Being a self-coached athlete is sometimes like pissing in the wind in a typhoon. Sure, I'd probably do better by getting an actual coach and laying down a solid training plan with consults, feedback and all the bells and whistles but that costs more money than I can really put into it and with my schedule being what it is, I just don't feel like I need to do that right now. Besides, I have accumulated nearly 20 years of empirical data on how not to do things and I'd hate to waste all that research.
I have been putting together some stuff over the last few weeks and plan to start with the new program on Dec 1. My main goals for the winter are to lose some weight (yeah I know that's gonna be hard to do but I gotta try) and to maintain most of the fitness I built this season to give me a solid base for more fitness next year. In the past, some of my main limiters have been inconsistent training and poor eating habits. I made a big mistake this year with doing mostly endurance rides with little high intensity stuff. I found out when cyclocross started that I made a big mistake in not including some high-end suffering with my regular suffering.
To remedy that, I have included with the training I will be doing, several shorter, high-intensity type races into my schedule. The best training for racing is racing and I made dramatic changes to my schedule over what it has been for the past few years to include a variety of pain-inflicting events. I still suck at climbing so you can bet I will be doing a lot of it over the next few months. I am also making a huge effort to be more consistent with training and trying my best to not have huge gaps in my training days.
As for the diet part...
Some days I really eat like a saint and those days will stay what they are. Other days however, I eat like a Saint Bernard and that's what I will be working on. I have already made a few painful adjustments to my diet and can see the positive effects from them which makes breaking bad habits easier. The bottom line for me is this:
I gotta lose some weight to improve my climbing. That's all there is to say.
It's not going to be easy but the things I like to do never are............
2 comments:
right on Duck! We sound the same in our training. I lost a bunch of weight last year and it helped so much in my climbing - but that's no rocket science is it? Now that it's the off season, I'm putting it back on. The trick is not to put as much on as I did last year. Finally, I'm looking for some motivation . . . mine is at an all time low right now for this year.
loosing weight is the hardest thing I have ever done. I have started the endurance riding thing this year and hope to carry that over to 2009 in my short mtb career. But weight loss is a different story...
Here is what helped me earlier in the year to stay intop of my weight. It is not really a diet but a self pace program to stay intop of what you weight loss plan are. It helps suggesting meals or just follow your own. It also helps in tracking carlories taken in vs burned. Is all about burning more then what you are taking in. No matter what you eat...
If you do sign up, tell them "EL-SANDPINE" told you so I can get sparkie points. :-)
the link is: http://www.sparkpeople.com/
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