Hungry

Did the Hampshire Hilly Hundred yesterday. With the ride to and from Kingsclere it came to a total of 120 miles so comfortably the hardest ride of the season to date and first time over 400TSS points.

Good news was that Giant and my touring gear coped very well with the ride, which included several very bumpy bits (nothing fell off, a good sign).

Bad news was I did not fare quite as well. I was aiming for a 205W+ average. Started well but found it hard to maintain the intensity after 4 hours. Was not helped by having to make several halts/backtracks to check route. Still even taking this into account I found the going got tougher.

Overall it took 8 hours:
2 hours at 207W/239NW
2 hours at 199W/229NW
2 hours at 180W/219NW
2 hours at 170W/208NW

So as time wore on I wore out. Began to feel hungry after 6 hours, so Nutrigrain/jelly babies/raisins are enough. Stopped at a delicatessen in Overton
http://www.hampshire-information.co.uk/details.asp?listid=306
for a bacon sandwich and this worked wonders. For the future will take some more filling food as well as jelly babies.

Still on the good side I made pretty good speed. The whole ride was done at an average of 25kph which isnt at all bad considering I was back on the Marathon+/Slime tubed Giant carrying a fair bit of gear, there was a fair breeze and the route (both elevation and road surface) was far from smooth.

Hungry Hampshire Hilly?

Rest day today. Planning a big ride tomorrow though (in perhaps daft hope BBC weathers sunny prediction is right) and will be doing an all day outing following the route of Hampshire Hilly Hundred http://www.sportivecycling.org.uk/

Apart from being a test of the legs am also planning this as a check out of my touring gear which I will be using on the Giant in France next week. Last time this was used was on the TDF so will be like good old times.

Also planning to make the ride a test of feeding strategy. Using the Tri-Talk nutrition calculator I am guesstimating I will need to take in around 2200kcal if the ride takes around the 8 hours I guess it will given the distance, climbing and heavy bike. I will be aiming to ride this at a steady 210W and will be taking a mix of bars, jelly babies and raisins. In theory these add up to the 2200kcal I will need. It will be interesting to see how the last hour compares to the first.

Wet, windy but happy

After the initiation by fire last weekend yesterday was wind and water as, surprise, the BBC forecast turned out correct and it bucketed down and blew a gale at Thruxton for my second road race.

Arrived, signed on and sat in the car, only emerging at last minute for a couple of laps at the pits and almost missing the start. Learning from last week checked how many laps and was pretty relieved to hear that we would just be doing 8.

I wanted to go harder than last week, the more so given the weather so as to keep warm. Start was again hard but not fast as we pedalled into a gale, the wind blowing in a very different direction. As a result the climb into the chicane at the end of the lap was not too difficult but the approach was made tricky by a vicious cross wind.

On the second lap some of the youngsters made a break and I tried hard to close them down. The was the first of a number of bursts of enthusiasm from the juniors and each failed, some learning from me. I did a fair share of leading, though the group as a whole seemed to lack any organisation, people taking long turns to pull at the front.

The going was tough, I did not spend much time looking at watts but when I did (mainly on the short climb) I was pushing well over 300. I had little trouble keeping up and with the lead and despite, again, losing count of the laps I stuck with the front group actually being in the lead with half a lap to go. But no push left to power up the final sprint and trailed in around 15th or so.

Did a few warm down, very wet, laps then headed home. Got very cold unshipping bike and was happy to get a warm bath.

Downloaded the stats for the ride and was slightly surprised to see how hard the race had been. Averaged 292W/309NW and set an all time PB for 60 minutes normalised power of 299W. Given that 8 minutes of this included the warm down this left me pretty pleased. As result have changed WKO so my threshold is now 299W.

EZ riding

As noted previously decided to use Lifecycle for a bit of VO2 work until lighter evenings arrive.

Being an exercise bike the Lifecycle comes with a number of programs that help lend variety to training and take some of the hassle out of the process. One of the ones I use quite a bit is the "EZ" drill. This apparently stands for "easy" in American though in fact in can be far from this. Basically its a ramp up from a base to beak 75% into the work time, then back to base again. At the highest level 20 setting the peak is 400W which would make this drill harder than my last MAP test (because unlike the MAP when you hit peak you have to keep going..)

Did not feel quite like going for 20 last night but did set target of a warmup EZ12 for 12 minutes then 4 EZs of 20 minutes each going from level 16 (300W peak),17-320W, 18-345W and finally 19-375W. I was not sure at the start I would make it from the end and the last 2 intervals were tough but I just about made it. Used Powertap to capture HR and transferred watts manually to be able to load into WKO.

Work interval for the 5 EZs ended up at 111TSS/246W over 9o minutes with a peak 5 minutes of 344W which aint bad. In terms of VO2 it was just a toe in the water but ended up with near 12 minutes in VO2 territory which is a start.

Other good thing was how tightly my HR matched power. Nice steady rise as power goes up and rapid recovery as it comes down. No sign of it maxing out even on EZ19, peaking at 176bpm.

Last thing of note was that (as I found in test I posted a while back) the Lifecycle seems to be pretty good at delivering accurate watts. I did not seek to replicate conditions for the MAP but in terms of perceived effort the max work at 375W seemed similar to the test and the HR relationship to power ditto looks comparable.

2x20 Fixed/Roubaix Rollers

Did a couple of getting to know my bike sessions last couple of days. On Tuesday hooked fixed up to turbo for a 2x20 workout which was also intended to work out interval function on Ergomo and check the HR belt I got for it (it uses Polar coded).

Ergomo interval is nice once you get used to it. Shows useful stuff like averages of power/HR/speed and you can do up to 30 which should be enough for most things. Also like the feature that lets you see TSS/IF on the fly. Very handy.

Workout went pretty well. First 20 I did slow ramp up building to end. Worked out at 285W with just 2.4% decoupling. Second I started harder and did 20secs in each of the starting minutes at 300W+. This was tougher and I drooped a bit 3/4 of the way through. But pulled myself together and pushed on to finish with 283W. Decoupling over 6% (not surprising given power ups and downs).

HR still puzzlingly low, maxed at 173.

Yesterday put Roubaix on the rollers. Target was to get some practice riding on drops as dont tend to do this much so want to practice as will be useful in keeping speed up on sportives (and if I do many more road races).

Amazed how stable the Roubaix felt compared to the Giant. Think this mainly due to tyres and probably especially the slime inner tubes on the giant. These must slightly unbalance the wheeel.

Anyway turned out to be comfortable riding on the drops, though interestingly found I needed to add 5mm to the seat height to feel best. Once got into groove stepped down the gears and ended up in my biggest 53x11 gear. As a result the speed for the 65mins of the workout was pretty quick (50kph) though the watts relatively low (255W/260NPW). Decoupling good at 2.6% and HR felt comfortable. Towards end made specific effort to push above 170 at which time watts hitting 330+.

Interesting comparing power with the Giant. While on Roubaix 50kph is an easy 255W or so on the Giant I was doing 40kph intervals at 305W+. Explains why the Roubaix felt so light after riding all winter on the Giant.

Only issue I have is that seems will be difficult to do 330W+ VO2 intervals on the Roubaix on rollers. This looks like it will mean having to pedal at 100rpm+ and over 70kph which is quite hairy. Other option is doing on the turbo but this will mess up rear tyre. Doing fixed on turbo OK for tyres (as keeping the Marathons on it) but needs me to go over 110rpm. Could go out to ride hills in town but all of them have roadworks + temp traffic lights on. Could go out of town and ride hills but means going down hill quick in the dark.

So will adopt plan L and do a bit of VO2 on Lifecycle for next couple of weeks, after which time evenings will be light enough for post work rides.

First Road Race!

Did my first ever road race at Thruxton yesterday. Good news on the weather front as contrary to BBC pessimism it was nice and sunny if a bit blowy.

Got to the start nice and early to register and then did a bit of warm up on my Roubaix, its first outing of 2008. It felt light as a feather after the winter Giant, though I did notice every bump in the tyres.

I had a lot of butterflies in the stomach leading up to the start. They got worse when I saw how big the field was, too many to count but included riders with numbers up to 70+ on top of which were a number of women riders who would be sharing their race with ours.

Started at the back of the bunch which turned out to be a bit of a mistake. Last time I was at Thruxton it was on a motoring experience day and I was blasting round in a Porsche turbo at 100mph. Very different having to do it under your own power but some things remained the same, especially the importance of getting corners right. I took these too slowly at first and suffered the "concertina" effect I had heard about. This is when the leading riders in the group accelarate away and you need to ride twice as hard to keep in touch with the group. It took me several laps to work out how to ride most efficently and keep in touch and the graph above shows this with several power spikes in the earlier laps (which is me riding like billio to get onto someones wheel again.)

Found it does not pay to be a gentleman. On one corner I heard a woman warn she was on my inside so I braked to let here through. Everyone else went as well and I was all my own and took a bit of puff to get back.

This was a bit easier because other learning is that laps are of two halves, as the speed graph above shows. Downhill, with a following wind we pushed 60kph (I did not realise I was going this fast at the time,..) Then you turn, first across, then into the wind and up a hill. Here the whole bunch grinds to a halt. Knowing this gives a chance to catch up on each lap (though only in the beginners race, I understand in higher races this is where you push, trying to get the others to crack).

Started to very much get into the swing of things as the laps passed by. So much so that by the end of the 9th lap (of 10 it turned out though start sheet said 11) I was at the front. Only problem was that I had not been counting and when my earpiece came out (true to habit I was listening to trance music) I sat up to put it back in. Just about then I heard the bell go and everyone disappeared and I was on my tod. I set off in chase and caught half the stragglers but could not latch onto the lead group. Still I ended up around 20th which wasnt bad for a first attempt.

(The speed graph above shows my error very well. Each lap is shown as a nice smooth V except for the last which has a little W at the bottom which was me speeding up, slowing down to put ear piece back in, hearing bell and trying to speed up again). Still the last lap wasnt bad, I did most of it solo and still managed over 40kph. Interesting learning on the hill on last lap as well, my cadence was below 70 and I was finding it hard work. I kicked down a few gears and up into the 80/90 rpm zone and power shot up.

Overall watts for the race were 235/264NW, so not too tough, it was just the occasional that caused a bit of pain, plus the last lap. HR averaged 154 with a max of only 171. Cadence was mostly above 80 but slowed on the hills (need to change down). Decoupling was very good -0.5%.

Felt a bit of a prat for getting last lap wrong. As bit of punishment went for a 60 minute post race ride, first 30 mins I pushed a bit and it was a bit harder than the race itself. Got home and did a couple of hard workouts on indoor bike then recovery, catching up on the Sopranos.

Definitely enjoyed the experience. Another race on next week so will give it another go, hopefully learning the while.

Feel bit poo-ey but train OK

Been feeling a bit under the weather. I put this down to finally getting serious about losing the last few pounds separating me from target weight of 11stone (aka70kg). Made some good progress with this after getting Fitday, so far losing 4lbs. However have done this a bit too quickly in just 10 days. But will persevere as want to focus on training.

Anyway yesterday had scheduled myself to do first focussed threshold workout of build, starting not too hard at 6*150kj intervals with work 100kj at 300W+ and rest 50kj.

Must say did not fancy it much following the Audax the day. However have been reading book about Robert Millar part of which covers his training regime (which was pretty tough) and used as inspiration to at least get out into the garage and onto the rollers.

First couple of intervals felt like hard work but then I started getting into the swing of the drills and actually quite enjoyed the last 4 intervals. Only inconvenience was my bike had some difficulty shifting front gear and fell off the rollers a couple of times. Average of the intervals was 305W, each taking around 5m:30s. Rest varied from 190 to 240W (each a bit harder than previous) HR was well controlled, it averaged 159 during the total 50 minutes of the session (which had an NP of 275W) hitting a peak of 170, well under my max 185. TSS for the whole ride was 100 dead (but felt easier than doing a 25TT..)

Played around with the intervals in terms of cadence. Did first three in high 80s then upped and lowered revs into 70s. For the final interval built up power gradually by keeping revs solid and changing into bigger gear.

I found, as ever, that despite received wisdom it feels easier to me to have big gear, slow revs.

Like this drill and will continue, adding a couple more intervals next time to take the whole time of the work session over the hour level, then see about uping the work kj in each interval, with the aim of biting small bits off the elephant of getting to an average of 300W+ for the hour.

Fixed Ergomo

Ergomo arrived and I successfully mounted it onto my fixed bike.

Job was pretty straight forward, just a question of switching bottom brackets and wiring up speed sensor. Did find, as for HAC, that the supplied magnet for the speed sensor was too feeble and replaced with spare Mavic one I had (test of for a magnet is how hard is it to separate from a screwdriver)

Took it out for a spin last Wednesday and was pleasantly surprised by how easy I found the going.

First impressions are that the Ergomo's head unit seems to have more functionality than the powertap, including TSS/IF measures and an altimeter. Needs a coded Polar chest strap for HR though so need to get one of these. Also like the fact that it uses a rechargable battery which also powers the sensor in the BB. Better than the Powertap.

Link to WKO worked pretty much first time as well.

Ard Audax

Did the clubs March Audax Sunday and found it harder going than expected. Can't blame the weather, it was nice and sunny though the wind was blowing a bit.

But felt a bit under the weather. Put this down to a combination of actually managing to lose a bit of weight at last and not eating enough during the ride. Also was well overdressed for the conditions with four layers on top + thermal beanie/gloves. Carrying a backsack did not help either (I was expecting ride to be at an easier pace so added this to give a bit more load).

Overall stats for the 4 hour ride were an average power of 192W/236NPW, TSS 262, HR 89-182 av 155. Interestingly this is exactly the same as the first 4 hours of the Snowdrop I did start Feb (192W/235NPW/TSS 256/HR 101-181-av 149).

It was however some 20W less than my all time PB on the first day of the Wessex last year (211W/257NPW/TSS 339/HR 93-177-av150) (which by coincidence matched my effort on my fixed ride earlier this week). This is a bit worrying and I will start upping the intensity of my longer training rides now base season is passed