Welcome to 2007

This week is actually the beginning of my 2007 campaign. Today it is about 0 degrees F and it's been too cold to even skate on the backyard rink i built this year.

After the end of last season I've taken the longest break from cycling that i've had since I dug my bike from under the pile of junk 4 years ago. I've taken the customary month break every year but this year was different. I had the goal of trying to lose some weight before the end of the year so after my last race in august I kept riding, doing long lower intensity rides in an effort to lose a fair amount of weight before the holidays.

Just after my birthday I had to stop. I really needed a break. My body was telling me to stop. My head wasn't in it anymore so I abandonded that plan and put the bike away...for 3 months!
It wasn't my intention at the start but after 4 weeks I had no desire to get the thing back out. We even had great weather and I could have gotten alot of outdoor riding in but I couldn't do it.

Finally in the middle of January I put my training and race schedule together. This season is going to be different than last year. I am focusing on different races and will be peaking much later than last year. By march of last year i was flying. My first objective was the Burlington RR on memorial day weekend. This year my first target is not till july. I'm going to be doing a long slow buildup to superweek.

Although i haven't ridden much the last couple of months I have been doing some other stuff. My son started taking hockey lessons and so I've been at the rink a bit. I've found that I can go skating before work and get a great workout in and it's pretty intense. Each time i've been nearing my max heart rate. It was refreshing to be doing something different for a while.

I also had a flareup of my herniated disc in my lower back. It actually happend in the middle of october but after getting better it got worse again in december. I finally broke down and got some drugs from the doctor and am finally getting that under control again.

There's also been another development on the Gatorade side of things. I am in their athelete pool and got an invitation to participate in a cycling specific study. This is what i was hoping for when i signed up last year. Tomorrow I go in to have a Vo2max test done. This alone is pretty cool. This is where you breath into a mask while riding till you can't ride anymore.

If i score high enough on this test I get to come back and do a Lactate Threshold(LT) test. This is where they check your blood levels while you ride till you can't ride anymore. If I score high enough on that I'm in the study.

The study is pretty intense. 3 3hour sessions. You ride for 2 hours right below your LT and then after 2 hours you ride a 20k time trial. I'm actually really excited about this and hoping I can make it in. It's actually a few hundred dollars worth of tests done for free. It would be great.

I'm only wishing that it was a few weeks later after I'd been riding a little bit but I'll take it whenever.

Well that's all for now. Stay tuned for the report on my Vo2max test.