by CycleOps Powered Athlete Jeremiah Bishop

After competing in Costa Rica’s La Ruta de Los Conquistadores—my last major race of the 2009 season—I took a 10-day break from riding. I enjoyed restful time at home, a bit of trail running and a Thanksgiving road trip with my wife, Erin, and our 9-month-old, Conrad, to visit friends and family.

Now, with next season’s racing months away, my training goals are to balance out my fitness and keep my aerobic system up to par. It’s also time to prepare for the demands of the season ahead by boosting my muscular endurance, strength and speed: for this I incorporate weight lifting, core workouts and balancing exercises in the gym. I also accomplish many of these goals while having fun on the local Tuesday Night Fix Gear Ride.

Early winter is also the time to shake things up a bit by doing some cross training. The best part of this training is it’s pretty fun, flexible and not too grueling.

I don’t do a lot of cross-country skiing, so I’m not very graceful. But, tempted by eight inches of fresh snow, one of my training buddies and I made the best of a recent storm and headed to the nearby mountains where even deeper snow and vast trails waited for an adventure.

Cross-country skiing is not what you’d normally do with a PowerTap, but why not? So, when I suit up to hit the snowy trails, I bring my PowerTap CPU along.

Since most of my training is on the mountain bike, I set up my PowerTap head units to record heart rate data. This setup comes in handy when I hit a killer hike-a-bike section on the trails: my PowerTap keeps recording my heart rate data even though I’m off the bike. It’s also great when I want to record heart rate on a trail run, cross-country ski adventure or something intense like holiday shopping. But seriously, I keep my training data current despite a reduced amount of on-the-bike training by using heart rate data to calculate my training stress score (TSS). It’s a pretty simple way to keep tabs on my fitness, but it works very well.

After the holidays, it’s back to the training grind. But for now, my focus and goals are fun and refreshing. My next challenge is to attempt run the mountainous 26-mile Wild Oak Trail by mid January. Wish me luck!

I wish you a healthy and happy holiday season. Enjoy everything in moderation – training included!

- Jeremiah