You see every year the same thing happens. I tell myself, "I'm going to start training early this year, maybe I'll hit it in November!" Well, November rolls around and I think "I just need one more month off. Then December comes and its "After Christmas when work slows down..." Then January and February roll through and next thing I know I'm watching the snow melt and I've been on the bike only a handful of times. Luckily, I have a job that keeps me from ballooning up in the winter, so I stay in decent shape. However, the whole point to starting your training plan early is to keep your body in performance shape. Then, by this time, when you start getting into the meat of your training you won't have to deal with the soreness that comes with getting back to that point. Cycling is a beautiful sport for more reasons than one, but my favorite is the lack of pounding your body gets while running. Don't get me wrong, it has it's painful moments, especially at the beginning if you haven't ridden for a couple months. You see, most of your weight, while on a bike, is concentrated right in a very tender area. It takes some time to get that area readjusted to riding. The first ride is good, it's that second one that invokes images of Yosemite Sam running around with his tookus on fire yellin' "Ma biscuits are burnin', ma buscuits are burnin'!!"
A little Anatomy lesson for ya here. A lot of people wonder why my bike seat is so small, I can tell you it has nothing to do with any sort of weird fetish. It has everything to do with the way your pelvis is built. Cruiser bikes have those nice big poofy seats that look more like a computer chair than a bicycle seat. This is because the bike is built in a way that keeps your body upright, like sitting in a chair. It rotates your pelvis (pictured to the right, yeah that butterfly looking thin
g) into a more natural sitting position. Most of your weight, when riding a cruiser, is carried on your Ischium bones. They're number 3 in the picture. Those are the heinous little weapons you feel gouge into your legs when your kids (or someone else's) bounce around on your lap like their on a pogo stick. "Man, you got a bony butt", yup that's good ol' number 3. Now, riding a road bike, or a time trial bike is a little different. It's all about going fast. Riding upright is great if you just wanna cruise. But to go fast you need to avoid the wind, so your in a more aggressive position on the bike. Cyclists call it getting "aero". The Pro's spend hours in wind tunnels to try and find extra little ways of avoiding wind. Anyway, when you ride a road bike your pelvis tilts forward a bit so the weight is no longer carried by our friend, number 3. The job now falls to its neighbor number 4, or the Pubis or Pubic bone. Number 4 is not quite as well equipped to handle this job so it kind of revolts a bit until it gets used to it. The seat has to be smaller because there's less room for it in that area, well, I suppose you could use a bigger seat but the result would be A LOT more friction to your inner thighs. Let me tell you from marathon experience, the inner thigh is NOT a fun place to have friction burn. Also, there are a lot of nerves and vessels that run through that area so extra padding will put pressure on those and you can lose feeling in places like your toes or.... ahem... other areas that are close to that region of the pelvis. Some people call it "the junk". Too much pressure on those nerves over many years can also impair the functionality of the area, and we'd all like to avoid that, right? Let's try a little experiment to help you all visualize what I'm talking about. Ir your not already, go ahead and sit down in a chair with good posture. If you put your hands under your hind parts at the side you'll be able to feel your Ischium, where most of your weight is concentrated. Now bend over like your going to tie your shoes. Did your feel number 3 lift off your chair a bit? Now, if your not at work or in a public place, you can slide your hand just inside your thigh and feel the bone that your weight is now centered on. That's your pubic bone, or number 4. Now take your hand out, before someone thinks you're doing something gross. Now, depending on what you have on, you may want to go wash your hands....Now for the technical stuff... My first week of training didn't go quite as I would have liked it to. Again, it's technically base, so time on the bike and on the road running are crucial. It's time to get your body accustomed to exercise and start building that aerobic engine. My schedule calls for 6 workouts during the week with a rest on Wednesday. This section will get a little more detailed as the training goes on and I get more into the HR based workouts.
Monday - 3.5 mile run, easy. Just getting the legs used to the idea of running again. I went with my wife, Tina. She's a stud when it comes to running so I always end up running a little faster than I'd generally like because I need to keep up. Luckily, I made it through without puling something, which is a little victory in itself.
Tuesday - 30 minutes cycling on the trainer. I really have no way of knowing how far I go when I'm on the trainer. I just guesstimate that it's about 16 mph avg. Again it's just to get the legs moving. No adverse effects from the previous days run. I fully expected to be limping around whining all day, but I felt better than expected.
Wednesday - rest day. Still no soreness after my Monday run. Good thing!
Thursday - should have been a 2-3 mile run, but I worked until about 7pm and I really wasn't feeling like running afterward. Rough day in the Big Brown.
Friday - Should have been 30 minutes riding on the trainer with form work included, but another rough day compliments of Mother Brown, so I opted to sleep instead.
Saturday - 40 minutes riding on the trainer. I figured 8 miles, since I really was not feeling it that day. The legs were a bit on the dead side, so I just rode nice and easy. The worst thing you can do is overdo it early and end up taking more time off because your so freakin' sore.
Sunday - 35 minutes riding on the trainer. In the coming weeks I'll be adding a run in on this day as well. I felt a little better this day. Unlike Saturday, I was actually able to work up a bit of a sweat. Not a bad little end to the week. I'm looking forward to next week and bumping up the load a stitch.
Well that's it for this week. Thanks for the perusal. By the way, the frame pictured below is the weapon of choice for the triathlon. I won't be riding it like that, since that would be really slow and a bit painful. I'll post pictures every week so you can see the progress. Hopefully, in a couple weeks she'll be ready fo
r the road. It's going to be super fast!!! Oh and the picture of the pelvis is from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Skeletpelvis-pubis.jpg Just in case you were wondering... Thanks again and keep the rubber side down!
Instead of my 'junk' getting numb, it's usually my lady bits... but I get your point. Those first few rides are tough!
ReplyDeleteNice work Jimmy!!