Planning - October 9, 2010

I am a person who does routines very well.  Once I start to do something consistently I streamline it into a series of flowing steps and can put together a fairly intricate routine quickly.  However until it is a routine, I remain challenged.  I have a hard time planning for one time events.  It took me nearly 3 months before I remembered everything I needed for my daily commute. I was constantly forgetting something, at least one thing each time.

Thank goodness for Trisha, the maker of lists, the super organizer.  She has the ability to take one time complex plans and break them down into a series of lists; to do, to pack, etc.  So Trisha...HELP!  Please take my ramblings and organize them into a list or lists as you see fit.  My hope is to post them on the blog somewhere and have them in front of me as a reminder of what I need to accomplish.  

In no particular order here are some things that will need to be done or acquired over the next few years: 

I need a crew.  Based on what I know so far that will be a minimum of six people: 2 drivers per shift in 8 hour shifts.  Of those I will need a mechanic, cook, gopher, masseur, medical and crew chief.  Some cross over (besides driver) would be good so there is someone that can step into a position if needed.

I need another bike.  I anticipate that I will probably run two different types of bikes to keep up with the different terrains and provide different riding positions to alleviate muscle soreness.  I want to experiment with a triathlon bike; maybe a Softride before committing.  I will also need to have a couple of sets of wheels, especially rear to provide different gearing options.

I need to figure out food.  One of the lessons learned from the S2S was that I need to figure out a way to get more calories in my system.  Hammer seems to provide a wide range of products that work for a lot of cyclists and endurance athletes, but I need to work it out to a science.

I need to work on endurance riding.  Part of this is just riding, part of it is riding with more specific training, and part of it is developing a plan with known biometrics.  I will probably consider joining SIR (Seattle International Randonneurs) as this is the type of riding they do.

I need to get my weight consistent.  Fluctuations are ok but they need to be at lower weights.  If I ran between 162 and 167 as opposed to 167 and 172 I will struggle less with my overall fitness.

I really (REALLY!) need to work more on my overall body strength, especially core power.  I think this is more critical for endurance riding and preventing injury than anything else that I can do for improvements.

These are really long term goals and I will use them to develop intermediary goals and then short term goals from there.  Things I can think immediately think of include: developing a training plan for core strength, look at power meters and replace the headset, cables, crank bearings and upgraded wheelset for my bike.  I had considered a set of rollers for training, but instead will use my rower and outdoor training in the form of commuting.

I am missing a ton of things, but they will get added as I go.