Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Return of the Fatty

So for whatever reason, i'm getting back into cycling. The real question is to why i left, but that's more about thoughts and feelings than cycling, so i'll spare you the details. This will be long enough as it is.

The goal:
Oh I don't know. . .
Certainly to be faster than I am now. I think I'd like to be competetive in the masters fields (if those are even a thing) and at least present in the Cat3 or even 1/2 elite fields. I'd like there to be some section of some race, somewhere, where I can make people concerned.

The Current Situation:
When I quit cycling to become a grown-up, i had an FTP of 415, and weighed about 185. Not bragging; those numbers aren't stellar, but they're a benchmark of what I was capable of at 29 years old with more or less unlimited time to throw into training. A decade later, with tha kids, a career, pretty much zero exercise, and more than a few cheeseburgers, I'm at 225 and my FTP is somewhere around 315. To be honest, I never ate really well, but I trained very carefully, and I had a higher w/kg at 185lbs than I did at 165 (of course, there are plenty of other variables to that than just weight, but still...)

The Plan:
I think this year is pretty iffy for racing due to tha 'rona, and I THINK if I work at it, I can get close to where I was in a year. Maybe that's naive, since it took 6+ years to get where I was then. But I'm armed with some amount of history this time. My brain definitely remebers how to do it, so maybe my body does too? So that's the over arcing plan: get faster in a year. First thing is to try to get the endurance back and lose some (a lot of) weight. I don't plan to do any FTP intervals until I can at least complete 4 hour rides and I can get the weight below 200. That effectively means as much Z2Z3 as possible. All Z2 all the time would be preferable, but I don't have 'all the time'. If I only have 90 minutes (or less, jeez) to ride, I can do ~Z3 for that long without lasting fatigue, so I'll do that. My longest ride outdoors so far has been ~2.5 hours. It wasn't horrible, but was tired at the end. I'm in Portland, OR now, so indoor riding will be a significant portion of the year. My longest indoor ride is 90 minutes, but I think I can push that up to at least 2hrs in the zones I'm currently riding. Hopefully that will be enough.

So that's pretty much it. Comments and suggestions are welcome. I'm pretty confident in my former periodization plan, but that started with me already in decent shape, and with more or less unlimited time. This time around I need to start from a much lower starting point, and time may become an obstacle to deal with.