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A week in review…

Nutrition (weight loss) Power training (increasing power) and long rides (endurance) are all parts of the weekly training program for the next few weeks.  Some of it I like, some of it I dread, but in combination, I think it is all making a difference.  Tomorrow is my weigh in and today I will do my power test to see if I can add 4 watts to my power and hopefully see 2 pounds off my weight tomorrow.

Having to travel this week will throw a wrench in the specific training plan, but I should be able to work around it (running instead of riding, weights instead of TRX) there seems to be no end to the ways in which you can torture yourself with or without a bike.  Nutrition seems to be easier when I travel, though portion size is an issue in our American Eat-at-the-trough/plate the size of a boat/feed the whole family-per order for $12.99 idiotic behavior.  The good news is that it is cold enough that I can eat half of what I am given, put the rest in the car for later and keep the portion size more realistic.

Thankfully, it is 5 weeks to the Barry Roubaix and any set backs that happen now can be overcome.  I have been fighting something (flu maybe) and I am convinced that taking echinacea every day is keeping this at bay, but I am still fatigued…getting old may be what I am feeling, but I would rather blame fending off the flu than denying my age.

Winter’s end is just around the corner.  Finish Strong.

Jack.

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Nutrition, Training and Recovery

I am doing some very intensive TRX work with a trainer who tells me that nutrition is the 4th event of a triathlon.  I have no desire to do a tri-, but the same advice holds for any athlete I suspect.  I don’t wrestle with nutrition between 5 am and 7 pm, but when I get tired after 8 o’clock at night, sweets become a siren song to me and I can rarely abstain.  I have tried all sorts of tricks, but I think the reality is that it is (simple to say and difficult to control) self discipline.

At our Tuesday night indoor training last night, I got an earful from our cycling coach about not recovering enough.  He has an uncanny ability to know what my effort level is, how I am feeling and what I am up for even before my heart rate monitor or power meter is registering a byte.  I know the value of recovery, but I question the difference between pushing yourself hard to get more fit and stronger and being a wimp by not going harder than you have gone in the past.

It is very clear, doing the same thing that I always did creates the same results, so I am pushing.  I don’t think I have ever over-trained in my life (although I do know the affects of lack of motivation and this I pay attention to) and so I think my lack of energy is a combination of dropping my calorie intake, going anaerobic once a week for a very intense TRX work out and trying to ever increase my power output…most of these things are very individual and only the cyclist knows how he or she should push it….but I wonder…..

Less then 6 weeks to Barry Roubaix

Go WSI/Team Active Racing

Jack

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Thursday 2 by 20’s

Woke up Thursday morning and it felt like my legs were beat all night long with a baseball bat.  Although Advil PM helps me sleep through the aches and pains of a good day’s effort, I am certainly groggy when my alarm goes off.  I was thinking, TRX is definitely going to be a game changer…if I survive.

Packed my road bike and complement of trainer, water bottles and bike clothes into my car and headed off to catch up with a half dozen guys who I have been riding with every Tuesday and Thursday night in the off season for the last 4 years.  Without these masochists and a leader who lives in the hurt locker, I would be a puddle of goo when the first race occurs each year.

We warmed up nicely and then defined our workouts based on our abilities as measured by our power meters.  This device has kept me from becoming my historically delusional self.  Just because you don’t get dropped when everyone is on a trainer, does not mean you can keep up with them on the road…the power meter creates the mathematical equivalent of the difference between a Cat 4 and a Cat 2…just look at your watts.

20 minutes at a medium plus effort can be taxing, even if it feels relatively easy in the first 5 or 10 minutes, toward the end of the effort, I am always wishing it were over.  2 twenty minute efforts are a good wake up call when facing a 2 hour race in just over 6 weeks.  I finished my 2 by 20’s and kept my watts right about where I was hoping…the TRX put pain in my calves and quads..again, hoping that the next few weeks will change my prospects in the upcoming cycling season.

Go WSI/Team Active Racing

Jack