Recovery, Gut Check, And Rocky

I just finished the first 3 weeks of (mostly) following a 100-miler LWCoaching plan.

Over this time I've been subject to hill intervals, one-leg-at-a-time pedaling, core workouts, 110 rpm spinups, long endurance rides, short-track racing practice, and mellow recovery rides.  The structured training has been interesting, fun,  and a welcome change from the usual non-stop pedal hammering rides that always seem to develop shortly after a group of 2 or more push rubber past the trailhead.  Rather than just riding to ride, the last 3 weeks have resembled scenes pulled from the 5 (or are there 6?) Rocky movies.

Now that you have that song in your head...

If you remember, Rock didn't just get in the ring every day and trade shots in a testosterone-induced 4-hour sparring match to prepare for the big title fight. The Italian Stallion spent the majority of his time hammering out rep after rep of push-ups, sit-ups, snow sprints, wood chopping, log tossing, frozen beef punching,  short-short belly shirt wearing beach sprint (followed by awkward oceanic hugging) running, workouts.  And when that was done, he took some time to do a cool down lap through the streets with neighborhood kids just in time to kick it in over drive and throw that last rep in up to the top of the stairs and explode into an impromptu jumping and screaming session.  Yea, Rock had a real passion for training and for competing.  In the end he was ripped and ready to take on Apollo, Apollo again, Mr T, that 8-foot-tall Russian,  That  young guy with a sweet mullet, and post-retirement, as his own computer-simulated avatar, some other champion with nobody left to fight.  Anyway, you get the idea... Just like Mr. Balboa, it's best to mix it up when it comes to training, no matter what the sport,  and that is exactly what LW's training plan has been doing for me.

This week is a recovery week so there is not a whole lot of intensity in the workouts.  It's a hard thing to dial it back when I've been used to hard efforts but it's the right thing to do.  After reading the training books/bibles it all makes a lot more sense to me.  Even if it didn't, I decided at the onset to follow my training plan explicitly, take notes,  and watch the magic happen.

I also found a scale again this week.  The last time I weighed myself was in December and as of yesterday I'm about 10lbs lighter.  That's almost 1/2 a mountain bike!

12/02/2010

03/11/2011

For what it's worth, I actually liked that last Rocky movie better than the other 5.