Sometime in August, after the family vacation, I turned entirely to running, putting the bicycle aside. I had declared the start of the bicycling season to be January 1 last year, so I thought I would try a break of a few months this year.
In the end, the plan did not work out as intended. Between holidays, travel and a cold, October and November ended up being my two lowest volume months of the year. This month, I’ve become consistent again, so I’ll end up with December being a more typical volume month.
I’m just now feeling like I’m getting the strength in my legs to run effectively. Last year at this time I had been running more frequently through summer and fall, so I can’t claim to be in better shape now than last year. Perhaps I was able to build up the running strength faster and more consistently this year, but that could be just wishful thinking on my part.
So my plan is to start on the bike again in the next few days, knowing that I’ll have to spend time building up specific leg strength. At the same time, I’ll keep on using the running as cross training, switching roles of the two once the weather becomes conducive to longer bicycle rides in a couple of months. Using the summer for base training worked out well in 2008, so I’ll try it once again. That means, shorter, higher intensity tempo workouts through the spring building strength and what Joe Friel calls “muscular endurance”, putting out high power for many minutes in the higher end of the aerobic zone. Once summer comes, then it becomes time to build more stamina with longer rides.
