Lots of Tempo

This past week was all about long tempo efforts. On Tuesday I had 2 x40 minutes with a goal of about 290. I did these inside on the Cycle-Ops Indoor 400. With the right music and some newspapers and magazines I was right at the 288 on each with cadence around 90. The next effort was on Friday. It was a one hour effort at 300. The weather was wonderful so I hit the local crit course at Ault Park where there is a one kilometer loop that if ridden clockwise you never have to stop. I did a few warmup laps and then started. I ended up with about 34 laps, 1800" of climbing, cadence in the low 80's and HR average at 150 or about 81% of max or 93% of LTHR. Sounds boring to just ride that loop but it is hard to find a continuous one hour non-stop ride without having to ride pretty far from home. With the other walkers and joggers in the park and the ability to really concentrate on power and not having to worry about traffic its actually an ideal place to ride. I've also started to ramp up the weight training. While I keep it going year-round I do extend the time and times per week for the next 4-5 months. I've been incorporating more core/foundation exercises (not just abs but everything from the neck through he hamstrings), working the legs outside the saggital plane, plenty of balance work, upper body including dips, chin-ups and pull-ups and usually 100 pushup in sets of 40-30-30. I do use the handgrips so I can get very low and extend the range of motion. Ideall y the range of motion is extended on all exercises from squats to lunges to curls to dips. No sense join halfway and/or using bad form. This is a good time of the year to evaluate what went well this past season and work on making any changes in your training schedule. Its also time to start setting goals for 2013. We're already thinking about the state tt, the national senior games in late July and possibly track nationals and/or masters nationals. There is no off season.