Since the season ended in October, I’ve noticed that I wasn’t as good with my diet and noticed that my weight started creeping up. Nothing too major, 2-4 lbs over my ‘race weight’ , and I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal losing it again. Of course, the holidays followed, and then a vacation and when I got back, I was now 184 lbs – 9lbs over where I wanted to be. I decided right there that I was going to be back down to 175 lbs by the end of Feb. With my first race in mid March, I wanted to not only get back to weight, but also increase my fitness level and get rid of that excess fat (it is also a bit cheaper than replacing parts on the bike with titanium, or carbon fiber).
First, I started getting to the gym more regularly and increased the cardio time per session. My workouts would consist of alternating days of ‘long’ sessions on the stationary bike (intervals of 1:30 followed by 30 seconds of rest lasting about 25-30 minutes) and ‘short’ sessions (about 15 minutes -which was just warm-up). I would pair up the ‘long’ sessions with less taxing weight training such as abs or shoulders, or upper back, and pair up the ‘short’ sessions with leg training like squats or chest. I would make it a point to do an ab work-out every session though I would vary volume and intensity depending on the day – since a strong core is critical to being able to ride fast for a whole endurance race stint. I kept the weight training pretty heavy so I can try to keep my muscle mass while losing fat and I kept to efficient exercises – full squats for legs, bench press and dips for chest, weighted pull-ups for backs, and every other week, I’d also insert a clean-and-press routine. If I felt tired, I would avoid the big lifts and just do abs or lower back or shoulders.
Keeping with the Red, Silver, and Black theme from the racebikes…I also tried to motivate myself since I don’t do well when I didn’t know what I was training for. During my vacation, I got roped into doing a 10k ‘easy’ run without training and while I completed the run, I was pretty sore the next few days (though I did get to recover on the long plane flight on the way back home). After my first week of working out, I decided to sign up for a local YMCA 5k run to get a ‘baseline’ on my fitness level. I’ve had problems with my foot last year so I was a little apprehensive but I tested myself out with a 3 mile run at the treadmill and seem to hold up ok. On race day last Sunday, I completed the race and while the course was hilly and the weather was windy and chilly, I still completed the 5k in 26:07. Not too bad for a baseline! In fact, it was good enough for 25th (out of 139) and took 1st in my age group (among 10 runners – who were probably in worst holiday shape than me…but hey – the medal was nice). I did know that I had to keep my cardio levels up as my weight started slowly dipping down again, but I was also aware that I couldn’t get all my cardio from running. During the summer last year, I would swim in the mornings but the 40F degree water temp with the current Texas winter, wouldn’t be any fun at all. Seeing that some of the top pro motorcycle racers were turning to cycling as an off-season cross-training sport – I thought I’d give it a try. I picked up some gear and decided to pick up a road bicycle and I’m looking forward to adding that to my fitness routine.
It’s been 2 weeks since getting back from vacation and I’m now at a little below 180lbs. Just 5 more lbs to go and 5 weeks to do it! Our first trackday test session will be on 2/28/2010 (if the weather cooperates) and it would be great to get back into motorcycle racing at a fairly high level of fitness. First race weekend with CMRA will be in mid-March and I can’t wait! – Carlo #185
