Just an observation really. Only a few sessions into the Build Me Up program on Zwift but I amazed on reflection how my brain works…or how it doesn’t work.
My last 2 rostered days off have been indoor cycling/Zwifting days and both days have done 90min plus and around 40km or so. There is NO FUCKING WAY I would have finished the sessions if I wasn’t doing a program that had a start and a finish. If I was just ‘free training’ there isn’t a chance in hell I would have ground out the workouts. The weren’t excruciating or tremendously difficult but the fact that I am following a program/direction/instruction just allows my brain to zone into it and just follow along. I like that.
I have a feeling I might get into this on a consistent basis because I am very much enjoying it so far and I am already getting excited about getting the program done and then racing. Entering whatever the lowest category I can find and then getting dropped instantaneously is what I am really hoping for…because that is what will trigger me competetively.
I have always been extrinsically motivated…in that I trained not for my health and fitness but so that I could compete. Once I stopped competing…I stopped training. So finding something I enjoy to compete in is an exciting prospect.
I am not doing it thinking or believing I’ll be ‘competitive’ as I am still going to be 186cm and 100kg but rather than be competitive what is important to me is competing.
The goal at the moment is to continue with my current routine…weights on work days and cycling on days off. The other goal is not missing a day…I know life might interfere with that but I am still going to try to train every day. The goal of this is actually to improve my fitness and health as well as leaning out and losing fat and holding on to what muscle mass I have.
I have also realised that I am going to need to fire up Chronometer and get back to tracking my energy expenditure and my nutritional intake because I don’t think I can keep up the training while just eating intuitively. It might work for a while but I see the wheels coming off before to long…so I need to put a nutritional strategy in place to make sure I look after myself and I will be putting some serious thought and work into that over the next few days.
That will be my next update.
If you Zwift…please find and add me.
Will Heffernan 