Riding Tempo

I've declared this week "tempo week" for me. After being off the bike for about six weeks now due to uprooting the gym and moving to the new house, followed by a two week bout of fever, coughing and little sleep at night with near-bronchitis, I'm finally getting back to it. I was recently invited to join the local amateur Colavita Racing team, and I'm looking forward to riding with teammates and to the motivation that comes with the peer pressure of being on a team. No one wants to be the slowest guy on the squad, right?

So, last night was my second night in a row in the attic, riding tempo for an hour. For me right now, that means an average of a little over 230 watts. I'm enjoying my new PowerTap, my latest gadget with which to rate my performance. It's an especially good tool for indoor training, as it keeps me from slacking off on the power output while riding the rollers. I'm getting re-acquainted with the weights as well, and starting a plan focusing on deadlifts and core exercises, and of course, plenty of squats to work the quads. I follow that all up with plenty of stretching to keep my knees from complaining too loudly. Cyclists are prone to tightness, especially in the hamstrings and IT bands, due to our limited range of motion, and I'm certainly no exception. Used to be, I'd try to touch my toes and count myself lucky if I could get past my knees. As the years have ticked by, stretching has become more and more important, and I'm finding greater and greater gains from it. Last season, my fourteenth year of racing, was my best so far and I attribute it mostly to increasing my flexibility and speed of muscle recovery through a dedicated stretching plan.

So here I am, at what, for all intents and purposes, is the beginning of my fifteenth season of racing, and I'm going to try to make it better than ever before. Next week, after spending the next few days on the rollers just getting the legs used to spinning again, and getting the lungs used to breathing again, there will be some longer, tougher intervals starting to show up on the schedule.

On other notes, I've declared the leak in the bathroom dead and gone. Stop back to the attic in a couple days, and I'll have some oh-so-terribly exciting pics of PVC epoxy clay and drywall patches. See you then.