Winter Training Update

If you read my blog at all, you’ll already know that my 2008 race season was mostly non-existent. So this year, I’m making a deliberate effort to get back the fitness I had 2 years ago. January went well – I got used to my new training schedule and dropped a few pounds.

We’re into March now. It’s been a little over a month since my last training update. And things are coming along nicely. My fitness level right now is higher than it was for the whole of last year and, having lost 8 pounds (3.64 kilos, for you bike geeks), my weight is lower as well. There’s still a long way to go, though. I’m still 10 pounds (4.55 kilos) off my race weight…and the real racing starts in only 2 weeks. I’m walking that fine line between eating enough good food to keep training and not eating too much of the bad stuff to keep the weight down.

Right now my weekly training hours are hovering around 15 hours. Daylight Saving Time passed this weekend and with later daylight hours, I can spend more hours outside, which tends to be more inspiring than going home to a trainer. Also, I’m paying close attention to what my body tells me. For example, last Friday, I hopped on the trainer and my legs protested completely. Even at a low intensity, my body was not having it. I fought through it for 30 minutes thinking maybe I just needed a warm up, but my body just wasn’t cooperating. It’s a strange feeling when you’re used to no less than 2 hours on the bike and then one day your body can’t even go 30 minutes. In the past, I would have let this upset me. But, this time I decided that overtraining right now would be much more detrimental than just taking the day off the bike and starting anew in the morning. And start anew I did – 3 hour ride. No problem. Back to normal just like that. The next day – 5.5 hours in the mountains. And I felt GREAT!

So, all in all, I’m still on track. If I had started my training in December, I think I’d be feeling more confident about the upcoming races, but I didn’t. I started in January. So, I’ll just do what I can and see what happens. Maybe I’ll surprise myself.