Foundation

While I'm not convinced that the type of program detailed over at CrossFit would really work for bike racing, I really do agree with most of their principles. One of these principles is illustrated by this "fitness pyramid":

The idea is that there is a hierarchy of development for an athlete, and that a deficiency in the base levels of the pyramid will cause the higher levels to suffer. In my opinion, sleep should also be on the Nutrition level.

What does this have to do with anything? As I've mentioned before, I'm still in the Preparation phase, and I'll be here for 3 more weeks (!). It's just the way my schedule worked out this year. The best way to describe the Preparation phase is that it's "training to train".

Another way to look at it is that I'm working on the foundation of my pyramid. So far, I've been using this time to try to develop good sleep, nutrition and recovery habits (with varying degrees of success). Hopefully I can carry them through for the rest of the year.

1. Contrast showers - I wrote about these before and I'm still doing them. While they're certainly not a cure-all, I've noticed that a lot of the little aches and soreness that I used to get have almost disappeared. I think this recovery technique should help quite a bit once my training load increases.

2. Napping - I'm going to try to make a habit of taking 30 minute naps after work. This helps boost my energy level for my evening workouts and seems to help offset sleep shortages from the night before. Of course, napping after work is pretty easy now while the sun is setting around 5:30.

3. On-bike nutrition - I've started mixing a bottle of pretty dilute sports drink for all of my rides, even for relatively easy technique workouts. It doesn't make a big difference on shorter rides, but I do tend to feel a little more fresh for the last 20 minutes or so. That fresh feeling means I work just a little bit harder. For one ride, it doesn't make much of a difference, but I suspect it adds up over the course of a season.

4. Off-bike nutrition - While I've certainly cleaned things up relative to December, I can do better with this. I went through a stretch last summer where I was pretty diligent about eating lots of fruits and vegetables and it seemed to make a difference.