I've ridden my last ride of 2007. It's been a fantastic year. It has surely marked my longest stretch of training for a sport in my life. It concludes 2 1/2 years of road biking and sets me looking forward to racing a strong 2008 in the U.S.
With my season over a few months ago, most of what I learned this year was already in my head by that point. But even these last couple months of the 2007 calendar year, I've learned more and more about training, cycling, and my body, motivation and physical abilities. I thought it would be a waste of a blog to not at least post a quick note - though I think this won't be so quick - about what I learned over the last year of riding.
- Training requires motivation. Too much training will takes away motivation. In my job, most of my peers (and I) live under the notion that you "just do it" if you have to. There's no excuses, no room for lack of motivation. If you lack motivation, tough. Well, that might work if you're heading to a combat zone at the direction of the Commander-in-Chief. But in a world that is completely optional (like training for a sport that you aren't making a living doing), motivation is critical. Every time I get on the bike, there has to be something that makes me want to complete the workout. If one trains too much, it's entirely possible to train yourself right out of your motivation. Once you stop wanting to get on the bike, it's nearing the point of diminishing returns. You have to know this point (which means you have to get pretty darn close to it to find it)
- Listen to your body. It wasn't until the end of the year that I really breached the injury line. Some time during the Okayama Circuit race I pulled a muscle in my left leg. I ignored it and pushed through the next month keeping the training volume high. Then one day I strained my left knee climbing a steep mountain while compensating for the other hurt muscle. It took two weeks to recovery from that injury. Coming back from that injury I attempted to push right back onto my high training load and blew up within a week. It took another two weeks to go through a transition recovery period before I could start ramping training load again. So, October, November and half December were recovery from an injury that I should have recovered from by the end of October.
- Transition periods are necessary. I hate these periods in the training cycle. Transition periods typically come right at the end of a peak. It's a time after you've trained/raced yourself into the best shape you can be in hopefully before you blow through into crud riding. There's nothing to them really except for taking a week or two of easy riding to let your body recover from the beating it took getting into race shape. Inevitably, you exit the transition "off form" from what you were two weeks prior. You get on the first workout after a transition thinking you're in such great condition, but it takes 2-3 weeks of workouts to get yourself going again, all the while you're staring at the numbers begging to be as good as you were before the break. The good news is, once you've come off the slump, you're quickly back in the shape from before the break and climbing to new heights. That's where I find myself today as we enter the new year.
- Some days, no matter what everything else says... some days are just "off days." Over the course of the year of training I've had a lot of great workouts. I've also had a select handful of workouts that just stunk. A lot of times those happened on days that I thought I was going to have a fantastic day. I thought I was eating right, sleeping right, resting, the works. Then I got on the bike, started an interval and thought, "This is just not right." I've had to bail out of interval workouts because I can't keep the numbers in zone, perplexed for the next week only to find out the following workout go great. So, I've learned that it's okay for a workout to go like crud. The world doesn't come to an end. The next week you attack the workout again and go from there. Every day is not going to be the perfect workout, and you're not going to improve every week on the bike. Patience.
- Finally, biking is fun. If you're reading this, and you ride bikes, remember it. If you don't ride bikes, I'm sorry for it. It's a great sport, easy on your health and joints. You don't have to race to enjoy it, there are many that don't race.
2007 was a good year for riding for me. Here's the stats, parentheticals for 2006 values.
Rides: 322 (241)
Total Distance: 26,248 km (15,073)
Total Hours: 842 hrs 24 min (520 hrs 14 min)
Calories Burned: 669,587 (469,072)
Raced: 12 (3)
Won: 4 (1)
Podium: 6 (2)
In closing, Jan 1st will be my final ride in Japan for the foreseeable future. I'll get a blustery, windy day riding around 90-100 km up the Nishiki River. I was going to do Zenitsuboyama for one final time, but I've opted to change it to get some extra distance. My schedule, my riding, races available and everything else will change pretty dramatically with the move to Washington D.C. area. I look forward to riding and racing with a whole new group of people, a whole different style of racing and learning a whole new set of lessons in 2008. Here's hoping we all have at least as good a year in 2008 as we did in 2007 - and hoping it's even better.
Ride safe and ride often,
VW
With my season over a few months ago, most of what I learned this year was already in my head by that point. But even these last couple months of the 2007 calendar year, I've learned more and more about training, cycling, and my body, motivation and physical abilities. I thought it would be a waste of a blog to not at least post a quick note - though I think this won't be so quick - about what I learned over the last year of riding.
- Training requires motivation. Too much training will takes away motivation. In my job, most of my peers (and I) live under the notion that you "just do it" if you have to. There's no excuses, no room for lack of motivation. If you lack motivation, tough. Well, that might work if you're heading to a combat zone at the direction of the Commander-in-Chief. But in a world that is completely optional (like training for a sport that you aren't making a living doing), motivation is critical. Every time I get on the bike, there has to be something that makes me want to complete the workout. If one trains too much, it's entirely possible to train yourself right out of your motivation. Once you stop wanting to get on the bike, it's nearing the point of diminishing returns. You have to know this point (which means you have to get pretty darn close to it to find it)
- Listen to your body. It wasn't until the end of the year that I really breached the injury line. Some time during the Okayama Circuit race I pulled a muscle in my left leg. I ignored it and pushed through the next month keeping the training volume high. Then one day I strained my left knee climbing a steep mountain while compensating for the other hurt muscle. It took two weeks to recovery from that injury. Coming back from that injury I attempted to push right back onto my high training load and blew up within a week. It took another two weeks to go through a transition recovery period before I could start ramping training load again. So, October, November and half December were recovery from an injury that I should have recovered from by the end of October.
- Transition periods are necessary. I hate these periods in the training cycle. Transition periods typically come right at the end of a peak. It's a time after you've trained/raced yourself into the best shape you can be in hopefully before you blow through into crud riding. There's nothing to them really except for taking a week or two of easy riding to let your body recover from the beating it took getting into race shape. Inevitably, you exit the transition "off form" from what you were two weeks prior. You get on the first workout after a transition thinking you're in such great condition, but it takes 2-3 weeks of workouts to get yourself going again, all the while you're staring at the numbers begging to be as good as you were before the break. The good news is, once you've come off the slump, you're quickly back in the shape from before the break and climbing to new heights. That's where I find myself today as we enter the new year.
- Some days, no matter what everything else says... some days are just "off days." Over the course of the year of training I've had a lot of great workouts. I've also had a select handful of workouts that just stunk. A lot of times those happened on days that I thought I was going to have a fantastic day. I thought I was eating right, sleeping right, resting, the works. Then I got on the bike, started an interval and thought, "This is just not right." I've had to bail out of interval workouts because I can't keep the numbers in zone, perplexed for the next week only to find out the following workout go great. So, I've learned that it's okay for a workout to go like crud. The world doesn't come to an end. The next week you attack the workout again and go from there. Every day is not going to be the perfect workout, and you're not going to improve every week on the bike. Patience.
- Finally, biking is fun. If you're reading this, and you ride bikes, remember it. If you don't ride bikes, I'm sorry for it. It's a great sport, easy on your health and joints. You don't have to race to enjoy it, there are many that don't race.
2007 was a good year for riding for me. Here's the stats, parentheticals for 2006 values.
Rides: 322 (241)
Total Distance: 26,248 km (15,073)
Total Hours: 842 hrs 24 min (520 hrs 14 min)
Calories Burned: 669,587 (469,072)
Raced: 12 (3)
Won: 4 (1)
Podium: 6 (2)
In closing, Jan 1st will be my final ride in Japan for the foreseeable future. I'll get a blustery, windy day riding around 90-100 km up the Nishiki River. I was going to do Zenitsuboyama for one final time, but I've opted to change it to get some extra distance. My schedule, my riding, races available and everything else will change pretty dramatically with the move to Washington D.C. area. I look forward to riding and racing with a whole new group of people, a whole different style of racing and learning a whole new set of lessons in 2008. Here's hoping we all have at least as good a year in 2008 as we did in 2007 - and hoping it's even better.
Ride safe and ride often,
VW