the twelve days of effeciency

I guess you could call it thirteen days now, as I am just about to jump on the trainer again right now . . . So I started riding my bike again thirteen days ago. It was super cold and I was super motivated so I decided I wouldn't going to ride outside until February. I don't really know why that seemed like a good idea but it hasn't been above freezing yet this January so I haven't had to fight the urge to crush it outside too much. I wanted a nice solid pedal stroke and have some muscle imbalance kinks worked out before I start laying down the fitness foundation. It is a slightly different approach than last year when I attempted to work on my pedaling cadence/stroke/force while starting to put in base miles. Gran-it, I wasn't putting in anything considered large amounts of riding in January but at least now I feel it is smart to venture outside, plus there is a slightly better chance of going above freezing. And it isn't like I will get outside everyday, so there will probably be at least one day a week where I am pounding out cadence ladders and single leg drills and one where I am crushing my core workout.

I also revisited that nerdy strava site and have decided to start "making history" again by plugging in rides from my garmin. So far they have all been probably really boring since I haven't ridden outside yet this year (barring a race on NewYear's) and my heart rate rarely creeps past the 150bpm level. But don't get the wrong idea, strava isn't about seeing if Robert Rode His Stationary Trainer for an hour today; it is more about trying to beat your punk friends on local climbs. It is pretty neat in the sense you can see exactly where you need to try on your rides to look awesome and get some serious street cred. I want to ride outside now. Is it February yet?

what do you want to be when you grow up?

I guess everyone has been asked this over their lifetime. I mostly remember this being asked in elementary school when everyone actually had a definite answer. Mine was always an architect, even from being very young. I probably just liked saying the word originally but in reality I was super into drawing buildings and those skyline things where they fade off into the distance. That is probably how I learned the word, from telling me that is what I should be.

But now, I get this question even more often and don't have a very sure-fire answer ready. And if you say anything along the lines of putting off college a year or even, dare I say it, avoiding it for multiple years, you get shunned by all elders. In current times that is.

It kind of reminds me of the scene in Breaking Away when Cyril is talking about what to do with his life and says something like, "this is gonna be the first year no one asks us to write a report on what we did over summer." But not really since no one really gets an option nowadays: a) you are going to college no matter what/where b) we are disowning you as a kid / you are a failure no matter what. I guess I have slightly more clue than cutters about what to do with my life, ie I know I am stuck attending college.

[On a contradictory side note, my grandma wants me to pursue bike racing for at least a year so I put use to all the fancy parts she has bought me over the year]

Making these decisions should be easily transferable and adjustable, but, we are getting some serious pressure at school to pick our classes for next year before next tuesday?!? And there is actually a lot of variety next year. And of course, every teacher is like, well since you get decent grades I recommend you taking classes that will coincide with your major in college (simple as that, right??)

So in my agenda it says 'learn what you want to be when you grow up- by tuesday'

chicago and notnationals

Well, a culmination of unfortunate circumstances amounted in me missing Nationals, again, last weekend. I was banking on getting a buddy pass from my uncle who works for Continental, but, when the only flight I could have taken to get to Madison was down to having only two seats left with one day left, I just stopped caring and told him not to worry. He was pretty convinced I could make it there, but would be on stand-by and would have to take another flight home, requiring me to miss Monday at school, and breaking my only chance at perfect attendance this year. I was basically left with the option of spending $1200 for a guaranteed spot on the plane, or risking not getting on, on the way home at all. But, I simply had the attitude of "I am not going to win, so why even go?" This probably isn't the right attitude as 96.4% of the people (1023 of 1061) who go to Nationals don't win. Either way, having two back to back off days racing in Chicago didn't help my reasoning. And then I didn't go to Nationals.

oof

Yes, a training blog on Christmas morning. I will attempt to enlighten you on how hard/dumb it is to be training today. It is kind of funny, I know a few people going out riding today who are already training for next bike racing season. . . while I still need to finish up this one on a high note.

USA Cycling made it final around this time last year, that nationals the next year wouldn't be in that calendar year. To be more similar to the Euro racing calendar, our Nationals have been moved to the first week of January. Initially, I was all excited how fun it will be to train through winter break. But, now that we are here, I quickly realized either 40° and rain, or 30° and flurry's isn't as fun as crushing intervals mid-fall. Sure, you feel like a true hard-belgian-man when you get home covered in salt and you have ruined another pair of booties, but, is a lot harder to crush yourself when the climate is fighting against you.

I took 4 straight days off after the final Cap City trying to boost my motivation to train/race three more times this year. Since then, I have been mixing up riding a good bit trying to fight the boredom of the trainer and constantly destroying my bikes.

I haven't done many hill repeats too recently, but I did a lot in the early part of the season. The idea is to stress your system and teach yourself how to recover faster. The pink is power and the red is heart rate. You could commonly find me doing these on Wednesdays, hoping to maintain my fitness before the next weekends racing without totally blowing up my legs. If I was trying to come into a weekend fresh, I would make sure to do only endurance/recovery/openor rides in a week along with one of these hill workouts.

Here is a power file from yesterday on the trainer. I usually can't stand to do tempo efforts on the trainer but yesterday I really wanted a specific workout. I usually blame my lack of trainer riding on my lack of muscular endurance, where I physically can't push the pedals that consistently, but it is probably more a mental endurance problem. I managed to get done 20 minutes of a solid tempo, then do 5 repeats of 2 minutes at LT power, then two minutes rest. My legs didn't really hurt at all from this workout, but man my indoor capability is hurting today. Luckily it is up to 34° outside!

Here is hopefully my secret training plan for nationals: Doing intervals on what I think will be similar terrain and course conditions. Like woah that is original! I didn't take any pictures the day it snowed about two inches, but absolutely went out and shredded the gnargnar on the local parks thinking it will be similar to Chicago/Nationals. I tried to make ruts and different turn angles that would teach to me to be slightly better at cornering when it gets crappy contrary to KingsCX, where simply put I forgot how to ride in the mud. So I basically scout out a lap or two, warmup on the road, then rip off some tempo laps testing my speed in all the turns. Pretty much like all cross training sessions, except this is when its crappy outside!!! SECRET!!!!

I will put up some less boring pictures of said ruts, but here something to get your juices flowing for today. Ok, time for some zone two.