The heart of the triathlon season is fast approaching and the training that I've been logging in the past couple of weeks is reflective of the events that are on tap for the summer. During the winter my base training hours were usually around 12 hours on average. This would usually extend me quite a bit for a couple reasons.
1. When working a lot of hours sleep is hard to come by and since sleep is absolutely essential for recovery, you simply cannot perform at the same level when you are deprived. I would be getting up at 4:30am after going to bed no earlier than 11pm..it was just a vicious cycle. I'd make up some sleep here and their but it was never consistent and I think I was constantly training at some sort of deficit. If any good can be taken from this I would have to say that it kept me mentally strong. Keeping yourself motivated to get up at 4:00AM on a Saturday morning (when the rest of the world is most likely catching some extra zz's since its the weekend) because I have a 4 hour ride planned (on an indoor trainer) and I have to be back to work at about 8:30 to work another 8 hour day, many times this would be followed by the same thing on Sunday (swap the bike for a long run). It was just kinda brutal but that training in the morning before going back to work is what makes me happy. I always had a choice to skip it and sleep but there's just something inside of me that wanted to get up and get moving. You will never hear me complain about a workout I have to do or how early I have to get up because I CHOOSE to do this stuff, I choose to do it because I love it, I choose to drag my ass up Bopple hill for the second straight week after 3 hours on the bikes and over 400 miles on the legs over the past 8 days. I love it!! Absolutely love it, so if you EVER hear me complaining you have permission to smack me over the head. Except you Cusetri, if you smack me over the head their going to be hell to pay...or at least a sucker punch from me which will then be followed by me running away...im still faster on 2 feet even if you can hand it to me on the bike. But me running away from you is very unlikely at the present moment so you're safe for a while, but give me another week or so and watch out! Speaking of running, Cusetri and I are going to absolutely blister the Keuka run course. It's going to be something like this --> Superhuman Triathlon Finish
Isn't that finish AMAZING!
and my other reason..
2. All this training was new to me. A 3 hour ride on the bike was EPIC. Thus the training hours were less than they are now for that reason alone. For comparison's sake I will say that over the past two weekends I've churned out two 6 hour rides, one 7.5 hour ride, and one 3 hour ride. That's some serious miles in my book. The legs began to feel it yesterday during my 3 hour group ride in Bristol but they held up.
So what about my week?
Well it just kind of flowed together nicely. It was one of the first weeks where the weather was good and I was able to get out of work before 6. This meant that the beginning of some double session training days started. I was totally not ready for this. Getting up early means that I am able to pump out my workouts bright and early but that also means that at 5:30 I am pretty much done for the day. It was a good thing that I was out with some friends during the evening bike rides because I was usually shot at this point (and they can attest, a bit out of it mentally) and they would kindly wait for me to catch up to them at stop signs..I was draggin' some butt! But it was still nice to get out there and stretch the legs, and enjoy the weather...you just can't pass that up. The rest of the week went pretty smoothly, got some good training in, made it to master's swim practice on Friday and so on...
Other than getting some good training in last week I was very pleased to be able to watch some professional cycling that took place in California. The tour of cali was moved to May this year (from Feb in prior years) which made the weather more agreeable for the riders. Personally watching cycling on TV is really cool to me because I now and doing what they do, I watch their tactics, their pedal strokes, all that jazz..I was literally on the edge of my seat last night as Levi tried to crack Michael Rogers on the last climb of the stage. It was the final stage and Levi trailed Rogers in the GC by 25 seconds, he tried his best but Rogers (without any help from his teammates)stuck with Levi and Zabrinksi and maintained his lead. If you can't tell already by the wording that I just used (ie. Levi, GC, pedal stroke, etc..) I have begun to obtain a cyclist's vocabulary, and I actually understand what I am talking about. Anyways, it was really cool to watch the multiple attacks up that last climb, each time a rider would try to make a break the small group of 3 riders would work to reel him in..it was really something! Makes me want to try and hop in a local race one of these days. The Tour of Cali also had a really cool Stage 7 that was held right in downtown LA. It was a time trial that wound through the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Somehow the city was able to close off about 10 miles of road for the cyclists to use during the middle of the day, quite an achievement if you ask me. Personally, the coolest part of this day was that the Tour of Cali invited a bunch of Amateur's to take part in the time trial as well as some top professional triathletes (Lieto!, Macca, and Ms. Wellington) Each of these athletes did really well in their own respect, Macca ripped off a 46 min TT, only about 3 minutes off some of the top pro's, Wellington was I think around 50, and Lieto was smoking the course before he flatted about a mile into the second loop..oh well! He was still looking good in his smoking hot Trek Speed Concept.
Tour of Cali Time Trial Results from Competitor.com
Here is a link to the slowtwitch forum that talks about the new speed concept. The forum has a lot of pictures and info about the bike. Take a look, the bike looks super cool. Hey Trek, wanna sponsor me! I'll ride the heck out of the machine for you :) --> Speed Concept Forum
On another note, I must say that I am indeed a bit sad that Lost has come to an end. I have not seen the last episode yet as it was on from 9:00-11:30pm last night. I needed to hit the sack and get my rest so I could make it to master's swim practice at 5:45. Luckily it appears that Hulu has it up on their website already, so I will be able to catch up on it tonight! Sweet! I don't really have much of an idea of how they heck the writes are going to wrap this saga up but it will definitely be interesting to see what they come up with. A lot of people on my tri team have written emails about the last episode since they stayed up and watched it. From the titles of their emails it appears that they enjoyed the final episode. However it goes, it will at least be entertaining.
My mind if kind of blank right now so I am going to wrap up this post right now. If something sparks my imagination I will post an update, you never know what's going to pop into this brain of mine!
Until then....
-Turbo Curbo OUT!
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