Fun's over . . . back to training

I've spend a lot of time over the last few months doing weekend rides, and sporadically riding the trainer, while squeezing in some running and swimming when I could.  I've been focusing a lot on losing weight, and not as much on cycling training.  Riding is great, and time on the bike is always good, but it's not necessarily training.  Sometimes riding is just riding.  I guess it depends on what I'm doing.

I am a member of Spinervals.com, as mentioned here before.  I pay for the download-of-the-month membership, where for a small monthly fee, I get to select one video.  Today was the day for a new video.  I'm running out of Spinervals videos that I don't already own, but I was able to find one.  The one I selected today was Spinervals 35.0 - Cycling Technique Focus.

I just did the workout in my garage, right before I sat down to write this post.  The video was pretty nice.  It was pretty low-intensity, which is good sometimes.  Rather than the super-high-intensity workouts like the climbing intervals or threshold intervals I sometimes do, this was more focused on bike position, leg motion and relaxation.  The first set consisted of some high-speed spinning drills, spinning at a high speed while focusing on upper-body relaxation and smooth pedal strokes.  Next was a set of one-leg drills.  These drills have you clip out of the pedals with one foot and pedal with the other, concentrating again on a smooth pedal stroke all the way around.  You really need to think about putting pressure on the pedals in a circle, not just pushing down.  After doing one leg for 30 seconds, we'd switch to the other leg and do the same thing.  The third set involved quickly switching between sitting and standing, and keeping a smooth cadence throughout.  Finally, we did a another super-high-cadence set, really thinking about keeping the upper body still and not bouncing around on the saddle.

Oh, and I rode to work today.  Great day for it.  It's much cooler this week than it has been lately, so the afternoon ride home was actually pretty pleasant.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Ridiculous.  I went for a walk during lunch, thinking I was doing the right thing, and somehow I walked right into a Qdoba.  Got a pork burrito.
• Dinner:  A mango jalapeno sausage with peppers and onions.

Exercise:

• Ride to and from work.  About 27 miles total.
• Walk during lunch, but I think the stop at Qdoba canceled that out.
• 50 minute ride on the trainer.

Today's weigh-in:  174.8