Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Manners

AM: 1:25 Endurance Ride W/40 Minutes Tempo, HR 175

Lovely training today. Not long though, more specific. After a warm up outside in the nice temps I struggled to bring my bike inside for my tempo. I would prefer to stay outside but now that I finished reading my book by Chris Carmichael, titled The Ultimate Ride, I see the need to do tempo work in a specific fashion. The way things are in P-Town is its either stop lights for the flats or hills if I want to avoid traffic. On the bike the point of the tempo is to maintain HR. To do this running is easy but on the bike stops kill your HR and Downhills do the same. Carmichael suggests doing uninterrupted sessions on the trainer. If I had more time I would stay outside and ride to a decent spot but with limited time during the week its all good to hop on the trainer for specific work. It was a great session and I felt awesome.

As for Chris Carmichael, he has made a great career for himself out of his training system but it seems like he just took running principals and applied them to cycling. His programs are like running schedules except a little longer. I am doing 2 tempos this week and a long ride, recovery day, 2 endurance day, and some fartlek. If anyone reads this that thinks Carmichael's system is rubbish, please let me know because I am buying into it and going full tilt until I am back running.

I bought the new Passion Pit album today, "Manners", and I am very happy with it. Great tunes and great vibes. It has met my expectations and I am pleased. The music was my company for the tempo and it went by so quickly. Happy days.

Love Kel

2 comments:

  1. I've never specifically used Carmichael's techniques but can confidently say that cycling when used as a cross training tool in a running program can lead to positive results. Years ago, after my college days and several injuries I took up cycling and cross trained into 24:40 5 mile road race shape. Today's scientific knowledge and your current plan should put you in the direction you want to go to. Carmichael should know a thing or two with Olympic and Tour de France credentials. Enjoy your blog and best of luck!

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  2. Thanks David. Always good to get positive reinforcement!
    Kel

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