The Transition
BASE1 started in January for me. That’s nearly fifteen weeks of hard training (R+R weeks thrown in) and four weeks of peak/race. At the end, the body is tired. The mind is kind of blown. The idea of just popping right back into 3×15 minute LT intervals or 15x Summit Ave is just unthinkable. It might work for a little while, but everything will just fall apart without proper rest.
With a number of my teammates either all ready through their first PEAK/RACE/TRANSITION or still working on their first peak (CTSR watch out for Bake!), I’m just rolling through this relaxing gap between racing my ass off and what’s next. After Sterling, I took one week completely off the bike. This week sucked. Work was crappy and I didn’t have my outlet of cranking out undisturbed miles on the bike (however, I probably would have been very distracted had I tried to ride). I did, however, get a very PRO massage. Otherwise, the week was spent catching up on Belgian triple drinking, not refusing servings of ice cream, The Roadhouse and working my 7iron at the driving range.
This week I’m back on the bike. What am I doing? Riding. What pace? Who knows. How fast? Couldn’t tell ya. Just enjoying being on the bike. In a few weeks the body and mind will be ready for the efforts I’m going to throw at it. Right now, it still says “not yet”.
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Riding your bike=fun and satisfying. Not riding your bike because your training program says so=not fun and unsatisfying
I still don’t understand why so many amateurs take the fun out of riding bikes by being slaves to a training program. I’m happy to never win a race if it means I can always ride whenever and wherever I want.besides, there is so much more to enjoy about riding a bike than training and racing.