A year of challenges ahead for masters champ

by Pip Read, Australian and National Masters Cycling champion

Welcome to 2010! I hope you all had a very safe and happy Christmas and New Year.

In my last article I mentioned that I would needed to make some changes to my training regime due to my relocation to a new area. To be honest I'm not having a lot of luck with that goal. I've given up on the 'parking 20km from work and riding in' idea, only because I would have to leave home earlier that I am already; so scratch that. I thought about riding when I got home, but by the time I get there I'm just too tired. So the best I can do for the rest of my commuting time is going to have to be Tuesday's ergo session with 'Madam Lash', squeeze some time off work and at weekends. I have found some local bunches to ride with and after some trial and error I think I may be in luck. I will just have to see how it goes. I do have some other options.

What I've decided to do is spend a bit of time reading all those training books and DVD's that I've been collecting over the past few years. At least when I get back to structured training as I would like, I should have a bit of a handle on what I'm doing. And from what I've read so far there are some new and different methods, such as training twice a day with a nap in between i.e. doing hills in the morning and an easy roll in the afternoon. I think this may work well as we live in a windy area (providing resistance) and it will also give me more options.

I also need to rethink recovery and stretching, which is something that I've neglected in the past. I am also interested in weight training and how I can incorporate into my new training regime. I found this in Joe Friel's 'The Cyclist's Training Bible'. It reads 'Life rarely presents anyone with races, work, vacation, and other events neatly spaced to fit into annual plans. Don't be afraid to bend the rules a little.' I like bending rules.

I'm also fairly sure that I will give coaching a bit of a shot and see how I'll go writing programs for others and with any sort of luck may even have some success. Although just thinking about it I may have to choose to not coach women in my age group! Speaking of age groups I have just received my 2010 racing licence. I am now in W6 meaning that I've gone up an age group. To be honest I'm not sure how I feel about that but I guess my friend Gen will be happy that we are no longer racing against each other.

So for now it's back to the books and commuting for about three weeks and then I'm a full time cyclist!

Talk soon.

Pip