Loose Ends

Just trying to tie up some loose ends here at work before I split until January 2nd. Basically pick some low-hanging fruit this morning and then eat lunch in the kitchen area and read a little bit more of The Skeptical Environmentalist during my break. Not much going on, most everyone either under radar or blathering about their coming time off. So I just need to get to the end of the day and then boffo, I'm golden.

A loose ends day also means taking care of emails that I've let sit around for a while. This goes for both work and personal. So with that, let me pick up a few comments from the past few days of so. The first one is bike related, but then the rest is riff raff. So if you want to skip down to the next comment.

ChrisG

Hear you on the need to get the most out of the workouts, and agree that "base" riding on the trainer is for the birds, so doing higher-end efforts with your limited time during the week makes perfect sense. As for the longer stuff on the weekends, that's where you can get the base effort in, even if it's just the one ride. And tapering up the "tempo" portion of that one long ride is exactly what I do as the winter progresses and the season gets closer. Two longer-ish tempo intervals, with some substantial recovery between, is a really good use of a 3 hour road ride. In keeping with the "race length" element as an indicator, I'd say that attempting more than 90 minutes, maybe 2 hours, of true tempo, would be plenty. And that would be something to build to over the next 8 weeks or so. I usually work in 10 minute increments when adding tempo. That's my off-the-top response, anyway.

Come January I'm going to be doing the 2x20 and 3x15 stuff with the trainer. A 2x20 turns out to be about 65 minutes in the saddle (15 warm, 20 on, 5 off, 20 on, 5 cool). I really should warmup for 20 but at that time of day it's kinda tough. That should be about the lowest level I do on the trainer this year. All quality on that thing. Either blast it out or get out of the house. I wish I could ride at 5:00 am in the dark outside before work. But dressing up and down for that would add 15 minutes to my already tight morning.

Good stuff on the tempo build. I was thinking along those lines but hadn't really fleshed it out yet. That gives me some good direction!

Terren

"I used to sneak a book/magazine in my pants on my way to/from the bathroom to avoid the political ramifications of reading in the bathroom."

Oh the old UT days. I bring the Blackberry in but it's just not the same. I guess I could do a small book but there's no privacy in the cube so people would see me jamming something down my pants. Not that anyone would care, mind you. People see what they want to see so they'd likely just assume I'm masturbating. Whatever

Steve

"she is too cute to be the fruit of your loins :D"

Indeed. The reality is that she was conceived by a doctor in a test tube or something. So it's entirely possible Tom Cruise stopped by and jerked off in a cup. Hey whatever, she's my little angel now. I just hope she doesn't get into any of that Scientology shit when she gets older. And please don't let her embarrass herself on national TV in front of Matt Lauer.

I like to cut off after 3 comments so that will be good for now. I need to put together the weekly schedule for 2008 and let Mr G take his red pen to it and tell me where I'm doing dumb stuff. I feel pretty good right now and I'm not really making much of an effort to eat particularly well nor put in a Herculean effort on the bike. So that's good going into 2008, I think.