I can happily say that I've survived the first week of the first cycle of the foundation phase, putting Hunter's plans into action.
It's an interesting mix of 3 days of lifting plus 5 days of riding (on days I'm lifting, the riding is pretty light).
I'm really happy that I started weight training a few weeks ago so that I am past all the muscle soreness and can focus just on training, not limping around in agony. For the first cycle, I'm doing relatively light weights so that my tendons and ligaments can toughen up a bit for the heavier loads to come later. I'm doing 4 sets of primary lifts (legs) and 3 sets of secondary lifts (everything else), with 12 to 15 reps of 8 different lifts that cover pretty much the whole body with both push and pull multi-joint movements, preferring free weights and avoiding single-joint machines as much as I can.
I'm really enjoying being back in the gym. It's something different that, like cycling, allows me to measure progress pretty easily.
The riding is easier than I'm used to during racing season, but it's not exactly easy. My major goal is to retain as much fitness as I can (maybe even gain a tiny bit) while I'm working on changing my body composition. That means doing a little cadence work, a little tempo/sweet spot, and a little VO2 and anaerobic capacity work. I used to think of foundation training as just a bunch of zone 2 work... that's certainly not the case this year! It reminds me more of what I was doing in the fall of 2012, when I was doing one of Hunter's off-the-shelf plans... and that led to a pretty great season in 2013.
I'm already seeing small changes in my body measurements.
This week's numbers:
Weight: 171.6 pounds
Body fat: 17.8%
Chest: 36 1/2"
Upper Arm: 12 3/4"
Waist: 34 1/2"
Thigh: 24 1/2"
Note: The weight and body fat are averages from the entire week to reduce the impact of outliers.
