Whatever is in season, my 2008 season is officially underway. The brief outline of the deal is a 700 hour training year, based on Joe Friel’s Training Bible. My biggest strengths are endurance and leg speed (which SHOCKED me when I found myself easily winding up to 125+ rpm – I guess couting it out yourself isn’t that accurate after all), while my weaknesses fall to the power/force side of the chart. My weaknesses being what they are, and with my advancing age, I am incorporating a year round lifting program into the mix. My “A” target races are Poolesville and The Tour of Christiana – Poolesville because I love the race, love the course, would love to win our team’s race and think it suits me, and the ToC because I have unfinished business there. I think it’s a race at which I could do well, but last year went miserably.
My starting point for this year is quite a bit advanced from my starting point last year. I am in WAY better shape right now than I was last year, I have a 2 month head start on last year, have a year of learning how to learn and improve, have better tools for doing so, etc. I am also a bunch lighter than I was when I started last year. I’m probably down 12 to 13 pounds of mostly fat from where I was in January, where for this year I’d like to drop maybe a couple pounds overall while adding a bit of muscle.
By way of dealing with body composition, I have taken the last two weeks completely off the reservation in terms of eating well. On Friday last week, I felt like absolute poop – stuffed to the gills with candy and fried grease, with several large scoops of ice cream on top. This was a necessary stage in setting up one of my biggest internal goals of this year, eating better. As long as I am being somewhat physically active, it’s easy for me to control how much I weigh. What gets lost in there a lot of times is how hard what I’m eating is working for me. In general, it’s all good, it’s really a matter of shading. The occasional not small bag of M&Ms or Gummi Bears that evaporates in my hands has to go. I also want to drop a few pounds between now and Thanksgiving to give myself space to gain 4 or 5 between Thanksgiving and Christmas. If training volume prevents those pounds from coming on, then great, but if not it’s not a 5 alarm fire to get rid of them.
I think the commuter project is going on the back burner. When you look at it closely, it turns into a pretty significant chunk of cash even with bro deals and stuff. A pair of slicks on the mountain bike works just as well. I’d rather spend a far smaller amount of money and get a helmet mounted light so that I can go riding in the woods at night. This mountain biking jones is heating up pretty good right now, it’s an itch I think I’ve got to scratch.
The market went freaking nuts today. There’s a lot of news and reporting due this week. The biggest thing in my head is that a gallon of gas is up like $.16 in two weeks on average. This coming OUT of the busy summer driving time. I think the refinery work in process deal I guessed at last week may actually be the case. Blind squirrels sometimes, I guess. Anyhow, we’re still completely f’d on energy, and no one’s talking about it. The Sunday Times Business section this weekend was so non-substantive it was laughable.
Oh yeah, like all of the best training cycles, this one starts with a rest day.
No comments:
Post a Comment