Part One: FIVE, Five, five
On a recent Tim Ferriss Show, he interviewed Dr. Peter Attia and did it in the format of having Attia talk about 5 things he is excited about, 5 things he has stopped doing, and 5 things he continues to do. I thought that this would be a brilliant way to discuss the end of one year and the start of an exciting one ahead. Here’s part one...
5 Things I’m Excited About
Racing in 2020- I am truly stoked to be readying myself to race in 2020. I had a discussion with my wife this summer and I said I was going to be all in for 2020. We have had an extremely busy 2019, and it just wasn't a good time to be serious about racing. Our son was looking for junior teams, and our daughter was looking to buy a car before returning to Boston for her senior year at Boston College. It was a whirlwind spring and summer. I knew that racing was going to suffer from my disrupted training schedule, so I just didn’t do it. I did Two Days of Buffalo, and I had a decent showing despite not really having trained all season for it. I raced cyclocross, but I did it when I could and didn’t get too stressed over the results or schedule. I really enjoyed a 2019 season with no stress or strings attached, but I am amped up for training and racing in 2020. The training will start later this month with plans to race gravel, the BBC season on the road, and a full cyclocross season in the fall with breaks for hockey games and trips of course.
Photography- I recently got back into DLSR photography with the purchase of my 77D and a few lenses. I am really enjoying the camera, and I even bought a pretty fancy Ortlieb bar bag to carry it around on my All-City. Getting out on easy rides and taking pics has become a lot of fun for me. In addition to continuing to vlog, I am hoping to improve the shots that go into the blog.
ROMWOD- I dabbled this fall in the ROMWOD app. ROMWOD stands for range of motion workout of the day, and I really liked the interface and activities a lot. With the off season, I am thinking that I need this, and I am excited to sign up again for ROMWOD. It is not cheap, but the $14 a month is certainly cheaper than my heading to the gym. Range of motion emphasis is more of what I need at 50 than just about any other exercise off the bike, and I find the blend of strength and yoga in the ROMWOD program to be a good useful mix for me.
WHOOP- I am still jazzed about the WHOOP 3.0 strap and using it to plan and execute my training ahead. I didn’t really get to utilize it much this year, but I know that it is going to give me good guidance in the year ahead. The sleep monitoring and stress scores that fuel the recovery advice have really gotten my attention, and I know that I will be able to use these to make smart decisions when training. It is fun to watch these scores fluctuate and see how my actions affect them. I have really started to prepare for 2020’s racing, and this will be a major part of that.
XERT- Another training app that’s exciting for me has got to be the XERT app and website from Baron Biosystems. XERT is a cycling fitness tracking software that is like what Strava or TrainingPeaks does. However, XERT has a built-in training advisor that will tell me what type of activity I should consider for the day. It even has trainer workouts that are quite good, more like Trainer Road than the simple Zwift workouts. I find their focus to be very helpful, and they adapt to your performance. If you are unable to complete certain intervals, it will change on the fly. The app works great on my iPhone which means I do not have to set up my laptop and the whole shebang which often results in me waiting while Windows updates. I already have Paris to Ancaster in as my first 2020 goal, and I am about to start workouts on XERT to be ready when it comes.