I have itchy fingers - no, not an infection - but like travellers have itchy feet, I have itchy fingers. I have been staring at an empty page, longing to write something but no words come because there have been no great adventures recently.
Yet I am more at home on a bike than I have been in a long time (not that I've taken this years' race bike out in weeks).
Training like a pro: I have focussed my efforts on my weaknesses this week and yes, for me, that is strength which means the trips to the gym are back on.
There's two good things about that in March:
- I can get a big and useful workout done in the space of 1-2 hours.
- I don't feel terribly guilty about not going out on my bike when the weather is shitty because I have to recover from a gym session.
After a gym session on Friday, we did get out yesterday to stretch our legs with a walk into town. Then after I'd recovered I took my new bike, Twiggy, for its first spin on the rollers. I realise I'm turning into a Zwift wanker without the Zwift account.
It took me a while to get the rollers and the bike set up so I was comfy but once started, I got plenty out of it - waking up the lungs and fast-twitch muscles and getting comfy on that bike just in case I get to use it any time soon. 1 hour 20 minutes later and I wasn't quite spent but I was quite hungry.
But there are no epic stories to tell from my roller sessions, my trips to the gym or my commute - which is blissfully and thankfully dull. The most exciting event on my bike in recent weeks has been meeting up with Becky after work on my bike like a well ingrained hipster and my speedy drag races up the hill that are genuinely getting faster and less frantic. It's so rewarding when I ask my legs for something and they respond.
In the absence of wild camping weather (or something anywhere near) weights and rollers are still great mood lifters. They do a tonne for my fitness and confidence and the endorphins get to work and I'm more ready than ever for a nap.
Some people may not need to lift weights or work on their aerobic capacity. It may come naturally when they ride. They are lucky people who have probably spent their lives in clubs and pelotons, never really understanding why I wouldn't just turn up.
It's nice to see some of the people I look up to in the endurance world openly admitting to a cheeky turbo or roller session to get out of the weather. Mostly they probably, like me, don't find much to talk about in it. I'd like to think that everyone else is holed up indoors through this weather. All waiting like chrysalis for March to be over, April nearly through, so that we can emerge, like butterflies to be flitted far and wide on colourful wings.
Training like a pro goes beyond the boundaries of the bike and going to the gym. It's a wholistic approach to self care which strays in to coming to terms with day to day chores and makes them more bearable.
The whole point of there not being someone else to do shit for me means that in some ways I'm like a lowly paid domestique, doing all the chores for myself. There's no soigneuse to take care of my massage, food and no maintenance team to look after my bike.
After months of being a slave to a difficult and stressful job, I am now taking measured pleasure and awareness from the following:
- having a shower (hygiene)
- the supermarket run (being stocked up with Calories and nutritious food)
- washing and rebuilding bikes (mechanic)
- cooking (nutritious food)
- Tidying up (hygiene & safety)
- Driving to work (recovery)
I still haven't really got the hoover out but the risk of injury, exhaustion and allergy attack puts that on a low frequency spectrum that I'm only prepared to endure once a month or less. Other things I have not yet mastered include:
- massage
- stretching
- cleaning the team bus
Rest still happens though this year I am trying my absolute best not to let it stray into laziness. Where before I may have let laziness continue all day, instead I have replaced it after a while with simple, non screen-related tasks. If I still can't get up then I at least get the knitting out.
Last year had more miles in it so far. It also had more hours. It had less weight training and that aspect only went down hill. It will be interesting to see just how it helps me progress. Last year at the Mag 7, I commented to Matt Payne that my annual first awakening to hill climb training comes with the Mag 7 ride (last year in advance of Ireland, the year before in advance of Alpe d'Huez).
This year I feel like I'm already three weeks into addressing my particular difficulty with hill climbing and we still have 2 weeks to go before the Mag7 race. By testing myself on the course last week I realised that what I thought would have been working for me actually really wasn't (long mountain bike rides on a heavily laden bike). In retrospect it's a good job I started weight training when I did. I'd love to claim it was planned but it really wasn't. Perhaps my body was giving me subliminal messages, secretly craving the thing that it will make it go faster. After all, I know I'm *supposed* to do this, I just never really felt like it before. Perhaps it was Ruth Marsden that started it.
I think I did, at least, realise that the yoga alone wasn't going to give me the strength I need and with an ever growing influx of new year students late on their new years' resolutions (for good reason - Exams), yoga is being strength-diluted with breathing, relaxation and stretching taking over. I had to make my gym money go further and so far weight training has been a success.
When I went to the gym today there were moments when the black leather cushion material on the machines burned into my skin from the beautiful winter outdoor sunshine baking them hot. I also strengthened my glutes as the hailstones tore around in the maelstom of a flurry. If I'd been out in that I would have been soaked and cold for hours afterwards.
There are moments when I think nothing will do away with the guilt of not being "out there in it". Blogs like this where I'm trying to persuade myself more than you, my dear reader. But there are moments when I will walk away from a hailstorm and into a hot sauna and I am fine with my choices.
I could be bothered by my hours and miles for this year being down compared to 2018 or we could acknowledge that 2018 still left me empty when I got to the race in June. Sure, my endurance was OK but I had neither strength nor speed. 3 days in I was frazzled, uncomfortable and behind. 13 days in and I'd ridden myself somewhere near into the shape I should have started in.
By contrast, though I've ridden less this year, I've climbed more per km and done it faster - and mostly on a loaded bike. Interesting. It's gonna be interesting.
