Get in a groove and go with it.

I had huge plans for a great winter training season beginning in early November. In the first week of December, I finally got going with some sort of consistent training doing weight-lifting and some bike riding....and little to no running.

But sometimes you have to find a groove and go with it to make sure you are having fun while staying fit in the winter.

Now here I am nearing the end of January. I have a good, consistent program going, but it looks nothing like my original plan. In short, I have found a groove, and I'm going with it. 

I am lifting weights and making great gains in true muscular endurance, in terms of moderate weight and several sets of 20 in the midst of a high-tempo routine of supersets.   I do that weight lifting routine and it completely wears me out in about 45 minutes because it is essentially a double of the 206040 triathlon routine.  Then I ride my bike in the evening for about 20 miles in 70 minutes at  a decent moderate tempo (HR of 140 against max HR of 180).

This routine is not going to help me at all for the Pocatello 50 run! And it won't get me first out of the water in any swim.  But I'm happy doing it right now because it's a nice break and I get excited about the opportunity to do my workouts. I don't dread anything about my workouts right now, and I think that is a key to getting a good foundation built.

I do think that my bike leg will benefit from this, and that is my weakest link anyway. I'm really busting it on the leg curls and leg press, and I can see the progress each in week in terms of being able to lift the previous weeks amount of weights and reps. 

And when I'm on the bike trainer, I am really focusing on a good smooth cadence rather than mashing, and I can often get a good, long series of that improved cadence that speeds me up at the same effort level, and I KNOW that if I can do that kind of pedaling for 24 or 56 miles, my bike leg will be much faster this summer.  And priority one for this winter training season was to improve my bike leg.

I guess I won't be getting to the other priorities, at least til it warms up a bit.