Making the best of things

Posts are coming pretty consistently at once a week, not bad I guess. I hope all you guys are nice and warm down south, I'm not jealous, ok maybe a little but only because the teacher's assistant union from Brock (CUPE) are supposed to be going on strike starting Monday, if the strike lasts 10 days I'm gonna snap. No I won't, but I'll be very sad that I didn't get to spend that time in some warm weather. That's a lie too, I'm not soft, I'll deal with what I'm given.

I'm pretty cooked right now and it feels good, great ride today with Csikos, met up with Etzl and Sheldon and cruised around St. Kitts, stopped for coffee (of course!) before heading out to Smithville at a pretty good clip. We were going to make it a 2h ride but it started getting a little nicer out than the snow storm we headed out in so we extended the ride to about 110km. Big effort taking pulls on Pt. Davidson into the headwind, twas fun indeed.

So far 19 hours this week, after tomorow it should be 22-24 depending on my softness, for once I might actually go through with it and head out with the St.CCC. Oh yeah, I almost forgot! Motorpacing workout on Tuesday was awesome; 5x10min followed by some sprint work. Why do this behind a car you ask when I can do it by myself? Because riding behind a car makes you feel faster, therefore in better shape, need I say more?

So Wednesday I needed to get about 3 hours in but it was supposed to be at a nice easy pretty much recovery pace, planned out a route and a meeting point but then the wind picked up, the rain started and the temperature dropped 5 degrees. Let me explain myself why not going out in that was a good decision, training against the elements is arguably the best kind of training you can do. Mentally you feel tough, you feel like a badass, because you are. Everyone can agree that training weakens you and it's the rest that follows the training that makes you stronger, the deeper the hole you dig the higher the mound of dirt you have to stand on once you crawl out. Well, the tougher the elements, the bigger the shovel you have to dig that hole, you feel me? The analogy makes sense in my head so let's go with it. So if you're goal for the ride is to hurt then don't bitch out when it comes to harsh weather, the body will adapt. But if you're goal is to cruise, chill, recover or whatever you wanna call it then heading out in harsh weather seems counter productive, example, try recovering in a 40km/h headwind.

I've come to realise that my gym membership was a waste of money, the only thing I use is a set of dumbbells and the chin up bar, the olympic bar too for some squatskis but there's usually a line up so I don't bother. I do, however, enjoy laughing at meat heads, especially hearind them speak about how intense their workouts are. Seeing that intense workout in action is probably as entertaining as it gets; bicep curl a piece of iron for 18 seconds, pump arms in the air in different directions, fire a couple texts, call up their girlfriend or mother, hit up facebook and a sip or two from their protein shake before getting back at er. Then again, some pro guy can read this and be like: "24h week, yeah I remember my days as a cadet". Well screw you man cause I'm tired.

Thoughts everywhere on this post, could be a good thing. Maybe I should stop writting so much and post up some pictures like I've been saying I would countless times just like my foam roller routine and daily yoga sessions... yeah, maybe.

Already been a week!?

Not much has been happening since the last post but since I'm training now and it's been a week I figure I should do some sort of update.

I woke up Friday morning feeling a little more tired than I would have thought, the only sort of workout I got done was shoveling the driveway. I was good because of the crazy amount of snow we got but a little short, after that I was a zombie for the rest of the day. Saturday... well let me tell you about Saturday. First 5+ hour ride of the year, I wasn't feeling it right from the start, I was enjoying turning the cranks over but I wasn't getting anywhere fast. First bonk of the year also, but that's what pastrie shops and coffee are for, it was quite the recovery, enough to get me home anyways.

Sunday I was still feeling it so I got out with the dog for a couple hours in the Short Hills, ran a bit, walked a bit, no push ups or pull ups this time. I wasn't feeling like Rocky.

So that was the end of my reading week, this week flew by and now I'm up to my eye balls in homework that needs to get done by Monday. Today was supposed to be circle route #2 but there's no way that's going down considering I have to work tonight and tomorow night as well. I've got a paper to submit by tonight so I've got to get that done before heading in to work. It would have been good to get in a really long ride today because I've only got about 8 hours in so far this week.

Club ride tomorow is looking like a good idea, gotta get home in time to do some mathematics.