You can probably figure out what the Training and Taper stands for, but Temptation… that one you will have to wait on till the end of the blog. Actually, I’m not sure either what the “temptation” is for, but it seemed like it would make the title more sexy – what can I say, the competition for readers in the blogger world is fierce, I’ve got to do something ☺!

Sounds much more “medical and ominous” than just saying “cramps”doesn’t it? Well, while I was experiencing it, ominous wouldn’t even have come close. Something like excruciating, nightmarish pain; completely off the charts would have been a bit more accurate. I simultaneously had both hamstrings, my left quad, and my right calf all sieze up like someone pulled the emergency cord on a bullet train. In my 10 years of riding, I never had a full blown cramp – only slight cramp type feelings that were able to “work out” by spinning in a lower gear.

Training with power is the ultimate way to insure your forward progress in cycling. While I am a huge supporter of heart monitor training, and I believe there is no more important training tool than a cadence monitor for both indoor and outdoor cycling, the power meter brings the best of all worlds together. With power we are measuring the “real work” we are doing, the actual energy produced by our efforts. After all, it isn’t how much our body is suffering (reflected by the heart rate monitor), or how fast we spin the pedals (reflected by our RPMs) that determines how fast we go, or how well we climb the next hill. Power is the energy we can produce to propel us forward. Hence, the power meter also accounts for the resistance on the flywheel when indoors, and the force being applied to the pedals when faced with gravity and gearing when outdoors. This, and only this will measure our performance progress.

It was easily the most beautiful day in Pittsburgh in 2009. Temperature a perfect 70 degrees, little to no wind, sunny skies, and a group of riding buddies all psyched to ride. The beauty though was not limited to just the weather. My daughter Nina was riding as strong as I’ve seen her. Her “Cycling Fusion” training – of 70% indoors and 30% outside – was proving to be the secret sauce we’ve been talking about for months now. She was fast on the flats, solid on the descents, and a monster on the climbs. I was a proud pappa.

… and the what? … and the psyched, the sore, the sorry and the satisfied. Let’s start with the psyched. It was just me and my Buddy Bill again (see my previous post) on my outside training ride. I’m always psyched to ride with Bill. We still had to wear arm & leg warmers, base layers, long fingered gloves and the works as spring is not as much “Springing” here as it is Sputtering. This week we’ve had snow and consistently low temperatures all week… and of course our typical gray Pittsburgh ambiance; not very motivating to say the least. However, this is a “proof of concept” as much as it is a charity ride right – having horrid conditions that prevent me from doing real training outside is why Cycling Fusion was inspired in the first place. This is the exact condition that we want to use to prove that we can indeed get ready for something of the magnitude of the Giro by using our combined indoor/outdoor training principals.

Actually, my butt isn’t as sore as I thought I would be. I’m sure it’s the very methodical 10% increase in volume and intensity that I’ve started since the beginning of my training using Heart Zones training methods, and a variety of training tools to not only monitor my progress, but also to “keep me honest”.

Sure it was sunny on Saturday, that wasn’t our team training day. What’s worse than training in the cold? How about training in the cold, wet and dreary. These are the days of early spring in the Pittsburgh area. You can see a short video of our ride Sunday by clicking here, or view the embedded one at the bottom of this post.

This is my buddy, Bill. Everyone should have a Buddy Bill. Bill is the kind of buddy that I want to be to my friends. He’s the guy that is always there for you, ready to help, never expecting anything in return, and genuinely interested in what you do. He’s the guy that considers sacrifice just something that happens along the way when you are somebody’s buddy. He’s the guy that will always point out your strengths, overlook your weaknesses, and find a way to make you feel way better about yourself than you probably should. I can’t help but smile when we are together. That’s my Buddy Bill.

I have to confess, I did not go to the 2009 Heart Zones™ Master Trainer conference to partake in the blatant doping and mad consumption of performance enhancers that went on there. I just went to secure my Master Trainer certification and make sure I’m well equipped to train others how to teach the Heart Zones™ system for training indoor cycling. WOW, was I in for a surprise.

OK, I admit it, I’m an obsessive jock. All my earliest memories involve some sort of sport. It was baseball, football, wrestling and diving when I was a kid. My jockular puruits turned to tennis and golf when I hit college (even the football team’s water boy was bigger than me at Penn State). Outside of being “vertically challenged”, I guess the individual sports appealed to the control freak in me. Consequently, I have always been accustomed to training and improving in one sport or another. Cycling and especially racing bikes (MTB and road) however, has challenged me more than all the others. Only wrestling comes close to the cardio vascular requirements of cycling, and only tennis even remotely approaches the stress the legs must endure.