So as the clock ticks down, albeit very slowly, to my first race in April I can't help but feel that I'm not doing enough to be better than everyone else. I think part of the angst is that it's hard to come to work everyday and then only be limited to a couple of hours at the most on the trainer every night. Bike racers by nature I think have some underlying OCD, not in a manic way, but in a way that requires them to have a concrete training program, to watch what they eat, to get enough rest, to pay attention to their bike, etc.. Having never been a professional athlete in any other sport I can't say that we are worse than other athletes but from what I've seen we are pretty obsessive. I haven't been a part of any other sport where someone will buy a widget and then a week later they will buy a different widget because the new one is a whole 14 grams lighter than the other one. I know you are all smiling as you read this because you know it's true, it's what we do, we obsess over things more than is normal. I know I can't train like I used to, I have a job and family now but that underlying obsession has not changed over 10 years and I still WANT to train like I did back then. I tinker with my training program and my personal schedule almost every day, trying to make sure that I'm doing enough riding to be competitive and also enough with my family to accommodate their needs. Desire is the other part of being a racer....desire is what makes us ride in the first place, aside from the OCD that we develop once we START riding. I think desire is what makes me feel like I could be training more or that I'm falling behind even though I have no good reason to think that. I started riding again last year for those don't know and I did have some decent results; 4 top tens, a Silver in the State Crit, but I want to WIN this year and win a lot! Last year I knew I wasn't going to be good but this year with 16 months of riding under my belt I do expect to be good. I think part of my anxiety is that I just feel like I should be riding 3 hours a day now and 4-6 hours on the weekends and I can't do that. Almost everybody in my Master's category has the same issue as we all have jobs but I can't help but think that somehow they all are secretly training all day long and just telling me that they are working. That's my OCD talking...... :) So anyways, I have the desire to ride to win this year, it's just a matter of finding the time to train and to have faith that the training I'm doing is good enough, I guess I can't worry about what everyone else is doing. Although if anyone knows of a secret way to train, let me know......
Now to what I have been doing. This week is a regeneration week for me as next week I start my Preparation Period when I will be increasing my time on the bike and also I will be starting my Tempo workouts during this period. So the last few rides have been pretty easy, Tuesday I did my ride on the trainer for 1.5 hours and it was basically at endurance pace. Last night I did weights and then rode for 1 hour and did 4x5 minute Muscle Tension intervals. I love rest weeks, 1 hour seemed sooooo easy. Tonight I will be doing 1.75 hours on the trainer with a secondary exercise of Fast Pedals and tomorrow will be weights but a rest day on the bike. Saturday and Sunday will be rides of 2.5 and 2 hours respectively and that will end my Foundation Period. Well, that's it for now, until next time...........
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