Yawn- A different kind of training.

I am waking up every morning now at 6:30am. OH alright-you got me, the alarm goes off at 6:30 and I get up between 6:40 and sometimes 7. I am in training to get up at 6am and may even get up as early as 5:30 in the spring. But baby steps!!

Make coffee, drink some water and OJ and down to the basement for 50 minutes of stretches and exercises from Todd Palmer. Then more often then not lately right onto the bike for 45 minutes and then right up to eat, play with my daughter just a bit before school and sometimes walk her over to Kindergarten.

If I dont ride right away I play Mr. mom all morning then ride after she goes to school. Afternoons are pretty much out now due to early sunsets and my wife has started working out in the basement almost every afternoon too. Way to go Stacie!!

It seems that the only non guilty time available anymore is morning. Too bad I had that near miss in darkness last year that has me a bit spooked about riding in the dark. I only have small LED blinkers on my bike. I am not ready to pony up for real lights yet so I wait till I see the sun.

But this getting up early things is truly great. I mean I dont have a life anymore so going to bed early isnt a real issue. What is an issue is waking up 2 to 3 hours after falling asleep (which alone takes a long time)and lying awake for most of the next 3 or 4 hours!! I have no idea what thats about, but I hope its sorts itself out. Its been like this for a year now so I have a feeling its not going away. Shut-up brain-back to sleep!! I dont know if I qualify as an endurance athlete, but I have read its a problem for "us". Sleeping soundly through the night that is.

Riding on the trainer has been a subject tossed around lately and I had a good workout that the way I structured it it seemed to make time fly by. I am still in Z2 till Saturday when I finally start to put some intensity in. ON ym TT rig too-YESSIR!! What i did was split up the Z2 stuff (could be Z3,Z4 if your ready for it) into smaller blocks,but not too small and tricking my brain into thinking I was having fun, looking forward to rests and not trudging on endlessly at one HR or wattage forever. This is nothing extraordinary I admit, but I'd not really done it quite like this before.

10 min warm-up
20 minute Z2
10 minute recovery
20 minute Z2
10 minute recovery
20 minute Z2
10 minute recovery
10 minute cool down

Before I knew it I had a put together 60 minutes in my target zone plus 40 minutes of Z1 and because of the rests and intervals going by so quickly I didnt notice the total time fly by (well my sitbones felt the time go by). I also did it on my rollers and would ride out of the saddle to relieve my poor sitbones and between intervals I would practice riding no hands. I got that down and smooth now, but I dont dare move my arms around or take off a shirt yet.

I know there is a small contingent of early riders in the Heights so maybe I can get together with them soon to pound out some good training rides before my daughter goes to school. What will that take?? 5am wake up call??? Yikes-better get back to training!!