My intention was to have this last year be my diary of a season racing in the Southeastern US, racing as a Cat 3 racer in an attempt to do well, possibly upgrade, and have fun under interesting conditions in a pretty robust racing scene. Well, jobs happen, careers happen, school happens, life…happens. Last year (2009) was pretty much a wash, got a little into shape, then lost it, started to get into shape, and lost it, repeat ad infinitum. This year, things are very different. Things are already very different, very, very different.
In October of last year, after a ridiculously pathetic, social cycling trip to the mountains of North Carolina with team mates and friends, the obvious hit me square in the nugget – I was overweight (for a competitive cyclist anyway), out of shape in both endurance and power and needed to do something about it. I am far too much a competitive person to become a social cyclist. It’s in my personality, that’s not a option and due to a past that includes competitive swimming on a national level, and competitive cycling at an elite level as well as a attaining frequent Top 10 overall placings in regional in triathlons I really put some effort into planning “the comeback”, at least for me personally.
In November of 2009, I searched for a cycling coach, someone who could really direct me in my fitness planning and most importantly someone who I would have to answer to. I really need that motivation. It’s always been something I have responded to as an athlete and always been something I have had, especially as a swimmer who swam competitively from grade school through college (Div. I). I was pretty adamant on finding a coach who not only had the knowledge (and there are plenty out there who have that knowledge), but one who seemed to understand my needs as a cyclist. Primarily those needs are assisting me in coming back after a long layoff and most importantly allowing me to still enjoy the bike. Right now, cycling is my therapy from an occasionally very stressful job, and I love to ride. I looked for a coach whose training/planning included days to simply enjoy the bike, while still consisting of a lot of productivity towards increasing speed and fitness. I did not want a coach whose plan was quality only workouts – ie. 90 minutes per day making yourself bleed in training to prepare for racing exclusively. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that methodology, and I admire athletes who can do that day in and day out…it’s just not for me (though I will admit it was at one point in my swimming career). I need the long rides, I love being outside; and if training this way meant much longer hours or time on the bike – all the better for me. I wouldn’t/couldn’t trade my long rides for shorter quality workouts even if it meant a longer path to race fitness. I found that coach late last year and we began planning and putting in the early true training miles for this 2010 season.
Things have gone very well over the past three and a half months. I have seen over a 20% increase in threshold power along with a 30+lb weight loss (collectively significantly increasing my power to weight ration), which shows either great planning and supervision of the training process by my coach or how poor my fitness was initially. I think it was quite a bit of both. The plan was fairly typical in that the opening months were spent in a little bit of endurance and tempo work with a good helping of FTP intervals. Though these were certainly were not comfortable and I was not a fan of certain types of intervals and workouts, they were nothing compared to the most recent anaerobic workouts we have been doing lately. These workouts are built around the principals of raising my abilities to ride anaerobically, recover and repeat. In competitions these account for my ability to respond to several attacks or significant surges, teaching my muscles to use the glycogen more efficiently. These are not comfortable, but certainly can prepare me for aggressive road races, criteriums and for me - hilly road races in which I will have no choice but to ride above my FTP due to my still heavier than most cyclists weight (79 kg).
So all this training, planning, riding has ultimately led to test day…the first race of the year. This weekend, it seems very likely I will be racing the Blythewood Road Race in South Carolina. Weather at this point looks like damp would be an understatement and considering this race is one of those trendy “Roubaix” style races, it could get interesting. Very interesting... I’ll keep ya posted.
Stay Safe,
Da Bug
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment