2019 Year End Review

If I could just start with a quick summary it would be, "It wasn't a banner year in terms of performance." January started with the flu and that was a week of just lying in bed looking up at the ceiling. That was probably the worst I have ever felt in my life and the effects to my lungs had an impact for many weeks. Not to mention that 2018 was a decline in fitness that carried through 2019 as well. As I reflect back it was a year of hit and miss. Every time I would get into a block of training something came up. Without the consistency and the lowered volume of hours trained I never was able to achieve my goal for 2019.

Some of the early highlights was updating the Felt IA16 with the TriRig Alpha One bars and SRAM etap wireless drive train. The stock IA16 with a mechanical group was an upgrade from the Felt B10, but this upgrade just made time on the bike more pleasant and it seems to be a faster bike. 

The finish of the season is much like the beginning. I started feeling symptoms of bronchitis on December 19th and I am still in this illness as it has morphed over the past week. I did not have the energy to get on the bike. I tried a light spin and it made me feel worse afterwards. A friend that owns several vitamin stores offered some advice to use N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and more specifically, N-A-C Sustained distributed by Jarrow. I am on the second day of using, but I can say without a doubt this stuff works to clear out chest and sinus mucous. I had been using OTC cold medicine, sinus relief and Mucinex for over a week and the NAC seems to work as well if not better than the medicine. Each person needs to take a careful look at this supplement before using. There are a number of medical studies available as well. 

I know what I need to do for 2020. Now I just need to do it. 
As it has been said, "consistency is king" in context to training principles. We can talk about a lot of ways to skin this cat in terms of different training approaches, but talk doesn't achieve the goal. If one is down low in terms of being untrained than "ride lots" is pretty decent start. 

Because this blog is pretty much cycling specific, I rarely mention strength training, which is actually my primary training. I am consistent with strength training and it is going well for my age. 

The charts for year review show a lot of inconsistency. 

from Strava

from WKO5

2016 - Model Year: My goal for 2020 would be to get in at least 40 hours of saddle time each month. In that mix of time would be structured intervals with long endurance miles on the weekends. I also need to lose about 10 pounds. ugh.