TDF Stage 7 Un Mondidier > Beauvais Un Jour de repos

Stage 7, my first rest day

• Leisurely breakfast
• Change of the weather: start grey, finish in lovely sunshine
• Easy ride to a pre booked hotel in Beavais
• Hotel more like staying in someone's house. Very relaxing
• Short walk to town and some tourism
• A pint of "Goudale"
• Turn down the offer of a free beer!
• Reading a "History of the World" in the sunshine
• Pasta and pizza to finish and refuel for the coming days

TDF 2006 Stage 6 Nouvioun>Montidier

This is one of the days that I didn't recall too much about though quite a bit has come back to me as I did this entry

• Wake up to more rain and cycle against wind.. again
• Passing past large Nestle factory
• Lunch in St Quentin - steak frites
• Hard work post lunch, long roads straight into a headwind with busy traffic
• Grateful for HGVs though, give a bit of shelter from the wind and a warming blast from their exhaust.
• Head off into the countryside in search of shelter and some more pleasant scenery
• Eventually find Mondidier, built on a steep hill.
• Hotel with nice garage for bike and electric shutters 
• More steak frites for dinner

TDF 2006 Day 5 Huy - Nouvion - Storm before the Calm

Here's my worst and best day ever on a bike. Looking back I'm very impressed with myself.

I should remind myself of this day whenever I feel a bit down. It was quite epic and a reminder that for things to feel really good they also need to sometimes feel really bad.
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've been putting of this post. Day 5 of my tour was the worst. On the other hand it was also the day that made me into a real cyclist..

• Waking up to the most depressing sounds a cyclist can hear, the steady patter of rain on the window accompanied by the continuous swishes of cars driving through puddles. 
• Taking shelter from the wind at start by following the Meuse down a valley.
• Encounters with market and moterbike gang.
• Crossing the Meuse and climbing up the side of the valley into a full on gale driving torrential rain into my face.
• Very very hard work trying to make headway over the undulating countryside, easier going uphill, sheltered from the storm, than down..
• Feeling very low and wondering if it had all been a mistake. Then seeing a sign, downhill and away from the wind "Mettet"
• Finding the town and, more important, a warm bar.
• Ordering double everything, beer and croque monsieur.
• Stripping off and drying clothes 
• Stay for a while until clothes dry, stomach filled and spirits "Leffted."
• Joy on leaving the bar to see some traces of blue in the sky.
• Unscheduled stop at Chimay to pay due homage to the monks. 
• Crossing the border into France, smooth roads replacing pitted with amazing coincidence of that being the moment the sun finally broke through.
• Overnight stop at Nouvion which, fittingly, was first to be advertising forthcoming arrival of tour.    

Go back to (virtual) reality

Mrs M and I went over to watch some of the Ghent 6, combining the trip with some sightseeing of the city and its close neighbour Brugge, We had a great time, the event and both cities were wonderful.

A stand at the 6 had a Tacx virtual reality trainer on show for a bit of fun. I was very impressed with the idea (a bit less so by the trainer itself which seemed to have given up the ghost after a couple of days of hard use).

I was sufficiently enthused  to do some research when I got home and found out CycleOps do an equivalent, the "Power Beam Pro".  Powertap reliability aside I like the build quality of CycleOps products so I took the plunge and bought one.

Gosh I am happy I did.The trainer itself delivered on the quality front, its reassuringly chunky and solid. But the best thing is the Virtual Training software that comes with it. You can download routes that simulate the actual thing. 

I tried it out on Alpe D'Huez and it was great fun, very close to the real thing. The unit seems to be about 10-15W higher in terms of power vs my Powertap and  is a bit optimistic in terms of VAM  for power so you climb pretty quick. But that's not too much of an issue as it seems quite consistent. 

The drawbacks are minor compared with the experience the unit gives you. I have downloaded more routes, yesterday I did the Stelvio climb from Bormio that I did on my Italian Raid. It was nice to see it in the sun.. sure beat the rain I did the real thing in and it wasn't snowing when I got to the top either!!

Other interesting thing is that the pedal stroke feels very authentic. I am using some different muscles and the sensation I have is pretty much exactly how I feel when climbing.  So think it will be very good training for my return to the mountains next year. 

TDF 2006 Stage 4 24th May Eupen > Huy Wind, Wind, Fing Wind - revisited

Watched the Fleche Wallone yesterday with Jean Alaphillipe storming up the Mur de Huy to win.

Reminded me of my tour, when I overnighted in Huy in happy ignorance that the next day would be the best and worst day of my life on a bike.

The notes below capture my mood pretty well


Not a very pleasant day...

• Wind gathered force and I was riding straight into it.
• First encounter with another cyclist, he passed me and I caught him up which helped morale and gave a break from the wind.
• Over the border into Holland
• Lunch in Valkenburg, getting ready to host a tour finish. Only food was cake so had cake and beer lunch.. not the best for nutrition but again helped morale.
• Got lost post lunch but eventually found Maastricht and all its cobbles. 
• Hard going to Huy. Had to pause on outskirts of town to shelter under a bridge as heavens opened.
• Huy very grey and worryingly devoid of hotels but eventually found one.
• Evening meal in an Irish pub

TDF Day 3 Arlon to Eupen: Hail and Hills

Memories of my third day on tour

• Start day with slightly fuzzy head .. glass too many of champagne maybe
• Belgium much hillier than expected
• Stop for lunch and phone Mrs M who finds a hotel for the night
• Showers turn violent and have to sit out a hail storm sheltering under a tree
• Yellow road incident: learn that Belgian roads don't allow for lorries and cycles to be on same road at same time. Detour needed.
• Route to hotel takes me to Eifel.. Mountains! In Belgium??
• Luckily road to hotel is downhill all the way and arrive very wet (mix of sweat and rain)
• Nonetheless folks very welcoming and have a nice meal to warm me up. 

TDF2006 Day 2 St Avold>Arlon

Memories of my second day:

• Leaving St Avold and cycling past a huge American cemetery/dreary chemical factory.
• Somewhat fitting then that grey skies replace sunny 
• Boulangerie stop for croissants to have for lunch, no more 3 course blow outs.
• Entering Luxembourg, sun returning and passing a tableau featuring a Harley Davison 
• Trials and tribulations finding hotel at the end of the day. Go up and down several hills before finding it and in the process end up cycling in 3 different countries in one day.
• Hotel worth finding, superb restaurant and celebrate with some Luxembourg champagne.

Reliving the tour - stage 1

It's been over 6 years since I did my tour and, with winter on it's way I thought it would be nice to revisit it, both for the memories and to think ahead for next year. 

Rather than go into details I will just recall a few of the day by day bullets, to act as a stimulus  to my memory. (Remarkably I can close my eyes and play back huge amounts of the ride as if I was there again). 

So here we go: Day 1 

• Car to Entzeim airport, very well known from many trips by plane. But this time it's the start of quite a differerent journey and pedalling away from it feels somewhat strange/scary
• Very shortly get lost which is ironic since this is the area of France I know best
• Find my way and cycle through familiar scenery and up my first climb, which I know well
• Mid morning start riding in new territory and realise tour is starting for real
• Stop for lunch, eat far too much and find restarting hard going
• Long hot ride in the afternoon. 
• First planned stop has no hotels, find one in St Avold but its another 30km onwards.
• Find the hotel and head out into a very quiet town to get some drink and pasta at a pub. 

One hour winter workout

First frosts of the winter so  thought I'd do write up on a one hour workout which has stood me in good stead and is great from this time this time of year through to next spring (though it's handy all year round).  It's especially meant for indoor training but can be adapted for short 1-2 hour rides outdoors. 


It's  a "sweetspot" routine that  aims to maximise the work done while minimising training stress, which means it can be repeated day after day, week after week and burns up amongst the greatest number of calories per time spent. (up to over 1000kcal/hour). It will also help maintain any fitness gained and carry it forward to next year.

It also has other benefits:

• It's easy to do, requiring no special equipment, though it's easier with a speedometer and even better if you also have a HR monitor and/or power meter.
• It's a solid hour of good effort with no breaks  which is what makes it particularly well suited for turbo/rollers in a cold garage (which prompted me to start using it out in the first place). It has constant changes of pace which also helps as time passes quickly. 
• It includes a graduated ramp to threshold so can be used to help monitor your threshold capability.
• It's good pacing practice for long hard efforts. If your goal is doing the Marmotte/Etape or similar that involves big climbs it's especially good, since it simulates the perfect effort profile for these (see below for some more on this specific topic).  
• It calls for small controlled changes of effort which can be used to help work on and improve technique and also help with getting used to gauging effort for other workouts and events. 
• It  needs little recovery and can be done 4-6 times a week , week after week. (If this is done then there is every chance not only will fitness be retained but there is a good chance it will improve).. 
• It can (should) be done just drinking water and eating normal meals.
• Warm-up is included so you can do it from cold. (Though I like to do 5 minutes of core work first)

The workout is as follows: a 40-45 minute ramp followed by 15-20 minute "under/over"  (yellow is power (axis starts 150W), red HR (axis starts 100bpm) green cadence, blue velocity) Lower yellow lines are roughly where sweetspot zone starts, upper is roughly threshold.

 (the dips in HR on the ramp up are where I took a drink)

• Get setup and engage a gear that you think equates to threshold effort at reasonably high revs. (It doesn't matter too much if you can't do this precisely. After a few repeats you will get to know exactly what this is, which is one of the benefits of the routine.)
• Start pedalling at around 2/3 of threshold effort (just enough to make you start to feel you are working a bit and starting to get warm, around 4-5 hour steady ride pace). Ideally stay in the same gear as above but if you need to change down no problem. Revs can be low, indeed its probably good to have them around 65-70 at the start. 
•  Hold this pace for 4 minutes. Then increase the pace very slightly. Not by much, just the smallest amount that feels like a bit more effort. (This is the opportunity to work on technique, one way to do make the change is just focus on one part of the pedal stroke and push it a bit). If stay in same gear each increment is 1-2 rpm more, if you have a speedo then it should go up a little, if you have a power meter its around another 5-10W. 
• Hold this new pace then after 4 minutes increase again as above. 
• Repeat. After a couple of increments you will be warm. After 3-4 you will be at the bottom of the "sweetspot" zone and having to start breathing through your mouth. After 6-8 you will be working quite hard. After 9-10 (so 40ish minutes) you should be at just above your threshold level, the point where you  switch from having to breathe very hard but controlled to starting gasping.
• Stop increasing power when you feel completing a 4 minute  interval is really tough.
• Next 4 minutes after you hit top step down the effort just a bit, to around what it was 2-3 intervals previously.
• 4 minutes after that step it up, this time by the equivalent of 2-3 level.
• Next 4 minutes step it back 2-3 levels
• Next 4 minutes step it up 2-3 levels again. This may be the last interval. You should be very well warmed up now so if you feel like it push this one hard.
• Spend a couple of minutes spinning down and finish.

Judging the pace increments for each interval so that you hit threshold after around 9-10 increments may take a bit of trial and error, but if it does that's a good thing since it's pretty important to have a good sense of where your threshold is both for training and riding. 

A couple of ways to check are by continuing to do more step intervals to the point where you simply can't complete one. The interval 2-3 back is likely to be threshold. Another way to check is to try riding 20 minutes solid at the pace just before you have to stop increasing power. This should be tough but doable/repeatable. 

Anyway the routine is intended to be repeated easily day after day, so its straight forward to fine tune the effort and get used to ramping up to threshold. Once you get used to it then you should be able to work pretty hard yet still feel comfortable (in the example above average power for the hour was around 90% of threshold yet the workout still felt pretty easy). 

Couple of final points:

• If you have more time the workout can be extended by doing more repeats of down/up intervals at the end. Alternatively stretch the ramp up to threshold by increasing the length of time of each step interval. 
• Conversely for a shorter/more intense workout shorten the length of each step interval and/or cut the time spent "under" in the second section. 
• I mentioned earlier this workout is good for simulating big climbs. The  ramp up to threshold is the perfect way to try to do these, starting easy then increasing effort gradually as the climb progresses so you hit the top just over your threshold effort and are ready to recover on the descent. This works especially well in group events, people will leave you at the bottom of the climb but you will easily pass them before you reach the top and you will be feeling at peak form just as they are feeling at their worst. 
• So in this workout the first ramp is what your effort should look like, just adjusted according to the length of the climb (so a one hour climb each step lasts 6 minutes)
• Things can go wrong, in the excitement of an event you can get carried away and push things too hard too soon. If this happens you should spot you are near/past threshold from your experience of this workout. If so then the best reaction is to step back and try to do the rest of the climb as the under/over section at the end of the routine (or if really bushed, just stay at under pace).
• For a one off climb (or the last climb of a multiple climb event if you are feeling really good on the day) the best way to it is exactly this routine (ramp up then under/over to finish) as it maximises your power while minimising the risk of cracking.  So the example above is pretty much the perfect profile of how to do a climb like, say, Alpe 'd'Huez in an hour or so. (indeed  the power in the graph above is exactly what you need to do to that climb in under an hour if you are around 70kg).

  

Spirit of Seve

Amazing comeback in the Ryder cup last night.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/golf/19780678

 Sadly the event has been lost to Sky TV so not able to watch, but could still listen to the great BBC R5 team and they made up in atmosphere for the lack of visuals.

 Compelling listening from the first ball to last, with Rory McIlroy  making Cup cheese history early on  by getting his time zones confused and nearly missing his start time and Tiger Woods rounding off a thoroughly miserable weekend for the USA by conceding a very missable putt to give Europe overall victory.

Many, including the captain Jose Maria Olazabal, hailed the victory as a truly fitting memorial to one of the greatest of Ryder cup players Seve Ballesteros, a comeback in a style he would have been very proud of, see this very moving moment at the end of this clip 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/golf/19782014 

also 


 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/golf/19782217 

June-Sept Training Diary

I thought I'd post my training diary/experiences for the past 3 months.

Original plan/goals: I started off late, untrained and overweight. Main goal was lose the last 8kg of the 18kg I had put on since stopping serious training end 2009. I didn't really have any performance goals but thought it would be interesting to see how I compared with previous levels though not expecting to get close.

June: A couple of sunny days got me out on the bike but that was pretty much the end of the summer. Didn't fancy getting wet so thought I would give combination of HIIT and 10mile efforts on the trainer while getting out on my bike when the sun shone.

Good: Got/felt fitter. I was pretty feeble at the start, trying to hold 240W (my old 4 hour pace) for 5 minutes put my HR into the red zone. By the end of the month I could hold that pace 25 mins.

Bad: I put on weight. Classic mistake, thinking training means you can eat more...

Month hours: 20.

July: Refocus on losing weight. Decided to use tour de France as a training aid. “Plan” was simple, I watched the race while on trainer and mirrored what riders did. When they sprint I sprint, when they TT I TT, when they climb I climb, when they take it easy so do I.

Good: Worked like a dream. Ended up losing 3 kg and gaining power. Plus sweating along with the pros really brings the event to life :)

Bad: Quite a few junk miles when not a lot was happening. Might have got similar results in less time but on the other hand used this time to work and improve pedal stroke.

Month hours: 49.

August: Final tour TT power of was much better than I had hoped for. So decided to up intensity and push for old levels of performance. Most sessions were targeted at or above threshold power. Very surprised by how easy sessions turned out to be, by the end of the month was actively chasing old power targets.

Good: Equalled or bettered some previous bests, including full “comfortable” hour over 300W. Lost another 3kg too.

Bad: Nothing. The sun even shone a bit.

Month hours: 44

Total outcome

• lost 7.8 kg
• power from feeble back to old levels or better.

Full diary here: 

 

It just keeps getting better and better

Training continues to go well. As above my meanmax comparison of this season to previous ones is starting to show some clear blue water between the 2 lines, something I would never have imagined possible back in June.(Dotted line this season, solid line previous years)

Over last 3 days I set a number of all time bests:

• Saturday: Lovely day so we decided to pick some apples. I just had enough time to do a short workout so did a ramp test.  Managed comfortably up to 400W then pushed 420. Overshot a bit and final minute 434W, never done higher.
• Sunday: Felt rough due to getting stung badly by nettles while picking. Still managed to summon up the energy to do an hour, averaging ATB 320W for 55 mins. 
• Today: 10TT in 21:19. Another PB 345W and ATB from 10 min 355W>21min 345W

It's interesting the TT matches well with Wattbike guestimate of 20 min power from the ramp test (it predicted 347, did 346). 

Batman vs The Matrix .. and the winner is..

No contest. The Matrix by a country mile.

From bad can come good. As already said, the rubbish of Batman 3 prompted me to rewatch Batman Begins and remember how good it was and Batman 2, finding this was, truth to tell fun but pretty rubbish.

It also prompted me to break the shrinkwrap of The Matrix trilogy I had bought on special offer a while back and watch this again.

Damn I'm glad I did. It blew me away, I had forgotten how utterly superb these films were. What a contrast to Batman. 

• The plot is rock hard, though pretty hairy at times, probably a bit too much so for its own good.  
• The special effects were and still are stunning, each film containing epic set pieces. Each also tries to be new in this respect, not just rehash old ideas with more bangs.
• The look/feel are still as fresh today as when first seen, not many other pieces of work could claim a monopoly on one of the prime colours.

Couple of other thoughts

• One very few of the Hollywood films to let both its main characters die. 
• Others die as well, pretty horribly in many cases. Compare and contrast to the kiddy playground action in Batman 3...
• Final visit of Neo to machine city strong echoes of LOTR and Frodo/Mount Doom.
• Second 2 films mix lot of complicated ideas up with the action. Too many maybe for the average audience which may explain their reception. Nonetheless something to praise not criticise. Matrix Reloaded in particular went down this road and felt similar to Inception.  
• I'm not a great fan of 3D but its a real shame it wasn't around when the films were made.

Anyway some personal awards. 

• Best Comic Book Film ever (despite not being an adaptation the overall look/feel is best at breaking boundary between graphic novel and screen)
• Best Original Trilogy

 I won't leave it so long before watching it again. 

Next up Bourne...

Wattbike power test

I have been very pleasantly surprised by the results of my training so far. Without really trying I have managed to get back to form that has approached, sometimes even bettered, my lifetime best.

The main factor in this has been to change the way I pedal, largely achieved by the happy chance of crap summer weather resulting in me spending most of my training time on my Wattbike.

I have felt very good when on this, so good in fact it crossed my mind that it may simply be down to the Wattbike giving high power readings.

So I plan to do a few tests to check this and did the first of these over the last couple of days. Simple process, ride the same power interval on Wattbike and road bike + Powertap and compare how they look in terms of RPE and HR. 

Yesterday I did a session on the Wattbike including a solid 30mins alternating 5 mins at 280W+/5mins 300W+. (push a bit on last 5 mins) I chose this as I was pretty sure I could repeat it on the road. Further it represents a key power zone that I would aim to compete at and the zone that marks transition to from sweetspot to hard going.

Today was a nice sunny day so I went out on the bike and did a session aiming to do the same 30 min interval. As expected it was quite straightforward to achieve, (which by itself is an indication of how well I am going!). It ended up being slightly longer due to traffic conditions.

In terms of RPE:  If anything it felt easier than the Wattbike. Partly due I think to time just passing more quickly when you are riding for real. Obviously power was a bit more up variable on road but I still managed to hit the targets np and felt really strong.

HR: Summary stats for the two sessions are

Wattbike 30:08 296W/296NW HR av 159bpm max 168bpm drift 2.13%

Bike 34:38 302W/303NW HR av 161bpm max 170bpm drift 2.42%

Breakdown of the 6 intervals is as follows (Wattbike first, HR shows average and peak during the interval)

    Wattbike                     Powertap

I1 281W 149>154bpm 293W 149>155bpm

I2 310W 159>162bpm 311W 159>163bpm

I3 286W 160>161bpm 286W 161>165bpm * 8 min long including slow/sprints

I4 306W 163>166bpm 317W 164>168bpm

I5 281W 161>164bpm 289W 163>167bpm

I6 313W 165>168bpm 327W 160>170bpm * 6 mins long

Bottom line is that both sets are pretty much identical in terms of HR and RPE to produce this power interval. Which is good news, in terms of the zone most relevant to me in terms of real world performance the Wattbike is pretty much dead on compared to my bike.

Pedaling Power

I keep banging on about how changing the way you pedal can improve performance. 

This is because it's worked so well for me, I just regret not doing something earlier and would encourage others to give it a go. The more so since there is no downside. To the contrary I have regained form amazingly quickly after a big break in training and I don't think its coincidence that since restarting a key focus has been pedaling differently.

It's not that I haven't worked on pedaling before, way back my first training guide was Joe Friel's "Bible" and that includes what he calls "speed skills" in his program and I have been doing these in some form or other most always. The problem was that it's difficult to know exactly if you are pedaling right or wrong. (This btw is also an issue with studies into pedaling.)

Using a Wattbike changed that. It has a display that gives a real time view on how you are pedaling (see here for a description).  It also helps demonstrate the changes I have made. 

Three pictures tell the story. First is the "before" polar view below. Its from an hour long 2x20 under/over session when I was in lifetime best peak form.

"Before pedal stroke"

It shows a couple of things:

• I  actually had 2 pedal actions. At low its intensity pretty circular. However when the intensity increases the pedal stroke changes into something quite different becoming distorted and more elliptical. Also right and left legs work differently.
• There are wide fluctuations in power each stroke, especially right leg which peaks near 600W each revolution (to generate at most 320W)

Despite this I was achieving good results with this action. The actual power delivered to the wheel was nice and steady. I could also keep it going high enough and long enough to get some impressive results both in terms of power profile and events. 


I took a couple of years off cycling. When I started again in June the crap weather in the UK meant I did lots of training on a Wattbike so I decided to take the opportunity to see if changing how I pedaled had any effect. It did.

Second picture shows polar view of my action now.(90 minute session including steady power hour, average and peak power same/greater than first picture)

It's pretty clearly different from the first picture.

• First thing to note is this is now my habitual action. It took a while to adapt and while I was doing that I would always have the polar display running. Now however I don't use it much and just focus on maintaining target intensity. 
• There is just one action now, all the same "peanut" shape for all intensities.
• The shape is much smoother with highs and lows during each stroke much reduced. Actual output power during this session was higher than the first picture but the peak power per stroke is much less.
• Left and right are more balanced, if anything now the left leg is contributing more to overall power (something to check out...)    

All this is well and good but what the picture doesn't show is what really matters.

First off, my riding feels completely different. It's hard to put into words but it feels much smoother, more "connected" and "centred" like much more of my body is involved in pedaling. I remember a very good rider describing how he managed to do a sub 20 10TT pre aero and he talked about just focusing on generating all his power from his stomach. I never understood that before but it make sense now. Put simply riding hard feels easier and more fun.

Most important of all though is actual power generated and this has been the most surprising thing. Since picking up from a zero fitness base I have done around 100 hours of training over a couple of months. I never expected in this time to get close to the power I could put out at peak form. So I was surprised to find that over the last couple of weeks  I was posting some good figures. 

I've been training with a power meter since 2007 and over the years have got pretty used to associating power on the computer with how hard it feels to ride. When I started again ofc I was finding this was way off, it felt really tough to generate 20 mins of power I used to comfortably ride all day. 

More recently though things have been going the other way. When glancing down to check power I'm getting surprises and see myself putting out 20W-40W more than I thought I was doing. 

Most of the sessions were on the Wattbike so at first I thought it was a problem with the power reading. However also been doing rides on 2 different Powertaps and both give the same result.  

Best example of how good I feel  was the session below (it's the same as the polar view above). Most everyone who does a lot of training experiences a few "breakthrough" workouts when they wildly exceed their expectations and have to recalibrate their training zones.  This was one of them for me. In the past I have rarely maintained 300W over a full hour and when I did it was hard work.  

This workout I averaged 300W for a full hour and it felt great.  Power was steady throughout, nice negative split and plenty left at the end. HR pretty much flat til I ramped things up for fun as the end came in sight. 

It wasn't exactly an easy workout, just very controlled. It felt exactly the same in terms of intensity  as the way I tackle long mountain climbs. But the power is as least 20W up. 

What's more I didn't peak for this session. To the contrary I was pretty tired, the day before I had spent 6 hours heavy lifting helping my daughter move flat. Prior to that I had done 3 days consecutive training, last being a knackering VO2. Also over the last few weeks I have been concentrating on shedding flab, losing 1-2 pounds per week.

The session while a great example is not exceptional.  I'm now riding pretty much at lifetime best form. This has come as a complete surprise and the only distinguishing feature I can put it down to is my change the way I pedal. 

This seems like a bit of a claim, time will tell once I start doing some peaking for an event. The real acid test will be next time I go mountaineering, when I will set 300W+ as target power. 

Still while slightly incredible it does make a bit of sense. As mentioned my pedal action has changed now, in fact its actually quite hard to go back and try to replicate the pattern in the first picture. In order to do this I have to push hard with my quads, that pretty much dominates the whole of the stroke. It would seem sensible that the way I pedal now will be better because it uses more muscles to generate power. No doubt the quads still do a lot of work but they don't have to push to quite the extremes which reduces stress and consequent fatigue.

Training Going Well

Training is going well.  A little late, I have finally got around to setting up an excellent environment to work out in. 

Key thing is using the Wattbike software on my PC to monitor training. This is much improved over the Wattbike display.

Example above shows ramp up during warmup. HR on left and power on right. Each is coloured, power shows training zones and HR shows steps highlighting those above 164 which is where I sense a cutover from endurance to threshold levels. 

Apart from being better using the above frees up the Wattbike computer so that I can use its race function to help push training.  Good example of this yesterday, I did a VO2 session 2 x (3x3) yesterday pushing 400W. Followed by a drift test that was great, 18 mins at 280W averaging 153bpm and only 1.24% drift.

 

Batman - the plot thickens

I still haven't recovered from quite how bad the last Batman film was. 

So I went back and watched the first 2 films again and came to a rather surprising conclusion. 

With the benefit of hindsight it's pretty obvious while "Batman Begins" is pretty much perfect the rot actually set in with the next film in the series.

Plot-wise  "The Dark Knight" is a mess. At the time of it's release that largely went unnoticed due to it featuring the best of Batman's foes, The Joker.  This was hyped because Heath Ledger did a pretty good job in the role which, unfortunately turned out to be his last which ofc ended up in hype overdrive. 

The two things that are worst plot-wise are:
- Joker spends much of the film acting as a glorified, if rather psychotic,  mob hitman. He only starts to get really interesting at the end once he is done with the mob and he makes it clear he believes himself to be Batman's opposite and that Batman created him this way. Strangely watching the film again I liked the final "boat" scene much more than first time through, this was the "real" Joker at work. 
- Harvey Dent/Two-Face just fails. The transformation is unbelievable and just feels like its been tacked on to give the film a reason for Batman going on the run to bridge into the last film. This is total fail. Reasoning is "Harvey killed some policeman, but he is meant to be a good guy so the people can't know. So Batman must take the fall" Er??? 
>>> With all the chaos going on that night it would have been easy to finger the Joker as responsible
>>> The film couldn't bring itself to show Two-Face killing a woman. So at least one policewoman knows the truth. 

(Other terrible thing was the casting of Rachel. Thank God she was killed midway through.)





 

Armstrong Drugs Cheat

Good day due to some bad news. Armstrong wont be contesting the charges against him.

Nothing to do with the rubbish about him being tired and not getting a fair hearing. It's simply the only way he can escape with any credibility. 

Sad thing is he will get away with it, the vast majority of those who know about Armstrong know little about cycling and will buy his martyrdom act.

Still its good news. Whatever eventually happens with Armstrong the facts are that cycling is cleaner now than it has ever ben  he can be held to account so much later should act as a deterrent for those tempted to screw it in future. 

Some related links 

Paul Kimmage interview Landis


Full list of Armstrongs doping history

The Dark Knight Fails

Saw The Dark Knight Rises last night.  Huge disappointment, utter rubbish. Takes near 3 hours to mash up tired story of evil baddy out to destroy whole of Gotham forcing Batman out of retirement so he can save the day and fake his death so he can retire again (and presumably rinse and repeat next time the studio needs to make some money)

Typical rubbish scene - Hundreds of police armed with batons charge building filled with defenders all carrying automatic weapons.  And win??  

Most memorable moment. Bomb is going to go off, so ofc has a hackneyed timer. It shows 15 minutes to go. I will forever recall my heart sinking at the realisation there is so much time left.

With benefit of hindsight its pretty obvious now that this series failed to learn from previous ones (most notably Tim Burton but also recent Spiderman).

Third/final part is always going to be the hardest to pull off so it makes sense to save the best villain for it.  For Batman this is, by a country mile, The Joker. 

So previous film should not have featured Joker, his role could equally well have been done by, say the Riddler.

Final film may then have been worth watching. 

Something else it could have done would be borrow from the The Dark Knight Returns. Another hackneyed old plot from the "Rises" film is how rookie cop turns into Robin. Way more interesting would have been if Batmans absence had been filled with vigilantes who differ from Batman in being more willing to use violence. (alluded to in Rise when Cat kills Bane). So Batman fights 2 foes, evil Joker creates and evil he has created himself.

Then his death at end becomes way more interesting. Its not just so he can go and drink martinis in the sun. Its acceptance that people need to look after themselves not rely on some super being to make everything right.  Fine sentiment, but leaves hanging the question of whether people really can live up to and desire this???

TDF 2012 - The Pros

Training peaks did a summary of the pros figures from this year's tour here

2012 Stats


Summary of some key stats below, going to show how big the difference is between my performance and that of the pros.



 

(W/kg 
Brajkovic  1 hour 5.90    3 hour 4.98
Eisel         1 hour 4.73    3 hour 4.09
Sorenson 1 hour 5.51    3 hour 4.70

For comparison my stats for the same were

1 hour 270W  3.6W/kg Highest TSS 238


Total load was around 300 TSS per day. Interestingly this compares very closely to the TSS of my events, Tour of Wessex each day was around 310TSS and an major sportive like Marmotte is 400+

End of the Tour

Well it's all over and what a great trip it's been.

History was made in the tour itself, with Bradley Wiggins pulling on the yellow jersey, Chris Froome coming second and Mark Cavendish winning 3 stages including the final one in Paris.

  









My tour went remarkably well too. The TSS chart above shows 3 weeks of solid work and I felt a lot better too. I also lost 2.5kg.

Power went up a lot at the same time. Mean max shows better power from 3 mins onwards. Probably best was the final TT where I  pushed 270W for an hour.

Virtual Tour - 6D TV

Just finished stage 11 so over half way and one of the hardest stages done. 

It's going remarkably well, better than I expected. It's tough though, which sort of adds to the fun, sort of like 6-D TV, I get the added dimensions of sweat, exhaustion and pain. 

Managed to ride all the stages except the prologue, most just the last couple of hours but stages 8 and 11 did the whole thing from start to finish. Both were hilly, stage 11 the hardest yet with 4 climbs all ones I know well, Madeline, Croix de Fer, Mollard and Toissure.  Last 3 were same as the 2006 route and I was surprised how much of it I could remember.

TSS above gives some idea of the workload, pretty high overall.

 Power levels pretty good too. Meanmax graph shows lots of PBs set from 2 minutes onwards. Especially pleased with the first HC climb, 50 minutes at 262W, which was pretty much my target power back in 2009.  

However yesterdays ride was a bit of an eye opener, did first climb fine but failed half way up the second. So still a ways to go power wise.

 

Who Killed Nanna Birk Larsen- Alternate storyline

Looking to get some sort of closure for frustration of the last couple of episodes of The Killing I thought I'd put together an alternate (and imo more coherent) story line. Here it is.

Backstory

• Leon killed Mette. This was a crime of passion, committed in the woods (same as those where Nanna flees)  in a fit of jealous rage when Mette tells him its over while they are on a walk together.
• Leon is distraught  after the murder and plans to give himself up to the police but talks to Vagn first.
• Vagn talks him out of confessing and helps him dispose of Mette's body.
• In the process Vagn takes the black heart necklace (unbeknownst to Leon)
• Vagn makes sexual advances towards Nanna in her early adolescence.  Nanna resists and Vagn desists when he realises how much he is risking.
• Nanna tells no-one of Vagns advances but does refer indirectly to them in an essay she writes at 16.
• Nanna treats Vagn differently following the event but this coincides with  teenage angst and becoming more distant from the rest of the family as well so it's not noticed. 

The murder:

• Nanna does not use Leon's taxi but the one in front of him on the taxi rank. 
• Leon recognises her, follows the taxi and calls Vagn when he finds out where she is, asking Vagn if he knows whats going on.
• Vagn comes to the flat and rings the entrance bell. Nanna doesn't let him into the flat and they have a heated argument that flares when Nanna screams she will tell Theis about Vagns advances.
• This flips Vagn.  He puts on gloves and convinces/blackmails Leon to help him get into the flat.
• Leon impersonates a police officer. He rings the bell and tells Nanna he has a report she is being assaulted and must see her to verify all is OK. 
• Nanna doesn't recogise Leon, since he only works occasionally for her father, isn't in company clothes and she doesn't have much to with his workers anyway. Leon uses his taxi id as fake police id.
• This exchange starts outside the building and is heard by a passer by.
• Leon gets Nanna to open the door, Vagn pushes past him and Leon immediately leaves.
• Vagn beats Nanna up in the flat but does not rape her there. His main concern at this stage is to keep her quiet. He ties her up and takes her, in Hartmanns car,  to one of Birk Larsen's unused warehouses.
• Vagn meets Leon the next day when they need to do the office move, saying nothing about what has happened.  
• The guy at the place they are moving meets them both and they start the job. The office guy goes to the new location to sort things out. Vagn tells says he will be organising things at the old office while Leon will do the transport and help at the new one.
• He needs to get back to Nanna but the office move is a 2 man job. So Leon gets his brother to come and help him, so Vagn can leave.
• Leon's brother is long distance truck driver, not a businessman.
• Vagn goes to Nanna and works himself up into more of a rage as she continues to resist/accuse him. This triggers the rapes and he blames her this predicament and the hurt she is causing to her family. He can't bring himself to kill her directly though, so he ties her up in Hartmanns car.
• He drives this car to the office to sign off the work as completed. 
• He then  copies the way he and Leon disposed of Mette's body causing Nanna's death. 
• He places the black heart necklace in Nannas hand as insurance in case the body is ever discovered.

 Changes to The Killing series.

• Vagn is questioned as a possible suspect right at the start.  Leon also appears and is questioned as routine along with all the other employees.  He and Leon alibi each other, neither mentioning  Leon's brother (who no-one has seen apart from them)
• The office guy confirms the move took place and mentions how pleased he was by it since it was a big job even for 2 people.
• The taxi driver comes forward to say he had Nanna as a passenger as in the series.
• The passer by who saw Leon getting entry to the flat comes forward. This gives a false lead into the police service and gives scope for red herrings including those of tampering with Nannas phone.
• For most of the series Vagn is ruled out as a suspect. Leon is never even considered as a possible suspect.
• Leon starts to become of interest once Lund starts investigating Mette's disappearance. Circumstantial evidence (working for the removal firm, fitting a rough description of Mette's boyfriend) leads to Lund wanting to question him to get some more information.
• The chance meeting of Leon+Lund at Vagn's flat never happens. 
• Instead Lund goes to Leon's in connection with Mette's disappearance. 
• Leon is close to the edge already, combination of knowing the likely truth about Nanna, his role in that and the continuing guilt about Mette.
• He doesn't crack when Lund sees him but she can sense something is wrong, but this overlaps with the news that Mette's body has been found.
• When Lund leaves Leon goes on the run.
• Option: Lund returns to Leon's flat and searches it. Well hidden, she finds a picture of Mette, Leon has kept since he loved her despite killing her.
• Evidence is now pointing towards Leon as Mette's killer which leads Lund to suspect he may also be involved with Nanna. 
• The passer by who saw the "policeman" at the flat picks out Leon's picture as the person he saw.
• Lund questions Vagn again about the office move. He confirms Leon was there but says he left towards the end leaving Vagn to finish up and get signoff from the office manager. The timing seems to make it possible for Leon to get back and rape/dispose of Nanna.
• Leon phones Lund, close to breakdown. Admits of being responsible saying "I killed her" and is obviously cracking up. He claims others are also guilty but won't say who.
• Leon also phones Vagn. Though he tells him he won't give him away it's clear to Vagn that Leon is a danger. He knows where Leon is likely to be.
• Leon returns to the place where he murdered Mette (and Nanna fled so the woods in the opening sequence every episode) and commits suicide. 
• He leaves a note but Vagn finds him first and takes it.
• The case now looks closed. Leon admitted to killing Mette, was seen at the flat, had time to commit the crime and killed himself where she died. His claims others are involved are put down to him being in denial.  The necklace is seen as final proof he is some sort of serial killer.
• Only Lund has concerns. Leon killed Mette but if he also killed Nanna why did he keep saying "I killed her" not "killed them" and why no suicide note. 
• Leon's brother comes on the scene. He has been trucking abroad, tracked down and informed of his brother's death. He mentions he had been helping out with the office move on the day of Nannas death.
• Lund challenges Vagn about Leon's brother asking why he didn't mention it. Vagn says Leon probably needed some help his end, that's all. He didn't mention it and that would make sense if it meant he could get away quicker to deal with Nanna.
• The creepy teacher who had Nanna's essay (about the affair with a married man) during the early part of the series now comes forward. He says he has been researching more essays in connection with language development and had found Nanna's.  (It hadn't been noticed before since her teacher at the time had left) 
• He simply says he thinks the essay may be of interest. Lund take it but then gets interupted by Leon's brother who mentions that Leon had a storage locker that he used since his flat was small.
• Lund decides to check this and brings along Meyer>> events leading to Meyer's death.(Storage contents could be:Leon had a diary where he wrote up everything about Mette's killing including Vagn's role. Also mentioned there he was glad Mette would always have the necklace he had given her so he could not have put it with Nanna).
• Lund now knows someone else is involved but is arrested herself.
• She still has the essay and reads it while awaiting questioning.  This rings warning bells that someone in the family may have tried to abuse Nanna. She calls Pernille who is obviously upset but also sufficiently aware there may be some truth in Lund's suspicions. She mentions that Nanna had some old essay books  from around the time that were not in her room as they had been tidied away and boxed up with othe family junk/momentos. These have just been and moved to the new house already.
• Following Bengts intervention and her freedom on parole Lund goes to the new house. She meets Vagn there and has her "Sara 84" moment with him. 
• It's clear Vagn knows she knows. But this knowledge pushes him into acceptance its only a matter of time before everything comes out.  His only choice now is how this will go down.

 

From here could segue with show end but I prefer:

• Vagn threatens Lund and asks for her phone/car keys. Lund is worried but recognises this means he doesn't necessarily intend direct harm as in this case he could just take the phone anyway. She hands over the phone and Vagn leaves, locking her in.
• Lund breaks down the door but in the meantime Vagn has gone to Larsens birthday party. 
• Lund goes to nearby house and uses phone to call Pernille and warn her, literally at the same time Vagn drives off with Theis. 
• Pernille drives to new house to meet up with Lund, Lund calls police but they are still more concerned with tracking her down now they know Bengt's forgery.
• Lund and Pernille catch up with Vagn and Theis as per the show. 
• Theis kills Vagn. 
• The police arrive shortly after. The series ends leaves unresolved what happens to Theis, it depends on Lund's word, she could tell the truth but also could say it was a matter of self defence following a struggle. 

The Killing (warning massive spoiler alert)

Off topic. Just finished watching first series of "The Killing".  It was utterly brilliant and had me hooked right from the start. Amazing how quickly I didn't even notice it was in Danish.

But...(WARNING MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT)

The series is 20 hours long. For around 18 of those hours the plotting is pretty perfect, false lead follows on false lead each one ratcheting up the tension. I can only recall a few times I thought it went wrong

• Nanna's phone being tampered with. Made little sense at the time and even less when we learn it was done at the behest of Jens. Jens is a fourth rate politician of little power or influence. Its hard to see why a senior policeman with 36 years experience would risk his career for him. 

• when Hartmann sacks Morten when he thinks he was the source of leaks, the option someone else had used his laptop was way more obvious and Morten would have been far more forceful about this as an explanation. Makes even less sense when you find out later Morten was the only one to know about Hartmann's suicide attempt and you the final last minutes reveal of Morten's ruthlessness.
• Olav going to Bremer when he is under pressure. Why go to Bremer, presumably he was talking to Jens on the phone? Closely linked Jens killing Olav, bit extreme a reaction?? Jens committing suicide by cop also a bit extreme but guess borderline credible.

But  very sadly it all went horribly wrong at the end, when you find out Vagn is the killer. This revealed a huge number of holes in the previously pristine script. In no particular order as they occur to me are:

• Standard procedure in all such cases is to suspect the nearest and dearest, since more often than not they did the killing. Vagn would have been a prime suspect from the start, his alibi and all the questions about his background would have come up much earlier. 
• Vagn cancelled a major job to be able to commit the crime. The customer was very upset by this (as we found out later).  99/100 the customer would be on the phone next working day to complain to the boss (and even if not his lie would have been picked up by the police questioning him as above.) 
• Contrary to earlier suggestions Vagn was not a serial killer. In the end the killing was an unpremeditated crime of passion.  So the earlier clues about the killing seem unlikley:
• > Cutting the fingernails. Possible I suppose
• >Using a condom for all the rapes. Highly unlikely especially for the first one. 
• > For Mette's killing Vagn wrapped the body in his own company's material. Not exactly a sign of the most intelligent killer in the world.
• Evidence from the flat showed Nanna resisted her killer. Yet Vagn showed no signs of being in a fight immediately after
• The fight in the flat was intense. Yet Vagn left no trace, no blood, no finger prints. 
• How did the black necklace get into Nanna's hand?
• How did the video rental card/bloodied clothing get dropped?
• Leon either knew Vagn was the killer or would have had a very strong suspicion he did. How/why did he keep quiet about this?
• If he wanted to cover it up why did he go to the police with the evidence he had picked Nanna up, especially since it put him in the position of being forced to lie about the fact he worked for Theis part time?
• All employees would have been suspects. Leon would have been known and already questioned. 
• Why did Leon flee and stay fleeing?  He phoned his brother and Lund while doing so. All he needed to do tell either of them he had told Vagn about Nanna.
• How did Leon die? Suicide makes no sense, he wasn't the killer. If Vagn killed him how did he find him?
• Why did Vagn tell Theis and Pernille about Nanna's passport?
• Why did Vagn keep the sweatshirt with Sara 84? If he was so obsessive about cleaning Nannas fingernails he would have destroyed all the clothes he was wearing while killing a policeman. 
• Why did Vagn take Nanna to the new house? Through his job Vagn would have known of lots of other much safer locations. Taking her to the house was reckless in terms of the risk of leaving evidence behind and alerting/being seen by neighbours. It also shows a degree of callousness towards the rest of the family that doesn't ring true.
• Why did Amir wait so long to tell his story?

 And on the political storyline

• After it becomes clear Morten tried to cover up for Hartmann not Rie why does Hartmann just accept this? He had no compunction sacking Morten for a much more trivial offence just a few days earlier.
• Even if Hartmann rolls over why expect Rie to? She has shown herself to consistently be a shrewd operator with a hard streak. Moreover she has a very powerful father.  Would she just accept being accused of a serious crime that she did not commit?

Virtual Tour

The 2012 TDF has started, with the amazing situation of a Brit being favourite to win.

As a sort of homage to my 2006 ride and to avoid the July summer (wet wet wet) I thought I'd try riding a virtual tour. Idea is simple, watch the ITV4 coverage and pretend to be a tour rider. 

So far its gone pretty well, managed 3 days so far. Will be interesting once they hit the mountains and I'm not looking forward to the 2 time trial stages. 

1KW

Weather a bit on the stormy side so did a Wattbike session

Went well again, new best figures> 30s and first time over 1000W.

Over the Hill

Did a ride yesterday focused on doing some timed climbs, to set some benchmarks for the future.

Here they are:

• Short Hill TT (Driveway>Substation) 9:58 283W av 166bpm max 177bpm 70rpm
• Fac>Ash (Footpath>Village sign) 4:56 286W av 159bpm max 169 bpm 67rpm
• Yew>Ash (Drive>First House) 5:47 285 av 158bpm max 167bpm 68rpm
• Ash Grind (Last Pothole>x-road) 8:06 272W av 156bpm max 166bpm 74rpm
•  

I set season best PBs from 2:40 330W > 10:27 270W.  

4 min was 319W. This gives some indication of the size of the task to get back to previous fitness. My all time best 4 min PB (398W) was done on the Yew>Ash climb back in April 2009. Then I managed
4:12 396W av 166bpm max 174bpm 83rpm 


So a way to go..



 
 

Not a fluke

The results of my last workout were so surprising/good I thought I'd better run a control. It may be that the Wattbike is giving too high readings.

So I did a bike workout today, main objective being to do a 10TT on the road (same as Wattbike over/under 1km over/2km over)

Results were very pleasing, despite feeling a bit tired following yesterday's workout  I was able to better the 10TT power figures, 261W vs 255 on the Wattbike. So pretty confident Wattbike is measuring accurate power.

Also I put in a max effort sprint climb on the way out. This produced figures not too far from my all time PB.  77s PB 477W, today 470W, so something to aim at beating over next few weeks.