 51.5. His 2008 goals include improving on his usual mid-pack finishes, not getting dropped on the weekend group rides, and learning something along the way. He is documenting his experiences for VeloNews.com is this twice-monthly column.

His coach, Neal Henderson, is sports science manager at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine and a well-regarded elite-level coach. Henderson’s clients include Garmin-Chipotle’s Taylor Phinney, Jelly Belly’s Scott Tietzel and Trish Downing, a nationally ranked paraplegic athlete. Henderson is also the winter triathlon coach for the U.S. national triathlon team, and this year was named USA Cycling National Development Coach of the Year. Henderson is working with Jason Sumner on a pro bono basis.