Wanna go for a ride?

Sooner or later it's time to fish or cut bait.

That time's come for me, for the 2010 'cross season. After a long layoff over the winter, I'm riding okay. Haven't been training per se; just riding hard sometimes, easy others. The back is creaky - good most days, a bit painful on others. And I'm fat as a monk. The time's come to get serious about it. This means getting the diet going, starting my core & upper body work, and doing actual training on the actual bike. I think it will take about 12 weeks to get into pretty good condition, or at least pretty good insofar as my limiters for this year will let me.

I've been working the diet program into place, and I'm going to try a reasonably well known, reliable program to cover the training bases. The diet is going to come from Matt Fitzgerald, Racing Weight. I've been tinkering with it and I can live with it. It's like Paleo but with whole grains, and without the obsessive focus on exotic meats. Though Paleo was stripping weight off me before I hurt my back, it was harder than hell to ride on it; there just aren't enough calories. Fitzgerald addresses that with whole grains, and it works a lot better for me.

The training plan is going to come from Carmichael, Time Crunched Cyclist. He uses a program that requires 8 hours of training per week, with dips to 6 hours, and with supplemental volume allowing you to hit 11. This is perfect because it's about what I can comfortably spare, long term, without compromising at work or at home. It's not that much different from what I've done in past years, the exception being that there's no long basebuilding period, and the tempo and VO2 intensity periods are mixed together, so I'll be strong for some weeks but will then fade, rather than riding strong all fall and winter. I've got two weeks coming up, starting Wednesday, where I'll have a lot of time on my hands thanks to some happy circumstances in my personal life. This will be a good time to get it rolling.

Coincidentally, this will allow me to knock out what Carmichael calls an Endurance Block. It's not part of his regular plan; rather it's a two week training camp exercise with 17-21 hours/week of endurance zone riding. Call it Base-in-a-Box if you will. It's a big jump in volume from ~10 hours of mixed intensity work, but it will knock off 10-15 pounds, and get my legs prepped to do some more focused power work. Secret Fact About Me: Gros and I discovered that I thrive more than most with higher volume training, so after this block I'll likely be very comfortable on the bike and ready to attack the intensity work. I'll be riding strictly zone 2, a little slow maybe, but steady. Going hard with that much volume would invite injury, so it's going to be No Shit Zone 2 rides, don't even try to goad me into riding tempo. After this mondo basebuilder, it's into the first build phase of Carmichael's plan. This should have me in decent shape by early to mid-October, and riding up to whatever potential I have in me this season, by mid-November. Barring injury, unforeseen work setbacks, etc.

The one problem I have is that this is going to get pretty damn boring after a couple days of riding. Zone 2 is fun riding, but when you're doing a lot of it, it helps to have a partner.

If any of you are interested in joining me, so that I can bore you rather than boring myself for a few hours, then drop me a line. Endurance pace for me is around 18 MPH average, though I'll be going by power output. My schedule is posted below and I'm going to leave it at the top of the blog. Days I'm riding in the morning or night are marked AM or PM, and days I code in red are days I'm definitely riding from DC due to work or other in-town commitments. AM, DC - means probably a 6:00 or 6:15 start. Otherwise I'm probably somewhat flexible. As the schedule fills up with plans I'll let you know by updating it, and maybe adding comments about rides ridden. If you have good route suggestions I'm open to mixing it up a little too, the sole criteria being flat to rolling, and starting in D.C. or somewhat nearby. My email is james_m1 and I am at verizon daht net. (Sorry about the antispam crypto there).