Training and The Oddities of being a Pro Cyclist

So after a 6-hour, 103 mile, 4500 kiloJoule mountainous training ride, I am, of course, glad to be here in front of the computer, doing something a little more low-key than riding. This coming week is looking to be a bit lighter on the training hours, as per the request of my team director, Axel Merckx, who would be known as "de big bos" in the quirky Belgian tongue of Flemish (this phrase translates roughly in English to "the big boss", I believe).

Though it will be nice to spend a few less hours in the coming week on my bike, and maybe a few more studying, my body has become quite accustomed to all the miles I have been riding - so much so that I actually seem to feel worse on rest days, or the day after, when I should be feeling the most rested. This may be hard to understand, but this has been the trend lately, as I seem to start feeling really good about 2 days into a hard block of rides. This was again illustrated to me clearly today as I spent the first couple of hours of my ride feeling sluggish. I had taken a much-needed rest day yesterday, yet today, it took three hours to get my legs (and my mind) to awaken. Then, interestingly enough, in the sixth hour of the ride, I found myself putting the old man into a spot of bother and loving every minute of putting out about 400 watts. (Dad, who had decided to meet up with me for the last half of the ride, was probably regretting his decision to do such a thing by this point). Sorry Dad.

I also witnessed an amazing display of the importance of aerodynamics in cycling today. See, I had put on my waterproof training jacket when I left for the ride in the morning, after looking at the weather forecast, which showed that I would have a 90% chance of getting rained on in the afternoon. It turned out to be sunny and probably almost 60 degrees by the time I was heading home. Way to go Weather.com. Anyway, I still had my jacket on when I was having a go at a sixth-hour threshold effort (going pretty hard, for those not up on the lingo), and I was slogging along at about 25 miles an hour, with the jacket ballooning up on my back, and poor me pruning up on the inside of it, which quickly turns into a sauna during efforts. Amazingly, when I took the thing off and got going again, I was cruising along at about 27-28 miles and hour, putting out about the same wattage. Of course, the old man was not so happy with this, because when the jacket came off of my back, so did he, if you know what I mean. Apparently in my endorphine-induced euphoria, I had failed to notice that he was quite well on the rivet the first go round. Sorry again, Dad.

Moving onto more important matters, I have exactly one week before my Team Trek-Livestrong's second training camp. This camp will be a joint camp between our team, and the big-boy's Team Astana. In any other situation, I would say it would be pretty stupid to train specifically for a training camp, and even more stupid to then taper down for a week before training camp. But when you're 18 years old and your training camp will involve you riding with three of the top stage racers in the world: Levi Leipheimer, Alberto Contador, and the man himself, Lance, I think this is perfectly acceptable. Apparently director Axel thinks so too, as he has asked me to cut some training hours this week, so I can be 'rested' going into camp, where I will be 'tested' (a.k.a. 'tortured') a bit.

There you have it, another oddity of pro cycling, which would seem entirely backwards in any other line of work. The boss asking you to cut hours, with no effect on $$$. I'm loving every minute of it. Well, at least until I have to start doing VO2 max intervals.

Anyway, I am of course super excited about the upcoming camp, and I will be sure to let you all know how it goes.