So I've decided to up my game, cycling-wise.

This year I really cranked up the distance, did a couple of races, and discovered Strava (which meant doing intervals, of a sort, by attacking Strava segments). I'm at my lowest weight I've seen since my 20s and my threshold power is up 20-30W.

But notwithstanding those successes, I can do better - but it needs to become more structured, especially over the winter.

So I'm doing 3 things:

1. Buying a Computrainer;

2. Doing a weight training program (per Cyclist Training Bible);

3. Doing a structured, phased training program (per Cyclist Training Bible and Racing and Training with a Power Meter)

Last night I installed the Fit Plan and Garmin Training Centre plugins for SportTracks. Fit Plan is a workout scheduling program and GTC handles workout creation and export to a Edge 705 (so it beeps at the right time for the right reasons). The two plugins talk to each other, so workouts created in GTC become part of the workout menu for Fit Plan, and scheduled workouts in Fit Plan will automatically export to GTC. All I need is for GTC to create erg files for the CompuTrainer and I'll have an integrated solution.

I found a workout program in the Coggan book that adresses some of my known shortfalls so I'm going to follow that as my Base/Build winter program, with a Race peak mid April (in case I decide to do Paris to Ancaster again) another Race peak 1 July (as midsummer) and a final Race peak Sept 1 (for Tour de Force assuming I'm still in Ontario)

Very much learning as I go, and I'm starting to understand why coaching services cost so much - this is a lot of work.

DG