CompuTrainer Ride + Joe Fitness Update

Haven't ridden the bike since 2009. Holy batmans batman. I always tend to look for something epic to boost me back into things when I experience a lull. Last week I geared up on Tuesday planning a 23 mile run on zero running for 6 months. I'm an idiot. Luckily I was also very tired from a long work night and snoozed my way to long run self-destruction. Which rhymes.

Today was an uncharacteristically low key start back at it. I walked by the bike, now covered in dust, and noticed that it was 6/1. That seemed like a reasonably elegant day to start riding again (I loves the maths) so I threw on the bike shoes and spun up ye ole CompuTrainer (they should spell it Comp-u-trainer... and add an o-rama to the end of it.) Surprisingly, I held 220 watts for most of the ride. Yes, I calibrated.

I think back to many of my I'm-overtrained-no-I'm-not workouts where I struggled to do the same power output. Kinda funny. It took me a long time to shed the expectations and simply reset my fitness clock. Setting ironman PRs is a fun ass pastime and one I hope to get back to some day. But with the fog of ironWar filling the air it's hard to gain perspective... a week without a megaworkout seems like a life-threatening affair when, of course, it isn't. Plenty of room for logical vs. emotional self-analysis. But not today.

All those blog posts at the end of last season about just enjoying things? I was lying... mostly to myself... kind of to you. When I got sick after the most solid 13 weeks of training ever, just 7 weeks before the big race, I was disheartened and from then forward was phoning it in. I wanted to enjoy things. I even kind of thought I was. But I was deflated. Stacking season upon season, always improving, squeezing seconds and watts out of diet, core strength, sleep time, two-a-days, interval sets, protein powder, plyometrics... it's kinda hard, you know.

Would have probably pulled out of the funk by February but, as you may know, I got mono. And with it every germ that I came into contact with sent me on a one week symptom-fest. I'm still dealing with optimistic infections that my body doesn't kick very easily these days. I blamed colds/flus for a while but that was just a way to avoid what I really knew... that I needed a longer term break from training. As I came out of the mono phase I just went with the flow and didn't push cycling/running. I did some swimming in the mornings... just to get out of the house and burn some stress. Plus, women in bikinis... enough said... mmmmm, women in bikinis.

What was I talking about? Oh, well, lost it. Good bike ride. Did I mention that it felt amazing? It really did. Already looking forward to the next ride.