the tao of cycling: basic training

Monday, July 21, 2008

basic training

you are in the basic training phase of the tao of cycling. this is the part where you are given lots of information about the foundation, the what, where, how, who kind of things. some people find basic training rather boring, and would rather get on to the real thing, so I am trying to keep this groundwork information minimal and interspersed with more ~ hopefully ~ interesting things.

mondays, lately, are basic training days for me. they are my 'recovery rides', and I have mixed feelings about them. they are all about spinning my legs around without working too hard, keeping my heart rate under a certain number, and, unfortunately, learning to squish my ego.
yes, I've admitted to having one, and though it doesn't roar, it is a sometimes noisy component of my psyche.
my core training (and I'll give a plug here) was from J.R. Smith, and it was exactly what I needed to give me a firm foundation for what I have grown to love. his program worked us hard, but threw in copious amounts of 'recovery.' last summer when I started training hard for lotoja, I forgot the recovery part for a while . . . and then I hit a stretch of significant burnout.
I was concerned about true burnout (google 'adrenal burnout' if you want to scare yourself), and started researching training advice. thats when I found the suggestion that has guided me ever since and caused me to again thank JR, and that is to PUT IN THOSE RECOVERY RIDES! so, once a week now I go easy, and this is the difficult part, let other cyclists pass me. ARGGGH! sometimes I can hardly stand it, and sometimes I let my heart rate go just a teeny weeny bit above where it should . . .
picking the route is the hard part, as it needs to be fairly flat, which is A, almost impossible around here and B, boring. today the sky was sprinkling rain down upon me, off and on, for the entire ride, and that was my excitement. that and the sickeningly gorgeous blonde who passed me ~ twice, once in each direction ~ muscles glistening and quivering, working as hard as I knew I could be if I wasn't having a stupid basic training recovery day.

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the Male Ego

The other day I was coming down a canyon in my drop bars (two years ago I would have said, 'what's a drop bar?'), working hard, when I came up on two guys who were also heading downhill but at a more leisurely pace. I passed them, said hello as I did so, and pulled back into the bike lane. a few minutes later they went flying past me, faces looking dead ahead, not a single bit of acknowledgment that I even existed on this planet let alone was involved in and enjoying the same sport they were.
I have to attribute this to the male ego. what else can it be? now I know we all have egos, myself included. and mine even shows its ridiculous little head once in a while, or perhaps more often. but the difference between mine and say, those of certain men on bicycles, is that I KNOW mine exists and I can LAUGH at mine. I know my ego was quite excited to pass those guys, and I could also smile because I knew if the men had really been working like I was, they would have kicked my butt down the hill.
I think I pissed them off.
and I'm sure I will be sharing with you much more of my thoughts about the male ego . . .

a little history

I was married, and I had a mountain bike which I rarely rode. we separated, I moved out, and four months later someone stole my bike. the next spring, 2005, I bought myself a new mountain bike. I rode occasionally, and in april 2006 I rode in my first century, the Cactus Hugger in St. George, Utah. I made it 54 miles on that mountain bike, and it took me about 6 hours. I think that included the rest stops where I prayed that someone would steal my bike again . . .
in june 2006 I started riding my mountain bike five mornings a week, a 45-55 minute loop that was intended to be all about exercise. and what I found was that I loved the quiet, peaceful morning full of bird chatter and barely breaking sunrises. by that fall I was hooked, and began considering the purchase of a road bike. I rode up emigration canyon for the first time that Labor Day of 2006, panting and plowing along on my trusty (heavy) bike, and a month later I was the proud owner of my own road bike: I had become a two-bike girl!
a 17-week-long "power camp" over the winter and a handful of new friends kept bicycling front and center in my life, and when spring of 2007 rolled around I was ready to hit the pavement. I rode my first century the end of april, when I again went to St. George and completed that Cactus Hugger. it took me about 7 hours, but this time I rode the entire 100 miles with about 9300 feet of vertical gain. woo hoo!
I started riding canyons around our area, emigration and millcreek, city creek, big cottonwood, little mountain and big mountain, and once--yes, only once--little cottonwood.
then in september of 2007, I rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson, Wyoming, in the slightly infamous LOTOJA race. I rode, I did not race. and I completed the thing, crediting my good training buddies, the incredibly perfect weather, my support team, and an amazing convergence of all things positive in the universe.
I put in about 3500 miles last season, and as of today, july 19, 2008, I have about 1700 in, adding to it every day.
I have again signed on to ride the LOTOJA race, and my goal is to have just somewhere near as great a ride as I did last year. oh, and to have someone fun to talk with along the way as I got incredibly bored last year . . . star valley is still a nightmare scene in my biking memories . . .
and here is a picture of the machine that has helped me reclaim my life.