I Best Lay Some Plans

Two weeks to go 'til the first triathlon of the season. Four weeks after that is a century ride. Two weeks after that starts a three-race triathlon series, one per month. With all that going on, one has to get training organized. I try to put in my last hard workouts two weeks before a race, with the weekend before being easy that the days leading up to it being very easy. The Thursday before I practice transitions (which means I practice getting into and out of my shoes while on the bike).

With the races and events coming every four weeks or sooner, if I don't get organized then I might not get the hard workouts when I can or miss out on the rest I need. So I spent some time today writing down my workouts through the middle of June. No kidding. I've found that if I have things planned in advance, it's one less thing to worry about.

It's important to be flexible, though. For instance, literally while I was in the middle of writing this I ended up planning on riding the Pasadena Marathon Bike Tour tomorrow morning. It wasn't something I was planning on doing when I woke up this morning but these things happen. It'll be an easy 26 miles and when I get home I might even do the cycling workout I was originally planning on doing. We'll see.

It Fits (I Think)!

If you've seen pictures of me from my triathlons, you've seen me in my Louis Garneau trisuit. It's what I wore in every triathlon last year, my first season. However, I have a deep, dark secret I have been hiding regarding that trisuit: it is not my first. My first trisuit was a DeSoto Power Skinsuit (MPSK3). It's an XL but when I tried it on...yow! There's snug, there's tight, there's too tight, there's it doesn't fit, and there's I can't get it on. I couldn't get it on. I had to scramble to find something else that would fit and, thankfully, the LG suit did. Today I decided to dig out the DeSoto, tags still on, to see how I've progressed. It fits! Tight, but it fits. I don't know how much weight I've lost in a year but it is enough to go from I can't get it on to tight. The nice thing with it is that the lower half is black, which provides more modesty when getting out of the swim than my all-royal blue LG suit.

In two weeks I will be heading to UCLA to ride the IronBruin course with the new bike to get my shifting nailed down. I think I'll take the DeSoto with me to see how it feels...and to see if the seams can take the punishment ;-).

Head for the Hills

Saturday's rainy ride was supposed to be nice and easy after last week's 111-mile jaunt. Then as I approached "Little Woodley", which is about a 10 or 11% climb, I came up with another plan: go easy except for the hills--those get attacked. Little Woodley is steep but short so I decided to attack it out of the saddle in third or fourth gear (I forget which I ended up using). It wasn't a typical "I have to finish a ride after this hill" attack, either. It was a redline up to the top where the only energy I saved would be enough to get me to the summit. I got there much faster than I ever have before but oh was I tired.

Since it was raining I didn't want to go up "Big Woodley", which is about 12%, so I decide to go up Balboa as fast as I can. Balboa isn't so steep but it is long. As I started out I noticed that I was keeping it above 12mph but I knew it got a bit steeper later. Once I hit that part I tried to keep it above 11mph and I did, for the most part. Every so often I'd drop below 11 but never below 10. I even carried that through to Balboa 2, which is even a bit steeper. Good progress for someone who, not all that long ago, was amazed that I was going up that same hill above 8mph. I'd like to think it's a combination of getting stronger and losing some weight (I haven't stepped on a scale since July).

With the IronBruin Triathlon coming up in just four weeks, and its bike course is anything but flat, my short-term training routine on the bike is now clear: hills...hard. Hard up the hills on my weekend rides. The Griffith Park loop now becomes hard Garbage Truck Hill repeats. None of this just surviving up to the top stuff. I expect my rides until the week before the triathlon to be painful and not fun, which sounds kinda fun.