I'm going to learn something about myself tonight

With 86 days left until Patriot Half, It's time to start ramping up the training volume. I've been reading a lot recently in both cycling and triathlon magazines about athletes using short, high-intensity workouts can take the place of some % of slower high volume workouts. I've been following this approach as of late as Rach and I have both had a lot of demands on our time in the previous couple weeks.

My new plan, which I signed up for the other night through Training Peaks, is a 13 week plan that was the perfect fit for the time remaining until Patriot. I used the USAT membership discount and saved 10% on my subscription. The plan doesn't detail every workout, but gives you a guideline as to what to build into the workout, focusing on heart rate zones. While there are some fairly basic field tests to roughly setup your heart rate training zones, the most accurate way is to use your lactate threshold.

Using the heart rate monitor from my Garmin and the results of the blood tests taken tonight, I should be fairly accurately be able to pinpoint my heart rate zones, which should allow me to more accurately follow my training plan. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous; the bike I'll be on will measure wattage, so I'll finally have an accurate measure of how strong/weak of a cyclist I am at this point. I'm also excited to see exactly what I have right now going all out on the bike for 6 miles. Just a month and a half til season opener sprint, and I want to see what kind of speed I can put out on the bike.

Notes:

- I've started thinking about my next fundraiser incentive. So far I'm drawing a blank. May be that I'll just have to rely on human kindness for a while.

- I put those gift certificates from the local bike shop to good use already. I gave Rachelle my aerobars after last season, so I picked up a new set for me last night. Went with these from Profile Design. Similar to my old ones in that they aren't connected to each other so they can be more properly spaced for my wide shoulders, and are long enough to accommodate my long torso and arms, especially on a frame that might be a bit short in length for me due to my short inseam.

Yes, come to think of it, you actually can buy speed.