Training Progresses

Okay, so I'm now writing this post for the second time after I accidentally deleted it somehow. Aaaargh!

My training changed again this week. From this point forward, I'll only be doing one day of weight training a week. My intensity on the bike has increased quite a bit.

For those of you who think my husband is figuring out my entire training plan, you're wrong. I am actually participating. Chris hands off an Excel spreadsheet to me for each week (usually three weeks at a time). The sheet includes the days of the week and indicated on each is time on the bike, along with some mysterious codes. My mission is to go to the Mountain Bike Training Bible and look up the codes to see what they mean. Then I stand around a lot deciding how long my intervals and recovery periods should be, what gearing to use, etc. During this time I ask Chris many, many questions. Tonight, for example, I had to do F2 and M2, which are "big gear climbs" and "cruise intervals."

When I finally get on the bike, I strap on my $29.99 digital watch from Target and look at it every so often to figure out when I'm supposed to start doing something else. It's a fairly cumbersome process. In fact, I was just thinking "I wish there was some type of device I could use to program my workouts. Then it would just beep at me or something when it was time to switch." Oh, there is. I just can't afford it. :-(

As old as this low-tech training is getting, I am determined to keep it up because I have high hopes for this season. I need to be ready.