Strictly Business

Wasting no time in addressing my New Year's goals, Erik is helping me get down to business.

For starters, he's helping me address my "improve my power to weight ratio goal", which I will address using a two pronged approach - lose weight and increase power. I'm active on a regular basis, so the trick will be to start training smarter and eating (and, um, drinking) more responsibly. This is where Erik comes in. He is helping design a program for me to increase my power. I'll be challenged enough breaking out of my comfy "I do what I feel like when I feel like it" mode to training with a purpose, it will be nice to have someone that has experience and knowledge to lend a hand to help me make the best use of my time and effort. Besides having first hand experience with regimented training and with the Transrockies, Erik will be particularly helpful in this area because of the level of attention he devotes to these things.

My program will be a work in progress, changing as we learn more about my physical limits and as 'unavoidable' interruptions (work) and obstacles (Billy Talent concert on January 24!) arise. To kick things off, we started with a power test on Friday night (because this is exactly what everyone wants to do at the end of a workweek). The objective of the power test was to determine the maximum effort (measured in watts) I could sustain over a thirty minute period. Yeah, it's almost as much fun as it sounds. Based on this information, Erik will be able to develop some guidelines within which I will train. I haven't really put myself to the test like this for over a year, so it was a bit of a stab in the dark estimating what my power might be. Being the energy conservationist that I am, I initially underestimated myself, but I think we were still able to acheive a reasonable estimate with which we can work. We estimate that my power to weight ratio is somewhere in the range of 3.1-3.2. My target will be to move that closer to 4.0. In the next two months, my specific objectives will be to lose 10 pounds and to see if pointed training can move my sustainable power upward.

I was also able to work on my mental objectives this weekend - "learn to enjoy riding in adverse conditions". On Saturday, I rode my single speed outside with some of Erik's riding clubbies. The temperature was 'great' for January, hovering around the zero mark and there is some ice and snow out there, as is typical for Calgary in the winter. I would normally take these three factors as reasons to ride inside, but I decided to pull up my socks and get out and ride. After all, Erik and five of his friends thought it was ride worthy weather. Turned out to be a fantastic ride, just over two hours. No wipe outs on the ice and I wasn't even cold. Who knew winter could be so much fun on a bike? We followed it up with a ride outside on Sunday, after a good ride indoors. It was a bit windy and I was a bit grumpy, but it was nice to get some fresh air. Based on the last three days of riding under Erik's program, this is going to be a tough couple of months (at least), but at least I know its not going to be strictly business.