What is a blog anyway?

Blogs. Blogging. Web logging. Whatever you call it, just don't call it easy to set up! Remember this is a mid-lifer blog. I used to be on the cutting edge of technology but I am rapidly becoming like those I used to pity earlier in life. The flood waters of technology are creeping ever further up my figurative neck each and every day. After a few hours of work I managed to get this thing working but there is more to do.

I played child chauffeur today which allowed me some time to sip coffee and read at Panera Bread. At the moment, I am finishing up Joe Friel's book The Cyclist's Training Bible. Lot's of good info on fuel. Basically, my diet stinks. I don't get enough protein and way too much carbohydrate. The need for carbohydrate has been so ingrained in my thinking that I don't think about the importance of protein. In fact, protein and fats are very important to endurance athletes. Protein is important not only for recovery but also as a critical component in the metabolic process. We get about a ten percent contribution from proteins to fuel muscle movement. The other contributors are fats and glycogen stores. Additionally, protein stimulates the release of glucagon, a hormone that allows the body to use fat for fuel more efficiently. Protein is so important that it can impact the outcome of races. Studies have shown that race outcomes have favored those who ate more protein over those who ate less in favor of carbohydrate. Even the skinniest bike racer has hundreds of thousands of stored fat calories but this is not true with regard to glycogen stores. They are a precious commodity that we as bike racers want to guard very carefully. As intensity increases we burn more and more glycogen as a percentage of fuel required to cause muscle movement. Once we run out of glycogen we slow down and get dropped...race over. Training your body to burn fats is very important to all of us. That is why base mileage is so important because we are training ourselves to burn fats efficiently.

This week is a recovery week for me. That means 8.5 hours of training. Sunday was an off day as was yesterday. Today's schedule calls for 1.5 hours of E2 training, (Endurance Zone 2 125-173 watts). This is an outdoor volume so I will take 66% of that for an indoor volume of 1.0 hours. The last couple of weeks my long day on the trainer has been 2.7 hours which is just a killer. I listen to my Napster playlists or put a movie on the computer. Andy Pruitt writes in his book Andy Pruitt's Complete Medical Guide for Cyclists that getting up out of the saddle for one minute for every five in the saddle will go a long ways towards a more comfortable training ride and I can testify that this is surely true. I was doing a 15/5 minute trade off but I like this 5/1 minute drill much better.

Since the ride is pretty short, I think I'll take advantage of the extra time and lift weights today also. This has actually been really fun. When I was younger I did a lot of weight training but lost my taste for it in my advancing years. Once I got passed the first few workouts it actually became fun and now I am into the maximum strength (MS) phase and I am going very heavy on my legs. I am using the leg press primarily due to some back issues but I am edging closer to my strength goals. On Monday I was able to press 370 lbs. 8 times for 3 sets. I need to get my strength up to around 400 lbs. to meet my goal. Once there, I will go on a strength maintenance program (SM). The upper body goals are really very modest even on those areas where max strength is called for. Everything I have read suggests that weight training is one of the most important areas of training for the aging cyclist. Younger riders can give up weight training altogether after the base training phases are over but not so for the master. He must weight train year round if he wants to maintain his/her strength gains.