31st Dec

Zwift Race - Replaced with Pretzel setting new KOMs

WOTR setup and first rounds

10 mins WOD post workout  Overhead

Newbury Velo

First email from Newbury Velo today, will be interesting to see how it turns out....

Tired but good TT

Bit tired yesterday even more so today.

But still managed a good Zwift ride yesterday, coming 6th overall.

Beer and Bajjis - new ATB

Awesome ride yesterday, worked off the beer and bhajis consumed at Banjo with a 3000m VAM ride.  Hit target in 2:40 averaging 268W a new all time best, 12W higher than ever managed prior to turning 60....

15 years of Banjo - birth of Newbury velo

Quite by coincidence after recalling buying my first bike from Banjo I went to an event there last night to launch Newbury Velo only to find out it was also a celebration of Banjo's 15th birthday.

Event was rammed and pretty inspiring. Joined up and hope it goes well.

Mr M's bike

Buying the Roubaix was one of the best decisions I ever made. It got me round France and far beyond...

The Giant MTB perished however, the M in the UK stands for Mud and I got sick of spending more time cleaning the bike than riding it.
 


 24/3/2006

A couple of months ago I had a bit of a scare on while riding my trusty old Kellogs Raleigh. It started making strange sounds and when I stopped to check I found part of the frame had rusted through and it was literally falling to pieces. Since I was 15 miles from home I had a bit of a scary journey back as my bike self destructed. Anyway I made it home but left me with an urgent need to buy a new bike that I would use for the ride itself. (I plan to mount the old Raleigh on my wall as an object d'art).



I went into my local bike store and after trying a few different models I settled for a Specialized Roubaix Expert
http://www.specialized.com/bc/SBCBkModel.jsp?spid=13023


I chose this bike because my plan is to travel very light so I did not want a heavy touring model with a lot of luggage carrying capacity. This particular machine is perfect for my needs because it is specifically aimed at long distance fast rides over difficult road surfaces. (The name implies this as the "Paris-Roubaix" is a classic bike race that has been ridden for over 100 years, being especially famous for part of the route being over cobbles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris-Roubaix).
It has a carbon fibre frame with dimensions that allow you to ride more upright than on a full racing bike. This means you lose a bit of aerodynamic efficiency but get a much more comfortable ride, especially if have a dodgy back like I do. Being carbon fibre means it is nice and light but also more forgiving than aluminium (and it won't rust like my old Raleigh!!). So far it has lived up to its claims, the longest ride I have done was over 5 hours in cold/wind and had no aches or pains the day after (touch wood it will stay that way.....).

The upright position also helps with climbing of which I expect to do a lot. To help further with this I did make one change to the standard bike spec. In place of the factory 2 cog 50x36 chain-ring I have a 3 cog 52X39X30 ring (with the supplied 12-27 rear cassette). I chose this because I would much rather have extra gears that I do not need rather than the other way round, especially if I find this half way up an Alp.


Also having extra low gears gives you more options in terms of how to tackle climbs, especially the long ones you get in France that do not exist here in the UK. No less an authority than Lance Armstrong advocates turning low gears at high revs when going uphill, which makes me feel a lot less girly when I move down to the smallest cog and spin my way to the top rather than grunt it.

My "other" bike which I used for trail riding is a Giant TCR. Main reason for choosing this was that it had hydraulic disc brakes. If you ride in a lot of mud like I do these are something that once you have them you will never buy a bike without, believe me.

Bonjour, et bienvenu a Mr Miff's Tour de France - revisited

I hope you enjoy travelling with us.

2019 thoughts....

Many thanks to Mrs Miff for kicking this off way back....

Seems like only yesterday and a long time ago.

I definitely made the right decision to eschew my mountain aka mud bike for the road.

Still one of the defining moments of my life came in my first ever "sportive", the Winter Solstice on Salisbury plain.

Totally exhausted with miles still to go I had the choice of cutting over to the short course. I demurred and pushed on finally finishing 3rd from dead last completely famished and ODing on bananas.

It was both my worst and best ever result.

Books

Sadly this post aged.... lots of much better books around now though the first couple stand the test of time and ofc it was the first one that started it all

Some books that have been of use. Also at the end some stuff about someone who rode the route last year.



THE TOUR DE FRANCE RIDING EXPERIENCE

French Revolutions - Tim Moore
The book that started it all. Relates how the author did pretty much as I did and rode the 2000 route prior to the race itself. Funny, honest and self deprecating it is a good read even for those who have little or no interest in cycling (like my wife...).

Riding High: Shadow Riding the Tour De France - Paul Howard
Just to prove that no matter how daft you are there is always someone dafter. Every year some nutters "shadow ride" the Tour de France, by, each day of the race itself, riding the route the tour will follow shortly after. They almost literally shadow ride as they need to start very early in the morning so as to be able to finish the course without being overtaken by the event itself, so one of the many problems they face is navigating in the dark. To try doing this you naturally have to be a pretty good cyclist as in many ways it is even harder than doing the real thing. Paul Howard's book recounts his tale of doing this in 2004 and is a good read, though more so for cyclists than others.

12 hour power

 Still pretty impressed with myself for ending up not only doing one 12 but several and setting a new club record in the process....


Following on from previous post I have been thinking about what sort of power I will pace at.


I did a tryout on our 10TT course a few nights ago. Conditions were not very helpful with a strong headwind out and tailwind back. Ended up averaging 36kph for 234W/246NW.

Also tried using calculator here: http://bikecalculator.com/wattsMetric.html which reckoned that 34kph should take 195W on the drops and 240W on the hoods. (Aerobar would be 160W but I will not be using one for first attempt for reasons I will go into shortly).

Based on above 2 bits of info I reckon I will need to average somewhere in the region of 220W or so. This is 10w short of my "endurance" zone so is in the right sort of place. Also taking a look at my normal power curve:



My longest ride was my chase of 5000m climbing last year in France. Here I averaged 216NW for 9:30. This is short of target but that is not really a typical day as it was more of a hard tour than a race. This year on the Highclere I averaged 240NW for 7 hours and for the Marmotte 235 NW for 7:30. Extrapolating these as above gives me a guesstimated 12 hour power of between 230 and 215W. So pretty much dead on what I will need to achieve to do the 12 hours at above 20mph.

I will do a few more trials and see what results....

Beauty of the Beast

November 2019 - still a beauty after all these years.....

On a completely different topic on return from Legbreaker I was followed by/followed a beautiful yellow Lamborghini Diablo. I actually heard it before I saw it and it made the most fantastic sight and sound.

By coincidence I saw a Murcielago parked up the night before and definitely of the opinion that the Diablo knocks it into a cocked hat in terms of looks.

Legbreaker 2008

Update 21st November 2019

Ah the Legbreaker. Still up there as one of my hardest ever rides.

The jersey and cap are still going strong and habitual attire.

Sadly the edition I rode turned out to be the last. Bit of a shame as it was well ahead of the trend in terms of UK sportives both in time and difficulty. It also had some of the best food at the finish.

These days there is pretty much one sportive or another happening most every weekend.



 

Did the Legbreaker ride yesterday and, as planned, rode it without looking at my power computer (except for occasional peek).

Actually ride is one where power meter is of least use as consists of lots of sharp, steep ascents and hairy single track descents (as profiles above show...). Quite pleased with how I managed on it, I forced myself to go hard on the climbs and took it easy(ish) otherwise. (ish because high winds and occasional showers made going tough, groups did not really form given nature of terrain).

Overall stats were not too bad. I did the ride in just under 6 hours (it was meant to be 130km but a missing signpost turned it into 140km) and set a new PB for 5 hour normal power at 256NW.

The power distribution makes an interesting picture:
Work time was spread pretty evenly across all of the buckets with near an hour being spent at VMax+Anaerobic. This is in sharp contrast to the Highclere Sportive:


and even sharper contrast to the Marmotte:

While happy I did it not sure I will do Legbreaker again. Not so much the climbing (dont mind that) but the fact that the whole ride felt very samey, just a constant succession of short steep climbs, often in woods, followed by similarly steep descents down single track roads. Latter led to a couple of accidents (fortunately all involved are OK) but even if trouble free are not really much fun.
Next weekend is Tour of Black Mountains, with several serious (but for the UK long) climbs which is definitely more my cup of tea. Just hope weather improves a bit...

3rd March New Hour PB

12 years ago, HR was much higher and power much lower..... 

 3/3/2007

Another end of build stretcher. Decided to do hour of Watts first thing in the morning on the Lifecycle. Started doing criss cross 230-270 but after 30 mins realised bit much following the heavy session the night before.

So stepped down to keep HR around 169 which in practice meant Watts varying 220-240. After 45 mins realised I may be on for a new PB for the hour so paced myself and did it, breaking 900 cals for the first time. Total 905 cals which equates to around 237W I guess.

Training

Interesting to revisit this.  I've always been a bit of a stathead. Power has superceded  heart rate now  and I've lost a  further 10lbs and gained 15+ VO2.

My max HR is down, I rarely if ever see  170+.

The Lifecyle is still going strong and now being used to watch Battlestar Galactica

Much can and indeed has been written on training for cycling and general fitness. Here is a hitlist of stuff I have found useful.

Best web site:
http://www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/


> This is the best general purpose web site that I have come across for training. It does not have much specific to cycling but has a wealth of other useful info.

Scales: I have been trying to lose weight for as long as I can remember. Buying a set of digital scales that also gave a fat% was the tipping point to me actually succeeding this time. Every day I weigh myself in the morning and evening, the variances can be surprising, some days I have gained or lost 6lbs. But that said there is a clear correspondence, not surprisingly between how much I eat/train and my weight. Digital scales let you see this very clearly, I feel much more in control of my weight as a result.

Heart Rate Monitoring: One thing all good exercise guides stress is the importance of knowing your heart rate when training. I fully endorse this, the heart rate is like a combination of speedometer and fuel gauge on a car. Monitoring it is gives a clear indication of how hard/efficiently you are working and so when to push yourself harder or ease off. It also gives you a gauge on fitness improvements, if you can carry out the same exercise routine at a lower heart rate then you are getting fitter. I mentioned elsewhere that I use a HAC4 monitor and would recommend this. A couple of other comments:

> To train effectively you need to know your "maximum heart rate". The usual rule of thumb to calculate this is 220-age. This is not accurate and I would recommend you try to find out your real maximum (see "brianmac" for suggestions, basically all mean pushing yourself to the limit of exhaustion and a bit more and seeing what your highest pulse rate is). This makes a difference, in my case (47 years old) my theoretical maximum is 173bpm but I have trained at 176bpm and seen peaks of 182.
> The other good measure is "resting heart beat". This can be tricky to measure, strictly speaking you need to measure it first thing in the morning when you are still lying flat in your bed. The lower the better though a reading of zero may mean you are overdoing things. TDF riders have famously low resting heart rates in the 30s or even 20s. Mine is 45.

Exercise bike: I have had exercise bikes in the past but stopped using them either because I got bored or they broke. This time I decided to avoid both by spending enough money to get a decent one. I chose the "Lifefitness R9i" for a number of reasons
> I had used them in the gym so I knew the brand well
> The model comes with loads of programs so I know I would not get bored.
> It is a recumbent cycle which makes it a lot easier to watch TV or read a book while exercising.
I would definitely recommend this machine or similar.

Results
The acid test as to whether all the above helps or not will of course be how I manage in the TDF. But so far good as I have
> Reduced my weight from 14st6lbs to 11st 10lbs (i.e. lost 38lbs or 17kg)
> Reduced body fat from 25% to 14%
> Increased my VO2 from 34 to 50.
> Increased person best on the exercise bike of calories burned in 30 mins from 300 to 550.

Workout 19th June

Good climb up Stelvio yesterday. Will aim to do similar up Sella today followed by some spin ups.

Workout 17th June Boiling a Frog

Boiling a Frog aiming to improve on yesterday

Went well, new PB then did a VR and went harder than I expected to setting new MPA and myFTP of 320W. 

In doing so ticked final box to become a Rouvy Legend...

Workoout 13th June Low Carb Race

Eggs for breakfast then race

Workout 12th June Final hard session + Xert fields

Do warmup long rest then Sella climb then just push TSS before recovery day.

Install Xert Whats my FTP and MAP fields to see how they work for motivation. 

Went remarkably well. Surprised to find my weight up to 155lbs which I guessed must be due to glycogen+water.

So set an arbitrary target to lose 5lbs+ during the session and did a series of workouts including warmup to 7 minute hard, short sharp intervals and Sella on G6.

Hit target but best thing was how good I felt and how time flew by. Ended up doing over 4 hours at 242NW, 242 also being TSS number. Post ride felt great, really strong not at all tired or sore.

Workout 11th June 20 then Boiling Frog

Do 20 in test mode doing chunks at 312+.

Focus heart rate.

Then see how far I can get on Boiling Frog 

Went well but Rouvy watts turned out to be misleading.

Felt tired later in the day, think combination of terrible weather and out of comfort zone training.

Workout 10th June Push 20

Push 20 minutes higher. Then Stelvio in G7

Went OK but lost confidence towards the end. DId Sella instead of Stelvio and went fine

8th June Workout Repeat yesterday

Repeat yesterday but with lower power target and different music

Workout 7th June 20 minute followed by single ring climbs

20 minute aiming to exceed Rouvy 312W. Follow by climbs keeping to single rear gear

Went badly, struggled after just 7 minutes. Not sure why, may be the format of the workout, the music or effect of a full day off

Workout 5th June Stelvio

Aim for Stelvio PB. Just keep in touch first 30 minutes then push on in second half.

Focus. Mental toughness: keep going to finish. 

Started strong but just lost it after 30 minutes. Lack of internal focus was the key issue. Will take a rest day and retry.

Workout 4th June Long Ride with Efforts

Long ride with efforts to keep NP high.

Focus: Higher cadences with Brad Wiggins thought of legs as pistons 

Went well but cut short by downpour 

Workout 2nd June WU+8mins

Up workout power then do 3x8 minutes at 300W+ in 4x2 minute chunks.

Result WU short but 8s better at 320-310W

Workout June 1st Fat Burn Recovery

Fat burn recovery catching up with Giro and listening to podcasts.

Workout 31st May Marmotte climbs at 250W+

Do Marmotte climbs in reverse order.

Aim for 260W, taking a short break between to simulate transitions. 

Continue until unable to hold 250W for 30s. 

Mental focus: Regular form scans using mindfullness

Tech focus: Cadence at or above 72rpm.  

Result. ADH and Galibier went very well, breathing through nose helped.

After 3 hours started to suffer from saddle pain and lost motivation. Think this is an artifact of using turbo. For future will just do steady non stop tempo efforts,

Workout 30th May - Sella PB

Set new PB up Sella, don't sweat if it's only by a few seconds

Went hard on first half but then lacked confidence I could continue. Good test for future mental toughness workout

Workout 29th May 2019 - "WU" 20

Extend "warmup" to 20 minutes after 300W with balance SST.

Result: Managed this and set SB 7-12 minutes. Drop off after 12 minutes a bit too abrupt so will change for next time

Workout 23rd May Sella PB

Set new PB on Sella. Test of riding hard with tired legs

Done, knocked 2 minutes off best and won by 500m. Power not great at mid 280s but not bad given tired legs and lack of motivation once well ahead

Workout 22nd May 3h@250NW

Another go at 250NW for 3 hours. Will also be be a good test of new shoes and "ankling"

Managed this time on Marmotte, doing long sections of 250-260W. Ate 200g CHO and felt pretty good right through.

Workout 21st May 1xWU 3x8

Up warmup duration, rest then 3x8 minutes on start of Pordoi climb aiming to stay ahead of my pb done a few days ago.

This went better than last week. Set new PB on warmup than managed 3x31x for intervals.

Did Pordoi for first but then switched to Canal for last 2, using 2 tribes for interval timing.

Noticed that focusing on flexing ankle resulted in more watts for same RPE so will check this out in future runs

Workout 20th May Fat Burn Recovery

Fat burn recovery listening to a podcast and check out new shoes

Easy ofc. Upped cadence progressively as workout progressed to end in 90s.

Shoes good but seem to be even better with carbon insole 

Workout 19th May 3 hour tempo

3 hour ride @250NW

Result: Just fell a bit short at 248NW.  Mainly due to foot issues in right shoe. 

Workout 18th May SST Climbs

SST Repeats total 180TSS

• Go for PB up Pordoi
• Do other AR climbs at 270W until unable to complete or hit 180 TSS

Result - Very good. Pordoi in under 30 minutes @310W. Sella pb 271W.

Road bike - better short power

Changed the bars on my Tarmac so went out yesterday in lovely weather to give it a spin.

After the poor 8 minute efforts I spent the first part of the ride doing intervals up the B4000.

Started in a low gear then just repeated changing down a gear until I did it in top.

Went very well, peak was 344W for near 7 minutes which is more like what I'd be hoping to hit right now. 

Pretty pleased with mental approach as well, really pushed right through to the end.

Only funny was the L/R at 46/54. Which makes sense as I tend to focus on right leg when pushing. So hopefully some room for improvement.

After the intevals I did a loop of the Lamourn valley including big ringing up the hill.

Once home I also finally managed to get my tubeless tyre onto my rear wheel....

So all in all a pretty good day

4x8 run 1 not good

Well that did not go well.

My first 8 was at the end of a long warmup and I managed 338W. 

Then I watched yesterdays Giro while doing Z2. Once done I tried doing some more 8s up Alpe D'Huez.

I really struggled, finding it hard to get over 300W. Really not sure what was going on especially since I'd had the previous day off.

Still at least I have a benchmark for the future even if it is a low one

4x8s

I've got 4x8 minutes planned for today.

These mark the point at which I start to find training hard. 

It's a bit of a vicious circle, I know they will hurt and I worry that I will not be able to hit target watts which makes them hurt even more.

So I'll try going a bit easier, just doing 8 minutes up the initial ramps of Alpe D'Huez at FTP+ and see how I get on. 

As a bit of motivation I'll record the results here. 

Racing..sort of

In order to move onto the next Rouvy level I need to complete 4 "races".

Yesterday I had a sweetspot  session planned but before I started I checked if any races were running.

I found one on a 47km course had just started so I joined it planning to ride in SST zone.

Worked like a dream, having the incentive of slowly but surely catching up with the leaders was great motivation and I made the "catch" around 7km to go and stayed strong through to the end. 

Course was undulating so average power was just under target but NP pretty much spot on, 275W for over 90 minutes. EF for the whole workout was good too at 1.98.

My biggest weakness

My biggest weakness when it comes to training is a taste for beer.

All the training advice is to eschew alcohol but, for me, nothing quenches a thirst like a good ale, preferably of the IP kind.

Hopefully the chaps at Brew Dog have come to my aid. I get 20% off thanks to being too!!


https://www.brewdog.com/blog/post/punk-af

Marmotte run 2 result

Run 2 went better than the first. Didn't make it all the way round but managed 5.5 hours and felt pretty good for most of the ride.

I started post Glandon so as to arrive fresh at Galibier which went well.

Just struggled on the last 2/3 of ADH. The simulator grade was steeper than the real thing and once again I think there is cumulative fatigue effect of the resistance always being high so you cant take even a micro pause.

I ate a mix of sandwiches, coconut rings, Snickers and jelly babies, totalling 2800 calories including over 400g CHO, This seemed to suit me better than gels.

Also didn't notice any negative impact of not carb loading or of doing a hard 180TSS workout yesterday

Marmotte take 2

I've replaced my long ride planned for today with another trial run of the Marmotte.

I decided to do this before I saw the weather but glad I did as its pretty foul.

This time I haven't carb loaded the day before. Just done a hard workout and eaten plenty of carbs after.

I will also test eating real food instead of gels. So got some sarnies, coconut cakes and jelly babies ready.

Other change will be to start at the end of the Glandon descent so do the Galibier earlier on. This should help dispel the psychological worries.

Weight update

This year has seen me finally achieve a goal that I've been chasing since my mid 20s.

I've finally got control of my weight. Graph below shows a pretty consistent decline since January. I've another couple of kg to go for perfection but I'm going to throttle back a bit now and focus eating enough to fuel higher intensity power workouts

Marmotte run 1

Mixed results from first trial run of the Marmotte.

Plan was to do climbs at 250W and flats at 165. 

I was comfortably ahead of this target up to second pitch on the Galibier. Then my legs just stopped working.

It wasn't that I had run out of fuel, I had none of the signs of bonking. It felt more as if I could not activate the nerves to make my leg muscles fire. 

This was after over 4.5 hours and I speculate it may have been due to using my Neo. Unlike the real world the muscles are always firing, there are no micro rests that you get on even the steepest of climbs.

Other possibility is that my stomach was empty due to experimenting with using only gels. Next time I'll add in some "real" food.

750g CHO went down easy

Well that wasn't so bad. I did a short sharp workout setting new SBs for 60s and MPA.

Then I tucked into lots of pasta, brown basmati and jelly babies.

Got to the "target" 700g remarkably easily and early, around 19.00. Funnily enough I was feeling hungry again towards bedtime.

Slept OK though woke a few times and had some more jelly babies and a couple of Snickers. (next time I'll prepare some pasta to eat instead)

Woke with a slight headache. Not weighed myself yet but had gained 3lbs yesterday evening.

Carb Loading

I plan on doing a full trial run of the Marmotte tomorrow which should be interesting.

So today I am going to experiment with a simple carb loading experiment.

I'll try the "Western Australian" approach of doing a short sharp workout then plan to eat 10kg of CHO per kg so around 700g over the course of the next 24 hours.

What should happen is that my weight should spike up by around 3kg not only storing up carbs but also water to help me through the ride.

Time will tell, should be interesting.

Not so good long ride

Aimed for a 210minute season best yesterday. I made it, just, but felt rough.

Interestingly the key limiter was mental, I had the legs but just found it hard to maintain concentration and focus.

I need to find some sort of combination of courses that will keep me motivated. 

One obvious option is the Marmotte course, I'll be riding this next week and be interesting to see how it compares in RPE. 

Easy Gardening

Stunning weather for the Easter weekend, probably the best we have ever had.

Still with every sunny day there's a cloud and I had to get the mower out for the first time this year.

I was surprised by how easy it felt, right from manhandling it out of the garage to sweeping up the last of the detritus.

I put this down to the weights I've been lifting, in particular the bench press. My favourite description of this exercise is "it fits your arms to your body" and that's exactly how I felt.

PS another PB on the deadlift last night

Magic 3 what I wish I had been taught during PE

PE was one of my favourite lessons at school (with the exception of rugby that is).

However knowing what I know now I wish that more time had been spent on the fundamentals that apply to every form of exercise rather than jumping into the specifics that apply to one particular sport.

In particular IMO every child should be taught the basic movement patterns so that they know good form from bad and can move correctly from the off and not develop problems due to years of bad habit.

It really is very easy. There are just 3 essential components

1. The basic basic moves, just 4 of them from classic weightlifting.

• Squat
• Deadlift
• Push
• Pull

Push and Pull each have 2 variants, horizontal and vertical (so 90 degrees from chest e.g. bench press and row and 90 degrees from shoulder e.g. pull up and overhead press)

As a cyclist I am only interested in building strength not muscle bulk from these so I just go high load low reps. So as much as I can handle for 3-5 reps, 3-4 sets.

Best source I have found is Alan Thrall on Youtube, loads of videos all of them both informative and fun.

 2. Functional strength/movement

 These are exercises that challenge multiple parts of the body to work in a co-ordinated manner to develop  strength and/or stability. It's possible to develop a complete program of these just with body weight drills e.g. bird dogs, single leg squats, lunges planks. 

There are also lots of variants with simple equipment like TRX, kettle bells and the like. As an example of the latter doing this 2-3 times a week would be great https://shoppeaks.com/the-cyclists-ultimate-kettlebell-workout/

3. Mobility

These are focused sessions that work on specific areas to ensure they move correctly.  

They also double up as warmups prior to a workout and/or routines to promote recovery afterwards.

Single best source for these I have found is Mobility WOD. Following the daily drills here is pretty much guaranteed to keep you moving freely without pain for your whole life.

Dead Lift pain (not)

Car needed some work doing so I ended up walking into the market yesterday.

Came close to 10k steps in total and it was PAIN FREE!!!!

First time in ages I can recall walking that far that comfortably.

Combination of factors helped I think including carbon feet.

I'm pretty sure a significant one was me setting a new dead lift PB a couple of days ago (106kg x5 I think).

 This has made me significantly more aware of my posterior chain and made me feel as if it's really strong. As a result I walk with my weight set back a bit so that my glutes and hamstrings absorb most of the shock from each step. I think this helps take some off the stress off my knees, also moving the point of highest pressure from the spot that is particularly bad.

Hex Ramp up

Did my third Humon Hex threshold test yesterday and was able to set a new PB quite comfortably.

Protocol is start at 30W then increase by 30W every 3 minutes until failure.

Managed over 60s into 360W, compared to 12s for first attempt, 42s for second. Also I was not really on the point of complete failure, I was just shooting for the minute mark.

Good 20

Excellent 20 test yesterday. 

Averaged 330W with HR going up very nicely to peak at 169.

Weight was 68.6kg so w/kg of 4.81 was actually better than any ride last year.

Super sweetspot

Quite superb workout yesterday. Aimed to set new season best of 270W for 90 minutes.

Got on turbo warmed up to top of Z2 then upped to target.

I had intended this to be part of my warmup and stop after my HR stabilised but I was feeling OK so decided to push on.

Just kept pushing encouraging myself with lots of small targets, eating the elephant in small chunks. Final interval was a thing of beauty. 286W pan flat and minimal HR drift,

 

Feeling crap > feeling great

The single biggest issue I have with training is relating how I feel to the progress I am making. 

The whole point of doing workouts is to "damage" your body so that it reacts by repairing itself and getting stronger in the process.

So pretty much by definition if you are feeling 100% then you are not training hard enough.

However just how bad can you feel?  

The received wisdom in training bibles is not to overdo it. They emphasise the dangers of "overtraining".

The trouble is individuals clearly differ in terms of how much damage their bodies can absorb before this risk becomes a reality.

For me I can't say I have ever come close, despite some pretty extreme training levels. To the contrary the harder I work the better I feel. If I feel crap it quickly passes and I know its a good sign as I'll feel even stronger soon.

A case in point is earlier this week.  I felt run down but forced myself to complete my workouts and also double up with a max strength weight session setting a new PB for my deadlift.

Yesterday I did a "tired 20" and felt like a god. Easily pumped out the target 1500kcal in a couple of hours and was really strong during the 20 averaging near 300W. 

FWIW my personal opinion is that for amateur cyclists the fear of overtraining is a lot more debilitating than the reality. 

60 feeling 26

Finally registered a new decade yesterday and had a lovely day, thanks to the family.

The calendar may say I'm 60 now but my Tamita scales tell me I'm 26 :) so I'll go with that.

Flanders Fat

The "Classics" season started a few weeks ago.

I've never really been into these before but this year I'm taking an interest, renewed my Eurosport contract and enjoying them muchly.

The great thing about them is they are all or nothing on the day so no-one holds anything back and they are less predictable as a result.

I watch them in real "4D"  riding my trainer while the race progresses. I keep watts low just being content with a long fat burning session, perhaps with some higher intensity towards the end as the race hots up.

Low pressure = low mood?

Weird but I think I've found one reason for my low mood yesterday.

Checking the barometer the air pressure plummeted and the weather was foul.

This isn't the first time this has happened. Indeed I bought the barometer because I felt a link, high pressure feels good, low pressure bad. both accentuated if there is sudden shift from one to another.

This notion does not seem to be backed up by any science so it may be all in my mind. Which I guess is sort of the point... 

Anyway will try to stay aware of this for the future.

Feeling rough

I tried doing a canal run yesterday and felt rough after 10 minutes or so.

Been filling a bit run down since and this morning definitely don't feel my usual self.

HRV no use, tells me I'm fit and raring to go...

Will take it easy and see how I feel tomorrow.

New carbon feet

Finally got to the root of my big toe problem. 

Arthritis in main joint > next joint up flexing and  taking too much weight > pain.

Solution seems to be to get a carbon fibre insole that stops the foot from flexing, so I walk with flat feet.

This actually is not as bad as it sounds, since I have been changing my gait towards my heels so that my glutes take up more load to relieve my poor old knees. 

Touch wood this will sort things out long term.

320 20

I'm doing some tests this week so pushed myself on a 20 minute effort. Managed to break 320W which is pretty much what I expected given my lack of higher intensity efforts.

Will be interesting to see how this increases as I up the intensity in the next couple of months.

Good Tired 20

Good ride yesterday. I had been feeling a bit down, not sure if I was making progress.

Did a "tired 20" session which consists of riding at the top of L1 until I've burned over 1500kcal then doing a hard 20 minutes.

The L1 ride was round a lake and I went really well. Best of all was how fluid my legs felt. The previous evening I had done some work on my calves and hamstrings allowing me to touch the floor more easily. This involved a variety of stretches and mobilisations. It's possible this had an effect.

Whatever, went really well, then the 20 minutes was very solid. 299W which is a season best and again felt strong during it. 

New Shoes

Went to Colchester a couple of days ago. On the way I passed through Chelmsford which had a big part in where I am now.

Got fitted for some custom Luck shoes which I hope will help sort out the pains I get in my right foot. After years of boas I decided to go back to old school laces hoping they will result in less pinch points

Shop was here
http://www.veloschils.com/ 

and ended up having an interesting chat with the owner, an ex pro, whose dad, an ex Belgian champ,  
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jozef_Schils

helped Eddie Merckx during his early days as a pro.

Also ended up doing an impromptu training session on the Tacx software which was great fun. 

Interestingly one thing I heard was the importance of pedaling correctly. I've always thought this but it was nice to hear it from a good source. One idea I had not heard before was that of training with especially heavy pedals, which I may try giving a go at some point

Weekend away

Had a weekend away with the club.

Highlights of the trip were
- Having a beer by the side of the Thames in glorious sunshine
- Ditto 2 x xtra large cappuccino at Pangbourne
- Seeing a flock of red kites
- Premier Inn (I never thought they would be that good)
- Feeling fine on the bike 
- No toe pain

I'm afraid the trip did however also confirm my views on cycling in the south. Most of the trip was either along busy roads or country lanes with no view apart from hedgerows.  

The not so great outdoors

I've signed up for a cycle club weekend away in a few days so thought I had better ride outdoors to check out my bike.

So did a quick blast up and down the B4000 yesterday. The bike was fine and I went well but can't pretend I particularly enjoyed it. Weather was cold and grey with an irritating wind.

For me riding a bike outdoors in the south of England is very much over rated. The weather is variable, the roads are poor, there is too  much traffic and there's not a lot of interesting scenery. I ride a bike to get fit not vice versa so think I'll be staying indoors for a while yet.

Feeling bad > riding good

Despite measuring everything and having oodles of data sometimes you just have to go with how you feel.

I did a ramp test Monday and can't admit to eating/drinking sensibly to recover afterwards. On the contrary Mrs M and I watched Bohemian Rhapsody  while consuming a bottle of wine.

So woke yesterday after a disturbed nights sleep with a slightly muzzy head. 

Despite that when it came to doing my workout I felt pretty good. So I switched my plan to do 4x16 but in a slightly different way.  I marked up 64 squares on my whiteboard and just rode in target zone marking off the squares in small chunks of 3-5 minutes. 

I really didn't have a clue about how far through I was or the length of individual interval. So instead of 4x16 I ended up doing more like 3x21. 

Best thing was that I felt great. 

Driving at speed

Slightly off topic but sort of consistent. I've signed up for a course to improve my driving speed. On the golf course that is....

It's early days yet but so far it's been fun and eyeopening.  The approach is pretty straightforward and suits my training approach.

Just measure you swing speed (with a device like SwingSpeedRadar) and then do drills to improve it.

I started at 84mph and best so far has been 95mph. 

The breakthrough aha has been to use my left hand more. Despite being a right hander I play left handed (since I was taught by my dad and he was a natural  leftie). 

Most of my sensation is from my right side. This has its advantages but it means I don't have any feeling of using my left hand for any useful purpose other than hold the club,

One drill that was suggested was to do a 1./2 swing but focus on really generating speed with the trail hand. Just by doing this I added 8mph. 

So I think the challenge will be to continue to do this with a full swing and shoot for the century.

Arthritis everywhere

I'm lucky that I enjoy cycling as I'm pretty much of a crock otherwise.

Following ACL 30+ years ago both my knees are shot. I've not been able to run for years but recently even walking has become a pain. Went to the doctor and turns out I have osteoarthritis. 

I've also been suffering from off and on foot pain. Recently went to a podiatrist to find I've also got arthritis in the big toe of my right foot. Luckily he suggested some ideas for managing this.

So hopefully both are containable..... 

Changing my routine

I've made a change to my daily routine and, though it's early days, I think I prefer it.

I used to do my workouts straight after breakfast.  That was fine for the workout but left me a bit tired to do other stuff which particularly affected my attempts to improve at golf.

So I've moved my workout back and will dedicate some time to golf beforehand. I've just signed up to a course that aims to improve my swing speed (a paltry 84mph with the driver atm :(   ) so I need to feel fresh to do this.

This hasn't really had much of an impact on my workouts. I still feel fresh. What I often find is that an hour or so after the workout I feel up to putting in some strength and mobility so I can have the satisfaction of starting the evening with the feeling of a having put in a good day's work.

When to weigh

One thing I've noticed is how much my weight can vary, even during the course of a single day.

Yesterday for example I gained 6lbs between the end of my workout (an easy recovery ride) and bedtime. 

The reasons for this are varied but I think the primary one is glycogen being added or used up.

Anyway for reasons of future consistency I'll be using my weight immediately pre workout as a basis for my w/kg goals.

4x16 II getting better

Second 4x16 yesterday and a noticeable improvement on the first.

I didn't feel too great in the morning. Brexit chaos the night before resulted in 1 too many DIPAs, the key cause, no doubt, of a poor HRV.

Still I decided not to wimp out and decided to take things carefully, starting less aggressively than last time,

Very pleased with result 286W>291W.>297W>296W. Last interval was actually the best as I pushed it a bit longer.

One aspect of the workout that went well was my mental focus. I broke each interval into 4 minute chunks and watched SF Angels over/under section. Increased power a bit on the overs and reduced a bit on the unders. 

Time whizzed by, especially after the first few minutes when my HR was up to speed.

On the subject of HR, remarkably low: peaks for the 4 were 150>151>155>158. This resulted in an EF for the work portion of 2.02, the highest for the season yet and maybe close to an ATB.

On my next L3 training session I'll investigate this further. Low HR for power can be good or bad news. It's one of the main training goals but also, for me at least, the most reliable indicator of plateauing, 

Still pretty happy and already looking forward to next weeks session <<<< which is probably the biggest win of all :)

Nearing 60 feeling happy

Just listening the "the planet rock years". It's 1971 and every song is a classic including track now playing>> "Life on Mars".

Continuing the space connection I watched the latest episode of the Grand Tour yesterday and found myself moved to tears during a piece by James May as he was driving the actual Corvette Stingray owned by Neil Armstrong along the landing strip used by the shuttle.

I turn 60 next months and while age has it's drawbacks I'm forever grateful that I was alive and just conscious during one of the most exciting periods in the history of mankind., 

The best ever ride I had forgotten about

I was looking over my ride history the other day and came across this workout from March 2017

https://www.strava.com/activities/913859535/analysis/620/6968

When I saw the stats my jaw hit the floor. It was my all time best hour plus power. I took 15 minutes to ramp up to Z2 then slowly but surely increased power to threshold.

I ended up averaging 288W for near 2 hours, accumulating 186TSS and an IF of 0.9

Quite amazing stats. Funnily enough I had completely forgotten I did this.

Perhaps a clue is in my comments, I did the ride the day after a beer festival nursing a hangover and feeling guilty about one to many burgers. 

It does cross my mind that there may be a causal factor here. Not the beer but the surfeit of carbs.

I feel have noted a link between RPE and my glycogen levels when doing longish rides. This feels as if it goes beyond just the fueling needs. It seems as if in some way my brain knows the level of reserves that it has and sets RPE accordingly so as to spare glycogen if levels are low and let it burn if levels are high. 

Something to investigate further. 

Strength training - lovely if late

One new key objective this year is to do regular strength training.

I've eschewed this in the past through fear of "bulking up".

It turns out this fear was sadly misguided. Over the past few weeks I've been lifting more and higher weights. Far from causing unwanted growth I feel as if this has actually helped me shed pounds.

The biggest surprise in this respect has been the bench press. This should be entirely wrong for a cyclist, not only resulting in bigger muscles where they are not needed but also making your shoulders wider and thus less aerodynamic.

None of this has happened.  I can really feel the difference and I actually feel stronger on the bike including feeling more comfortable when down on the drops in an aero position.
 

Sweet sweetspot

Did my first true sweetspot session for a while yesterday. I tried doing it power blind just ramping up to RPE while watching a Sufferfest video.

End result was OK if not great, around 260W for 100 minutes, but a reminder of how much I like these workouts and I will start doing them once a week, which along with my 4x16 will be the "high" portion of my training this month.

One thing that definitely did not work was power blind. Next time I will set power targets and see how that goes.

Famine then feast Thursday

It's Thursday.

A special day for me and one I look forward to each week.

My routine is quite different. No breakfast, just some coffee then a fasted ride.

Then cycle into town to visit the market and pick up some supplies. 

As a reward I then head off to the pub for some ale and grub.

There's a training reason behind this, I'm a subscriber to the theory that fasted rides help get the body used to burning fat,.

But quite honestly I love these days. I have a quite different feeling, somehow more alert/awake.

Plus beer and food taste a lot better when you feel hungry and you've earned it.

4x16 3/4 2/3 aint bad

The main set each week for the next four will be 4x16@97% of FTP. 

I'm doing this as part of my polarised plan, following a study mentioned at the end of this presentation by Stephen Seiler 

https://quantifiedrowing.com/2015/09/27/from-polarized-to-optimized-new-lecture-from-prof-steven-seiler/

Yesterday was my first shot and I was a bit apprehensive. It certainly proved hard and I didn't quite hit target my numbers being 297W>290W.>287W>266W

Given my FTP is around 300W atm this makes 99%/97%/96%/89%

So a bit of a decline and last rep didn't quite hit the mark.

Still I'm more than happy with the result. Firstly it's a useful benchmark for the coming weeks.

More importantly though I want to get away from just focusing on power. I also want to work on my weight and mental toughness. 

Both of these were great. Following the workout I was under 150lbs for the first time in ages and approaching my long term target. 

But even better was my mental approach. For the final interval I didn't beat myself up for being low but just focused on form and getting through. I made it and in the process banked some very useful memories for the future.
 

Simple cheap food

A key reason why I feel I have my weight under control is that I've established a simple backbone of 3 square meals a day.

• Breakfast 85g of porridge made up with milk
• Lunch 85g of basmati brown rice and 350g of frozen vegetable
• Dinner the same as lunch

For variety I may add a bit of fruit at breakfast. Lunch and dinner I'll add some protein perhaps fried up with some onions and/or some extra vegs or fruit. A tablespoon of sauce or pickle also helps keep things different.

All this makes for a diet that I find remarkably satisfying. It's quick and simple to prepare and leaves me full. It's also pretty much perfect in it's macro breakdown for high volume workout training.

It's also pretty cheap. The basics above work out as less than £1 a day for over 3000kcal per day. 

Weight way back

Way back I got myself some scales that talk to the interweb. A bit of an extravagance but the advantage is that I can easily see a long term picture of how my weight has changed as shown in the chart above.

The first measures are from back in 2013. I'd forgotten that I was under 70kg back then. I'd also forgotten about the slow but steady rise to mid 2015 and the reduction down to Xmas of that year. Another slow but steady rise since then to a plateau.

Then right at the end the line starts going down again, pretty consistently since the start of 2019. 

All in all I'm pretty happy with this picture. It provides some evidence that I am on the right track and is pretty motivating to boot.

February 2019 review

February has come to an end. It was a crazy month, the hottest ever feeling more like a bad day in summer than mid-winter.  I've kept to my ambition of reading a poem a day and they were all nice but not very appropriate for the conditions with their emphasis on snow and ice.

Training wise it's been a good month
> Power: My target was to hold 300W for a full 60 minutes. I came up slightly short, besting 295 but I'm fine with that. The climb I chose was challenging with an easy section midway and lots of shifts in gradient that made it hard to sustain constant power.  I did manage to hit 300W mFTP which is a good second best.

> I'm losing weight and fat slowly but steadily. The thing I am happiest about is the process. I've gone back to keeping a food diary and it's made a big difference. I feel I'm in control of my eating and it gives me lots of numbers which the geek in me finds a stimulus to keep to the plan.

> Strength training: I've put in regular sessions and am setting PBs. I can also feel the payback in terms of how I feel. Biggest surprise has been the bench press.  KS related a story about an ancient NFL coach who used to say he loved this exercise because it "joined the arms to the body". This made no sense until I started doing them at high load. Now I know what he meant.

> Mental: I've gone back to the Sufferfest plan and now feel I have something tangible to work with.

> Golf: Off topic but progress here too. My swing is the best ever, just need to work on my address, specifically getting the club further forward so hands under chin,

 

VO2 = 72!

I did another test the day after my previous one. This time my HRV was fine and I ended up going harder but feeling better. Ended up over 300W with a new VO2 best of 72

VO2 = 71??

Well yesterday was interesting for a couple of reasons.

We had a bit of an epic lost keys cheese......

And on the cycling front I had a weird workout. I felt fine but really struggled. I intended to set a baseline "hoods" 20 minutes followed by some over unders.

However I couldn't hold steady power and the result was only 290W. I recovered and tried a few over/unders but my heart was not in it and I quit.

When I saved the session my Garmin told me I had set a new VO2 max of 71. Which would be nice if it were true but I think it reflects more that my HR was low, only averaging 146 for the 20 minutes.

HRV??

I've been an off and on user of HRV for the past couple of years.

It's a bit of a faff to remember to do each morning and I haven't found the results especially helpful in planning my training.

I have an example today. After days and days of 10/10 ratings despite doing well over 100TSS per day yesterday I had a rest day and now I'm 2/10 and being warned to take it easy.

I'll ignore this advice and do my level 3 workout as planned and see what it says tomorrow....

How to lift a bull

There's a greek myth about a strongman who wanted to lift a bull over his shoulders.

He trained for this by finding a newly born bullock. Everyday he lifted it so, slowly but surely, eventually achieved his ambition.

The same thing works for me in training. Just pick a time*power and ride it easy. Then each repeat up it by a couple of watts or seconds. 

I've just started to do this for 20 minute efforts. I'll have 3 different targets reflecting RPE of riding in familiar and less familiar postions: On the hoods, on the drops and full TT.

Mind Breathing

I've decided to experiment with making breathing the focus to build mental toughness. 

Ever since I've been doing endurance sports, right back to school cross country I've had a habit of heavy breathing. It's proved pretty effective and has been a feature of all my rides. Last year on a trip to the Alps I got the nickname of "steam train" as folks could hear me before they could see me.

Still I've always thought that I may be overdoing it and could be wasting energy.

So I'm going to work on a more focused method based on a suggestion from Graham Obree's recent book. 

tbh I'm not convinced by his claims for the approach based on physiology but I think the focus needed will be a useful distraction from the pain of hard efforts. 

Failing to Succeed

I'm making good progress on the strength and nutrition fronts. However I don't really feel I have done anything new regarding mental toughness.

After a chat with a coach I have decided to add something new into my weekly schedule.

She pointed out something I have really always been aware of. Fear of failure means I ride within myself. This occurs in events and also during interval training where worrying about completing a set means I hold off early on, 

One day will be dedicated to efforts where I fail. So no intervals, I will just ride as hard as I can for as long as I can over varying distances until I crack. 

What a difference no carbs make

I'm trying out "periodised eating". This is pretty simple, just eat for the workout ahead.

So if a hard workout is planned lots of carbs, if an easy one little.

Past couple of days I've also tried modifying this with an amended form of intermittent fasting. This is a 3 day block when following a hard morning workout I will aim to get net calories consumed (base metabolism + calories burned during workout - calories eaten) well below 1000.

So far this has worked well. I don't feel especially tired, to the contrary I have been able to complete LSD workout well and feel sharp.

 

Life Changing Bike Moments 1 - It's too big!!!

As a change from looking forwards I thought I'd look back from time to time and recall some of the moments of serendipity that changed my cycling life. (Even if nothing will ever come close to deciding to get out of bed early, fetch the DT and end up in a job for life)

The most significant  moment bike wise came at the beginning. Like many I was fat and in my mid 40s, peaking I think at around 93kg. At this point credit to Phil, who regularly worked out at the gym, on a Concept II.

If it worked for him I guessed it would work for me so I decided to buy one. Our main bedroom has a slightly eccentric feature, a small walk in wardrobe cum room that I thought would be the perfect place to put it.

I went on the Concept site clicked my way through all the options and was just about to click the button to pay when I thought I'd just better check the machine would fit.

I went and measured the room and found it was exactly 6" too small. No way to fit the rower without knocking down a wall...

So I decided to go for a plan B and got myself an exercise bike instead.....

Getting Heavy

Gosh I am enjoying lifting heavy (for me) weights. 

I'm doing bench press, one armed row and deadlifts on a ma x strength routine doing sets at 3-5 reps as heavy as I can handle.

It's rewarding in a number of ways
- Learning new techniques 
- Finding new Youtube stars (Alan Thrall is a hoot)

- Starting over as a novice and setting new PBs
- Feeling so much better.

The last is probably the best. Cycling is great but it is biased in terms of what how it gets you fit. Heavy weights are probably at the opposite extreme and I can feel the results already. Just feel more balanced, especially posterior chain.

 

Humon Hex

I have to be honest, part of the reason I love cycling is that it allows me the chance to pursue my inner geek and play around with new bits of technology.

Ofc the main thing has been power but there is always something new.

Latest is Humon Hex   

If this works it will complement power measure very nicely as it will give a physiological metric that should correlate with my watts.

Time will tell but it will be fun to have a new toy to play with

February target 300W

Target for February is to hold 300W for a full 60 minutes.

Ideally I'd like to do this on one of the new AR routes on Rouvy as chasing another rider, even if it's not real is way more motivating than riding solo.

What a difference a carb makes

Interesting couple of days.  Using Myfitnesspall to track my calories and made conscious effort to up CHO % to above 60.

Friday I did 4.5 hours, yesterday 3.5, both upper end of Z2. 

They went remarkably well. Key thing was RPE, both felt much easier than previous attempts and in both I was able to put in late surges up in SST.

Going Mental

I'm a firm believer that mental toughness is every bit if not more important compared to physical ability.

Pretty much every time I have excelled it has been because I was feeling 110% good in my mind.

That's not to say that I was not hurting, rather my brain accepted the pain but pushed past it.

Conversely almost every time I have failed at something it's my mind that's cracked first telling my legs to stop rather than the other way round.

I'm far from alone. The quite excellent book  Endure  is full of examples. 

I reckon I'm pretty good in some areas of mental toughness but weak in others and this is a key area I'd like to work on this year.  

Having a Goal

The first rule of training is know what you are training for.

I must admit that the past couple of years  I have been a bit vague on this score. I have sort of tried to do time trials but tbh I really don't like them.

This year I am revisiting one of my first major goals, the Marmotte. I've entered but not even sure if I will take part.

Still the fact the race is in my diary and the fact that the clock is ticking has given me renewed vigour, making my training real fun. Which at the end of the day is what I really want

Weekly Focus

Another new thing I am trying out this year is to have a weekly focus. This will be one of 4 things: weight, power, recovery or race.

The last 2 are usual in any plan but the first 2 are not. 

They are nothing complicated, all it means is that during weight weeks I will be especially trying to burn fat mainly through skipping lunch. As a result I will just be looking to maintain power rather than build it. 

During power weeks I will eat plenty of carbs prior to and during rides, aiming to hit season power PBs. 

Week 1

Hit my goal for the first week of the year.

Aimed to do accumulate 15 hours in level 1 and managed it with time to spare. 

Periodised Nutrition

The main change I'm making regards weight management is to follow a periodised nutrition plan.

This is pretty simple in practice. It just means only eating high carbohydrate food (rice, pasta, wheat and the like) during exercise or in the 12 hours before a high intensity session. 

Otherwise I'll eat a mixed diet with plenty of protein, vegatables and fruit. 

The only exception to this is a bowl of porridge for breakfast before a long low ride.

One key thing about this is that I will not be trying to replenish my glycogen post workout. I'll just take a small amount of high GI carbs along with protein.

Polarised Training

The main change in terms of training approach this year will be to use a polarised training plan.

I heard an interview with Stephen Seiler on the Velonews podcast and later was lucky enough to have a chat with Trevor Connor who is a fan of this approach (and a role model for those of us aiming to stay fit despite father time)

Aspects of this approach resonated with me as I think, just by chance, I have sort of been doing this for much of of my time riding. 

My initial Tour de France is a pretty extreme version of doing lots and lots and lots of low intensity riding.

The hardest thing about this training is keeping the low days low and I already sense myself trying too hard. Still I will keep at and be interested to see how it turns out.