I thought I’d give a quick update on this winters training. First a little background, for some years I raced bicycles (road). Two winters ago, I didn’t train very well during the off season with conflicts including family matters, work (business trips for example), and (uhm) time spent blogging. That meant I really only was on the road three or four days a week and usually even then wasn’t riding very hard. That doesn’t cut it if you want to race. With few exceptions you have to train every day. Subsequently at this time it has been a little over two years since I’ve sat on my bike lined up to a start. Early this summer, actually May through June I managed to ride every day except for about two over a 6 week period. My fitness started picking up. By mid-September I lined up my training program and began training in earnest. Since mid-October I’ve been working out 9-14 hours a week. And then … last Friday we finally had some warmer weather. And … I left work a little early to ride.
I’m glad to report, that power metrics don’t lie. To borrow a phrase cycling pro’s occasionally use, I had “some good sensations” in my legs. I had a short 2 hour ride in the sun and the wind and did a hard 30 minutes in the middle. My recovery is quite good, which means I have some endurance. Basically, that means after a short 1-2 minute very hard effort I don’t have to ease up very long, just a few pedal strokes really, before I’m ready to go again. My power seems back. In short, I think I’m back to where I was at close to my best fitness levels. And best of all, it’s only March. I’ll still need to find some group riding or training races to remind myself how to corner hard in a pack and ride shoulder to shoulder in a bunch and I’ll likely still have over-estimated my fitness and will grovel at the back of packs whipping back myself into shape some more … but if the endurance is good that should go well.
However to put that in perspective … I should note I never was a top contender … and I likely won’t be one now. I’m a mid-pack age level (masters 40+) racer and only manage to hang on in national caliber Masters 40 fields. I would add, in my defense, that I could hang on in those fields on my good days which is saying something. If I can beat the hour again at the 40k ITT (Individual Time Trial) then I’ll be back to where I was at my peak. What I’m saying is that while I rarely win, but I do have fun.
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.