Even though the Vernal Equinox and official first day of Spring is March 20th, looking out my window and at the upcoming weather forecast, I’m declaring it Spring right now. Daylight Savings Time begins in a couple weeks, which will allow me to get more miles and focus on my Spring training. I hereby declare Winter over. At least I’m done with it.
Here is a report of my Winter training and how it compared to last year.
Mileage has been good so far. I have ridden just over 800 in the last two months, 500 of which came in February and almost half of that was in Santee. A lot of that can be attributed to the comparatively warm winter compared with the last year. I can also attribute a lot to managing my time a little better. I now work an earlier schedule and have been able to sneak in a few miles here and there after work on warm days. In 2011 I had about 750 miles during January and February.
The miles this year have also been of much higher difficulty. I got off to a good start with the long rides in the mountains. Sassafras Mountain and Pinnacle Mountain particularly jump-started my training better than any base miles could have. The only real flat miles have been Santee weekend just recently. Even when doing my short, local rides, I have been trying to push it on hillier sections. Sometimes I will work in some intervals. It all adds up.
Another addition to my training regimen has been the weekly spin class. A number of friends who are trying to improve their riding (many are training for Mitchell) have hired a personal trainer to lead the spin class. She flat out kills us in this class. Sometimes I can barely walk afterward. We’re only in week four and I am already seeing results. I’ll talk more about this class later.
Another thing I did this year is cross-train. I did a little bit of running in January. Not a tremendous amount, maybe 25 miles or so, but that was enough to make a difference in my cycling. Since I picked up the riding in February I have not spent as much time putting foot to pavement. I have tried to do at least one short run per week, usually a mile at a time at a good pace for me.
Finally, and perhaps more importantly, my weight has been a struggle. The off-season regimen to drop down to 145 lbs didn’t happen. The closest I came was 147 a few weeks back. Now I am in the 149-150 range. I still expect a lot of that to drop once daylight savings time comes and I can get more weekday rides. The goal is still 145 lbs by Mount Mitchell day.
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