The Plan

My self created off season ends in the next couple of weeks and it's time to start easing into a more stable training/school/work balance. Unfortunately I am already missing workouts. I skipped pilates on friday to finish some homework and then avoided a ride this morning because of some back/hip pain. On the upside I did make it out to my first PSU team ride on friday, which was nice. Everyone seemed really friendly and I am very excited to have a coach, even if it is really only at the group coaching level.

I'm using a combination of The Cyclists Training Bible and some coaching recommendations to create what seems like a reasonable training load for this first 4 week block of the training season.





It is dependent on my giving up a day of work every two weeks, which I'm hoping I'm going to be able to arrange. Even if it doesn't it will just involve a little re-arranging.

I've never been good at following a rigid schedule, so we'll see how it goes. There are a couple things I want to try to do in order to stay on it:

-if something has to be sacrificed, make it crosstraining rather than a ride

-it's ok to miss a workout if I'm feeling too sore/tired

-on the other hand I almost always feel better after I exercise

-get rollers so I can put in miles inside even when it's dark/stormy

 

I'm hoping that as school goes on I will be able to cut back some on work in order to free up more time for studying and training. The downside to this is possibly losing my insurance which I definitely need to pay my: primary care, rheumatologist, ophthalmologist, etc. making this something of a non-starter for now.

I will also be posting some numbers soon (since I'm a numbers geek) as a starting point for this seasons training. It will probably be current weight, and some climbing times/max speeds plus my goals for this pre-season. If anyone who is sort of reading this now isn't interested in that sort of sports geekery, I am going to tag posts so that people can only read what they are actually interested in.