Shoulders over Legs and Spin

Originally my plan was to hit legs today with some weights, but since I ran 6.5 miles on Monday, I wanted to give them a little more time to recover.  They were pretty tight yesterday morning, but ironically they loosened up after yesterday's lunch ride.  Nonetheless, I opted to work shoulders instead. 

My shoulder workout was pretty good today.  Although I only got 4 exercises in for them, the high rep sets plus going beyond my "breaking point" on several of the sets got them pretty worked.  I was happy with it.  Considering I felt hungry when I woke up and only drank coffee before working out, it was good.  I couldn't wait to have my Met-Rx when I got home though. 

For lunch time, I do plan on hitting spin (another reason I opted to skip legs).  I haven't been spinning much since I picked up running as part of my training regimen, so I'm looking forward to getting back in there. 

Leg Fatigue, Back Day and Lunch Ride

Yesterday, I opted to run during lunch for my cardio, and it was nice to just be able to run alone where I manage my own pace.  I still pushed it here and there and ended up running 6.5 miles.  My legs felt okay after albeit a little tired, but when I got up this morning, I could definitely feel them more.  My calves felt especially tight, but I am still able to walk.  It doesn't hurt anywhere near like it did when I first ran a few weeks ago.  Some extra strength Tylenol this morning should help.

I made it to the gym with Lisa this morning and I chose not to do any progressive resistance training.  Every exercise was merely the same weight where I tried to do as many reps as possible each set with minimal rest in between.  Because of all the reps, I was only able to do 4 exercises for back, but I did work my lower abs and lower back also. 

For lunch today, I'm planning to ride my bike.  I have my wheels on my BMC again, so I'll be taking this bike to work.  I'm not sure what route we're taking, but I doubt it'll matter given my legs aren't going to be too strong. 

Yesterday's Ride, Today's Chest and Lunch Cardio

For the weekend training, I rode down to Poway from my house with Vin and got 68 miles + 3000 feet of climbing.  We started out fairly slow to warm up, but got our average up to 20.7 mph by the time we got down to the Camp Pendleton McDonald's.  Trying to find our way through Rancho Santa Fe and getting a little lost, our average dropped to 19.4, but it was still a great workout.  I didn't mind working up front a lot to keep the pace up as I was interested in earning my Easter eats.  Vin came in on occasion and helped keep the pace up as well.  Despite the ride, I never felt like my legs got too worked, so it was a good ride.

I did contemplate on whether I wanted to work out this morning given I've been resting more, but I felt a little guilty from what I ate over the weekend.  Curiously, I was a little hungry this morning when I woke up.  I did end up going in and getting my chest worked out and it was pretty good.  I stayed light and didn't really pyramid up and got 5 chest exercises in plus lower back and abs. 

For today's cardio, I'm contemplating getting a run in but I may spin as well.  I will be off on Friday where I won't be able to get a run in then, so I may do so earlier this week. 

Race Analysis, Arms and Lunch Run

Once again, the same thing happened during last night race where at some point half-way through, I started to just fall off the back and for the life of me, I can't figure out why.  It's never a matter of feeling like I can't breathe or where I start to cramp.  I just can't keep up.  I did notice my HR was up for a while, but I've held an elevated HR for a lot longer previously.  I think I just have to concede that I am not in crit racing shape and maybe there's just not much I can do about it.  I hate the thought of feeling so helpless though.  Lisa, who came to watch, said I looked like I was doing better.  I'm not sure what that really means, but maybe there's some improvement from week-to-week...or maybe I'm just kidding myself.  The next race is in two weeks, so maybe the break will help. 
 

This morning, I was so tempted to just stay in bed since Lisa wasn't feeling to well.  I did manage to drag my ass up and get in the gym, but it took a while to get going.  I did punish my arms (mostly biceps) for yesterday's sad race performance and finished it off with a core workout.

I will be running today at lunch time to keep the running up.  Madison won't be running with us, so I'll have to find a way to challenge myself.  I would try to break last week's record on my own, but I just don't know how to pace myself well enough.  Maybe I'll borrow Lisa's GPS and track this run, but I'm afraid it'll only tell me I'm slow here too.

Morning Spin and Lunch Time Shoulders

After yesterday's ride, I liked how my legs felt resulting from the rest I gave them on Monday so I thought I'd go with an earlier spin this morning.  This way, they can be rested more for tomorrow night's crit.  I never felt like I was blowing up yesterday, so I'm hoping that tomorrow will be more of the same.  My spin this morning was a lot lighter than what it would be like had I joined the spin class at lunch.  I still worked up a pretty good sweat though.

At lunch time today, i'll opt to do my shoulder workout at the gym at work.  I did get a good shoulder workout two weeks ago when I did this, so I'm hoping for more of the same today.  After this, it's all rest until the race. 

Diet, Back and Lunch Ride

I'm doomed.  Lisa seems to not want to help me too much on my diet, and I can't resist when she offers me things that aren't exactly in lined with what I want to eat.  I didn't eat much in terms of quantity last night, but I could have eaten better.  I'm trying to only go down to 3 Met-Rx a day (vs. four) but she wants to give me more food as a result where I wonder if this is a good plan after all.  I guess we'll see.

For my back training today, it was back to very light and very high reps.  I'm trying to not train heavy since Lisa seems to think my shoulders are getting bigger, so I'm wondering if even the light training is getting my muscles to respond by growth.  I don't want to get bigger.   I also got my core training in today.

For the lunch ride, I'm going to propose the double back bay route with points that we did before.  I'm bringing my Cervelo so I won't be able to see my power numbers, but one of these days I'll swap out the brake pads on it so I can interchange the wheels between both bikes.  I'm interested to see how my power numbers will be on the Cervelo.  I hope I don't get blown out the back today. 

Perpetual Decline and Today's Training

It seems no matter what I do, I just can't seem to get out of the rut that I'm in.  This is with regard to weight loss, strength training, and just improving in cycling.  For the most part, progress is either stale or actually reversed, and to be honest, I don't know what to do.  I've received several suggestions from friends about what I can do, but I can't seem to get behind any of them because they conflict with my general ideas of training and dieting.  This conflict isn't necessarily where I believe they're wrong and I'm right.  It's more about getting myself to go against my grain.  I'm trying to adapt some aspects by training less here and there, but the results are showing that none of this is really working.  Take yesterday's riding for example:  It should have been an ideal time to at least match some of my top times in certain segments, but once again, Strava is showing me as having a big fat zero.  I look at my times going up certain hills and segments, and they are way off and show a trend of decline.  Okay, so I drank a bunch on Saturday and didn't sleep until late, but I don't expect it to reflect that poorly on my riding.  I'm just tired of making excuses as I try and analyze what reasons are causing me to do poorly.  If I were to have done everything right and STILL performed bad, then that would even be more reason to be annoyed with my progress.  In ways, I think that's why I'm losing the motivation to continue to try and excel.  I don't think I'll even be close to ready enough to have a good outing for the L'Etape in a few weeks, but I'll still give it my best whatever that is.

For this morning, I once again woke up where I could have gone to the gym...but didn't.  I felt tired from yesterday's ride still (which didn't use to hamper me previously), so I decided I'd give my legs a little rest and will opt to train on chest at lunch time.  I was going to try and change my schedule around to where I can train my legs to improve their strength, but how can I do that when they feel less than 100% from the riding? I may have to reschedule my whole training program all together and find a way to make everything fit if that's even possible.  At least for today, all I have to worry about is weight training.   I hope it's at least a good workout.