So, a few weeks have passed since my last R&R week, and thankfully, I've stayed on track. All the usual indicators are positive: gradually losing weight, no illnesses, greater endurance, feeling restored each and every morning... but I find in most workouts, the body really resists doing the hard stuff that you had no problems doing last season.
Most of my structure comes from two days a within our spin gym's bootcamp. These are the hard days... packing in several climbs -each of which are longer than any local hill -getting our first dose of speedwork and standing sprints since August (I'm not counting Cyclocross... those races were just too much fun to derive any sort of training benefit). Anyhow, the rest of the week gets filled with the usual base stuff: steady state, endurance rides, core workouts, a bit of plyometrics, a rest day or two (which usually involve some sort of on-bike errand or commute anyway). Gradually, even in outdoor rides, we're starting to move away from the endurance stuff and into force workouts: seated climbs, tempo intervals.
Done right, the aerobic stuff is tough enough, but now that we're starting to rouse those carb-munching Type II muscles and churn out some lactic acid, you realize that you nearly forgot how it feels when your legs burn and your lungs explode. Seems a bit early for it, I know, but nature has given us a small taste of spring, and that first race is just over a month away.
