Coach Chris -Lance Looks to a Different Season



jcpiercy

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Coach Carmichael: Lance Looks to a Different Season Chris Carmichael
Monday, January 24, 2005




Even though the transition from US Postal Service to the Discovery Channel Professional Cycling Team has been expected for a long time, seeing Lance in the new kit still catches me by surprise sometimes. The new team, with the new clothing, decals, and paint jobs that come with it, are symbols, in a way, of a refreshing new chapter in Lance’s career.

With his sixth Tour de France win, Lance set a solitary mark for others to aspire towards. The accomplishment required more than six years of constant attention and focus, and while there’s at least one more Tour de France in Lance’s future, having six yellow jerseys opens up options that weren’t advisable in the past few years. The opportunities are exciting to ponder and challenging to prepare for, yet they also provide new motivation to train.

Right now, Lance is in decent shape, but he’s feeling a little sluggish. As the Discovery Channel Team camp progresses, Lance is feeling better each day and getting more fully integrated with his training. Over the past few months, his training has been less structured than usual, but the volume and intensity have been appropriate to keep him from losing the fitness gains he’s made in recent years.

With an early-season focus on the Classics, Lance is going to be hitting the roads with harder training sessions very soon. The challenges of winning one-day races are significantly different than those of three-week stage races (See “Classic Story of Survival” or “Tweak to Peak for a Big Goal” at TrainRight.com), yet a strong base of aerobic conditioning is necessary for both. After years of accumulated work on his aerobic engine, he’s able to maintain conditioning from season to season. It only takes a few weeks of solid aerobic training for him to reach the point where he’s ready for the harder intervals. That time will come soon enough, and right now he’s having fun settling into the new season and considering his options.
- Coach Chris...