Winter Break

December is the month I usually reduce my cycling both to take a break from cycling and to do other things. This year is no different. I probably won't ride 300 miles this month bringing my total mileage for the year to about 5,000. Will do a full accounting next month.

One goal I did pass recently is that my main bike passed 25,000 miles. My other bike has almost 20,000.

I have been skiing three times in the last five days and expect to get two more days in during the holidays. Besides skiing I find my self at too many parties (my wife is the popular one) eating myself into a fitness hole.

That too is pretty much how my Decembers go.

2010 will definitely be different. I have decided to retire from FedEx in April and start a new career with more control over my time. I am training for the PAC Northern Transcontinental and to do the Bolder Boulder 10K under 60 minutes. Since I have not ran in years I have a long way to go. Whether I can be gone for a month for the transcontinental is an unanswered question.

Actually on both challenges I have a long way to go. And that is how I usually think about January in December. Rested and fattened up, time to lay down some goals for next year.

Thanksgiving and Birthday Parties

Last two weeks have been huge personally but with some training setbacks. Thanksgiving was a larger event than usual with my wife also turning 60. My daughters and their husbands were here a lot and there were parties, parties and more parties for my wife. She is deservedly popular.

My November riding was just average. I wrote 405 miles and burned about 12,000 KCal but the rides were pretty easy. It was until today that I finally managed to push myself to do tempos and then they weren't very strong. But at least I hope to have turned the corner and am going to be able to increase the intensity.

I did pass a milestone on my regular road bike passing 25,000 miles this weekend.

November Transitioning

For some reason this week a lot of people are asking about my next "big ride". Since I doubt most of them are following this blog it seems pretty curious. My answer is always the same. I'd like to do the northern transcontinental but will not decide until at earliest March. But if I want to do it I have to be training now although my training now is no different than normal late fall training.

That is true. This week was pretty much to plan. Ran 7 miles (wanted to do 8) but did pick up the pace a little. Cycling was good at seven hours of moderate intensity. Strength training is OK but I haven't gotten enough core work in.

My weight is a concern as I have made no real progress there and have lost some ground over the last sixty days. With the holidays beginning this week I am at big risk of digging myself a big hole. My plan was to lose ten pounds. Now that is eleven pounds. Oh boy.

The weather in Colorado this week is supposed to be pretty good. One of my daughters and her husband will be visiting for a week and that will cause some training challenges but I should still be able to hit my overall goal of nine hours of training and seven of that being running and cycling.

Still haven't finished any of those books.

November and My Ambitions are High

My wife is harassing me this morning to get out and ride or at least do some drills in the garage. Of course it has snowed 7 inches overnight and it is cold, cold but that is her way of supporting my obsession--I think. As she likes to say, "You are smarter and fitter than you look. Thank God."

Still, even as I plan my first ski trip of the season and as I gain weight from a lack of long rides and self discipline, my future ride ambitions are growing. I really never planned a second transcontinental but now I think I want to do the PAC northern next summer. I might have the time. I don't know if I'll have the conditioning. It will be tough to get my wife to fund it. (PAC rides are supported excellently and I want my own room--that doesn't come cheap).

And then there is the border-to-border ride which I really want to do just to have crossed the country north/south and west/east. That won't happen until at least 2011 and that is a long, long ways away.

Structured training is underway with all emphasis on strength and flexibility. I have scanned through the books I purchased and am studying the Doyle and Schmitz book on weight training for cyclists. Maybe next week I'll have an opinion to post.

Now I need to decide whether I am going to ride in the garage for a while. Probably will.

October Training

I planned October as a relatively easy month and it was. I cycled only 21 hours and 312 miles. That is the least hours and miles since last winter when I was skiing. I have started jogging some to give my legs some side to side action and I am getting a lot more weight work in.

With two months to go I will probably only get 5,000 miles in this year.

I have purchased a three new books which I have not yet read: Weight Training for Cyclists by Doyle and Schmitz, Base Building for Cyclists by Chapple and the 4th edition of The Cyclist's Training Bible by Friel. I had the 3rd edition and it was good but didn't have anything to say about power training. I'll provide my own reviews as I get them carefully read.

My training is going to pick up. I have decided to train for the PAC Tour Northern Transcontinental next summer. I don't know if I will have time--I actually might--but I had better get started. It is a 30-day ride with over 100K of climbs and 3500 miles.

As I develop my training program I'll post it for comment. Anyone have a suggest of a better way to post it than in this blog?

Coming Back to Speed

The last month has been a struggle. My mother-in-law has been in the hospital and consequently has required a lot of my wife's time with an understandable side effect on me. Work has been a grind. And my travel is at an all time high--I hit 100,000 EQM on NWA this month without any international travel. If you don't know what that means good for you but it just means I am flying all the time.

So with that whining out of the way, I seem to have turned it around last week. I hit plan with 8 hours of riding (122 miles, 4600 Kcal), 50 minutes at steady state pace, and a couple of resistance sessions. The weekend weather was great with Saturday in the 70's and Sunday in the 80's. I just rode and enjoyed the weather getting in about 75 miles.

This week's plan is similar. I will try and increase the amount of steady state time to over an hour, get in two resistance workouts, and get seven or more hours of riding in.

Goodbye Mike

What a great guy and coach Mike Durner at Carmichael Training Systems is. This was my last week working with him and I wish him well. He has done great things for me.

Still, I haven't been holding up my end of the bargain for the last two weeks and this last one was the worse. All kinds of things have been interfering with my cycling. Especially time consuming is my sick mother-in-law. Cycling is important to me but sick family has priority.

Hopefully by next weekend she will be much better and I can do some serious riding. The colors on the Peak-to-Peak highway are supposed to be spectacular.