Training Qs: intervals, blowing up, fat...

I have two goals right now:

-Lose a huge amount of weight
-up the wattage

I'm mostly interested in sprint bursts of power, since every race I ever 
won, I won from a sprint, and this Fall I'll probably start riding track.

Conversely, I really, really like CX, so I wouldn't want to throw my 
30-minute power under a bus, and while I don't care either way about 
TTs, I always seem to enjoy them while I'm actually doing them (I 
realize that may mean I'm doing it wrong).

So, this year's strategy could be summarized as:

-goal-wise, I'm throwing long races and hill climbs under a bus. If they 
help my training, fine, but it's going to be a long time before my body 
composition makes me look like a climber*.

-I wouldn't mind doing well in crits, but as far as I'm concerned, the 
whole purpose of road season this year is to get me back into race 
shape. If I come good for some of the August crits, fine. If not, CX 
season is soon enough.

Given that like all fatty masters, I have limited time (that beer won't 
drink itself, you know), my current plan is to strive for 2-3 serious 
training sessions per week, plus as much high-HR work as I can manage on 
my commute (which, bizarrely, consists of four 15-minute rides a day: I 
go home for lunch).

Here's a typical training, er, plan: 

-multi-modal commute halfway across town, 25ish km in multiple sections. 
Because of the hills and the timing, I have to ride faster than slow to 
get to the crit on time.
-yes, crit: ride Cat 4 crit until I explode spectacularly, and then keep 
riding until I get lapped or show signs of endangering the sprint.
-ride home in a very screwed-up state, probably have to stop for a 
drink. This ride reverses the commute, but the hills are more favorable.

The goal is to do a fairly long ride that will burn fat, but to throw 
enough high-HR riding in that I build power. Is it dumb to combine these 
activities? Is it dumber than not doing one or the other at all?

I'm certainly in such a state, physically, right now that any serious 
riding is likely to help, but I don't want to be doing some sort of 
ridiculous physiological suicide that will be totally counterproductive 
(as, for example, I suspect long rides at 25 km/h would be. Junk miles 
ho!)

I will also try to pack in a few dedicated sessions of riding hard, 
60-90s intervals uphill (3 sets of 3 to start), since that has 
historically made me strong fast.

If the biggest result from my training is that I lose 25 pounds and 
maintain some semblance of current power, I will be highly competitive 
in the local crits, and should shoot up the CX results as if I was 
experimenting with The Shit That Will Kill Them.

Finally, are my training goals ridiculous? Am I sabotaging the CX season 
with my devotion to intervals, when I should just work on hour-power or 
something? Is training for both CX and sprinting purely hopeless? I 
don't see a lot of peloton-ing happening at the front end of local "B" 
CX races, but then I don't see a lot of the front of those races, period.

Thanks for any suggestions, even the funny ones.

*will never happen.

-- 
Ryan Cousineau rcousine@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."