I’ve started riding with some of my teammates again and wow, one of them has really stepped up to the plate. His climbing is MUCH better than it was last year and his time for the 10mi time trial is now 2 minutes faster than mine (we were usually about the same before). It sort of scared me a little bit — I’m concerned that I have not improved enough and that I may not be as ready for next year as I’d hoped.
However, the season is a long ways away and I have lots of time to work on my weaknesses. Time trialing is definitely one of my weaknesses, and since I don’t really enjoy it, I don’t practice it all that often. This is where I end up being a little confused as to what I should do… should I invest extra time to become a better time trialist or stick with what I’m good at and focus on the road races and crits? Or even… should I build up a time trial bike or spend that money on a PowerTap?
I’m leaning toward spending some time optimizing my TT position, riding in that position regularly, but not going so far as to really worry about race results. Monetarily, I think a PowerTap would be the wisest investment as it would allow me to get more out of my training regardless of discipline. Since my actual training plan is pretty much made for me, I don’t think I will make any major changes in terms of TT training. I guess my outlook is… I want to do well, but TTs just aren’t my thing.
In other news, I hit the gym for the first time this year. I took it extremely easy so that I won’t be too sore come tomorrow. I’d like to really ease into it this time and avoid having a week of soreness. I know a lot of folks don’t advocate weight training for cyclists, but I think it helped my knees out last season and maybe even helped my climbing a bit. It makes me feel stronger anyway.
Who knows…
Posted by Chris 