Staying Motivated

Okay. I know another pic of the Big D. But - he clearly shows what I have been dealing with the past 2 days - athletes hating the rain, not wanting to get on the TRAINER ^%#$^&%, and getting into soul food.....do you have any idea how many doggie treats there are nowadays??? Go get a dog and you will see, it is almost as bad as the cereal aisle.

Even my dog won't go outside and remains tied to his fav spot on the sofa. Yeah the rain sucks BUT I am all about training inside. I know there are a handful of us "freaks" who do like training inside. I absolutely believe in it - it is controlled, it is quality and yeah I finally confident enough to sign a 3-5 yr lease on an Indoor Training Center... so I must believe in indoor training, or something. Prices finally working in my favor. Rollers, in my opinion, are pure fun. You have to focus. Depending on what kinda rollers you have - some require lot more work. It is nice to have a bigger diameter drum set just to spin. Not build up any lactic acid. Then the smaller drum rollers you actually have to work. I swear by the Computrainer; though I could never afford one when I was a racer. Now that I coach and make more than a $20 split from a bike race... I have plenty of Ctrainers ready to go in my studio. But seriously, training inside is SO valuable. When I was in my best form - I did most all my training inside. Yes 3-5 hr endurance rides were common. People look at me when I say this and FREAK is all over their face - but sure isn't the first time I have seen this look coming back at me. Mainly I get this from my juniors when the repeats on Hunter Statiopn go to 10. Though that look I think means more I wanna kill you. I actually used to try and break the 3 hr time limit for 100 miles on my rollers - I did this enough times that I didn't have to keep proving I could do it. All to a little, man what do you call it now, cassette player. I use to have music set out to last 3-4 hrs and just swap out. Only got off to pee and get more hydration.

Yeah I know it is raining and it seems like it has been raining for mos. But get creative. Having time to listen to music is good; I don't usually do this when I am out on the road. Safety thing. I never have enough time to listen to good music. Some will argue with me that music is cheating - but I sure did alot of great hi cadence work at 130-140 rpm listening to a beat. Plus Dave Matthews used to play in the house I lived in, in grad school, so that was kinda fun too.... that is another story. I just saw the DMB the other day on TV and Carter is still the drummer - if Carter ever reasd this I still have the socks he gave me. Must be a bike racer thing - keeping socks.

The workouts you can do are quality and to the point. Which you should be doing all the time - but nice to reinforce this inside. One of the main reasons I have been trying to locate space to open a training center is to provide the athletes with what they need. I live in Reston - talk about NOT happening for training - I have about a 5 minute stretch of open road/if that long, and this is MAX. You cannot get fast on a bike without steady state - you know that gamjams ?? - why train at threshold?? Well you need train more than a 5' stretch. 3 x 20' at FTP should be on the boards now that we moving from crit May to stage race mode.

So ath letes' - don't get caught on camera eating your Pup-Peronies and Jerkie Treats and Marrow Bones......Tour of Mt Nebo coming up very soon and those 2 -3 extra lbs can hurt. Just suck it up and turn on tunes and make it fun.