Not a whole lot going on right now. Tonight is the 2nd installment of the 3-race Cyclocrunk series. Looks like it’s gonna be muddier than last week. It should be interesting since I offered a nice helping of extra credit to one of my classes if any of the students want to show up and watch or participate in the race. They seemed excited. I’m not sure if it was excitement for the race or excitement at the potential for free beer (the race promoter takes the accumulated entry money and opens a bar tab with it) at Young Ave. Deli next week…

It should be painful. Yesterday I started the first of many weight training sessions for the off-season, and, even though I kept the weight stupidly light, today my legs are uber-sore. My goal is to get into the weightroom 2-3 mornings per week through winter. For the next few weeks, I’ll be focusing on muscular endurance in order to prepare to move on to a more strength-focused phase sometime around December. Yesterday’s workout went something like this:

Speed Squat 3×15
Walking Lunge 3×15 (reps per leg)
Dips 3×15
Pullups (used a large rubber band to assist) 3×10, 8, 8
Anterior-concentric, Lateral-eccentric Shoulder raises 3×15
Cable pull w/oblique twist 3×15
Physio ball crunches (holding 8# med ball) 3×15

I tried my best to only take ~30sec rest between sets. It was pretty tough, but only because I’ve been out of the weightroom all summer since the first set of bruised ribs I aquired while demo-ing a MTB back in late March.

Once I get through the three classic periodzation preperatory stages (endurance/hypertrophy, basic strength, max strength/power), I’ll probably switch to a more “unconventional” Cross-fit style program (see link in the sidebar) modified to complement the on-bike training I’ll be doing in late winter.