Why So Serious?

Last week I started a new training plan. It’s the first time in a long time I’ll have a prescribed plan for training, and I’m glad I purchased it when I did.

The plan is ten weeks long; when I return to Penang I’ll be finishing up the plan with a week to spare before my big goal of the year: a 500k three day ride around Malaysia.

I used to work with a couple of different coaches, the last one, Speedworks Coaching, I only stopped working with because I moved here. There’s no racing to create goals around. I enjoyed the simplicity of focusing on the training, instead of also figuring out what I’m supposed to be doing.

While with a bought plan there’s less customization around events and schedules, I know just enough to be dangerous and move things around if needed. When I fly to Paris next week I won’t have a choice but to stay off the bike, so I’ll use that time to work on my core. Same goes for when we’re traveling around Europe at the end of July, though at some point I’m hoping to ride around a bit.

Having a plan for training is so important to staying motivated on the bike, especially with a plan as intense as this one. I’m doing everything I can to stay on top of it, including: telling everyone I’m doing it, putting the rides in my schedule and putting an overview of the ride on my stem. My goal is to get back into organized training, instead of this ‘go out and ride hard for awhile’ thing I’ve been doing for too long. Though I’m much, much stronger now, I didn’t have a plan and therefore felt like I could skip rides whenever.

If you’re interested in some of the more technical details of me starting up the new plan, you can take a look at that here. I’m aiming to stay active in updating my progress as I go along, so I hope you guys can keep me accountable.

How about you, have you recently started a new plan, or are you in the midst of one now? How’s it going so far?