Another good 10

Another 10 last night, this time on the hillier H10/3A course. Downhill out, uphill back, the difference between the two legs accentuated by a brisk wind blowing downhill.

Following last week adopted similar tactic, going out hard then digging in on return.

Did well knocking 10s off my best time last year (which ride also had power highs). Pleased with this as conditions definitely worse. Power was strong, set another 5 minute PB at 372W and power through much of time was also PB.


Looking at my power PBs now all but one are in the current season. The exception is the 1 minute at 519W. My closest this year was 508W. That said I have not really spent much time training at or riding short hard efforts. Before year end I will have a concentrated effort to beat this final PB.

12 Hour - good training for a 10TT?

After a couple of days recovery from the 12 hour I did the club 10 last night.

I set a ride goal of filling in some of the gaps on my 2008 v 2007 power profile. (I still remember the first time I saw WKO at "Flammerouge" Tony's March last year. One the most powerfull images I got was the ability to compare years in terms of performance. In the graphic above 2008 is the solid line, 2007 the dotted. Over most of the chart the solid line is above the dotted showing how I have improved this year).

Target was 5-6 minute power so I set out to ride the first km at around 300W then put the hammer down and try to keep above 360W.

Turned up on time but a bit late so started down the field. Route was my favourite, H10/3 west of Newbury down A4 to Hungerford and back. Weather was typical August, occasional drizzle and a bit windy. Having done without music for 12 hours last weekend I decided I could do without it for 10 miles. (Quite enjoyed it as bike currently running smooth as silk.)

All went very well. I achieved my training goal and recorded season best power from 5-9 minutes and all time best 5 mins of 359W.

But ride went even better than that. I knew I was going well as speedo was mostly over 40kph, even on return let when I eased off a bit. As ride went on I made a conscious effort to keep it above 40 and managed to hold enough back to finish strong.

Ended up mullahing my PB, knocking 25secs off it with 23.45.

Strangely watts for the ride (321W/325NW) were not any different from slower rides and pacing was opposite to "ideal" with hard first half and "easy" second (not due to wind which was more against on return).

I put improvement down to a combination of factors

- As result of 12 found a comfortable aero position (biggest single factor I reckon)

- Not listening to music I was more aware of breathing

- Seeing speed displayed (previously set to cadence) acted as a motivator

- Being towards the end of rider list I expected to get caught, which had never yet happened. Did not consciously try to avoid this but think must have acted as a spur.

Whatever the reason left me pretty happy.

One final strange thing is HR. It levelled out at 172, which is well short of the 177 that I have done in the past (though more 2007 than 2008).

12 hours - the counting

After the ride the analysis:

Power/Speed:

WKO file for the 12 hour time trial is above (I forgot to take my HR strap so no HR).

Shows the story of the ride pretty well. I was planning to ride at around 210W or so. In first 4 hours I overdid it a bit, partly due to enjoying myself but mainly because I could not see display due to rain!

As weather brightened and I started the B loops the average speed started to drop though power still around the 210W mark average. Both speed and power took a hit between 6 and 7 hours into the ride during the 30 minute transfer upwind between the B and C loops. This was the low point of the ride and first C loop was pretty poor as well. Only averaged 173W/185NW for these sections, just 30.3kph. Remaining 4 C loops were 1.5kph faster but power still only averaged 178W/186NW. Finishing section was hard going, just 166W/180NW and a slow 30.5kph (though not helped by need to slow down 2xper lap to get water).

Food:

I started off with 4 bottles of PSP + 6000 cals of food (mix of suger sweets, breadsticks, cereal bars, sweet chestnuts and sandwiches). Rain messed food up and I forgot (doh!) I had some cereal bars in my jersey pocket under my gilet. I reckon I ate about 60% of the food so say 3600 cals or so. This probably was not quite enough and I certainly needed to drink more as the sun came out.

Doing unsupported:

It was a good decision not to follow original plan of Mr M Jnr coming along. Route meant it would have been difficult to work out where he could have stopped and it would not have been much help. However mobile (i.e. with car) support would have been a great help. The route was a bit hillier than I expected and I suffered a bit from all the stuff I had to carry. Also it would have helped to have dry food rather than wet mush. Biggest needs though were

-more sports drink (the stops only supplied water, if you kept moving you only got 1/4 bottle. If you stopped it took an age to fill up)

- moral support. My spirits dropped a bit during the B and C loops and I could have done with a familiar face. I could also have done with someone to do the sums for me in terms of pacing. Due to my detour and the fact that my powertap does not record time stopped I was not sure how far ahead/behind the pace I was.

The next time?

Any challenge that really pushes you is a funny old thing. At the time it cannot be over quick enough but soon after you feel like trying again. This is definitely the case for this event. With hindsight I regret not pushing a bit harder and at least got past the 247.1 mile club record.

So I will give the event another go next year, choosing a race more in advance to be sure of getting something that is both a fast course and makes support straight forward.

I will also use aerobars (and other TT gear) next time. I did not want to do this for my first attempt as I did not want to feel that, if I broke the record, it was just because of my equipment.

My ride on Sunday pretty much settled this score. Had I not taken a wrong turn and if the wind had been just a bit less strong I would have taken the record and so have no qualms that my next attempt should try to set the bar as high as possible.

12 hours of wind rain and some pain...

Well its over. Did my first 12 hour time trial on Sunday and, not surprisingly I guess, it was probably the hardest days cycling of my life.

Limitations on dates meant the event I took part in also happened to be the National Championship. So it was quite a large affair with over 100 riders taking part. The course was around and about Cambridge/Newmarket and consisted of 4 sections
A - Up and down the A11 dual carriage way a couple of times (around 85 miles)
B+C 2 different loops of around 13 miles, each ridden a number of times (in my case 4 times round B and 5 times round C)
Finish: A final loop of near 14 miles that you ride until your time is up (I got round 2 and a bit times)

Having originally planned to rope in Mr M Junior I eventually decided it would be easier to do self supporting as it was not obvious where Mr M J could wait given the various loops. I stayed nearby at on the "Genome Campus", a strange mix of Regency manor house and cutting edge research institute.

12 hours of riding means an early start and I got up at 4.15. On going outside I found, to my gloom, that it was drizzling. Found the start and got numbers, also noticed warning specifically banning use of MP3s.

I loaded food and drink onto bike. Plan was to take all food with me, some on tri-bags on crossbar, reaminder hanging off rear. I started with 4 full bottles, planning to fill up at stops.

Start facilities were nice but only had one poo loo, not really enough given number of competitors. Time was pressing and so had to make use of womens facilities (fortunately was not spotted...)

Only just made it to start in time, still drizzling. Set of and went all of 250m before one of my bottles dropped off the back of my bike. Sorted quickly and set off again.

Ahead of time I thought the first A section would be the worst as it was up and down a long stretch of dual carriageway. However this turned out not to be the case and this was the bit I enjoyed most. The road surface was good and I made good time. This was despite the drizzle turning into occasional downpours. Unfortunately during one of these I managed to get lost and went up the wrong bit of road. Realised after a mile or so and had to conduct a tricky u-turn that including manhandling bike over crash barrier. Still one advantage of early start was that there was not much traffic...

At the end of the A section, despite being soaked, my sprits were high. After 4 hours I had covered over 140km so a healthy average over 35kph. We then moved on to the B course and that coincided with good and bad news on the weather front:
Good news - the rain stopped
Bad news - the wind picked up. It had already been blowing but now this developed into a strong wind.

The B loop was not really flat, more rolling and it had some sections that combined uphill with upwind that sapped the legs and damaged my morale. On the second loop I decided to stop. I rummaged through my food bag and found the rain had seeped in and turned some of my food to mush. Still I scoffed a chicken sarnie and restarted. Though not with much joy, I could see my average speeed falling and started to get a bit down. Not soon enough I was waved off the B loop and onto the C.

This transfer was the low spot of the ride. It was 15km, mostly down a dual carriage way, all the way into wind. It was very hard work and I hated it. Eventually we came to loop C where the sun was out and there were lots of spectators. I even heard someone cry "come on Martin" which confused me a bit. This loop was more enjoyable than B being a mix of slow into wind and fast wind behind. I was running very low on water by this time so made some stops to fill up. This plus taking it easy on the downwind stretch meant my average speed continued to fall and hopes of beating the club record started to dwindle.

They were pretty much gone by the time I was waved onto the finishing course but I soldiered on, aiming to at least hit 240miles. Eventually I was flagged down and told I could stop. Luckily this was right next to the control so I only had a short ride back.

Results took a while to come through but when mine came up I was happy to find I had managed 241.6 miles. Just 5.5 miles short of the club record, even less as the extra couple of miles I did as a detour obviously did not count.

During wait for results the mystery of the "come on Martin" yells of encouragement was cleared up. An ex Newburian was supporting one of the other riders. By coincidence he was the brother of the clubs junior record holder (the one that is longer than the senior one I was trying to break).

Result of the main competition was close, being won with 284.5 miles, just 0.65 miles from second place. Winner, Ian Cammish, is apparently 51, so doubly impressive and encouragement to keep training.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/Ian_Cammish_Wins_National_12Hour_Championship_article_265729.html

M & Ms big adventure

Not sure how many beers I had had over a Cornish meal with Mrs M but at some point or other, somehow or other we came up with a cunning plan for a joint challenge to keep us active and save us from premature senescence.

No matter how good Mrs M becomes on 3 wheels its unlikely she will be joining me going up (and much less likely down) any Alps

However she is a good walker and talking about this and what to do when we both have more time on our hands (as birds fly nests and we lay down tools) somehow we both hit on the idea of doing a long walk.

Its much better if any journey has a purpose (e.g. as my original plan to ride the tour) and Mrs M has always wanted to visit Iona, a (very) small island of another (slightly bigger) island off the north west coast of Scotland.

http://www.scotland-inverness.co.uk/iona.htm

So we put 2 and 2 together and came up with the idea of walking there (or at least the bits that did not involve boats). Originally the intention was to walk from home but we thought that may be a bit much so revised plan to start from Durham.

Plan was hatched Friday night and we spent much of a dismal Saturday buying some books and doing some first planning. On first appearences we seem to have lucked out. A route from Durham can make use of some of the long distance footpath network and, judging from Rough Guide advice on distance per day, a rough and ready route marked out on my Truckers atlas seems to show us needing about 30 days or to make the journey. So a pretty big challenge but well doable....time will no doubt tell but this blog will have to broaden into Mr Ms Iona Adventure some time over the next year or so...

Many happy returns

Mrs M and I kept an appointment we made 25 years ago and spent last week having a second honeymoon at the same hotel in Newquay were we celebrated our first

http://www.trebarwith-hotel.co.uk/

Happily the hotel had not changed much and we had a great time, despite a typically British week of summer weather that saw more use of brollies than beach clothes.

Newquay was much the same as we left it 25 years ago though there seemed to be a lot more emphasis on surfing and no signs of things made from shells or naughty postcards.

Arriving Friday,
Saturday we looked around and spent some time enjoying the sun on the beach just below the hotel.
Sunday we got wet, joined the National Trust and Mrs M made her first ride on her new trike
Monday we went to the Eden project, which was very impressive
Tuesday I went for a long (wet and windy) ride up to Boscastle and Tintagel where I holidayed as a lad
Wednesday Mrs M got smelly therapy and I got a surfing lesson (and chaperoned her for lunch in a dressing gown)
Thursday we enjoyed some more sun on the beach
Friday was spent by me lazing on beach, Mrs M explored Newquay some more.
Saturday set a record for worst weather experienced on holiday so we passed time at hotel and having nice pots of tea/cakes and planning ahead......

We came back with "Trebarwith" a new addition to our bear family plus a new long term challenge....

12 hour TT - how much to eat?

I am still mulling over how much to eat on the 12 hour TT this weekend.

Interesting couple of articles here

http://www.saris.com/athletes/PermaLink,guid,6db7d592-53a6-4a3e-839b-93703a780ba8.aspx

and here

http://www.saris.com/CalorieCalculator.aspx


Based on latter I have done some sums:

Assuming I weigh 73kg on the day of the ride and that I am pretty fit I will have

73 * 25 cals of onboard glycogen so around 1900 cals.

Assuming I do my plan 220W per hour then I will be using something like

220 * 12 * 3600/1000 = 9500kj

I reckon I am pretty high efficency so cals = 9500 * 1.05 = 10000

The ride will be a bit harder than easy so say 60% of cals come from carb = 6000

So less 1900 from onboard so means I will need to eat around 4100 cals during the ride, about 340 cals per hour.

So that's my plan...interesting to see how it turns out