Pride comes.....

Following road race success I nipped home sharpish then it was off to London to see Katy. Nice meal at the Horseshoe (sunny T shirt weather ) and then to Brixton to see White Lies/Glavegas. (Found parking dead easy BTW).

Great concert, especially Glasvegas where got to front which was fun (apart from divvy crowd surfers).

Pogoed pretty hard/late night so bit tired in Sunday. But lovely weather again so dragged myself out of bed and went to Mkt square intending to tag along on club run for a light ride. Only 5 of us due to YHA trip.

Headed off but only made it as far as St Gabriels roundabout. Went at it a bit too fast and lost front wheel. Face hit floor and I remember thinking "bugger there goes Spain..".

Luckily no traffic and I slid to a halt. Lots of blood and I was worried I had damaged cheekbone as this had scrapped along the tarmac. But luckily no serious damage.

Other guys great help and called an ambulance. Quick check ascertained I needed to go to A&E so off I went (first time trip to ambulance Slightly honoured as ambulance was brand new and I was first casualty...) to Basingstoke.

There I had a bit of a wait but chilled out and eventually seen by a very nice doctor. Had a chat about cycling and travel, recommended Strasbourg as destination and she seemed very interested..

Once done called a taxi and returned home. Sufficently recovered to be able to get to go to cinema to see Inkheart

WKO shows my fall... round about 30mph when hit the deck...

3 for 3

First race at Upavon Saturday, first race as a 3rd Cat.

Went very well. As newbie to course and category I planned to take things easy at the start then see how things developed. Good to see Martyn and Adam from Banjo there...

First couple of laps a bit frenetic then settled down into a comfortable pace (first 2/3 of race only 205W/248NW). The course is quite different to Hillingdon, near 2 miles oval, long section downhill then long drag to finish. And wide wide open, no tricky bends.

Feeling comfortable add mid point so started to think about getting more involved. As luck would have it a guy broke away, looking quite strong. Then another ride went to follow and I tagged his wheel and we took turns to bridge.

Lead rider seemed to know what he was doing (later found out will most likely get to 2) and we worked reasonably well for over 20 mins and made a winning gap.

Unfortunately finish was spoiled by us being caught by E12 bunch who had started 1/2 lap ahead. They seemed to be using us as a target as once caught they eased down (speaking with Martyn later they had had a hard race and were taking a breather to jockey for position ). So hard to separate from them and on climb we actually pulled ahead.

In all confusion we missed last lap indicator so no finish as such, just approached the line and lead guy saw some sort of signal to say we were finishing and put in a sprint. By time I had realised what was going on he had finished.

Confusion continued post race as we were DQed at first, for following E12 bunch. Pointed out in fact more often a case of them following us and eventually sanity prevailed and we got reinstated.

So ended up 3rd. Not bad result for first race following promotion. Bit of a shame won't be visiting Upavon again for a while.

Short and Sharp

Been exploring some new territory in terms of training this week. My power profile is above and it shows that while I am pretty strong in terms of 5 and 60 minute power I am a feeble weakling when it comes to short hard efforts of 5s-1minute.

So this week I was down to do 2 new workouts to challenge this area. Never done anything quite like this before so bit of learning along with a bit of pain.

First session was quite simple, 12 x 1 minute with 1 minute rest. Minutes "very hard". Not quite sure what "very hard" is, especially bearing in mind need to do it 12 times in a row so started quite conservatively, building up a little each time. As below shows managed this quite well, probably a bit too well as meant not to be sure if you can complete or not. Doing same again next week and will up target to around 400W.

Second session was similar but different. "15s" which means 4 minutes, 15secs very hard, 15 secs res. Then 3 minutes rest and repeat, then rest then repeat. Following 1mins I pushed a bit harder on this, aiming for above 450W. Quite happy I hit this, but tried little too hard first intervals of last set so faded a bit towards end. Still wasnt too bad, especially as has spent much of day in front garden felling a large and very evil tree.

Will be interesting to see if I improve on future workouts like this. Interesting to reflect on both that if I (and others) had worked anywhere near this hard in break would easily have got away. (1 minute session was equivalent to half of a Hillingdon race).

3rd Cat

Not a reference to Choppie (moggy number 3 chez nous) but the fact that last Saturday got a 3rd 7th at Hillingdon to bring points total over the 10 needed to reach first season's goal and get to 3rd category racer.

(slightly better position, but still bit to do)

Last race of the series was the best in terms of tactics. Lovely weather and felt good but didn't let the blood go to my head and held back for first half of race.

(Our starter, great guy and one of the unsung heroes without whom amateur sport would not be possible)

Second half let rip a bit and joined a couple of breaks but didn't work well and were reeled in. So settled for usual plan B but this time made conscious effort to speed up the field on the last couple of laps so as to stretch them out and make sure in good position. Worked well and had clear run into finish and 7th.

Post ride got number of congrats for attacks and got a couple of mentions in race report.

Race 13 Saturday 14th February 2009

A lively last race in the series with almost Spring like weather and little wind saw aggressive riding by Imperial RT riders who had a plan to elevate Stoyko Bussarov to 3rd cat to join his team mates. They worked hard, all three Imperial riders Dave Ryan, Tom Smith and Stoyko leading the attacks but unfortunately the main group were wise to their efforts and neutralised their attempts.

From these efforts three riders did ease off the front - Vincent Leon (Twickenham CC), Martin Sigrist (Newbury RC) and Peter Hedger (Sotonia CC) but after 4km at the front they too were pulled back . This was quickly followed by a concerted loan effort by James Curry (British Airways CC) which looked more promising but again he was caught by the main group and then promptly blew up! With just 5km to go the pace was upped again by Martin Sigrist and Dave Ryan with Stoyko Bussarov tagging on but this too was snuffed out.

On the last lap there was a crash which split the group leaving the result to a group finish with Jai Watson (Dulwich Paragon CC) and Adam White (Reading CC) heading for the line together. The tactical knowledge of Jai Watson ultimately got the better of Adam White with Hamilton Lacey taking 3rd position. Dave Ryan (Imperial RT) won the 4th cat Series having finished highest in the most races without winning a race. Generally the racing was of a high standard with the riders gaining confidence and ability as the series progressed.

Del and Rodney at the cafe stop...

Final round up of a very enjoyable series here:

http://www.imperialracingteam.com/imperialracingteam/index.htm

Making it to 3rd Cat: Stats summary

Final race of Hillingdon race series. Great fun and good final ride to get 3 more points and creep into 3rd cat.

Summary of all the races in table below. Goes to show no real link between power during a race and results. Lowest power ride ended up 7th, highest power ride 29th.

Bit surprised by how low the peak power was and how only happened in sprint in 3 of the 7 races.

Stats: (click to enlarge. FWIW guess FTP around 300W, max HR around 184 right now but like I said pretty irrelevant..)

Musical Intervals

I like training but to a much lesser degree indoors than out. However UK weather being what it is I spend a lot of time in the garage doing an impression of a hamster on speed on my rollers.

What I really hate is watching a digital something or other tick my life away as I do this or that set of intervals. I've found that counting kj going up is preferable than seconds counting down but even then its hard and not very rewarding going.

So I'm happy that I have found an alternative. It's really very simple, ditch interval times and replace with music tracks. Tried this last two times and worked really well.

Sunday ice descended so road work a no no. I went to the garage and listened to Iron Maiden (A Matter of Life and Death), The Killers (Sam's Town..revelation, great stuff) and the album of the 20xx to date The Black Parade.

Rule of the game was simple. Track 1 Iron Maiden I did at Level 2, Track 2 at Level 3, Track 3 Level 2 and so on. When the Killers kicked in I upped everthing so Track 1 at Level 3, Track 2 at sweetspot, track 3 Level 3 etc.

Finally MCR kicked up again, track 1 sweetspot, track 2 threshold etc. Didnt quite manage to hold this to the end but still v impressive workout. Time flew by and I ended up doing 2.5 hours at 251W which is an all time best (and didnt even feel especially hard.)

Yesterday it was back to the dreaded 2x22s that have given me a fair amount of grief ytd. This time I warmed up to the Killers and then put on Maidens AMOLAD. Rule here was continue warmup track 1 then do 3 tracks and see how long I had done (10 tracks total, 70 mins or so playing time so should be close). Worked great. First interval comfortable and third track pretty close to 22mins. So track 5 cool down and start warming up again then as track 6 kicked off pedal back on the floor for 3 more tracks. Worked even better, all tracks on the album great but 7/8 favourites so finished on real high stomping away to the beat. Result 2 nice steady (well til the end when got a bit excited) intervals, pretty much on the money at 296W/304W. And comfortable to boot.

So plan for the future is to "time" all indoor workouts via songs. Much more fun than watching the seconds tick by...

Listening to Music

When I were a lad, listening to music was a long and involved affair. There was next to no music worth mentioning on the radio so to hear any decent music involved a bus trip to town, then to a record shop (early Virgin) where you would search through racks of albums for something that you had heard or been recommended. If lucky and things were not too busy you might be able to get the shop to play you a track or two. Then it was back on the bus and home. Once there the LP was lovingly removed from its sleeve and checked to be scratch free. The put on the turntable, wiped clean of dust, the player switched on and the stylus, oh so carefully, placed in the lead in groove.

The you could listen, but not for too long, around 20-25 minutes at most before having to get up to turn the record over. Listening to a single track was possible but only with a degree of danger as many a record had been ruined by an inadvertent slip of the hand whilst trying to skip the pop single intro.

As a result when you played music you spent a lot of time listening to it. This was often made all the more enjoyable by perusing the album cover, whose 12" square size allowed ample opportunity for artistic license (and made the lyrics easy to read). (Top marks on this front went to Jethro Tull's Thick as A Brick, where the album "cover" was in fact a full on spoof local newspaper..)

OK once you found a record you liked you could put it on repeat play and have it on in the background as less important tasks like homework were performed, but even then the 20 minute repeat meant the music was thoroughly absorbed.

As a result the music of the late 60s/70s has become part of me. I can still recite, word for word, the lyrics of even the most bizarre prog rock opera, "Really don't mind if you sit this one out, my words but a whisper your deafness a shout...I may make you feel but I cant make you think, your sperms in the gutter, your love's in the sink.." to quote the opening of the aforementioned TAAB.

How time's have changed. Now its dead easy to get music and listen to it everywhere. Which is good in some ways but means I just dont listen to it any more. So, far from knowing the lyrics to songs, I often don't even know the titles of the songs....


So.. I have made a sort of late 2009 near year resolution to start listening to music again. So sitting down and paying it attention, CD cover in hand (along with magnifying glass to read the lyrics). And I must say so far this has proved a very rewarding experience.


But I thought this was meant to be about cycling...well it is, sort of. One key time I listen to music is when on the bike. I've found that listening to a CD makes me appreciate it more when I have it playing while training. So I pay it more attention, which in turn has a benefit as it makes the training easier. Which will be the subject of my next post...

Hillingdon No Snow Not Too Slow

Penultimate race at Hillingdon. Amazingly following week of blizzard race was on and course was practically snow/ice free. Nice blue skies and sun, though not too warming and had to wrap up tight. Also excuse to wear snazzy and totally OTT NRC ski cap, which did a good job of keeping my ears warm.


I felt good in the morning, a little bit too good in fact. I corrected last weeks mistake and stayed near the front this time, but was a little too eager and tried to make/get into too many moves. As a result once again first half of race had relatively high numbers. First half was 290W/314NW.


Culminated at 20 mins when I made a break for a mid race prime with lap to go. Couldn't really sustain power for 2 mins needed and got caught. Second half of race I eased back and made a point of trying to follow someone who I thought had a good sprint. Still once final 5 laps signalled a break of a couple of riders got slightly away. I took a bit of risk and snuck through a gap that was almost too small and joined them. Unfortunately same story, guy at lead didn't know how to ride in break and just tried to power on. By time got halfway organised we were pretty much caught.


So I went back to plan B and concentrated on getting good run into the finish. Worked fine, plenty of room and avoided trouble. At the back on approach (see above) but overtook quite a few on run in (and not overtaken by anyone) to get another 7th. So another 3 points and just two more to make it to target of 3rd cat. Power for sprint pretty weedy, max 685W, would be interesting to see what I could do with a completely clear run.

Lessons learned:
- Save effort for second half of race.
- If a prime lap take it easy until its passed. Maybe ideal time to attack just after.
- Catching break of two may be better to go past rather than join back.
- Get more to front on final lap of sprint and really give it the max.

January Training Review

Another month over. It's been a bit of a funny one training wise. It marks the introduction of threshold work, some road racing and, coinciding with aftermath of Xmas, for much of it I felt OK but not quite as sharp as pre Xmas.

Especially struggled on 2x20s. First interval typically OK but second (natch) tough. But then on last Tuesday of month had a superb workout. 2x22, first was at 304W (so around target), second ended up at 318W, well above target. More impressive was how easy it felt plus the fact that 60 minutes (including warm up/rests) was 299NW, in top 5 all time.

Pattern of spending more time in tempo/sweetspot compared to last year remains though not to such a marked extent. However absolute number of hours is up and as PMC below shows CTL trending nicely up, getting to 100 at end of month.

Behold the Maiden

Sometimes it's good to admit you were wrong.....

Bit of back story: A few years ago I made one of the best decisions of my life when I eschewed my morning fix of the Today program in favour of Alice Cooper and Planet Rock. (A decision which both made life more fun but also, paradoxically, improved my awareness of current affairs as I stopped drowning in day to day drivia and was able to get a better appreciation of the big picture..anyway I digress). (PS. (Digressing again) Just mistyped trivia, actually think resultant "drivia isn't a bad word...)

I now have Planet Rock on in the background most of the time. As with all background, something sometimes grabs your attention and comes to centre stage. This happened with a song called (bizarrely) "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg". Surprised when I heard it was by Iron Maiden as thought I didn't like them. Then I heard another song "For the Greater Good of God". It was knockout and again by Iron Maiden...

A quick search showed both songs came from the "A Matter of Life and Death Album" so I decided to have a punt and bought it. Turned out most every song on the album was a winner and its quickly gained a place in my "top 5 cds of 200x" (Along with, Crave, Generation Sap, The Black Parade and The Rising).

So right now I am slowly but surely working my way through the IM back catalogue and very much regretting what I missed.

Goes to show predjudice can be a bad thing. I am old enough to be close in at the birth of metal, not only in time but place in my teenage years was a fan of bands like Deep Purple (first live concert) and Black Sabbath (our "local band", the one time those of us in Coventry acknowledged the existance of nearby Brum).

When "new" bands came along (like Judas Priest) I gave them a listen but never thought they were as good as the "originals". And some bands I never even gave a chance, Iron Maiden falling into this category. Since then I had to re-adjust at least a part of these views as I found out more about the sometime lead vocalist, Bruce Dickinson (singer, airline pilot, fencer, DJ, screen writer and another example of cool people called Bruce). But now I have to admit I was entirely wrong. Iron Maiden are a truly great band and it's with much regret I missed 30 years opportunity to listen to & see them. Still good news, they are still going strong so may see them before too long...



(But I thought this was meant to be a cycling blog? Well yes and this post is not entirely unrelated. Apart from being great music to listen to at any time, Iron Maiden are really good for intense indoor work, especially above threshold..)

Pointless Fun and Cunning Plans

Resplendent in my new Newbury top I took part in Hillingdon round 5 last Saturday. Hatched a cunning plan with some others to go hard from the gun. Typically it all came unhinged. We practiced riding around a bit and just as I went by the start the others got stopped. So they ended up front row of the grid and I ended up last.

From the off the pace was hard. I bust a gut to get to the front, and in fact did peak 5 mins power of season to date getting there. By the time I arrived it was a bit late and despite efforts no break materialised.

So ended in another sprint, I got chopped up and didnt figure in the results. But good news in a way was that one of guys in our group got the victory. Well deserved as he's a class rider. And overall, despite lack of points, my favourite race to date. At least felt got a workout.

Watts were interesting: 280W/301NW.

Compared to last week (when I got 7th) 204W/242NW. Goes to show, power meter only of limited use in road racing.

Official Race write up:

There were only going to be two winners in the 4th cat race; a very strong south-easterly wind (which most riders were unsure of how to combat it) and the rider 1st across the line! A £10 prime was donated by Stuart Stow (now back to racing after 15 years, originally with Feltham RC) to be fought out after 20 minutes.

It was taken by the strong man of the race, a very determined Tom Sutherland (Twickenham CC). The wind continued to play havoc with many riders caught out as gaps opened followed by the inevitable drifting backwards. Hopefully riding in these conditions should be a learning curve for these riders - stay close to the front to avoid being caught out at the back when gaps open and reduce the risk of being dropped. Finally it came down to a sprint for the line and it again went to Prime winner Tom Sutherland from Peter Hedger (Sotonia CC) and Justin Webb (London Dynamos). Tom Sutherland’s transition from rowing to cycling is now well established and with his 3rd Category licence achieved his progress in Elite racing will be watched with interest.