When I started this blog I was doing so knowing I would be talking to myself and that nobody would read it... ooops. According to the stats thing I look at from time to time, I have a handful of visitors. Which it amazing and great! I know someone that reads the blog in real life other than that I don't know who visiting my blog. Please feel free to leave a comment and introduce your self if you like I would love to know who's visiting. You don't need to leave personal info if you don't want to, maybe where your from and how you found the blog? if you have a blog too?
To my mystery viewers .. hi, and say hi back if you want.
Fall is in full force and comfy outdoor riding opportunities are getting thinner. We had a couple of warm relatively dry days in the last week so got a couple nice rides in. Short .. but nice. Cycling class with my coach has started and will run for 10 weeks. She starts the session with a threshold test. two 8 minute max effort intervals with a 10 minute easy spin in the middle. My perception of discomfort has changed for sure. Last year(my first year) I thought I was going to die.. this year ... It was hard but.. ok. Are the nerves sending less signal to my brain or is my brain ignoring some of the signal?
I borrowed a friend roller skis yesterday to try them ... Thinking about getting some. It was really fun. I could have stayed out there all day. oh to win the lottery and bike, roller ski or ski all day. Maybe in my next life : )
I have my training schedule in mind for the winter but need to get it down on "paper". I rode indoor trainer last night for about 2 1/2 hours watched tv and "rode". I am hoping to log a lot of low and moderate effort time on the trainer this winter. In the outdoor season almost all my riding is very high effort stuff and I am coming to believe that logging lots of moderate effort is a necessary component to building a really solid fitness base. Once again I am trying to figure this out on the fly here. so I am trying different things and seeing what effect they have.
so the winter schedule breaks down like this roughly.
2 days indoor trainer ( bike) 2 to 3 hours per 2 days skiing. maybe more if I can 1 to 3 hours per 1 day weight room ( I'm being told I may need some strength stuff). 1 to 2 hours
Total time per week: 7 to 14 hours a week ... pheew, does that sound like a lot to you too?
So now I am just waiting for the snow to come... tick, tock. the methadone that is you tube skiing videos will not hold off the heebee geebees to long.
here is one of my favorites.. check out the how fast they are going.... good heavens.
So ski pre-season has begun. That means running up and down the hills of a nearby reserve with ski poles. It looks easy enough in the video but as you will notice at the end of my last trip up the hill I fell on the ground totally fried. hahaha The leaves here have been spectacular and so running in the woods has been wonderful.
All work and no rest, In this case is making Joel a dull rider. Today, mountain biking with a guy from the team was my third ride in row with lower than normal performace. My heart rates on really hard efforts are very low too. On yesterday's ride I was blowing up with heart rates in the low 170's. today I couldn't get out of the high 160's. All these are canaries for me to heed. My vo2 max is aproximatly 182,though I see high 180's to low 190's regularly on a strong day.
So I am laying down the law " no bike for you tomorrow"
I think a full day of rest then a couple of medium pace cruisers ought to set things to right. The up side here is. I'm finally acruing enough experience to start seeing these trends and dealing with them before they get worse.
it would be great to get one of those magic days where you have tons of gas. Hopfully a little test will have my back on my better game.
I was coming home from a meeting yesterday. I had ridden my bike to the meeting about 40 minutes or so to get there. While i was in the meeting the weather changed and I started my ride home into a 40 mph headwind at the leading edge of an inbound thunderstorm. When the front rolled over the air cooled and the rain started. It was the industrial size drops that come with a good old fashion midwestern thunderstorm.
it goes with out saying that i got soaked. I could not have gotten wetter had I jumped in a swimming pool. But here's the fun part. Every once in a while l'll catch myself kavetching about something and just have to smile. This was just such an occasion. I was riding along in the rain grumbling. When it occurred to me this was some premier grade complaining!
Sometime complaining is just good clean fun and you shouldn't have to feel bad for it. So I laughed to myself for a few seconds then went right back to the highlight of my day, bitching about having to ride home in the rain : )
