How to Derail CX Training in 10 Minutes Before Yoga

I could’ve sat in my car in the parking lot and tried not to look like a creepy dude watching women go into the gym. I could’ve watched Tiger announce his divorce on ESPN on the TV over the juice bar.  I could’ve whipped out my dumb phone and checked out pro cycling pre-Vuelta chest thumping on Velonews.  I could’ve snagged a copy of Muscle and Fitness from the magazine rack with my beanie biker arms and enjoyed a banana.  Traffic was light.  I got out of work a tish early.  I was 25 minutes early for Yoga on Monday.  How I chose to kill the time before class killed my entire cyclocross training plan for the week and I’m still trying to unkill it.

They have fancy names like blocks or periods in most training plans.  Mine’s no different.  If you don’t have a coach or a Joe Friel book to make training sound all scientific and calculated; you ride hard, recover, repeat and use the word interval twice a week.  I took my weekend beating and rode hard on the BioWheels’ shop ride, aptly nicknamed the Saturday Morning Beatdown.  Sunday, I rode the mountain bike with my wife and a few female teammates at moderate pace.  Monday, I was faced with a dilemma.  (This is precisely why having a coach or a Joe Friel plan is a good idea.  It keeps you from making dumb decisions or at least being able to blame someone else for bad ideas.)

I didn’t feel like I needed a recovery, but knowing that I had to get a cyclocross practice and an interval workout in sometime Tuesday and Wednesday, I decided still it was probably best to take it easy on Monday in anticipation of the hard work ahead.  That WAS a good idea.  I chose to go to Yoga, stretch out the body and get a little core workout in.  That WAS a good idea too.  If you haven’t tried it, Yoga is quite challenging and leads do discovering that even though you can trackstand your bike for the duration of three minute stoplights, you have the balance of a 21 year old at bar time compared to the nine nymphs that will surround you in class.  I’m quite certain they all could do no-handed stoplight track stands while balancing only with their big toe on the headset cap.

However, I was early to Yoga.  Not a good idea for people who can’t sit still in a gym.  With 25 minutes before class, I plopped on the sticky vinyl black mat in the gym just outside the Yoga studio.  I stretched a bit.  I looked at the clock.  With 24 minutes remaining, I rolled onto my back and busted out a set of bicycle crunches.  The trainer and his client nearby were doing planks with a stopwatch.  Being able to over hear them, I secretly joined in, holding my planks as long as her.  When she rested, I went back to the bicycle crunches.  I felt strong.  25 bicycles, one minute-twenty plank, 25 bicycles, one minute-twenty plank, 25 bicycles, one minute-twenty plank, 25 bicycles, one minute-twenty plank, 25 bicycles, one minute-twenty plank.  Oh look its 5:52pm!  Time to get embarrassed by the nymphs.

STUPID…STUPID…STUPID!

I still feel like someone took a Cuisinart mixer and made a smoothie out of my abdomen.  It’s been nearly 3 days.  I skipped hill repeats on Tuesday.  It hurts when I sneeze.  I skipped Wednesday cyclocross practice in favor of an easy ride that didn’t require a whole lot of use of my middle muscles.  It’s Thursday and I’m running out of options to put the pieces of my training plan back together.  One thing is for certain, in retrospect, looking like a creepy guy in a parking lot doesn’t seem to be a bad choice anymore.