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.

Better and Better

Somewhat to my surprise I am continuing to improve and post good numbers. My Wattbike routine is to do 3xmax effort 20-30s intervals, recover then do a 10TT as under/over (1km over, 2 km under).  Latest session I posted new season best for max 960W-40s (501W)


Included in this were all time PB form 16s(784W) - 32s (601W).

The 10 TT was also very good. I posted a season best of 255W. Nothing special compared to the 330W PB but impressive considering how little training I have been doing and the fact I wasn't going all out.

New PB

Did a Wattbike session today and managed to hit goal of beating previous PBs, which isn't bad considering I only just started again. 

Bit where the dotted line is above the solid is the good news. Pretty much due to me doing some all out 20-30s intervals which wasn't something I used to do much of. Still I must have done some efforts like this during racing, just goes to show what some focused training can do for you.

Back in the saddle

Summer has finally arrived and its lured my back onto my bike after a while off.  I'm taking things easy, not actually training for anything specific and not following a rigid plan, just riding as I feel.

That said I wouldn't be me if I didn't have some sort of goal in mind so I've decided to see how close I can get to my peak fitness form and set at least a few PBs. Should be interesting, given I've had a couple of years off and am now more mid than early 50s so firmly in the "masters" category. 

WKO makes tracking this goal quite easy, It's all captured in the picture above, the dotted line are my PBs over the past 2 weeks, the solid is all time PB. 




Above 1.30 there's quite a gulf, with 100W difference. But around 20s things are not so different. Couple of reasons for this, I always slacked at these in the past and this time I've been trying out a few high intensity intervals. 


I'll focus on this area first, then see how things progress.

5 key training drills

Taken a break, now I'm back training albeit not as intensely as I used to.

I just do a session on my Wattbike once every other day or so. But it's going well and I'm getting fitter.

I thought I'd just make a note of the sessions I do, they are general purpose and would suit anybody wanting to get fit regardless of what they actually do, cycle, run, row, swim, whatever.

The only thing you need for all is a clock and a measure of distance covered.

There are 5 different exercises. First time through I'd suggest doing them each in order which will help get a good feeling for the pace to use.

Thereafter you can pretty much do them in any order you like depending on how you feel and aiming overall to do all the exercises a similar number of times. Ideally you will do 3-4 sessions per week with a days rest between each. You can do more if time permits and you feel fresh. Try to do at least 2 per week at least.


Notes:

• Clock/distance measure is the basic way to set pace. Depending on circumstances others can be used, like resistance on gym equipment or hills if training outdoors. Key thing is that whatever you use is easy to monitor and repeatable. You need this in order to train optimally, also seeing yourself go faster with less effort is a great motivator
• All but the first exercise have rest periods. During this time slow to minimal pace but keep moving, do not stop completely.)
• Failing: you will have bad days when you cant complete a whole exercise. Don't let this get you down. Make your next session the same exercise, easing back a bit if it guarantees you will complete it, then use this as benchmark for progression.
  

1: Steady state 1 hour

From cold start and increase pace until you are exercising quite hard but at a pace you feel you can maintain for a full hour. I find monitoring breathing is best indicator for this. Raise pace until you feel you have to breathe through your mouth but its a controlled breathing: you can force yourself to breathe through nose for a short while and still maintain pace.

Progression: At the end of the hour record distance covered. Next time go further.
Variety: This can be a boring workout. To make it more interesting vary some technical aspects of the exercise, e.g. on a bike do 30s at 100rpm every 2 mins or so. Another variant (and very good training) is to do a negative split: second half hour is done at a faster pace than first. If you feel up to it then a more advanced form of this workout is to sprint for 15s-30s every 2-5 mins.

2: 2x20s

Warm up for 5-10 mins then do the following:

• 20 minutes at pace above that from exercise 1 above. As a guideline you should be pushing at a pace that forces you to breathe hard and often through your mouth.
  
• At the end of 20 minutes ease right back and rest for 5 minutes
• Do another 20 minutes. Aim for this 20 minutes to be at at least the same pace as the first.

Progression: Try to increase distance covered in each 20 minutes every time. Good approach is try to set a 20 minute best on the second 20 then make that PB the target distance for the first 20 next time round.

3: Under Overs

Warm up for 5-10 mins. Then do the following:

• Exercise for 2 mins at the steady state pace from exercise 2.
  
• Push hard for 1 min. You should already be breathing hard through your mouth>> during this minute you should feel a shift from where you are under control of your breathing to a point where you feel you have to really suck deep on every breath just to keep going. However don't push so hard you give max effort and sprint (except for the first 2-5s or so to get pace up). You have to maintain a high pace for the full minute, not peak and fade.
  
• After the 1 min ease back and do another 2 mins at steady state.
• Push hard for 1 minute
• Another 2 mins,
• Then another minute hard.
  

Ease right back and do very easy pace for 5 minutes

Repeat all above again and again. So in the end you do 3x9 mins, each 9 min consisting of 3x 2 mins steady, 1 min hard.

Progression: Record the distance covered each 9 mins. Aim to cover more each time you do this drill. Another progression is to do 2 mins steady then 2 mins hard, making each interval 12 mins long.

4: VO2s

Warm up for 5-10 mins then do the following:

• 5 minutes at the 1 minute pace from exercise 3.
• 5 minutes rest
• repeat 3 times (so total 20 minutes exercise)
  

That's it. If time permits you can take a long rest (10 mins or so) and repeat.

Don't push too hard on the first interval. You need to complete all 4. The first 3 should be at a very similar pace. Your body takes a while to warm up fully to working at this intensity, so don't be surprised if the third feels easier than the preceding two.

Progression: If you feel up to it push harder on the last. If you succeed in keeping a higher pace to the end use that as a benchmark next time round.

5: 1x1s

Warm up for 5-10 mins then do the following:

• Go as hard as possible at a pace you can sustain for a full minute. Breathe really hard just before starting then first 15s or so sprint to get up pace. (you won't breathe much if at all during this time. Sprint should be hard but not max effort, you need some reserve for completion). Hold pace for 45s. You will be breathing very very hard.
• Rest 1 minute
• Repeat for at least 4 times.

Fully rest for 10 minutes or so then repeat. So total of 8 minutes very high intensity exercise.

Progression: Increase pace of each minute or add extra minutes (so 5x1 minute> 6x1 not just 4x1 minute). Hard alternative is to repeat until exhaustion. So just keep doing 1 minute effort, 1 minute rest until you can't complete a full minute. Keep a note of pace and number of minutes completed and use this as benchmark for the future.

War on Drugs

Not really been been updating this blog but thought I would just quickly for posterity record my thanks to Bob Ainsworth for having the courage and conviction to stand up and say "the emperor is stark bollock naked!!" when it comes to the "war" on drugs.

Today Interview

His views got the predictable parrot reaction from his leader. However others do support him. People like Tom Lloyd. Especially interesting, his being an ex Chief Constable. This interview with Peter Hitchens is fascinating and its very much a shame that it got cut off.

Tom Lloyd

For the record in the latter interview I have some sympathy with Peter Hitchens's views. The current policy is feeble. If the end objective was really to end drugs use then there is no choice but to pursue and prosecute drugs users.

Truth is, as both Bob Ainsworth and Peter Hitchens agree, there is no real end objective of the current "war". I don't hold out much hope that anything will change soon, but hopefully more people like Bob Ainsworth will speak out.

Ventoux 2009 - Pro Comparison

Been a while since last post. Done lots of riding! So catching up bit by bit.

Did the Etape 2009 a couple of weeks back, stage 20 from Montelimar to Mt Ventoux. I had a pretty good ride. My target was to get gold, which for my age was 6:35. Based pacing on combination of the Dragon + WKO file of a cycle club mate who went up Ventoux in around 1:35 at around 245W.

Dragon to 140km looked similar to Etape. So I guessed from that I should aim too get to Bedoin around 4:30 which meant a 1:40 or so climb would mean comfortably getting under target.

Worked scarily well. Went reasonably hard up the early climbs, moving through field well. After first made the mistake of trying too hard to catch group ahead but learned on future climbs just to be patient as sure to be another group coming along. Lost a bit of time on descents but still managed to find quick groups and hit Bedoin dead on schedule.

Climb of Ventoux was a bit tough, especially through forest. I decided not to push too hard and just maintain pace/position. Helped by Cyclefit guys lending me a bottle. Hard towards end but finished OK.

Ended up with comfortable gold around 6:10. Surprised to find self in top 200, top 170 in terms of Ventoux. Beat Erik Zabel, Stephen Rooks and Cedric Vasseur up the mountain and at some point must have passed Alain Prost!


One thing the Etape offers is a unique chance to compare a ride with the pros. Chris Anker Sorenson (Saxo Bank) rode the stage a few days later and finished 30th only 5 minutes behind. His files were shared by Training Peaks and comparison with my ride is summarised below (ride broken down by 3 minor climbs each with a descent/bridging sector, then Ventoux. Latter broken down into first easier stretch then second hard stretch starting in forest).

Interesting to note how in early stages my figures dont vary too wildly from Sorenson's. (though note for Watts he weighs 63.5 to my 70kg). Difference is that I was trying while think the pros were taking it a bit easy.

The last 3 sectors, (run to Bedoin and Ventoux) show the difference between pros and mortals. Power kicks up in run to Bedoin at over 300W (while I am easing back at less than half that).

First "easy" section of the Ventoux is frenetic, over 400W for the pros over 6W/kg. Even they "ease" back up the final climb to a mere 344W.

Total for Ventoux is pro: 360W (84rpm) to climb in 62 mins. (compared to my 242W (72rpm) and 99 mins.

HR graph interesting too. Mine slopes downward with time as I start strong but get tired towards end. Sorensons slopes other way, especially impressive given how many hard days riding led up to this day.




Comparison Spreadsheet (ODS)

Chris Anker Sorensen WKO file

My WKO file

LINK to ALL file

Full Results

Other stuff:

Review/Photos (in French)

Marmotte 2009 - A day of 3 halves....

Lots to catch up on, will get round to it sooner or later. But just quick note on Marmotte 2009.

In a nutshell it was a ride of 3 halves...

- Great start and climb up the Glandon, 15 mins faster than last year.
- Great finish up the Alp, made the top 100 with climb time of 65 mins

Unfortunately middle was bit of disaster due to puncturing on early Glandon hair pins. Tried to turn but bike went straight on, luckily into side of mountain rather than over edge. I was not alone, another guy already being treated by doc as I crashed in. By coincidence a fellow Brit, in a lot worse shape than I was with a broken collar bone.

Eventually ambulance arrived and we got shuttled down mountain to get patched up. However bike not allowed to come with me as not hygenic enough. Once at med station turned out I was not too bad though told I needed stiches in elbow. Given option to go to hospital to get this but decided against, ditto on waiting for broom wagon. More worried about getting bike back so discharged myself. Tried getting a taxi via local bar but would mean long wait so decided to walk back uphill.

Did so, though made bit of boo boo by deciding to save cleats by walking in stocking feet. So after 8 km or so of uphill slog my cleats were fine. Unfortunately my feet blistered...

Anyway reunited with bike, fixed flats and got lucky as rest fine, nothing broken. Only problem was out of inner tubes. By time sorted I was told I was 15 mins ahead of broom wagon so I headed downhill.

Bit nervous post crash so I took descent easy. As result had to TT along valley, effort here was pretty much same as climbing the Telegraph. Come Galiber a bit despondent, especially when caught in thunder storm. However it passed and as it did so my mood lifted. Climbed this OK and was much cheered when saw Guy and Helyn from KOM just before summit, especially as caught up with some others from KOM.

Another cautious descent from Galibier, then I headed up Alp. This went great, it was hot but luckily I seem to suffer less from this than others.

Had a bit of luck, just when I needed a bit of encouragement a rider from Coventry passed me. I locked onto his wheel for a while and got second wind. Felt strong as an ox come the finish.

So final ride time was 10 hours 12 minutes or so. Pretty crap. However in terms of ride time I was around 5 minutes faster than 2008. Whats more I was 20 minutes faster up the climbs, but lost out on descents. Plus the valley floor was hard work, 20W more effort but lost 2 minutes..plus I had climbed the Glandon twice, once on bike, once on foot.

Post crash, coming down the Glandon I was thinking "never again.." However now I've had a bit of time to reflect I think I will have one more go for a low 7 time next year. Preparation will start next week when I go back to the Glandon to kill the ghost and practice the descent.

Regardless of what happens 2010 that will (probably) be my last Marmotte until 2019. Then I will be 60 and already have a target time of 7:28 (which won the category for Dave Lloyd this year).

Dragon 2009 - Power stats

Did the Dragon last weekend. Great day out and good solid ride. Change of bike/gears compared to last year, Tarmac with 53/39 x 12/27

Spent the first half of event in company of the Fred Baker boys, took things easier second half climbing solo but tagging up with fast group on final run to home.

Just for the record here are the key stats.

Overall

6:03:26 194W (242 Normalised) Average HR 139, Peak HR 172 77rpm AVS 31.3kph Drift 14%

Climbs

3 small at start:
3:41@359W
4:09@327W
2:55@344W

Bwlch1 11:27@298NW 81rpm 17.8kph
Rhigos 17:23@310NW 81rpm 21.8kph
Defynnog 7:59@268NW 81rpm 23.3kph
Cray 16:51@261NW 83rpm 26.3kph
Coelbrenn 7:45@273NW 85rpm 21.6kph
Cimla 10:14@275NW 80rpm 18.7kph
Bwlch 2 21:00@251NW 74rpm 17.4kph
Llangeinor 4:26@278W 84rpm 19.8kph

Interesting to see cadence nice and high for all climbs except the second Bwlch where heat started to tell and power dropped. Still recovered well and bit of adrenaline on the descent helped finish feeling pretty fresh.

Last years ride was also good but of the two this was the better. In particular finished much stronger with 2008 Bwlch 2 being a real slog and only managing 240W .

TDF 2009 - Roubaix rides again

On return from 2006 tour I joined cycleplus (now bikeradar) forum to get some advice on training + be able to offer some in case anybody fancied doing same as I did.

Since then been a couple of people looking for advice and I've done best to help them. Never actually heard of any of them actually doing the ride though..

Couple of months a post came on from Chris Pountney, looking for advice on bike to take if he was to ride tour. Planning to do it slightly differently from me:
- riding full stage per day
- doing supported with some others
- its only 1 part of the "ultimate triathlon" along with swimming the channel and doing the marathon des sables. More stuff here

ultimatetriathlon


I offered Chris advice and encouragement. Then it occurred to me that my Roubaix is just sitting in the garage now as I will be using Tarmac and Serotta (hopefully!!) over summer. So suggested he use this bike. He took me up on offer and last Monday came to pick it up (slightly jetlagged + beard as just arrived back from New Zealand).

Hopefully I'll be meeting up with Chris later this month as I travel down for the GF Pantani.

I hope he succeeds and its nice to think of the Roubaix doing not one but 2 TDFs. Must make it a pretty rare bike.

PS. Seeing Chris we talked about the route. He told me about this site:
http://www.steephill.tv/2009/tour-de-france/
which tries to scoop details of where the route will go. Useful if I ever do it again....

PPS Also prompted to remind myself where I was this time 3 years ago..I thought I had already got to the mountains but in fact was doing the long transition ride down from Brittany. 3rd June 2006 I was doing my once a week easy ride (La Tranche to Rochefort, memories include mad French bikers - on pedal and motor variety + great hotel find)..

First 100/ Numb Nuts

Did first 100 yesterday, Hounslow race on A31 just over the border in Hampshire. Lovely sunny day though a bit breezy. Early start (getting up 4.00!), arrived in plenty of time and had a good ride.

Overtook lots of riders and only overtaken by a couple. Was targetting pace of around 240W but difficult as course rolling and breeze. So aimed for around 40kph and came very close to target finishing on 4.06.20. Frustratingly just over a minute over the club record. Still new club age record and great for BAR. If I do 2 hours for a 50 then just need 250miles in 12 hour to hit target 22mph.

Despite not really looking at average power during ride ended up pretty much dead on target with 231W/237NW.



Main limiter turned out to be something not experienced before...undercarriage problems. After 60-70 miles nose of saddle was digging in something rotten and last 30 miles very painful. Problem is on a TT bike its difficult to get relief by standing up every now and then..

Ended up with numb nuts..something needs to be done. I will experiment with saddle postion, moving it down a little and also lower the nose a tad. Will also check out one of these..


http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008/04/adamo-saddle.html

In meantime Pilates cushion coming in very useful. Sitting on one as I type..

Catching up

Its been a long time since last post. Quite a lot has happened since then.

March
- last few days at work
- new carpet

April
- celebrating 125 years with Mrs M in Venice (50 + 50 + 25 years of marriage)
- 3 day road race over easter weekend. Great until crash in last 100 yards
- Mallorca training camp
- Mrs M becomes a professional

May
- Helping out at Reading beer festival
- Tour of Ireland (5 days into a headwind, good fun except for getting knocked off last day)
- Etape Caledonia - tacks and first distillery trip
- Tour of Wessex - 3 lovely days of sun and much more fun with Mrs M
- New bike arrives - not quite what I thought it would be...

Marmotte power pacing - guide

Based on last years experience here is a rough and ready guide on how to prepare for and pace the Marmottte using a power meter.

Put simply the Marmotte consists of 4 big climbs and 2 big descents and a nasty link ride after descent 1. To do well you need to be a good climber and good (at least safe) descender. A powermeter is useful for training for and pacing the climbs, which will account for around 70% of ride time. Its no use for descents which need separate training. (Good advice here: Flamme Rouge Descend Like a Pro). It might be useful for the nasty link section but best thing for this is find a group and work with it.

Rest of this post is about pacing the climbs.

Step 1. Find your "FTP" - this is important for most aspects of training. Its especially so for rides like the Marmotte. For a good guide to measuring FTP see here:

FTP Measurement - Alex's 7 deadly sins


Step 2: Set your goals. Once you know your FTP then the next step is to decide how you want to ride the event, balancing best finish time with chance of blowup. I'd suggest choosing between one of 3 options:

"Death or Glory": Only advised if you are a top quality rider. Basically this means trying to do the climbs at 90%-100% of your FTP. High risk but possible (see the stats for the elite rider below for an example)

"Go Fast" If you want to push yourself without too much risk of blow up aim to climb at around 75% to 90% of FTP. This is the option I took.

"Slow But Sure": If you want to be sure to finish then aim to climb at around 60%-75% of FTP.


Step 3: Guesstimate your climb time for each of the climbs.

From the above you should have a rough idea of the power you will be aiming for. You can use this to plug into a calculator like this: Bike Calculator which will give you an guesstimate for how long each climb will take. e.g. for me FTP 305W weighing 70kg with a 9kg bike the 13km@8% climb of Alpe D'Huez is guessed to take around 67 minutes if I manage 229W (75% of FTP). This is pretty damn close (I actually took 70 minutes)

The output from this will be four sets of power figures and estimated climb times. e.g.

1 Glandon 245W 23km@5% guess 80 minutes
2 Telegraphe 240W 12km@7% 55 minutes
3 Galibier 235W 18km@7% 85 minutes
4 Alpe 230W 13km@8% 70minutes

(Its best to assume that you will lose a bit of power each climb.)

(If you want to guess total ride time add these up and add an extra 2.5 -3 hours for other bits.)

Step 4a: Train to with the climb goals in mind. So try to do rides with average power/time the same as the climbs. So using above example, try riding for 80 minutes at 245W average power. If you can do this, do it again, rest for an hour or so then try a ride of 240W for 55 minutes.

Or to simulate the Telegraph/Galibier climb ride 240W for 55 minutes, have a 10 minute rest then try 235W for 85minutes.

This may sound a bit tough, that's the point. If you cant do the power/time then try reducing one or other and build from there (so 245W for 60 minutes if cant manage 80).

During all these rides eat as you would plan to eat during the event. As a rough guide aim to eat 1-1.5g of carbohydrate per minute.

Step 4b: Supplement this training with training at FTP level. Classic is 2x20mins at FTP with a 5 minute rest.

From this training you will get a feel as to whether or not the guesstimates from Step 3 are right or not. If needs be go back and adjust them.

Step 5. (Optional) do trial run, by doing all 4 "climbs" in a day, with a gap of an hour or so between 1 and 2, 10 mins between 2 and 3, and an hour between 3 and 4.

Step 6: Check your gearing: find hills of 5-12% and just check gearing is comfortable to allow you to put out power needed.

Step 7: Ride. From all the above you should have a good idea of how to tackle each of the major climbs on the Marmotte itself. Get to the start early, tag onto a group on the run up to the first climb, then climb to your target power. Prepare to be flexible though. Events may mean you need to change your targets for each climb. Beauty of having a powermeter is that you can do this in a controlled way. So if feeling good try upping power by 5-10W. If feeling bad lower it a bit.

Step 8. Hopefully finish well. If planning to ride event or similar again then the actuals you managed form the basis for next training plan.

Some real numbers

Marmotte stats: Me vs fellow amateur

Marmotte stats: Me vs top Brit Elite rider

For more general info see the guide here: Marmotte Guide

Presents from France

Had a very nice trip to Strasbourg week before last, my last while working for Mars. I got wined and dined and received lots of very touching presents, mostly involving cheese or booze, which i guess says something about me (and the French).

This presented a minor logistical problem to get it all back but fortunately going Eurostar which made it a lot easier.

Presents included some Jorq camembert (quite the best I have ever tasted), huge bottles of Maggi (blast from my Swiss past) and both cremant and Pol remy (for Katy's wedding :))...

Fransiscan Golf

Just on the subject of golf. Train delays this morning so headed to WH Smith to see if any new cycle mags.

There weren't but there were lots of golf ones. I was tempted but stayed my hand.

I will turn over a new leaf re golf. Previously I read every magazine and bought every gadget in the hope of them turning me into a golf prodigy. None really worked, the worse were those that, briefly, made me a superstar but then, shortly after, left me a dunce. (Law of any new club says that shots hit during practice with it will be perfect, first shots in anger crap. Exception is worse, first shots in anger will be perfect but shortly after worse than crap. Refusing to admit this you will persevere until point where putter would be more effective (unless object in question is in fact a putter in which case subsitute driver))

From the off I will take a lead from my better half and, for golf at least, adopt a Fransiscan attitude. I will get my clubs and any necessities like (hopefully not too many) balls/tees. But otherwise I will eschew all golf paraphenalia and concentrate on keeping the came as simple as possible.

I would like to promise the same re bikes. Can't quite manage this I am afraid but have avowed - no more bikes!

Beautiful Bogeys

My passion prior to cycling was golf. I got OK at it mainly through dint of lots of practice rather than natural skill. Still my performance was very variable, most especially I tended to crack under pressure, getting very up tight about every shot.

With time due on my hands I plan on taking up the glorious game again, and it will be interesting to see how my svelte new figure has an effect on my swing.

This in mind I will be getting some custom clubs made. This is not really an extravagance. As a legacy from my father I am a right hander who plays golf left handed (He was a natural left hander so when he taught me cricket he showed me left handed and this has stuck since on all ball and stick games). As a left hander you get hobsons choice when it comes to clubs. I've only ever bought 2 sets in my life and on both occasions I had a choice of precisely 1 set.

So, when the company said they would buy me something on leaving, the obvious choice seemed to be a set of clubs that would fit me properly. Got an appointment for a fitting next month. Did not want to do too much practice in advance as one thing I am hoping is that the long lay off will let me shed old bad habits and I can start from scratch.

Still I was advised to at least make sure I can swing a club so yesterday I had a practice round at the local racecourse course. Slightly gob smacking result. I didnt practice, just paid money and made to first tee. I decided to use "triple" approach, so take it easy and dont worry about being embarassed. Plan was just to hit 7 iron and putter for the round. Slightly amazed that first shot went high, straight and long and that form pretty much continued.

Despite conditions (windy, cold later joined by drizzle) I played the most consistent golf of my life. I only played 13 holes as the weather got more and more horrible, but of these I made 11 bogies, one double bogie (410yd par 4 SI 1 straight into the wind) and one par. Not sure but think this would close to a record in terms of consecutive holes scoring stableford points. (Cant remember a round where I did not blob at least one hole). Also kept same ball (only played course one time before and remember running out of balls that time!)

Icing on the cake was that after a few holes I started using other clubs. One problem when I used to play regularly was that I always had one or two clubs that I did not trust e.g. driver and/or fairway woods. But hit all great.

Put all of the above down, not so much to being thinner/fitter, but being a lot calmer. I was very slow on the backswing and relaxed for the whole time playing. Great result and will bode well for my return to the green stuff.

Thruxton - fun break

Latest race from Thruxton Sunday. Nice weather and wind only stiff.

Given up trying to get points at Thruxton. Regardless, if weather is good the race ends in a sprint and I want to stay clear of these with main season due to start soon.

So just for fun I am now riding road races with intention of working hard and making a break, in the expectation that I will be caught but at least I will get a workout as a result.

Had a couple of goes, first time stayed clear for a lap, second for most of a lap until caught by someone who, bizarrely, once with me gave up. Frustrating.

Picture above is nice shot of me ahead of bunch on first break, sadly just about to get caught up hill. Difficult to stay away when race averages over 25mph...