Not Enough Time to Train

Not enough time to train,

Retired pro cyclist and endurance coach, Chris Carmichael published a book a few years ago titled, The Time Crunched Cyclist. The titled grabbed my attention immediately. From that alone I knew I needed to pick it up. That sounds like me, crunched for time. I’ll be quite honest with you I never picked it up. It’s on a long list of things to read right above Fifty Shades of Grey. Don’t get me wrong Carmichael is a genius. Even if he were a moron he managed to get a Ph.D. in cycling. No shit, a Ph.D. in cycling. Nevertheless, I did manage to thumb through the book a couple of times while sitting in the floor in Borders Books. I have also read some articles written by Carmichael, promoting the book. Basically what he’s saying is I have no excuse. I can say things like, “not enough volume to do any races right now” or “I just haven’t been putting in the time” but the truth is I don’t necessarily need it.

Last year I experimented with this idea. I dedicated my commuting around town to the bike. I started riding to work, the store, the bar, and anywhere else within 10-15 miles of my home. Not only did I ride, I raced myself. As I have said before, my ride to and from work is much like a daily adventure. Essentially, every time I ride somewhere I try to make it an adventure, or a race. I have a PR for my ride to the gym, work, and the grocery. It seems like every morning when I walk out of my front door, bike in hand, I say to myself, “I’m just going to ride slow and easy.” That never happens for two reasons. 1) I’m usually running late. 2) I can’t help it. It seems like there is this imaginary asshole that passes me about 5 minutes in and looks me in the eyes and says, “Get some you big poon!” The funny thing is he looks just like me. The heart rate skyrockets after that and I can feel every hair in my head. I go from Jekyll to Hide real fast and the Doc doesn’t come back until I land at my rendezvous and dismount my ride. It’s a good thing there is a shower at my work place because I’m a mess when I walk in that back door. Anyway, back to the training idea, I occasionally put in some base miles but nothing over 2.5 hours. When I signed up for the Slobberknocker 70 Mountain Bike Marathon in Arkansas I had no idea what to expect. In summary, I did ok. I was able to suffer a little and I was satisfied with the results.

What I’m saying is this: If you don’t have much time to train, you don’t necessarily need it. Go out for shorter rides and make hurt a little more. If you don’t like to hurt, well I hear golf is fun.

Peace