Cool. Good luck at whatever races you do.

ha, yeah. Me too. But that mindset leaves me with this sort of medium-fitness plateau. I still ride quite a bit out of habit. Not enough to really be fast, but not un-fit, per se. A bad place to be, IMO.

I have to state these sort of breaks out loud so I stick to them. Otherwise I get the nagging "you ought to be riding" feeling, which keeps me in on the aforementioned plateau. Gotta drop way out of it so I can jump back in on my terms.

I'm going to be on the east coast a bit during the spring, maybe I'll jump into some ECCC races

I've been a big wuss lately. No lifting, 12 hours/week if that. A lot of commitments outside of 60hour/week lab means 12 hours is a luxury...

I'm contemplating between cooking next week's meal or go for a 60 min SST ride. I'm going with the former for now. I'll see how i fare doing SST on my rollers. This should be fun.

Head down south and hit up some ACCC races (I go to school in Baltimore)! Appalachian state looks really fun/hard.

I'll be honest I screw around through the fall and winter though I never really sit down and do nothing - my kids keep me active but I also ride the spin bike, weight train, keep generally active so I don't think the fitness ever really dips. I am also a heat rider - I don't like and don't do well in the cool/cold weather so I tend to start getting ready a little later than most.
One thing about the way it goes for me is mentally I can turn it on and off very easily, it is like a switch. When the time comes that I know it is time to get to work I can do it very easily I don't have to mentally ramp myself up.

Head down south and hit up some ACCC races (I go to school in Baltimore)! Appalachian state looks really fun/hard.

Awesome post!

When in the boston area you are, visit me you must.

We'll grab a meal/drink whatever. If you need a place to crash, you're always welcome here. We have multiple comfy air mattresses and a couch!

Crappy erg workout tonight. Starting to get mentally burnt out on that stupid machine. Thinking it nay be tine to start phasing it out. I think my time would be better spent riding/recovering.

Day off yesterday and day off today. (ordered new bars, heehee)

Mix it up crosstraining. Do light weight circuits.

Something along the lines of this: https://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...edded_physique

But with lighter weight and dumbbells. Skip the exercises that are more technical.

Something like:

10 push presses
10 lunges
10 bent over row
10 floor presses
10 overhead squats

90 sec break. Do this 3x-4x.

Pick a light weight to start with. You're probably going to be limited by the floor press.

For some reason, I have some mental block form using weights. I've never done it before, and I feel embarrassed kind of. Free weights "scare" me (especially squats) and I'm intimidated by all the football looking guys in the weight room. I sound like such a tool, but it is the truth. I may try running those 2 days a week instead of erging. I liked the erg, but it is starting to make me sick just thinking about it.

Please note the 'we' includes his female roomates

I agree with rtc. Start phasing out the rowing. Start with light weights, high reps, and work your way into a power rotation for a few weeks before tapering off in preparation for the season.

What I just listed is basically a cardio circuit but with a little bit of resistance.

You can use 10 lb dumbbells. You're not doing squats in the traditional sense at all. Overhead squats are done holding the dumbbells over your head and bending down till your thighs are about parallel to the ground. They train your full body and you're not loading your spine. If you feel weirded out, you can drop the weights without risk of injury unless you drop the db on your head.

Tbh, I'm reevaluating everything I'm doing right now as well after I got injured on sunday when I slipped during a lighter weight back squat. Now I'm going to be suffering for the next month or so. I'm back to doing weights with reps in the 10+ range because the injuries are just not worth it. Give the complexes a chance.

And when they're not working out hard or in season, some of those huge football looking guys are pretty helpful to ask for help if you're trying to learn how to do something. I do mean some though.

Duder I would be your gym friend

Thanks for the offer I have epic amounts of family (and I mean a Roman Catholic Italian sort of epic) in Boston that might ban me for life if I don't stay there though. But yes, we need to meet up next time I'm in town.

Do they run any yoga or pilates on your campus?

Has some benefits over weights:

* Core specific benefits
* Good for flexibility
* Compatible with a cycling training regime year round (ie. I can still do yoga and pilates on heavy training days without problem - it introduces no training stress in my experience)
* Provides good functional strength (ie. strength you can use in day to day life without bulking up)
* Likely to be hot girls rather than hulking jocks in the class

After spending the last four weeks getting the little black line all the way down to -46, and then taking a few days off, it's nearly at the 0 set point again. And the legs don't hurt, nor do they feel fatigued in the slightest. It might be time to start getting back on it. I might just do 1x20 at lunch.

Appalachian State is HOT HOT HOT! Mikey, show tthis to your team. It's legendary in FCS circles.

I can't figure out how to embed the video so here's the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVENWl8uBeg

Woah.

My wife almost went to grad school at App State. Whew.

I dunno, in my class yesterday I was between two super-cute Spanish-speaking tattooed boys...they were skinny, though.

But yeah, +1 on the yoga to mix things up. Plus the female/male ratio is usually around 10:1.

If you are interested in weights though I wouldn't let your fears about other people get in the way. I completely understand where you're coming from, but my experience has been that the guys in the gym are very polite and helpful (and no, not just cause I'm the only girl in there, they're nice to each other!) and are usually too busy checking themselves out to notice what anyone else is doing. That last bit is true in most areas of life.

Did another skills session with my coach today...three people fell down, so that was exciting. Gym at lunch.

plenty of strong but clueless youths in the gym. There was a guy clanking the stack on every rep yesterday doing pulldowns.

I would ask one of the older meatheads. Someone who spends a bit of time at the various stations. You can tell who has been gym-ing for years.

One common denominator among the clueless is the propensity to always lift so much weight that even ten reps is a struggle.

My gym has a group of female bodybuilders that are regulars. They are very nice to me when I need to work in my sets around theirs. Probably because they know they could kick my ass.

I'm afraid App State is going to wax the Gators on Saturday..