Into The Pain Cave

I've spend a number of hard days in a row on the bike.  Not sure if that's a good idea or not.  Saturday and Sunday were both hard races.  Monday, I opted for an aerobic base workout instead of a true recovery workout.  OK, that wasn't a real hard day.  But it could have been easier.  Yesterday, I was probably still due for a recovery workout or aerobic base, but I opted for a hill-climb workout.  And today, I did yet another hard workout, Spinervals 33.0 - The Pain Cave.  I really want to focus my hard workouts in the middle of the week, so I can rest a little before weekend races.  If I hadn't done a hard workout today, I would have regretted it.

Time to enter The Pain Cave

This weekend really let me know where I stand among the other races in my category.  Basically, right in the middle.  And I don't think that's good enough.  I need to make sure my hard workouts are real hard.  I really need to work on everything:  raising my power output, raising my anaerobic threshold, and losing more weight.  I have some racing technique and strategy to work on, too, but that will have to come on the road.  I can't work on that on a trainer at home, so I need to focus on everything else.

Power and heart rate will come with choosing the right workouts.  I am going to start putting a little more thought into which workouts I do, and when.  And I need to get in some more time on the road on the weekends, particularly on those days when I'm not racing.

As for weight loss, I've had a pretty good couple weeks.  But I have a long way to go.  I started the year at a little over 190 lbs, and I'm now getting close to 180 lbs.  That's pretty good, and I'm happy, but I have so far to go.  My official goal is to hit 165 lbs, but truthfully, I would love to lose even more than that.  But for now, I'll stick to saying that my goal is 165.  If I actually get there, I can think about setting new goals.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar at my desk.  Boring.  Unfortunately, I got stuck finishing up some work, and needed to be here ready for a 1:00 meeting.  Damn.
• Dinner:  Another salad with chicken.

Exercise:

• 45 minutes on the elliptical.  4.6 miles.
• Spinervals 33.0 - The Pain Cave

Today's weigh-in:  181.8