Building a foundation

Instead of wasting my time watching episodes of “The Office”, I mine as well do a little updating…
Lately I have been satisfied at how things have been going. The only issue that still keeps me somewhat concerned is a little quadriceps tendonitis in the left knee, which has been ongoing. Luckily I was able to get a prescription for physical therapy from Dr. Gish of OAL. I went to PT (my 7th PT by now???) and they had me doing some strengthening stuff for my inner quads. They also did some cross friction massage on the tendon to beak up scar tissue and used a neat muscle stim patch that was filled with prescription medicine and basically forced the stuff into the tendon thru the skin VIA electrodes (also to help break up scar tissue)… My PT, Eric feels confident that the tendonitis is not anything that I will not be able to work through (given that I don’t start mashing gears everyday). I will keep a close eye on it and make sure I don’t do anything stupid to aggravate it. Oh, and of course my back pain… All I will say is that I don’t have any complaints and hope it stays that way until I am too old and senile to ride a bike and the doctors have me restrained in a stray jacket, confined in an area where I am no less than 10-miles from anything with two wheels.
Okay, enough talk about injuries…
I am training for next season. I started doing power intervals on the bike, instead of lifting in the gym. Other than that, a lot of base mileage at a low intensity. I also got hooked up with a PowerTab SL that I will be utilizing. My coach is Bart Torre, a great friend of mine for quite some time now. I met Bart way back when I first started racing. Bart is a total machine on the bike, and has amazing knowledge of the science and physiology of training, nutrition and the like. I am really looking forward to following a structured program and being able to log and calculate everything I do and track my progress. The past year, due to the knee and back problem, I pretty much just rode my bike and hoped it was enough to get me by in elite races. It ended up being just barley enough, but I really craved the ability to gauge my fitness and have a plan as to what kind of training I am doing, AND when.
It’s cold out now. It’s windy. Sometimes is raining. Sometimes it's cold AND wet. Sometimes it is cold, wet and windy. Frankly, I could care less. I am just happy to be riding my bike!!!
Speaking of that, it’s time to ride.

TG