Back to mountain bike XC training

Going back to training is one hell of an anxiety remedy.

I've been away from planned training since the last competition back in December, 21. The heat wave this summer's been mental and I'm not eager to waking up at 4 in the morning to cycle; nor do I like night rides for safety reasons. On top of that, tasks in our ranch, and in the bike park I'm building, are consuming most of my energies. You can check more about that in my main account: @mrprofessor.

However, this past week I suffered what I believe was an anxiety crisis (two days body pain and no energy at all). A trip to the doctor to have my eyes checked might have been the trigger... you know, travelling around in encapsulated busses is not the best idea during a Corona virus outbreak. Anyways. Eyes seem good. Yet, it wasn't enough to ease my mind and I briefly collapsed. Or I indeed contracted Omicron, explaining the excessive tiredness. In any case, I opted to isolate for a few days and go back to training.

I'll use this account to post my trainings as I can quickly post what's up without thinking much about the post structure, grammar, etc. It'll be more of a journal type of thing.

Starting slow

I didn't go crazy to start with. One hour on the bike seemed just perfect. No rush. The idea was to let my body understand that we are back to business. This is called the base training. I'll keep the pace for a few more days before I can start adding intervals and high intensity. So far, so good.

One hour and ten in a super chill average speed for gravel road. Just as a reference, my normal av. speed in this same route is between 28 and 32 km/h.

I use the same route when training as to have a good performance comparison. Half of this route is on bicicle lanes or streets that I use to warm up and the other half is a gravel road. As training progresses and the speed increases, I double or tripple the gravel road part by going back and forth. The route is quiet and has a dead end, so it's perfect for training.

I only sprinted once to try and get back my KOM a friend stole. Didn't work. My heart rate increased way to fast, remembering me to take it easy. I should be good to take it back in two weeks or so.

Cycling is about consistency

It's a matter of pedaling until I'm back to racing performance again. Together with swimming two times a week no anxiety shall incorporate this body ever again.

Stay tuned.

Peace.