Another season draws to a close and it's time to once again evaluate how things have gone this season and consider what my goals and reasons are for the time I spend in athletics.
It's become very clear to me that training is a very core part of my life. Before I got back into this stuff, I dabbled in this and that but I always felt restless and unfocused. It's not that hard to figure out looking at my history, but I now know that I don't do "balance" well. I'm much happier doing a few things at 110% than a bunch of things at 30%. It's not for everyone, but that's how I'm wired.
On the Thursday after Ironman Canada, I was back at the pool for an easy swim. I love those easy workouts after an Ironman. It feels good to get the blood flowing a bit, and even better to be able to go easy and quit whenever I damn well please. But I walked into the pool area and see Rhae Shaw, who was just getting into the meat of her Kona prep (note Rhae had *the fastest* female age-grouper bike split at Kona...sick). Anyway, Rhae says to me "WTF are you doing here? Dude, you suck at not training." Guilty as charged.
So, what to do with this Off-Season thing? If I look at my season, I made some great improvement this year. But I see some things are still holding me back. My swimming has improved massively, but if I want to be competitive, I need to notch it up a bit. My power on the bike is much better, and if I have an improvement on par with what I had this year, I'll be in good shape. But that's going to take some work. And running - well, I just need to run more!
With that in mind, my focus is "Fundamentals".
I've started swimming with Ben's group. He's heavily technique focused, and as an essentially self-taught swimmer, there's some things I need to correct. Once I get some technique issues sorted, hopefully I'll be able to add more volume and really pull it together.
My plan is to hit another Jan/Feb marathon and try to qualify for Boston. If I can a few months of 40-50 mile weeks under my belt, I think that'll really continue the gains I've seen on the run.
And then there's the bike. Once thing I've been doing is some Cyclocross racing (pictured above). This is mostly about fun - and it is a hell of a lot of fun. I suck at it. It's liberating not to really care how I do.
Finally, I decided to give PowerCranks a try. These bad-boys are pretty controversial, but I'm just looking for a little different stimulus to force some new adaptations. PowerCranks are clutched on both sides, so you have to operate each crank independently - see how they hang down in the pic. That's right, single leg drills, with both legs, the whole time. I call them the HumbleCranks because they are effing hard for the first month or so. I'm just getting to the point where I can ride them for any amount of time. We'll see what happens, but I'm starting to see some interesting power numbers off my 3 hour ride this weekend, particularly climbing. The jury is still out but I'm optimistic so far.
Six weeks ago, I could ride them for 15-20 minutes at a time on the trainer. So you start from scratch. I think I'm on the regular progression which is:
- To begin with, you can go short periods of time, only in very big gears. And you get tired very fast.
- After a week or two, your cadence comes up
- After another week or two, you can ride for longer
- After another week or two, you can get out of the saddle for a few strokes at a time
- After a few more weeks, you start to get really comfortable on them and start to see power increases at lower heart rates
- According to the marketing - after 3-4 months, it "clicks" and you're a whole new person, with higher power numbers, a brighter outlook, and more attractive to the opposite sex, more popular with animals and children, and disease free forever.
Stay tuned for details.
Oh, and get out and Vote, people. Seriously.
posted @ Monday, October 27, 2008 6:14 AM