It Begins

Yesterday marked a fresh beginning in my training. After 15 seasons of bike racing, I apparently needed a vacation. I put the bike away in late August of last year and since then rode maybe five times. I started running infrequently, and found that there were all sorts of stabilizing muscles that had been dormant during my cycling years. After the first couple runs, they complained miserably but came around eventually. I've been playing volleyball in a city recreation league over the winter too. After the first few games, my shoulders would seize up for a couple days and it would take a lot of effort to simply raise my arms above my head. As they strengthened and felt better the more I played, I realized they'd just been very weak and the demands I was placing on them playing volleyball was too high. I spent the time between volleyball games and infrequent runs working on house projects and generally sitting around watching Battlestar Galactica. In the middle of the cycling season, my weight hovered around 153 pounds. I am now at 162 pounds. I wouldn't mind the gain except that I know it's not muscle. There's this slightly squishy little band of flesh encircling my waist. I'm not used to being squishy. Running and volleyball served as a wake-up call telling me that, except for the few muscle groups dedicated to cycling, I was very much out of shape.

With a newfound desire to get into generally good physical condition, even if I have to gain some pounds of muscle and sacrifice my cycling climbing ability, I stepped into the attic last night, pumped up the tires, and hopped onto the rollers. I threw around some iron as well. The situps burned, the pullups and pushups completed numbered low and the reps fell off quickly with the dumbbells. But it felt good.

I put in an hour on the bike, with a 20-minute sub-maximal test I plan on doing weekly for a while. After warming up for ten minutes, I then rode for twenty trying to keep my heart rate at 175. In competition, I usually time trial around 185, so 175 is working somewhat, but not a killer. I will watch my average wattage at that heart rate go up as I become more fit. Last night, I spent the twenty minutes at 175HR at a paltry 205W average. I expect to see that number rise quite rapidly over the next few weeks. It had better, or else I'm going to suffer horribly on the mountain roads around Asheville in April.

See you on the road!