As I alluded to in my Facebook Post yesterday, training right now is an exercise in pushing my limits. (If you haven’t already, click that FB link and “like” the Brickhouse Racing page. Lately, when I post something about MMA, I seem to lose a FB follower). I’m not asking you to become an MMA fan- I understand, it’s not for everyone. However, I would expect most of my readers to have an open-minded appreciation for the journey of finding new challenges in a multitude of modalities.
Aaaaaanyway…
On the cycling side of things, I’ve made the move to dragging my LT up by its hair while still maintaining the vast expanse of base fitness I solidified prior to DK200. It’s been a mix of 10-20 minute intervals and Strava Terrorism Fartlek rides punctuated with the occasional 4-5 hour Tempo ride. The intervals have gone well… power numbers are creeping up a handful of watts at a time.
I had some dark weather roll in for my last 15 minute interval on Tuesday.
The long rides are proving to be difficult. Last week, I split my prescribed four hour ride into light/dark loops on the trail, starting from my house around 6, riding a two hour loop, then picking up my lights and riding a couple more hours. Aside from lots of spider webs, it was definitely a good time. However, repeated afternoon thunderstorms have saturated the trails again, so this week, I was forced back out to the road for my four hours of saddle time. Not only did the 100-degree heat index prettmuch kill me by the final hour, I also started getting the same foot/hamstring numbness/pain I’d been having problems with in the past. It looks like I’ll need to see the doctor for another course of hamstring injections to band-aid the area around my sciatic nerve through the remainder of the season.
I’d thought that my “need a race to do in early August” had been fulfilled when I saw this: Six Hour Race to the Sunset, and I was really stoked for about five minutes. However, the realization of how hot it will be in Atlanta on August 9th hit me like…
(that’s Trey, one of the instructors at the gym, KO-ing his opponent on Saturday night)
I am kinda over heat exhaustion… even though, relatively speaking, it’s not even “that hot” yet. Ever since Kanza, it seems worse. Almost seven bottles of water and drink mix yesterday (not including the 20oz of electrolyte drink I put down while I prepped to ride), and I was still lightheaded and five pounds dehydrated when I arrived home. Short of moving someplace less humid/hot and/or starting an IV and attaching a bag to my bike, I don’t know what else to do other than avoid any prolonged exposure to the heat… including a 6 hour afternoon race, in August, near Atlanta, GA. It looks like I’m going to be forced into the wee hours of the morning and night to keep the tempo train rolling.
On the other end of the training continuum, my ass is getting thoroughly busted (by both myself and others) at the gym getting ready for my July 12th fight. While bike fitness is definitely a solid start to fight conditioning, the exertion you feel in three minutes of fighting is far greater than any three minute pedaling effort.
It’s been a mix of intense mitt/thai pad work:
With some wrestling, rolling, and sparring thrown in…
…and some lifting of heavy isht for good measure
The best way I can describe my current training is Expert Mode. The other day, after a particularly hard bout of sparring where John hit/kicked me far more times than I hit him, he reassured me that I shouldn’t get discouraged, because he was just trying to make it harder than my actual fight. Quite to the contrary, I can really appreciate that, because it’s basically how I learned to bike race- soon after I’d purchased a road bike, I was seeking out the group “A” rides. Since I rolled with (and was sometimes dropped from) the fastest people in the city, when I got into my first season of road racing, I was often like, WhyTF ARE WE GOING SO SLOW?!? It wasn’t nearly as difficult as the group rides back home, because I’d learned in Expert Mode.
So, that’s how I’m doing things right now- always picking the hard way, whether its dealing with adverse weather, peeling through layers of gym soreness to do intervals on the bike, choosing the big kettlebell, or getting my ass kicked by someone who is stronger and a much more experienced fighter than myself. The combination of all those things (along with an equal or greater quantity of eating and putting my feet up in between) is elevating my physical and mental abilities to new levels. I live for this!
It’s like I told the intermediate group of ladies at the Women’s Weekend… there’s no shame in taking the shuttle to the top of the mountain, but just remember, you don’t get better at climbing by doing it that way.