Are You Living It?

ok…I admit, I’ve been away awhile. Things have been busy in a good but hectic kind of way, so blogging fell along the wayside. I’m sure you managed to carry on without me.

But I’m back. And the things that have been tumbling around in my head during workouts (i.e. the thoughts that form the foundations for all my entries) need somewhere to go!

That being said, they’ve mostly been tumbling around on the bike, since my knee has precluded running. I ran 6.5 miles on trails on Monday and it started to get sore by the end, but by Monday night I could hardly bend my knee. Which made it a little difficult to teach yoga that night! But I finally got into PT, started the NSAID routine, and took the week off running. And I think it’s considerably better. I’ll let you know -I’m going for a run after I write this.

And continuing my boycott of the pool (I got in once this week) that left me with a whole lotta time to lift and ride the bike. My knee was bothering me biking hills, so instead I have stayed trainer-bound. Which would have been horrible, except for my new cycle-ops trainer and power meter. That’s right…power! No more guessing at my workouts!

When Janda said the equipment was quality, I jumped at the chance to get it - an awesome, smooth ride with a fairly accurate power meter calibrated to it. For $325 bucks. Free shipping…ah, happiness. It’s as basic as basic can be, but it’s a huge help. I’ve already done a preliminary LT test to try to see where my zones are at coming back into base training and the numbers, while slightly disheartening (but not surprising), tell me that the meter is definitely in the ball park, showing my training zones about where they were last February and an LT of 185-190 watts.

Given that I have ridden outside less than 5 times since IM (and none hard or more than 30 miles) it looks like I’m heading into base training exactly where I want to be - thoroughly deconditioned. I know the same goes for my swim and run, so the next few of months should be a good segway back into volume. I was heartened by the piece on Michellie Jones that Janda sent out, where she talks about taking two months off at the end of each season, and then for the first two weeks back to training she’s breathing hard before she reaches the end of the driveway.

Yeah - I’m there. And my driveway is downhill!

But everything is a tradeoff. TriROK has become like a fulltime job and that’s a good thing…lots of folks getting involved and getting fit. Getting back to teaching 2 yoga classes a week, training to coach next to a mentor like Bill Steele, teaching the trainer classes, meeting new athletes, and engaging the intellectual side of the sport are all well worth a healthy offseason…an offseason that’s been good for my head and (hopefully) good for my body too…

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