Cycling Begins...

As strange as it sounds to say on March 7th, I have not been on skis for two full weeks now. This time last season I was still putting in huge days with bouts of intensity getting ready for the two biggest rando races of the season - The Wasatch Powderkeg and the National Championships here in Jackson. Well, as everyone knows, this season has not exactly been huge on the snowfall front. It has also been sketchy with a predictably unpredictable snow pack that has killed at least one friend. So, when the temps warmed and the skies cleared I got on my bike and went for a road ride. Nice. I'm not skimo racing for the rest of this year so it matters little.

At the start of this riding block it was not so warm, although dry. I rolled out after work one day when the thermometer read 22 degrees. My heated footbeds made it less intimidating but that is still cold for most road riders. Sure, there are some sickos in Minnesota that ride when it's 10 below or something crazy like that but that's a different sport. When I headed back into town that day right at sunset the bank thermometer read 14 degrees. Yeah, I felt dedicated.

But things did warm up and some of my teammates came out, too.  It's been in the forties lately. Oddly enough, the winds have been calm so it's been downright civilized. Our new team kit arrived so we've been strutting around the local roads in groups of 3 and 4 looking pretty spiffy and feeling motivated. We put a cruisey 4 hours under our belts yesterday and another 3 today. I did my first hill intervals Friday and put decent pressure on the pedals today to complete the week and earn the Monday rest day tomorrow.

I haven't really structured the training week yet, opting for easy volume whenever I can get it. It's so unpredictable this time of year weather-wise that I feel I should ride far when I can. In the last two weeks I have ridden over three hours at least five times and over two and half hours an additional two or three days. I like this time of the year with it's permissible free form nature. Without a race looming, anything goes. The more obsessive compulsive the athlete, the less they tolerate this kind of program. Whatever works for you. I feel that when you cannot count on conditions to make a 3-4 hour ride possible exactly when you planned it, there is way more stress created by trying to be more exacting in your programming.

I have continued with the indoor workouts on the trainer on later work nights. I pretty much refuse to do base mileage on a trainer so these workouts always involve so quality. My latest favorite is an up-down 5 minute pyramid, changing gears on the minute. I go from a tempo to threshold to just over threshold then back down. Very effective, getting the heart rate pretty high and then forcing some recovery on the way down while maintaining a decent pace. I apologize to the tech geeks for not providing some hard data with watts and heart rates. I just don't have those toys right now but you get the idea.

The other work out I have adopted is a series of 15-25 second sprint efforts, taking a little time to wind it up and then spanking it for about 10 seconds. It ends up taking about 20-25 seconds total and I start them on the 5 minutes. This gives full recovery and allows for quality efforts for each. I pushed through 10 the last time and felt pretty strong through the end. I discuss the rationale for these here.

I also continue with the twice weekly weight workouts. I recently got a trap bar dead lift bar so I'm doing these instead of squats for awhile. The movement is really a cross between a dead lift and a squat. It's nice for a change and I think it has good sport transferability in terms of body position and joint angles. Powerlifting purists hate it because it is neither a squat nor a dead lift. For sport performance conditioning, this fact is irrelevant. For those of you who have never spent anytime in a serious gym, the purists' point is lost. If you want a taste, simply google "trap bar vs. dead lift" and read the ranting on the forums. Funny shit! Anyway, here's what it looks like...

In addition to the heavy lifts I'm also doing some stair bounding and plyometric box jumps. I will do a post soon on these with some more thoughts concerning them.

The random training schedule will soon come to an end as there is now a race on the horizon next weekend. I'm at least a month ahead of last season in terms of time on the bike so I am excited to see how I stack up to the Boise boys. There is a TT on Saturday and a road race on Sunday. Not sure if we will do both but the road race is for sure. Can't wait. - Brian