I’ve been following the Time Crunched Cyclist program from Chris Carmichaels’s book for the past four weeks, and the results so far seem promising. The gist is that since I lack time, my training should be intense and hard. It is.

Typical workouts are series of 9-12 minute intervals run at (for me) 160-165 BPM on my heart-rate monitor. or Over-Under intervals where I do 2 minutes at 160-ish, then a minute at 168-ish, then drop down and do it twice more. This next week starts a series of 3-minute all-out efforts that are gonna hurt hurt hurt.

So how do I know it’s working? The “easy” rides I have are getting faster without me working much harder. Some of my Strava segments improve with a lower heart rate and a much easier RPE (rate of perceived exertion; i.e. how much did that hurt?)

One thing that hasn’t gone as well as I’d hoped so far is my weight has stayed pretty constant. I feel and look a bit trimmer, so I am hoping that my legs are gaining weight while it comes off the rest of my body. That part has annoyed me to the point that I am going to actually diet a bit for the next few weeks leading up to short track. Not that the weight hurts me in short track, but I reckon it’ll be harder to eat better when summer BBQ season hits. We are also going to try to do a bit of yoga after Lo goes to bed in the evenings rather than putter around on our computers.

Anyway, Oregon is in a stretch of AMAZING spring weather right now, so it’s been incredibly easy to get out and train. With short track right around the corner (it seems), the timing of the sun and warmth have only added to my motivation. It’s going to be a pretty strong season, I can just feel it.