Spatchcocked….. Again

Love of mud is a many speckled thing..

Know this: I will never miss a chance to use the word, “spatchcocked.”   If it is not already part of your personal lexicon, look it up as we approach the season of its vernacular use.

I have almost always been able to adapt to the challenges that came my way. Back in 1989 I managed to get by for months on a fraction of my normal sleep quota. As my professional workload has increased from time to time I buckled down and did what was needed.  This history has given me the perhaps unjustified self perception that I can handle what comes my way. This outlook is both good and bad.

As my coach has piled on the hard work I have thus far managed to keep up.  In the evenings I’m pretty much useless and I’ve been going to bed super early in an attempt to adapt to the increased volume and increased intensity. As I’ve said, I’m glad this is a short season.  Ugh. The hard during the week is much harder than I am used to doing.  The recovery rides though not individually hard, are longer than I might have expected and when combined with weights and core work, add up to quite a bit.  Two-a-days happen once or twice each week.

One of the things I have been happy about is that my coach cycles in an easier week every now and then.  The amusing thing is that even without the intensity I still finish those weeks with a bunch of saddle time, albeit easy saddle time. From a raw numbers standpoint it does not look like an easy week. Just knowing there is an easier one down the road does help me to keep up during the hard weeks.

Last week and this week have been hard weeks. Both weeks have had weights, core, stairs, intervals, more intervals and some easy miles all in varying quantities.  If I had a stalker watching me they would think I was crazy.  Why is Evo running stairs before the sun comes up?  Why is he riding after dark in the rain with lights on his bike?  I see he is getting up early so he can spend an hour and a half on a trainer before showering and going to work as if nothing happened.  What is the deal?

“The deal” is difficult to explain to someone with a straight face. I’m doing all of this in the hope that it makes me faster in Cyclocross.   Is that important? Not really.  Why push yourself so hard? Why not?  So you’re thrashing yourself on a whim?  Maybe not a whim it’s more of a curiosity. 

I’ve been at this racing thing for so long with marginal success that I’d be happy just to know what it takes for me to be markedly better.  If I do this and get the results I am hoping for then I at least know there is a winning formula.  It can then be my decision if I want to pay the price to use the formula in the future.