Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Friday, December 02, 2005

Well, I'm through the first month of the training schedule. For my newer readers this is what Joe Friel, author of the Cyclist's Training Bible, calls the Base 1 period. Lots of low intensity riding with a few single legged pedaling drills and form sprints thrown in to keep it interesting. Add to that a little work in the weight room and you've got yourself the foundation of a better training and racing season, assuming you can stay with the program, not get bored and not fall to the temptation of training with too much intensity (i.e.-riding too hard). The numbers for November came out at 1154 miles in 3353 minutes (or about 56 hours). The somewhat staggering number is that I burned (at least according to my heart rate monitor) a whopping 36321 Calories (or kilocalories for the scientifically minded) above my basal metabolic rate. That's enough caloric output for me to have lost over 8 pounds if I hadn't replaced some of those calories. While my weight didn't change, I am noticing that I look a lot leaner which makes me think I lost some fat and gained some muscle, probably due to the combination of riding and weight lifting.

Now I move into the Base 2 period. During this cycle (each cycle is about 4 weeks long if you include a week of recovery) I'll shift from doing pure endurance work along with a little skills training to working on my muscular endurance a good bit more along with more skills training (got too teach those legs to spin faster as well as harder). This is where I lay the foundation for my time trialing season by doing increasingly longer blocks of riding near 80% of my maximum heart rate. These are called "tempo" sessions because you try to ride them with an even cadance and heart rate. I'm still working at well below my lactate threshold (the heart rate where my body clears out lactic acid at the same rate my muscles produce it) but the rides get to be a little more fun because I don't feel like I'm dwadling about. I can do a little hill work now but nothing that requires real power and I have to remain seated for any climbing I do. The idea is that power development is going to happen in the weight room this month as I move into the muscular strength phase of my lifting schedule (yes, everyhting is scheduled; it's how you get competitive to race). I hate this part because this is the phase when weight room work really hurts. I know that it does me tons of good but I really do hate it. I don't mind suffering on the bike because the sensation is more of a whole body thing. In the weight room it's like I target one specific muscle or muscle group, torture it and then move to the next. Since the pain is more localized, the suffering seems a lot more intense even if it is for a much shorter period of time. I would rather suffer with my whole body for an hour in a time trial than in my quads for eight reps on the leg curl machine.

The most interesting thing is the feeling of being hungry a lot but not ravenous. At some point every season my body decides that I'm not feeding it enough and I have to endure urges to eat every single thing in sight (much like when I was 17). Usually I'm working out so much that I deal with this and still lose weight. This usually doesn't happen until I'm really into the main build training cycles. Right now, the feeling is lurking. Every once in a while I go on a tear (or maybe it's better called a binge) but for the most part I'm able to moderate my eating. It's unsettling though to think that I'm dealing with this sort of thing this earlier in the season. Probably it's a good thing because it means I'm training with a bit more intensity and duration which is good for a February peak but as I get into the higher intensity and longer duration of Base 2 here I wonder if I'll begin to eat us out of hearth and home. What I'd rather do is lose some more fat and gain a bit more muscle (though if I do too much more of that in my legs I'll have to buy new pants again).

Anyways, thanks for reading.

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