Book Larnin
In my last post I promised more details about my pre-PMC reading about training, technique, and nutrition. Well…
Last night I finished reading “The CTS Collection: Training Tips for Cyclists and Triathletes”. CTS stands for Charmichael Training Systems, a prestigious coaching organization founded by Chris Charmichael, a former pro cyclist and the longtime coach of Mister Fancy Lancey Pants. So the book ought to have some good stuff, right?
Well, sorta. The downside is that it’s just a bunch of reprints of old articles he and his coaches previously published in cycling magazines. And having been printed in 2001, all the information is nearly ten years old, which is a long time in the ever-evolving fields of performance sport, training, and nutrition.
Still, I took away a few nuggets that I’d like to preseve. These may only be of interest to myself, but this is still a good place to record them. Some of these derive from the book, some are ideas from other sources like Bicycling Magazine, and others are simply things I’ve had on my own radar for years.
First topic is goalsetting. Set annual, intermediate, and short-term goals, and revisit them often as conditions change. I took a few minutes and looked at my cycling goals for this year, and there weren’t that many. Maybe do a century each month. For the PMC, finish in a PR time below seven hours, and raise enough money to reach Heavy Hitter status and exceed $50,000 lifetime. Finish the year (mid-October) with maybe 3,500 miles, which would put me at 28,000 miles since October 2000. That’s really part of a more vague goal of simply taking full advantage of my summer off from working, which I think is going well!
Second topic contains a bunch of points I aggregated into “lifestyle”. Although I’d like to keep them up throughout the year, they’re most key in the two or three months before a major ride (i.e. now). First, rest a lot and get plenty of sleep. Second, perform my stretching regimen twice daily. Third, continue to trim my diet, which means cutting fats like ice cream and simple sugars like candy, and increasing good stuff like nuts, popcorn, veggies, berries, and breads. Finally, and the thing that’s newest for me this year, learn how to do therapeutic self-massage for post-ride recovery, performing it once or twice daily.
Third are training goals, and these change from month to month and season to season, but right now, I’d like to focus on these. Work on pedaling technique, especially high-speed cadence, one-legged drills, and pedaling full circles with attention on the upstroke. I need to spend more time in the drops in order to become accustomed to the more aerodynamic position. I really need to continue reminding myself to stop hunching my shoulders up, which leads to inevitable neck pain on longer rides. And now that I’ve got ample base miles down, I need to start doing shorter, more intense interval workouts, rather than piling on so many miles that I wind up overtrained. This includes starting to do hill repeats to build up strength and endurance, and mixing it up with the “Hounds of Hell” (the fast group) on my weekly group rides.
The final item is psychology, especially self-talk. I’ve realized that I have a lot of counterproductive internal dialogue, which includes things like how bad I am at rolling hills, that there’s no need to hurry, that neck pain is normal and to be expected on long rides, and all kinds of whining about the conditions of the day. This needs to be eliminated, and supplemented with positive self-talk, because there’s a lot I should be proud of. I’ve got an awesome ride that I’ve nicknamed the Plastic Bullet. Bobby Mac has complimented me often on my form and strength. And yesterday I giggled like someone who should be institutionalized after not just hanging with the Hounds of Hell, but launching a powerful attack at the base of Punkatasset Hill that had them all screaming epithets at me as I zoomed off the front. I even put a little Ethiopian flag on my handlebar stem to remind me of my buddy Jay’s comment back in March that I didn’t have “little Ethiopian girl legs this year”. Remembering that kinda stuff serves me a lot better on the bike than all that negativity.
Oh, and I had one bit of a brainstorm: make some sort of cloth bag to hang around one’s neck that could contain melting ice. I might actually order such a thing from here. That might be very useful on a long, hot century ride.