Heads Down Thumbs Up

Ho Ho Ho..

Wow everyone seems to mention how fast this year has gone. This year for me has included moving into the city, doing the least amount of riding for the past 7 or so years, starting some more uni study (idiot), and enjoying time spent with my wonderful girlfriend Lauren (who reads this blog..) and some great friends.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I had some goals to set in the past week or so, and one of them is to get myself onto a structured training plan for next year. After jumping from coach to coach for the past couple of weeks I have found one I am happy with and am willing to give him a shot.... meaning, just do everything he says and hope for the best!!

So what does the plan look like? Secret!.... no not really, just detailed. The focus for last week and this week coming is basically to get some fitness back before a long slog of base training over Jan and Feb. I have also put on about 6-8kg so this 2 week interum was also used to kick start some weight loss.

In short, 2 weeks of riding with a high cadence and distances of around 2.5-3.5 hours on the bike. For me, high cadence means high heart rate... so trying to keep a balance of watching my Cadence at 90-120 and my heart rate sit at about 150-160, but trying to ride non stop for 3 hours.

 The road bike is the easiest tool for this job. This is where the saying Heads Down Thumbs Up comes from. The cool little game that kids love to play when their stressed teacher needs 5 minutes to organise the next literacy or numeracy activity. I'd throw in a picture of my 27 year 2's playing away but it's not appropriate.

Whilst riding on the road bike and keeping cadence/HR set, I seem to change gears alllllllllllllllllllllllll the time. Hence using my thumbs constantly!!!! I did 3 river loops this week, one of them extending out to 65km and sent me riding from my unit at South Bank out to Jindalee and back. That's alot of Heads Down and Thumbs Up.

I woke up to a beautiful morning earlier in the week and set off for a long slog, but this time on the mountain bike. Keeping a high cadence the mountain bike is all about fire road... and usually ones that head Up, Up, Up... Head for the hills...

River loop from home, over Cootha via channel 9 trail, up Mt Cootha Road, down Highwood Road, 30km of Gap Creek fire road (with a few sneaky single tracks to break it up), back up highwood road, down Mt Cootha on the road, round the rest of the river loop, cafe stop, home)

I get xmas and boxing day off, then back on the road bike again for a couple of days. I am doing a big Southside Epic with Derek on Wednesday and will probably shove my rest day in on Thursday. More high Cadence riding this week then I start my Base training. How exciting!

Merry Christmas!