Yo Adrian! I'm down but not out. Today I'm coming off an eight day stretch of not riding a bike. For that matter, I haven't run, or done anything specifically athletic at all during that time. My fitness is... poor right now. But I'm not allowing myself to get too depressed about it, and in fact I sort of planned it this way. You see, over the winter, burnout reared its head quite significantly for me. Last winter (and to a lesser degree the two winters prior), I did not take much of a break from training. With CX races in December, running in January, and favorable weather for riding during the early spring, my training year wound up extending to twelve months. The road bike race calendar starts early these days, so you have to train a lot in February and March to do well. And summer is summer. Then fall, where 10ks and CX keep me busy every weekend. Add it all up and around Christmas 2010 I was completely cooked.
A month off from the bike did nothing it seemed. Maybe that was because I ran enough to finish the Boston Prep 16. But mostly I think it was a deeper fatigue, both mental and physical. I saw my doctor and got my blood checked, and we talked about the dizzy spells I sometimes experience, and she asked me if I eat enough. Yeah I know, hard to believe. My blood numbers were a little better than they were in the fall, but my HCT is still only around 40%, discouraging for a wannabee athlete, but not abnormal. So I started eating more, and the dizzy spells disappeared, but in their place I got my luv handles back. At 175 pounds I'm up over 3 kg from where I stayed in 2008-2009 (yes I mix metric and Ronnie Ray-Gun measures, deal with it), but blogging isn't the only thing I've been skipping out on; I haven't been training much.
Why? Well besides burnout, the winter sucked in New England if you didn't notice. So if there was ever a good time for an extended break, this was it. I've also been busier than usual at the workplace. Instead of just talking to myself, I have more people listening to me lately, so I've spent a lot more time figuring out what to say. My capacity for stuff other than relaxing is quite limited, so more of one thing means less of everything else, hence more job = no blogging, less training. Another issue was that my body still refuses to allow me to maintain a regular schedule of running without it complaining about something. This time it was my calf, the one that had a shit fit during the Paddy Kelly 5 miler. I nursed it along for several weeks, but eventually gave up on running almost entirely. By the time it was healed (at least I think it must be), riding season was here and with limited time to get out I've been on the bike whenever possible. It's not like I've been completely sedentary, but with only 70 hours or so on the season, my total volume at this point (running and riding) is less than half what it's been the past several years.
I've tried to make up for it by training harder when I do get out, but that's been offset by a lack of racing. My normal m.o. generally involves just riding, but doing it often, and racing every weekend possible. Not to say I "race my way into shape" like so many others try to do, but I don't slave over intervals on the trainer either. I ride a lot because I like to, and I think those "junky" miles are still beneficial for things like polishing my pedaling technique, and they lay the base for the intensity of racing, which is where the critical abilities get developed. But you have to do the hard stuff sometime, so since I'm not competing (no running races since the PK5, and only two Ninigrets on the bike), when I get out on my bike I've actually been trying to make it count. More on that later maybe.
So what about the past eight days? Certainly not a weather issue. No, this week was something I've known about for a while, and one of the big reasons why I decided to skip the spring road season. Moving! After almost 21 years, cleaning up, packing up, and moving ALL my shit was quite a project, even though I only went about 30 feet west to the other (bigger) side of the duplex. Hence the swap meet to try to unload some of this stuff (plenty more left, I'll post a list soon, promise). This past week was D-Day, or M-Day as it were, thus I had ZERO formal workouts, but plenty of work. Today I'm finally all-out after being all-out for eight days (did not take any time off work either) and now I'm all-in the new side. Things might sort of return to normal. First I'm off to AToC on Thursday for the Solvang, Baldy, and T.O. stages. Keep your fingers crossed that
Ted King stays in until I get there this time. That's it, we're out of time, gotta go, more later this week! Thank you for your patience, come again.
