I Oughta Fire My Personal Trainer
I’m a nice guy, so it’s hard for me to say this, but I think I’m going to have to fire my personal trainer. He’s just not getting the job done for me. Consider the stupid training mistakes he’s made for me this year:
- Haphazard diet that came too late: My trainer has known since this time last year that I wanted to be back into racing condition by now. So what did he do? He did nothing until May, by which time I should have already been light and fit and ready to race. And then he gave me only vague parameters for my diet: "Eat lots of fruit and vegetables, and don’t pig out on chips when you watch the news at night." No wonder I’m still 17 pounds overweight.
- No organized schedule: My trainer would often wait until I was actually on my bike before deciding what kind of training I would do that day, and even then he was incredibly vague about what my objectives were: "You rode hard yesterday, so take it easy today," he’d say. Or, "Why don’t you go out and see where that forested road out by Snoqualmie Falls leads to? It looks pretty." I swear, I don’t think he had me do a day of intervals or a recovery ride the whole season. He just sent me out on one medium-effort ride after another.
- Reactive, not proactive: After my trainer heard that I had a tough time in the hills at the RAMROD last week, he started having me do ride nothing but hills for the past couple of rides, and it looks like he plans to keep that up for who-knows-how-long. And the thing is, we both know that it’s too late for me to be a good climber at the Leadville 100, since it’s only two weeks away.
In fact, it seems as if my personal trainer has gained his knowledge of proper training techniques primarily through anecdotes, random advice, and often-contradictory magazine articles. Clearly, he’s ill-informed and incompetent. I can’t believe I ever listened to the guy.
I’ve learned my lesson, though. A year from now I’ll be doing my tenth consecutive Leadville 100 — something only a small handful of people have done. I’ll be 40 years old. Wouldn’t it be great if — finally — I got that sub-9-hour award I’ve been dreaming of? Maybe with a decent trainer, I’ll have a chance.
Today’s weight: 166.8
Bonus giveaway explanation, just in case I haven’t hit you over the head hard enough with its obviousness: My "personal trainer" is me.