One day at a time

I'm continuing to follow some sort of training plan albeight just one day at a time. It's to the point right now where I am not thinking about training at all. I've entered about 3 months worth of workouts onto my Yahoo Calender. Every morning I'll get up and have my cup of coffee first w/o eating breakfast. I'll check my email first thing and there will be a reminder from the Calendar service with the workout.

If it is an interval ride I'll go right down to the basement w/o eating first. If it is an off day or easy day I might go out for 1/2hr on the road bike or commute or do nothing at all.

Right now the MSP intervals have increased to about 12 minutes. In addition there have been some workouts with shorter intervals but also with decreased rest. Earlier in the year everything was 1:1 work:rest. Some of the workouts have been 1on :45 off or 3on 1off. Those 1xs didn't go so well. The 3 min intervals went decently. The cool thing is that my 12 min intervals are only 10 W less than the 3 min intervals.

For the longer intervals it is much more about mental toughness than about fitness. It takes concentration to keep the mind wandering and the power output consistent. I've found my cadence slowly start to decrease through the interval, and then the electronic brake starts to overcome my pedaling. I have to 'wake up' get on it a little to maintain the steady state.

I've done one MSP workout outside on a long hill. It felt real good. There is no electronic brake just gravity so if you start to fade a little you won't stop dead, just slow down a tad.

The weather is starting to improve and it's time to get outside more. My primary motivation for the moment is to just have fun. Training for now is sort of an insurance policy that supports the having fun aspect. It's enough to keep me fit but not so much that it is becoming a 'job'. I'll admit the past few years it was more task/goal oriented because that was the goal I'd set. Those goals may come back to the fore front shortly or may not.

The constant though is just the cycling itself and the fun, freedom, social, and empowerment aspects that it provides. It can be slightly expensive to get tooled up but cycling has got to be one of the best bang/buck activities there is. Running is probably the best but I don't do running.

One thing I've been thinking of is all the incredible riding around me that I haven't been doing. Places like
Fort Lewis
Carvin's Cove
Mountain Lake
Mt. Rodgers/Iron Mountain
Sherando
Arcadia
Harrisonburg
Douthat
Potts Mountain

All these places are within 2hrs of here but I have rarely been out to any except for a race in the past years.