
I realize that I've been a little sporatic in my postings in the past week or so - but it is almost Spring (actually it is officially Spring now). I'm finishing up a few loose ends and whatnot before the cycling season comes into full fruition. This week with work has been a wild mess of corporeal idiocracy - but it's allowed me to refocus on a few things. This teemed with a new regiment with my cycling training. From some advice of a few cycling comrads, I've adjusted my training strategy for this season.
Granted I have always maintained the proper nutrition, equipment, & drive - the few things I've had to adjust is my training regiment. During the time when it's still chilly out (or even freezing), I was advised to not train daily in these conditions. Pains me to NOT go out daily in all the adverse conditions - because I love the scenery and opportunity to see the sunset even if it is almost 20 degrees out. It's not a good training technique - especially for the sorts of events that I'm actually training for. So I've been selectively opting for a day or 3 a week at the gym to be on the spinner cycles (for 1.5-2.5 hours at a time) so that I can concentrate on my "climbing" skills while I wait for the weather temperatures to be more optimal. And since for a few weeks I've been doing this - I can see a MAJOR fitness level change, especially when I go out and tackle the real hills.
One downside to this - is that it has made me very tired in the late evenings, which is probably a good thing. Generally, I have a tendency to overdue things - and not sleep as well as I should. If I sleep at all. I generally sleep about 5 hours a night. Anything more than 8 hours makes my back hurt. But with this new regiment, I sleep close to about 6 hours of a HARD sleep. The spinner training I do at the gym is a great workout - about 2 hours usually, hard core fast spinner action with sprints for about 2 minutes for every 8-10 minutes. It's great to have my iPod Nano as a companion. When I'm done, not one thread of my clothes is not soaked with about a gallon of sweat. Granted I finish 2 large water bottles w/ 4 enduralyte capsules during this plus 2 gel packs. I feel exhilirated afterwards - yet bushed. I have a recovery regiment of sorts. Then an evening of dinner & domesticity. I find myself wanting to go to bed at 10pm - so unlike me. I'm usually up to about 1am.

Anyhoo. Sidenote, I was shopping online for a secondary Shimano Ultegra 9 speed cassette cog for my old wheelset (tired of swapping them back and fourth - and the one I have has over 20,000 miles on it, showing age). Fortunately, they are super cheap now. I'm trying to build up a second bike for a trainer I have at home, slowly swapping out parts.
Someone asked me in a comment on this blog a few days ago about my Post-It notes (from a reference I made). I am a strange posterchild of that 3M product, being that I've had an ongoing art project that has spanned many years (since 1997) - over 30,000+ Post-It notes. More about this here:
My Post-It Notes. That represents only a small fraction of the project, which has not been updated in a few years. Suffice to say, it's an ongoing project. When I catch up with other projects, I'll have time to revisit the formalization of all of the splendor of what it all means - the history thru the process, all the photos, et al. Just not enough hours in the day. Like miles on a bike.
In the meantime, Life is Good.