dolphins and intervals

we are frequently reminded in yoga to listen to our bodies and place them in positions that will stretch them only to the point they are ready to be taken: no further, no less.

it's not always easy to decide where this point is, where the line between good pain and bad pain lies.

a similar theme arises when one tries to decide on a workout routine:

how hard to push?

should I do intervals? if so, long ones or brief bursts?

how much recovery is needed?

am I working enough?

am I working too much?

we've all learned that muscles become stronger after they've been stressed and then allowed to rest/rebuild.

so obviously we need down time/recovery/rest.

but how to work them on the other days is always a difficult question to answer.

and it brings me to my annual quandary: do I keep riding up canyons because I enjoy the work, the effort, and the eventual sense of accomplishment and view? or do I incorporate more intervals, because they might make me a better rider?

it's not that I don't work hard riding up those canyons: it's possible I work too hard.

then there are the days you don't feel great: do you push through it? or back off and rest?

in dolphin pose do you welcome the pain? or say this is too much?

that's dolphin in the picture above; it doesn't look so bad, does it? let me tell you, it's one of the most difficult things I do in a yoga class. it hurts. it stresses my arm and shoulder muscles and I feel like I am no where close to holding it the way I should . . . and I am always terribly grateful and relieved when the instructor tells us to move our feet back, lift our forearms off the floor, and return to downward facing dog.

and in that paragraph above is a key to my puzzle: it is great to have an instructor.

someone trained, educated, experienced enough to suggest your pattern of movement;   the challenge is then just to adjust that pattern to your own unique self.

this own, unique self likes riding for the joy of riding, apparently more than she wants to become a better-faster-stronger rider. at least so far. we'll see what the summer brings, and I'll let you know if I add more dolphins and intervals to my life.

hubris, or okay, okay, I get it

would you believe one minute?

there I was, bragging about how great it was that I could recover in two minutes. the gods heard me, laughed at me, and said, fine, do it in one.

so I did.
but I'd really like to go on record as saying that it was difficult. and not something I'd like to repeat again soon. (today's work effort consisted of 8 zone five intervals, each 3 minutes long, with one minute of recovery between them.) I barely made it, I almost died, I am not worthy . . .
do you think the gods are listening and will be nicer to me next week?

I keep thinking about the fact that I am not going to want to do this to myself after power camp ends. I am going to want to go ride up my canyons and let my heart rate go wherever it will whenever it will.
maybe.
but then again . . .
last evening john and I drove out to tooele, to the Miller Motorsports Park, and pretended we were ferraris, eating up the track.
okay, not really. we pretended we were on bikes on a smooth, wide, flat race track with not a wisp of wind to interfere with our powerful laps. only two of those adjectives weren't reality (flat, windless) and we thoroughly enjoyed the wide, smoothly asphalted course with no glittering broken glass or other typical bike-lane debris.
and on the way out to the track, we passed the long, fairly flat road out to the salt lake marina.
seeing that stretch of fairly flat road and riding laps on the race track both sent thoughts of intervals to my resistant little mind. hmmm . . . there are opportunities, susan, where one can realistically do interval work . . . maybe it's time to think about incorporating these into your biking life.

oh, I feel the pull.
I donwanna.
I want to ride and feel the air on my skin and climb my hills and swoop and be free to work as hard as I want and to slack off when I need to. this is unregimented, this is freedom, this is joy.
I donwanna make it into work.

but what if that "work" makes my carefree riding even more enjoyable because I'll be faster-stronger-better?
this is my see-saw struggle.

and I know the issue will not be resolved today.
or even next week.
but my mind is chewing on it all, and I foresee resolution of some kind at some point.

I'm pretty sure, though, regardless of my decisions, that I will allow myself more than one minute of recovery between exertions.
because humble little me can't possibly recover in just one minute ~ I can barely do it in two ~ I'm not in the least bit worthy of those one-minute challenges . . .

can you all hear me out there?
humility seeps from my every pore . . .

chewing on intervals

a truth about me:
I am quite disciplined, but I only commit to being disciplined about something after I am sure that I can fulfill the requirement necessitated by that discipline.

in other words, I only commit to doing what I'm certain I can do.

and if I bite off too big of a chunk, having misjudged my capacity, I chew that damn thing anyway, because I said I would.

I bring this up because I have committed to a tapering philosophy and plan for this week that centers on intervals.
now I know that intervals are the big thing, how everyone trains, the only way to get better, blah blah blah.
however, I find them difficult to incorporate into most rides I do, and so my attitude is that all rides I do have intervals: they're just not precisely the kind you would want to graph and use as a model. I always work for segments of time above lactate threshold level, and I always have periods of recovery. sounds like interval work to me.

but this year, while scouting the internet for a tapering plan, I came across the following, and decided to adopt it for my final pre-lotoja week:

• Reduce your mileage. Although you want to continue riding, you need to cut mileage
substantially to get a tapering effect. About 7 days before your important event, cut your average mileage by about two thirds. So, if you’ve been averaging 200 miles per week, slice it
to 65-70. (I LIKE THIS PART.)
• Continue interval-type training. (CONTINUE??) But reduce the number of intervals each day. Here’s how the week before your event might look. After warming up for about 15 minutes, follow this procedure:
Day 7 5x3 minutes at slightly above lactate threshold
Day 6 4x3 minutes at slightly above lactate threshold
Day 5 3x3 minutes at slightly above lactate threshold
Day 4 2x3 minutes, fast
Day 3 1x3 minutes, really fast
Day 2 Day off or light pedaling for 30-60 minutes
Day 1 Event
This tapering protocol reduces your overall workload because of the drastic mileage decrease.
You have more time to recover and less strain on your legs.
But the intervals guarantee that you retain the muscle enzymes that help you process lactate.
The fast riding also means that your neuromuscular system will be accustomed to going fast
when you ask it to during the event.
This type of taper works because it combines rest with intensity. It allows recovery but encourages speed.
(from a march 2003 post by fubar5)

so today I did my 5-interval Day 7 drill. I even used a watch. I played the game.
I experimented with doing intervals on a hill, and found it challenging, because the recovery phase is hard to hold steady (going downhill put it too low, while just going slower led me to a point where the bike wanted to fall over and my heartrate was still too high). luckily I had flatlands aplenty, and could hit my other intervals more easily.

tomorrow will be Day 6. I'm not sure yet where I will ride, but I know I'll perform my interval work as required.
because I bit, and now I'm chewing.
and looking forward to Day 2, and then the completion of Day 1, and then . . .
ah,
Day 0, on which I'm sure the intervals are all about eating, drinking, and sleeping.