Training

Over spring break I was able to resume training. I had planned a long endurance training block. Four back to back days of 4 to 5 hour rides. I have done this training block before and experienced some wonderful results. The first time that I tried this was in NC and I had a few friends who joined me on some of the rides (Thanks Sandra). They were the only reason I was able to complete all of the rides! This year I had planned to complete the training block early during my spring break week (Sunday-Wednesday) but the cold on Monday and Tuesday encouraged me to delay the block to later in the week (Thursday - Sunday). I was able to push through the Thursday (4 hours) and Friday (5 hours) rides without much of an issue. We had some really nice weather, lows in the 60's and high's in the 80's, but spring in Texas also means WIND. 25 mile an hour winds gusting to 35 is nice as a tail wind but brutal as a head wind. I kept saying "I love the wind, I love the wind, I love the wind". Somehow that kept me moving forward. I will take hills any day over wind. But hopefully it will make me stronger!

Well at least I am back to training and have a plan to keep it up so that get back to the front of the group rather than hanging off the back.

Balance (or what I learned about life from cycling)

Balance- It is a pretty simple word that means so much. Staying up right on a bike, Not falling over, keeping the rubber on the pavement....It seems so simple but it is not. Think back to when you were a kid and you were learning how to ride for the first time and you did not want to remove the training wheels. Maybe think back to the first time that you rode with clipless pedals and did not want to fall and do something like break your arm.

Once you get past the training wheels and the clipless pedals the training comes. Pushing yourself on hard intervals and trainer workouts until you are ready to puke. Or riding so hard that you can taste the blood in your mouth and feel the searing in your lungs just trying to stay on the wheel of the guy in front of you so that you don't get dropped in the middle of nowhere in a 20 mph wind.

And we all do it so that we can get faster, stronger, more able to attack at just the right time. Then again if all we do is go hard then we just end up tired and not able to even hold a 10mph pace, so we have to balance the hard rides with the recovery rides.

And then there is life...............
Balance is just as important in life as it is on the bike. Balancing demands of work/school, family, training and everything else can sometimes not go as smoothly as we and other folks would like. Sometimes work can be all consuming and you end up not spending any time on the bike and just enough time with family so that they remember your name. But then all of those other things and people start to remind you that you need to spend sometime with them. The family (wife) starts to make sure to schedule time with you for dinner and a movie and every time that you walk by your bike your legs start to ache, reminding you of all of the hours that you have spent on the bike building the form that you are losing.

So sometimes you spend a few more hours on work one week as long as the next you make sure to spend a few more hours doing those things that you neglected the week before. But then again with just the right balance.............then maybe everything will continue to work out and everyone will stay happy.


So just like on the bike rather than wobbling to one side just to wobble to the other next, staying up right and keeping "the rubber side down" is not as easy as we make it look sometimes.

Obviously since my last post was back in August I have not done the best job with balance in the last month or so but life seems to be coming back into balance and keeping it that way seems a little more manageable.

Here's to keeping life a little more balanced.