The Bright Side.
When I returned from Mississippi, I was cresting a late-season peak that I had never seen before. The countless hours riding the flat expanses of the Gulf Coast in the heat and humidity pushed the Training Peaks numbers up and up. Upon my return, they dropped steadily until mid-February.
On a normal year, my numbers level out by mid-December, as the longer hours on the road give way to the shorter, more intense hours on the trainer. Then the numbers begin their steady climb towards the road season. That's the way it's always been for me.
The drawn-out decline and delayed rebound probably had more of a mental than a physical influence on me. I was hitting numbers in the neighborhood of what I normally hit at that time of the year (until the plague took my legs out), but that delay probably was a de-motivator for me. You crank and crank until your eyes bleed, and if you're lucky the graphs flat-line. If you're not, they dip even further. It doesn't matter that you're starting from an unprecedented high, seeing that downward trend just isn't that encouraging. When it finally does turn around, it's a small victory, but one that may have come too late.
This year I'll be starting from pretty much the ground floor on the graphs. I have nowhere to go but up. Last year's starting point for the trainer season was an unprecedented high. This year is an unprecedented low. The steady climb of squiggly lines should send my delusions through the roof. I'll see "gains" I haven't seen since I started "seriously training".
Maybe this is exactly what I need in the long term. That is, until race season starts and I realize that I really do suck.
On a normal year, my numbers level out by mid-December, as the longer hours on the road give way to the shorter, more intense hours on the trainer. Then the numbers begin their steady climb towards the road season. That's the way it's always been for me.
The drawn-out decline and delayed rebound probably had more of a mental than a physical influence on me. I was hitting numbers in the neighborhood of what I normally hit at that time of the year (until the plague took my legs out), but that delay probably was a de-motivator for me. You crank and crank until your eyes bleed, and if you're lucky the graphs flat-line. If you're not, they dip even further. It doesn't matter that you're starting from an unprecedented high, seeing that downward trend just isn't that encouraging. When it finally does turn around, it's a small victory, but one that may have come too late.
This year I'll be starting from pretty much the ground floor on the graphs. I have nowhere to go but up. Last year's starting point for the trainer season was an unprecedented high. This year is an unprecedented low. The steady climb of squiggly lines should send my delusions through the roof. I'll see "gains" I haven't seen since I started "seriously training".
Maybe this is exactly what I need in the long term. That is, until race season starts and I realize that I really do suck.
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