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,