Jan 24--Rest Week & Local Doping

I've been on a rest week all this week. It's probably good I'm trying to keep a real structured training plan this season, because I don't feel that I truly earned this rest week, yet if I didn't take it I'd undoubtedly end up burning myself out earlier. February will be a massive amount of hours (massive for me, that is). Still base training, of course, so no real intensity. But I will do my best to hit the 10 to 12 hours/week mark for the next training block. The annoying challenge--as ever--will be to fit in the long base hours when the weather is such crap. (Although, the weather this winter in NYC has so far been relatively mild, so we may get lucky in Feb. too.) I dream of being able to supplement my outdoor riding with trainer work, but that will have to wait for when we have a new apartment with a setup that allows me to actually ride the trainer without massive amounts of hassle. As I said, I dream...

Had an interesting talk with a fellow on another local team about doping in the NYC peloton. Seems that this guy is pretty sure that his own teammates are into performance enhancers of the non-legal variety. It makes sense. There are plenty of very very wealthy local racers who can afford to get the products, and afford the medical help to use them correctly. I don't think it's a large number of people by any means, but I have no doubt that a few of our local bigshots are in fact doping. Ridiculous that people would dope to race in Prospect Park, or even regionally. But we know the stuff works, and the temptation to "help yourself out" with some products is no doubt great for some folks who just really really like to win. I think if there was drug testing at local races, we might be surprised at the results. Something to think about...

-Ian