Not So Secret Training Trip

Well, it's still a secret to pretty much all my friends and family. I'll be gone for a week, training with teammates and gutsy clubmembers. Considering the furthest south I've been is on the latitudes of NYC and Chicago, this trip will be a real treat for me.

Looks as though we have a nice 2000 ft climb at our doorstep.

We will be surrounded by miles rolling terrain and mountains. The shortest of our planned routes will take at least 4 hours to complete. Faced with this kind of torture on the bike, finishing my architectural thesis will be therapeutic by comparison.

Progress: Both Weird and Reassuring

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.

Back to Base

Sometimes things don't go according to plan. A cancelled spin class and a scheduled R&R week snowballed into two weeks with no time on the bike or in the gym. The most strenuous activity I had was schlepping my luggage around Montreal. Sure, I brought some kit and spin shoes, but with my itinerary, I never got the chance to pop into a gym and put them to use.

To make matters worse, Montreal has a way of bringing out the gourmand in me. Go ahead, call me a hypocrite, but I certainly wasn't eating a big salad everyday over those two weeks. Instead, I was enjoying the land of poutine and tarte à sucre; not to mention getting treated to Au Pied du Cochon where every second dish features a generous portion of foie gras, typically garnished with bacon, cheese and/or maple syrup.

Anyhow, I'm glad Sunday's unseasonably-warm weather permitted a fat-busting aerobic endurance ride. I rode up to my favourite stretch of tarmac in desolate zone within the city: a little-known, freshly-paved access-road running alongside the 401. A fierce headwind on the way out kept the heart rate up, and the downhill trip home lent itself to some high-cadence active recovery. 2 hours of riding, targeting zones 2 and 3, 1300 calories burnt.

Eat Now to Race Later

Now that our team is well into base training, it's a good time to start thinking about dietary changes in preparation for the race season. I don't believe in prescriptive diets or restricting certain foods, but I do believe that making incremental changes to your diet over a period of time will lead to huge gains in terms of performance, recovery and overall health. Every diet book I've read on this subject regurgitates the age-old maxim that "You are what you eat," pointing out that it takes from months to years for our muscle tissues and internal organs to replace their cellular structure. So the idea is to start eating proper now, well before the season starts, so that the muscles you race with are made up of ideal foods and fortified with the right nutrients.

The goal is to tailor a diet that supports anabolic development, foods that provide immediate fuel when you need it, and meals that will expedite post-workout recovery. Some of us already practice a diet that works, which is great... the rest of us should start researching. Joe Friel co-authored the Paleo Diet for Athletes, which I haven't read but from my understanding, sounds like a very sensible diet and has garnered a devout following within our sport. Another interesting read is In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, also author of Omnivore's Dilemma -both books investigate the dangers embedded within typical Westernized diets and the myths of modern nutritional claims. Finally, certified coaches within our club recommend Brendan Brazier's vegan The Thrive Diet, which is definitely worth reading even if you intend to continue eating meat.

Whatever you choose, be sure to make incremental dietary changes so that by race season, your metabolism is adjusted to the ideal nutritional sources you've selected and you'll really notice the benefits once we get into high-intensity training. In the meantime, start by eating a big green salad. Full of raw veggies. Everyday.

Stuart's Ride

Spending hours indoors on the trainer and spin bikes is mind-numbing enough to make any Canadian Cyclist actually look forward to riding outdoors in the depths of winter. Since the end of Cyclocross season, most of my outdoor rides consist of short commutes to work and the odd errand around town. So when I got an invite from a fellow clubmember to come out for an organized ride to Kleinburg, I took interest. My enthusiasm didn't waiver when I found out the ride was in memory of a cyclist who perished enroute, on account of an undiagnosed heart defect that manifested itself on a steep climb. Even when the forecast predicted near-whiteout conditions, the roads were a slushy mess, and the risk of losing my toes to frostbite was somewhat probable, I actually looked forward to the idea of suffering in the cold.

Suiting up: base layer, knee-high socks, winter tights, thermal jacket, Gore-Tex boots, breaking out the lobster claws for the first time, and admittedly, a bit of Bag Balm on the face. Once I got underway, I actually felt fine. Even a cabbie that menacingly reversed toward me to make a U-turn, then passed me and sprayed slush on my calf, could not disturb my blissful enjoyment of the great outdoors. Not sure if that's attributed to a mind numbed by the aforementioned  hours on the trainer, or the freezing climate shutting down my nervous system, or the sweet smell of Bag Balm under my nose.

After an hour of riding solo I met the group, only three other riders, none of them sporting full fenders so drafting was out of the question. Not that aerodynamics mattered in a ride like this, we kept a relaxed pace so as not to work up a sweat, otherwise our bodies would have been flash frozen to our saddles. After another hour of riding through gently rolling countryside, we tackled the fateful hill, stopping two-thirds the way up as our ride leader dutifully unstrapped a bouquet of flowers off his saddle and rested them against a tree that marks the spot. Lunch awaited us atop the hill, along with other friends of Stuart who sanely decided to drive there.

The ride back into the city was messier and traffic noticeably increased, but motorists were alarmingly polite and our bikes remained surefooted -as though the graces of the cosmos intervened to provide us an idyllic mid-January outing. I picked up the pace as I neared my neighbourhood, my toes throbbing in a frostbite-inevitably-setting-in sort of way. But once the kit was off and I hit a hot shower, the only pain I was experiencing was from my empty stomach.

It was the perfect winter ride. Although I'm not one to fall for superstition and I make no claims to the existence of everlasting life, looking back, I'd like to think that Stuart was looking out for us.