Bike grave?

Key references:

Tuesday Core

My core workout is prescribed here, executed to the ‘T’:

http://www.bicycling.com/training-nutrition/training-fitness/core?page=0,0

Today was gorgeous - the thermometer read 48 degrees in the car on the way home, and didn’t drop much before I got started.  The roads are nice and clean now, so I took a nice easy ride up and down the lake, just concentrating on nice smooth spinning.  It was almost a recovery ride, but not quite.

We don't have mountains in Wisconsin, but at least we have cliffs

Gorgeous sunset through the few clouds in the sky

Thoracic Spine Extension and Rotation
3×10 each side

Wall Slides with Chin Tuck
3×10

Reverse crunch
3×12

Bridge
3×15

Good mornings
3×10

Weekly Totals

I’m taking my first stab at doing some periodization with my training throughout the year.  There’s not a lot of reading out there on periodization specifically for cyclocross, but here are a few.  There is, however, quite a bit for road cyclists and triathletes.  Since the cyclocross literature typically assumes you’ve done a road or mountain season, my training model will look like a mountain season followed by cyclocross season.  More on that in the next few days.  The goal here is to start tracking volume and intensity, generally.  The challenge is I don’t have access to a power meter (or even a heart rate monitor at the moment) and I’m switching between on road, off road, snow, mountain bike, cross bike, and road bike, so distance and pace aren’t really meaningful yet.  For now I’m tracking total active time and average intensity, which is based on perceived exertion, loosely estimating heart rate zones 3 through 6.

Total time: 3:09:56

Total distance: 37.45
Avg. Intensity: 3.5

Race Weight

I’m not really aiming for a specific race weight (should I be?) but I just thought it’s interesting to see my weight changes since my last Ironman triathlon back in September, 2010.  It’s fun to speculate the reasons ‘why’, but I don’t really have major concerns since my body fat change has been pretty minor, from 9-10% to 12-14%.

Do you have a goal race weight?  Is it more about ‘dead weight’ in the form of body fat?  Should we amateurs even care?

These hills are about the same size as the hills we did on the Ironman Wisconsin bike course (~400ft.), but during Ironman, you do them about nine times.

They've gotten quite a bit more snow here than in Milwaukee, and much of it is still around. Most of the time there was a ridge pavement not covered in snow, but covered in plenty of gravel.

Curves are good for the soul

Wednesday was relatively warm, starting out about 34 degrees.  I was watching the yards on the drive home from work to see if the snow had melted enough for me to hit some of the trails by Grant park.  I rode out the driveway hopeful, only to find the hikers had packed the snow down to pure ice…

Grant park beach…

I’ve been struggling quite a bit with the fit of the ‘cross bike, so I’m hoping to setup a professional fitting sometime early this spring. I had quite a bit of lower back pain last cross season, and I’m beginning to suspect my top tube is a bit too long for me. Any suggestions on experienced fitters, specifically for ‘cross, in the Milwaukee, Madison, or Chicago areas? I hear Wheel and Sprocket has a brand new fitting center – looks pretty nice!