November Training Review

First 4 weeks of new season's training is now complete.

Been quite hard, total of 63 hours, 1500km, 41K Kcals and 2977 TSS points.

Three staple workouts, SST intervals (on rollers), long rides (around 200W for 3-5 hours, mainly on fixed though also winter Giant for club runs) and level 3 rides 1-2 hours around 250W.

Also been doing club turbo training, short SST intervals of 4 mins x 7. Strangely these have felt hardest though long way from most difficult power/TSS wise. Think due to hot room and me not being used to short intervals/short rest.

Feeling good despite level of work. CTL currently running at 88 and TSB -23 (following 3 hard days of 3 hr long ride/2 hr level 3/3 hr long ride.

Morning RHR is nice and low, low 40s following rest building to low 50s following several workout days. Also keeping to target weight which is good, 8-10lbs lighter than this time last year and no evidence of feeling any less strong or weaker on long rides.

Managing to get feeding sorted out bit by bit. Long 5 hour ride at 200W (3500kJ) seems to be OK on 500cal breakfast + 1500cal on bike. Will use this as benchmark for future.

Compared to last year, figures above show that I am spending more time generally on training but most especially in key tempo and sweetspot zones. 46% of time spent here compared to just 23% last year. Also shows I am pretty much keeping below threshold.

All in all then pretty much on target. Interesting to see how things shape up December. Will have first mini test of sorts Boxing day during our festive 10TT....

Aero power savings

Excellent article on aero savings from a full on TT frame compared to normal bike.

http://www.bikeradar.com/road/fitness/article/how-aero-is-aero-19273?source=newsletter&attr=road/2008/11/27#post_comments

Tested indoors and out in various combinations. Results of outdoor test:

Speedway data

Set-up	Estimated Ave CdA (m^2)	Speed (km/h)	Power (W)
Tarmac SL2 | Road Helmet | Drop bars	0.310	40.10	306.6
Tarmac SL2 | Road Helmet | Clip-on aerobars	0.267	40.27	268.6
Tarmac SL2 | TT2 Helmet | Clip-on aerobars	0.256	40.38	261.0
Transition | Road Helmet | Aerobars	0.265	40.17	262.9
Transition | TT2 Helmet | Aerobars	0.230	40.05	229.0

So I could save 70W when I get my tri bike. Put another way if I can get to a drag of 0.23 then Analytic cycling reckons I can do 30mph! Will be interesting.....

Biking Glossary

My note that I rarely bonked in an earlier post caused some splutters. So just for Mrs M (and other non cyclists) here is a short glossary of cycling terms and what they do (and sometimes don't) mean.......

Bonk: Means- running out of energy, usually on a long ride. Caused by not eating enough, solved by eating something... Does not mean: bonking

Rollers: Means- gadget that lets you emulate a hamster in a wheel, pedalling furiously, getting nowhere but getting very hot and bothered. Used for winter training, often in garages due to smell of sweat...Does not mean: things put in hair to make it curly.

Turbo: Means: - another gadget to make like a hamster. Smell of sweat often mixed with smell of burning rubber as back wheel engages with a brake of some sort. Can be very noisy....Does not mean: thing I put on the bike to make it go very very fast.

Wiggle: Online shop that sells bike parts... Does not mean....

Crank: Bit of the bike that connects pedals to bottom bracket...Does not mean: someone who spend his time in garage on Wiggle's turbo rollers.

Assos: Well known, expensive brand of clothing worn by good self on account of it being Swiss like what he is.....Does not mean: what most cyclists have a very big one of, made obvious due to overtight Lycra

Bibs: Shorts with shoulder straps to keep them from falling down when riding a bike. Very inconvenient if suffer pre race nerves....Does not mean: proof that cyclists are all big babies at heart.

Wedges: Something that you put between cleat and shoe to correct bow legs...Does not mean..what wearing too tight Assos bib shorts feels like

Cassette: Something that fits on the back wheel with lots of sprockets. Current record is 11. Does not mean: 70s precursor to cd that made music sound rubbish and that involved spending more time winding/rewinding/getting out of tape recorder when it came unwound than actually listening.

Compact: Smaller chain ring. Used to make it easier to get up hills whilst still looking like a "real" cyclist. Only drawback is that most compacts are used by those who are not compact....Does not mean: what lady cyclists carry in their saddlebags so as to be able to do a quick bit of makeup before crossing the finish line.

Durace: Top of the range brand of bike bits and pieces. Does not mean: Brand of contraceptive

Purring away

The other thing about Fitday (see previous post) is that it lets you check out your calorie balance in terms of protein/carb/fat/beer mix.

I've got pretty used to keeping the amount of carbohdyrates up, which is a good thing now that training season has started in earnest.

However does have a slight side effect, which has been particularly notable over past couple of days. It does lead to you having a tendency to "purr" a lot (euphemism courtesy of our cat, who really does purr quite a bit).

This isnt too bad at home as others there all have their own smells and we rub along fine. But may cause problems on daily commute as purrs may not be able to escape overtrousers without considerable noise which will make it hard to pretend it was someone else.....

Fitday - latest

I've been using the excellent Fitday program for a while now, to keep track of what I eat/drink and monitor my weight. Slowly but surely my weight is coming down to target of 150lbs and to celebrate progress to date I treated myself to a pair of 30" Levis yesterday..

One thing I am finding is that the usual advice "you need to burn 3500 calories to burn a pound of fat doesnt seem to work in my case. Over the past 28 days I've eaten an average 3,100 cals per day and burnt an average of 3,700 cals. (Pretty sure these figures are right, the cals per day comes from logging most everything I eat and most of the extra cals come from Powertap). So this makes a total of nearly 17000cals burned up which should be near 5lbs of fat. However my weight has just come down by a 2-3 pounds.

I'm not too stressed over this, I guess it shows everybody's metabolism differs and this may explain why I don't bonk, can get away with not eating much on long rides and why I put on weight on cycling trips abroad when I dont worry too much about what I eat.

Long Rides

I did my second long (5 hour) ride of the new training season yesterday. Weather was a lot better than the first which was nice, but ride itself was a lot better as well.



Focus for ride was to spend more time in the endurance zone. I managed well:

As the above shows I spent a lot more time in the endurance zone on the second ride and the power trace is smoother and more concentrated in the target zone.

Riding fixed puts some constraints on how much further I can push this but I will aim to do similar on future rides and ride same route on a geared bike to see what that can achieve.

I got some reliable HR readings on the ride as well, very encouraging. Power was endurance but HR was recovery at a very comfortable average of only 129bpm. Decoupling great, only 1.5% for the ride. Proves I still have very good base level fitness.

Faster club runs

Our club runs have never been particularly fast but even so have proved too much for some of the older members. (Which considering one of them is 78 is hardly surprising).



So they have started to organise a "slow" (aka wrinklies) ride. Followng this I decided I might as well use Sunday mornings for training. Rather than forsake the club ride altogether my plan is to turn up at the usual start point and head for the same mid-point cafe.



However rides will be fast and focussed on providing training benefit with socialising left until the cafe stop.



Tried it out for first time last Sunday and was happy to find a number of other riders wanted to join me. Unfortunately we had a couple of punctures in first half hour which didnt help but after that we made good progress. Post stop some of the riders found it a bit hard going and I eased up a bit. However ride was still a different beast than previous club runs. Average power was 187W/227NW. A more normal is 160W/204W, though we had one "hard" one a few weeks back that was 173W/240NW. This was far from typical however even so the ride last Sunday was a much better training ride for this time of year. The pictures below show why.

On the typical run most of the ride had little or no training benefit with over 50% of time being in recovery. Last Sunday less than 40% of time was spent in this zone and as a result all the other zones got larger. I plan to continue to do "fast" club runs with plan to get even more time out of recovery and into useful work zones

Allen/Coggan FTP Test October

Road test

Roller Test

As a start of season exercise I did a FTP test according to routine in Coggan/Allens "Training and Racing with Power" guide that I got with my Ergomo. Did this for a couple of reasons: felt it would be useful to have some sort of measure to base 2009 on and wanted something I could do indoors as well as out (not especially fancying riding a hard hour, which was basis for my previous FTPs).

Drill is quite complicated:

20 mins at endurance: 3xminute @100rpm with 1 min rest between each: 5 mins endurance

Then "true test" begins

5 minutes all out (VO2max)

10 minutes endurance

20 mins time trial aiming for max sustained power.

I repeated the test on consecutive days, first on the road, second on rollers.

Road went well on 5 minute test, I averaged 346W and it felt OK.

TT was hard to pace and was a bit all over the shop. I started at Hungerford on A4 heading east, then turned up B4000. Finished just after Stockcross. For future tests I think I will go a bit further down A4 before starting, so as to get more time on B4000. Finished up with 304W result. This equates to FTP of 289W after applying reduction of 5%.

Rollers next day I changed routine slightly so that 3x1minute were at 400W level. These went well, but 5 minutes was a bit of a washout and I lost energy midway through, only hitting 331W.

Not surprisingly the 20 TT was much easier to pace than the road and this went well as I slowly ramped pace up through interval. Result was 305W, which surprised me as I expected it to be less than road.

Will be interesting to repeat exercise end of November and see how things are progressing.

October Training

My time of, relative, rest is over and I've started structured training again. Broadly plan is to repeat 2008 in terms of training effort (TSS) but to make a couple of key changes
- Leave FTP at 310W, 30W higher than 2008. So same effort actually means more effort *
- Do more intense work sooner, especially sweetspot.

So far on plan on both counts as above pictures show:

On the PMC - Blue CTL has started to move up, at roughly same gradient as it did last year (though from slightly higher base and a month earlier)

Graphs comparing time by zone 2008 v 2009 show more absolute time spent this October vs last in every zone. November will be even more clear cut as November last year was very easy.

Pies show relative time decreased in Endurance/Tempo and Anaerobic and increased in Sweetspot/Threshold/V02Max.

* In theory my FTP has declined to around 290W now. See other post re FTP test.

Chameleon Commuter

http://www.airnimal.eu/Chameleon/Ultra.php

Its been a while since I started commuting with my Airnimal Chameleon.

Beforehand it was an experience that I was not at all looking forward to but I have to admit that it's not turned out to bad. Like most commuters I have got into my little routines.

Up at 6.45 & downstairs to put on coffee, Planet Rock & feed the dog
6.45-7.02 Eat cereal, drink coffee, boot up PC and update Fitday/WKO
News at 7.00 trigger to go upstairs and get showered/changed
7.30 leave and get bike out of garage
7.40 Arrive Newbury station
7.45 Catch train for Reading (touch wood only be late a couple of times so far
8.00 Stop for a few minutes outside Reading (always seems to do this)
8.07 Arrive Reading platform 5
8:12 Catch Ealing Broadway train
8:33 Arrive Burnham
8:48 Arrive work

16:50 Leave work
17:21 Catch Reading train
17:45 Arrive Reading platform 10 and go to platform 4
17:55 Buy something from ATM
18:02 Catch Paignton train
18:15 Arrive Newbury
18:30 Arrive home

During this time the Chameleon has served me fine. Its relatively quick and easy to fold up (though took a while to get exactly right) though not as quick as a "proper" folder like a Brompton. Once folded its quite easy to carry and once reassembled a joy to ride. Lugging it off and on train/across platforms has turned out to be a useful weight training session, while the short rides from home-station-work have been a bit of recovery.

So far the weather has been kind but on the few times it has rained my riding gear has kept me snug, warm and dry.

Getting on and off trains is proving no hassle and I am getting the commuter knowledge of knowing exactly where to stand on the platform to get into the right carriage for transfer.

Only thing I would fault the Chameleon on is the bag that the bike is meant to fit into when folded. It is exactly 1cm too small so while it takes under a minute to fold, it takes several minutes to squeeze into the bag. Fortunately this has turned out not to be an issue as the bag is not really needed. So instead I use it to lug my turbo around in.

Ironman - Hints and Tips on Pacing/Nutrition

The big Ironman in Hawaii has just taken place and following on from it a few interesting blog entries:

http://blog.trainingpeaks.com/2008/10/ask-the-experts-asker-jeukendrup-on-ironman-performance-and-nutrition.html - Using 16 gels in a bottle for nutrition. Certainly a simple solution. Will give it a try.

http://www2.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008/10/most-common-ironman-mistake.html - Importance of keeping smooth power profile during a long ride (VI target should be less then 1.05. My rides are more like 1.18, however will be different for rides like sportives I guess)

http://www2.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008/10/llanos-power-hawaii-2008.html Top performer stats: 4 hour power of 270W/3.75W/kg. For same weight my 4 hours is 230W. Not quite the same but not bad as Joe Friel's rule of thumb is 2.9-3.3 W/kg for young amateurs with half a percent knocked off for every year abover 35. So I should be around 221W, so actually a bit better.

BIG - Isnt the internet wonderful (again)

Same source as provided the excellent link to map of UK climbs, also directed me here:
http://www.challenge-big.eu/

Heaven sent site for climbers like me..just updating with list of my cols....

Hills I have yet to Climb

A while back I made a rather forlorn effort to start another blog that would feature the various hills I have climbed...however it has not made much progress (as Mrs M reminds me from time to time..)

Anyway even if I had done more, it would not be half as good as the info contained here http://www.hodology.com/

Once again..isn't the internet wonderful..

Winter Training Webinar

The wonders of technology. I got the chance to hear Hunter Allen present his views on winter training via a webinar. It cost $39 but I think it was money well spent. http://www.peakscoachinggroup.com/store/store.php/categories/buy-previous-webinars-216

Key points were:

• Most people dont train hard enough in the winter
• Carry on doing threshold + workouts, but do less often (1x 2weeks for VO2/anaerobic)
• Aim to charge up to 100% of capacity, so max of 2 hard workouts per week and one at weekend.
• Keep FTP up (even suggested one goal might be to improve)
• Do weights if appropriate (e.g. if over 50, so I will keep doing)
• Cross train
• Stretch/yoga
• Think of plyometrics if sprinting is a limiter (which it is for me). Suggested looking here: http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/plyometric.html

An e.g. week was

Mon/Wed/Fri weights and a bit of x-train cardio.

Tue 3x15 mins Sweetspot (88-93% FTP) (5 mins rest) then 5x1 minute fast pedalling

Thu 30 mins 110rpm, 30 mins normal rpm with 8s sprint every 2 mins in + 2 gears

Sat 3-4 hour ride 10 power bursts in hour 2 and 45min sweetspot hour 3

Sun 1-2 hours cardio on trainer.

So not exactly easy...but overall in line with my feeling that last winter the "base" months were a little too easy and I would have benefitted from doing some more intense training earlier. So will give ideas above a try this time round.

Catching Cold

My first cold for as long as I can remember and first since using "First Defence" on a regular basis. But very minor as colds go and probably not a bad thing to get one round about now since not training hard. And pretty inevitable given commuting and fact I spent last week in room with people from all over Europe, most of whom seemed to have a bug of one sort or another.

2008 zones - a retrospective

I carried out a retropspective analysis of my 2008 training hours, as part of planning for 2009.

The specific reason for doing this was that my plan 2009 is to start training earlier (November rather than December) and to focus on the "sweetspot" zone (85%-95% of FTP) earlier.

I used WKO to put together the graphs above, basically showing total hours trained over the past year, then hours by training zone (all excluding "recovery" time which actually accounts for 60% of total hours..).

It seems I followed my plan pretty well. The Endurance graph shows pretty constant load through the year. The other zones show progressive increase in load through the first part of the year then a steady state in the main event portion, followed by a decrease as I started to take things easier.

I will be looking for similar 2009 with exception that I will plan to make the tempo/sweetspot graphs be flatter and more similar to endurance.

Trial Rolling

I got some clip on tri bars with a view to doing some "proper" time trialling next year. I fitted them onto my winter bike a la Cyclefit measurments and had a go trying to use them on the rollers.

Proved interesting to say the least. It was like learning to use the rollers all over again and I managed to come off quite a few times, though fortunately the adaptations I made to the rollers stopped the accidents being too bad.

But after 20 mins or so I started to get the hang of things. So will give it another go tonight.

Balmy Burley

Amazing weather for the first weekend of August sorry October...sunny blue skies and temperatures over 20C. Both days better than any in the "summer" months..

So lucky that this was the weekend chosen for the NRC YHA weekend. 8 of us rode down to the New Forest and stayed overnight at Burley Youth Hostel (see pic above). I rode on my single speed which coped admirably with the task.

I had not visited the New Forest since childhood, probably being put off by the fact that on that occasion my attempt to feed a pony had resulted in bitten fingers...

Anyway happily I have got over that trauma and won't wait as long to visit again. In fact the run we did was perfect for a long steady training ride. Also be perfect for taking Mrs M triking as the roads in the forest are flat as a pancake, with great visibility and we stopped off at the perfect watering hole for her...

Carmichael Field Test

I got some training DVDs to watch while on the rollers. Trouble is they are really for build/peak stage as they consist mainly of VO2/threshold workouts. Still will be interesting to try them when time comes around.

One of them features Chris Carmichael (of Lance Armstrong fame) and he suggests a field test to set exercise zones. Quite simple, 2x8 mins with 10 mins rest and take power from best interval.

As weather was nice thought I would give it a try on H10/3. Managed first at 330W but second was weedy at only 290. Put that down to fact I have been taking things easy and still on post Munich diet.

Nonetheless a useful benchmark for the future.

Wet Climes

Did my first hill climb Sunday, incorporated into our club run. Weather was foul and just 7 of us made it. I came 4th in 5:51. Power wasn't too bad at 350W but should have gone better.

Still a useful benchmark for 2009. Did not know about the hill but its good for training with 110m of climbing in 1.8km so an average of 6% with bits around 10.

Good news/bad news

Good news I have ordered Meivici AE.
Bad news it won't be shipped until March 2009.

But actually not so bad as I won't really want to be riding it over winter and it should come nicely timed with me being put out to pasture...

A Thing of Beauty

The email from Cyclefit also had a picture of the bike above. A case of love at first sight as far as I am concerned. The bike is the new Meivici AE from Serotta, which is custom built, is utterly, utterly beautiful and I hope to be riding one soon.

Fitted Up/Bottom Powered Bike

As I have mentioned before I am a great believer in serendipity. So when (as a result of signing up to an newsletter I had long forgotten about) an email from http://www.cyclefit.co.uk/ popped into my in-tray it spurred me into deciding to get myself properly measured up for a bike.

I thought this would be handy for a variety of reasons, my having tinkered around with my position over the year, wanting to get a racing bike and also with a view to time trialling. So I phoned up and booked a session, which took place in central London a couple of days ago.

It turned out to be quite an experience and certainly value for money. I had a fitting a year and a half ago but that just took some basic measurements and put them into a spreadsheet. It was useful (primarily in getting me to heighten my seat) but this was in a different league.

All in all it took around 3 hours to get measured up for a road bike and a TT bike. The major differences from my earlier fitting were that a lot more time was spent measuring/sizing up my body, the fitting took place on a special bike mounted on a turbo (the "bike" had clamps all over it so pretty much every aspect of the frame could be varied in length/angle) and I got videoed.

Each of these had a bit of a revelation..

When I got measured up I found that my right leg is shorter than my left and that I carried my right shoulder lower than my right. Both were news to me, despite living with my body for nigh on 50 years. I also have a tendency to slouch (which isnt news)..

As a result of the leg length difference I got some "wedges" fitted. These fit under my cleats and have a couple of effects. Firstly I have got more on the right foot than the left (which sorts out the difference in leg length) and secondly the angle my feet a bit differently so that they are more in line. The difference these made was amazing. I always thought my right leg was stronger than my left because it felt like it was doing more work. I realise now it was because it was over extending on every stroke. With the wedges fitted both legs feel like they are in balance.

Videos of me cycling were a bit of a downer. I had fondly imagined I had a lovely straight back a la TDF riders. In fact as the picture below shows I look more like Quasimodo then a bike pro. (Reminds me of similar experience I had when I got videoed for some golf lessons. The person on the screen looked like a different person.)

It also shows how far back my knee is compared to the centre of the pedal. After quite a bit of adjustment I ended up looking like this:
Back is a bit straighter (but this is something I have to work on). The effect is to feel much more connected through the pedal stroke. Apparently this is as a result of my glutes working and helping my power. (IOW I need to get my backside working).

Phot also shows how my knee is over the pedal when its horizontal, which certainly feels a lot better.

Once road bike sorted, we looked at TT. This was my first experience riding on aero bars and it was a surprise. I thought they would be uncomfortable but in fact they were really easy to ride on. I managed to find a comfortable position quite quickly and found the bars actually to be a lot easier than riding on my drops.

Anyway here is how I ended up looking:

Not perfect but then looking at some pics of the pros below then there is quite a bit of variety and I don't seem to look like a creature from another planet compared to them.

I left the fitting in a pretty good mood and headed home (aside: stopped for a pint with Phil at Paddington, talked of Munich and beer festivals nearer home, one at Oxford couple of weeks away..)

I set up my Giant winter bike with the new settings and had a roller session. Turned out pretty good, certainly felt a lot more connected. When going hard nothing in my legs seemed to be out of balance or especially stood out in pain terms and limiter was my aerobic capacity, which is I guess how it should be.

Looking forward to trying it on the road..so set up my fixed with new settings (looks a lot different now) and will try it out later today..

Turbo powered

Article from the most recent edition of http://www.roadbikerider.com/currentissue.htm

Maybe the government should give everyone in the UK one of these. That way we could be sure of golds in 2012, save the planet and solve our obesity problem in one (many pedal) stroke...

"Kinetic Energy Trainer

If you need good grounds for ignoring your significant other to spend time on the trainer this winter, how about: "Hey honey, I'm going downstairs to charge your cell phone for you." Then with permission and gratitude you can hop on a Kinetic Energy Trainer and create electricity while turning yourself into butter. It's done with a generator that retrofits to any Kurt Kinetic trainer and charges a portable power storage unit. (A Black & Decker Electromatic 400, available at stores such as Home Depot for about $100, was used at Interbike.)

According to Kinetic's Paul Carlsen, about 2.5 hours of riding will generate 0.5 kwh of electricity, which, he said, "will charge 50 cell phones or run a television for a couple of hours." Imagine the benefits if kids had to pedal to watch their favorite TV programs. Better yet, imagine the benefits of this technology in third-world countries where power lines don't reach. Let there be light bulbs and refrigeration.

Carlsen said 25 Energy Trainers were made for Interbike, 20 were sold to dealers, 4 were provided to publications for review, and 1 was saved for display. The price is $499 for a Kinetic trainer with the generator installed, or $300 for a generator retrofit kit. Then all that's needed is a bike, a power storage unit and a green attitude. Look for December availability. Not yet shown on the website as this newsletter was published. http://www.kurtkinetic.com

Heavy beer - heavy no more

The heavy beer wierdness continues...in the 3 days since coming back from the Oktoberfest I have lost 12 pounds....

This hasn't been done by crash dieting..or even keeping off the beer. I've been eating around 2500kcal per day and had a couple of pints yesterday while waiting for train/chatting with Phil.
And apart from beer I've been drinking a lot of water as well.

And workouts don't really explain it, I've averaged around 1000kcal per day riding.

Strange...

Heavy beer

Got on the scales this morning and found I weighed over a stone more than last Friday, pre-beer fest. Beer is measured in "original gravity" and I now know what it means as I am now back at my original gravity and heavier than at any time this year.

Still I am not too concerned about this, there is plenty of time to get back to my fighting weight between now and Xmas and no major food/drink binge opportunities on the horizon.

Took the occasion to take a look at my weight chart this year and it looks a bit wierd. Steady progressions downwards then rapid spikes up due to some event or another.

Some of these spikes make sense, like Easter, Cornwall holiday and Beerfest. But others coincide with major tours like Ireland, Wessex and the Marmotte. The only common theme I can think of is beer....it must be very heavy.

Once more into the beer my friends

Well made it back safely from Oktoberfest 2008 and must say had a better time than I expected. All went, pretty much, according to well oiled (as were we) plan: Friday Schnieder, Saturday early start and into tents followed by whatever happens, Sunday white sausages, sweet mustard and more beer.

Getting into the tent was a bit hectic, lots more there than previous times. But once in beer started to flow and we all coped pretty well until Stefans head dropped, joined an hour or so later by John, who also managed to fill one of his glasses... Eventually, and slightly humiliatingly, we were asked to leave the tent...Not due to bad conduct but because we were not drinking enough!!!

Anyway had spent 6 hours or so in there so probably time to call it a day and we headed of for cocktails (poor), burger (good) more beer and a final curry (though only 2 of us made it that far).

Sunday's sausage and mustard sorted me out along with some more beer.

PS travelled to Heathrow and back via bus/train. Worked like a charm...

Drinking Problem

I'm off to the Oktoberfest for the sixth(I think) and most likely last time tomorrow. No doubt bits of it will be memorable but there are only six of us going, and just two of us have made every trip, and to be honest I am not looking forward to it as much as previous times.

By coincidence my cycling thoughts are taken up with problems on drinking...

Joe Friel has just posted this blog entry which, as he admits, flies in the face of the advice he and most others have given re how much/often to drink during rides.
http://www2.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008_09_01_archive.html

In a nutshell he is saying "drink when you are thirsty, enough to stop feeling thirsty".

This makes a degree of sense to me, its the practice I followed until I started to read "expert" advice and I don't recall it causing me any serious issues. I have only really suffered twice on a ride:

• Dragon last year: when I only took water + a bit of food. My one and only "bonk" came on the last Bwlch climb but that was definitely down to running out of energy not liquid (as evidenced by the rapid recovery following me downing a gel).
• Marmotte tryout this year: which was caused by me eating too much too early

I should have drunk more on various sportives and the 12 hour TT but on these felt thirsty and impact on performance was not too catastrophic.

However its worrying that in same week as the above advice another expert says we are not drinking enough!!

http://blog.trainingpeaks.com/2008/09/ask-the-experts-ben-greenfield-on-water-consumption.html

What to believe?

Like most aspects on training its probably a case of different strokes for different folks.

Overall it would be good news if Joe Friel is right, as it makes long, unsupported rides easier.

Since, as mentioned above, my experience "Pre experts" was that I did not need to drink too much I am inclined to go with Joe Friels view. I will adopt that as a default during my long training rides and see how it goes over the winter period.

It helps that one other thing I want to do is to try to do negative splits in training. This should accentuate the impact of not drinking enough. So if I fail do to a workout target, yet don't feel thirsty then I can try to repeat drinking to "little and often" advice and see if that makes a difference. Time will tell.

And now for something completely different - golf

My sporting passion prior to cycling was golf. However its a game that takes up a fair amount of time, especially if you are no good at it like me. I ended up only playing occasionally, mainly against my dad when we saw each other and after his death my enthusiasm dried up.



Still I have the intention of taking the game up again once time permits and to this end still go down to the driving range every now and then.



Like all golfers I sometimes hit some shots that make me think I have cracked the game. This is always a deception but its worth trying to remember what worked at the time, to at least try again. So I will use this blog to record some "swing thoughts" from time to time.



Here's the first couple:

• Slow to top of back swing and start the downswing as slowly as possible.
• Focus on outside front quarter of ball and visualise hitting through it on impact
  
  
  

Looking ahead 2009

It feels like the cycling year is over now. So time to look ahead to 2009 and see what it may bring.

Some initial thoughts on challenges:

• LEL 2009: 26th-31st July: a real biggy. 1400km in around 93 or so hours.
• Etape Gold: Depending on where/when I would like to have a go at getting an etape gold.
• Marmotte quicker: I move up an age category and should get a preferential start position so it would be nice to beat my time this year. Sub 7 hours will be a real stretch target.
• 12 hour further: I would like to beat my distance for this year, target will be more than 255 miles which would be all time club record.
• BBAR: If I'm doing a 12 it would be fun to do a 50 and 100 mile TT as well as this means I get a BBAR http://www.cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/bbar_whatis.asp Apparently you get a certificate if you average over 22mph so this seems like a reasonable goal.
• TTs: I will treat myself to a "proper" TT bike to help with above and so I can explore another aspect of the cycling world.
• Racing: I really enjoyed the 3 races I did at Thruxton this year and will aim to do more next. Challenge will be to score a few points...
• Sportives: Apart from Etape/Marmotte I will put less emphasis on these in terms of timing/standard and rather aim to ride for enjoyment. Tours of Ireland/Wessex will be on agenda again.

Bit of a long list but then I will have some more time next year so hopefully will be doable. Time will tell...

Seasons end - Breaking the Hour

The 2008 season is pretty much at an end now. However I had some unfinished business. One season goal had been to break the hour for a 25TT and on my one and only official attempt I had done 1:00:56. My Powertap wasn't working that day but I tried again a couple of days later and recorded 1:01:36, setting a new FTP PB of 305W in the process.

Over the past few days September has probably already had more sun than July+August and that made me think of having another go at a 25. So yesterday I headed back to the HCC247 course and made a final attempt to break the hour.

Contrary to the previous 2 tries the wind was blowing from the east. This was good news in helping me to the turn but meant hard work coming back. I set off with a main plan to concentrate on keeping my speedo over 40kph as much as possible with watts around 300W.

All went remarkably well, the time flew by and almost before I knew it I was in Hungerford, then at the turn. I sneaked a look at my AVS and found I was over 42kph so ahead of schedule.

The last 10 miles back into the wind were hard work, with the speedo reading 30something more often than not. However I kept going well and once through Hungerford again the time sped by, so much so that I only realised at the last moment that the finish was in sight. I made a final dash to the line and checked the time. It read 59:55 and I was pretty damn happy.

WKO for the ride above. As well as breaking the hour I also set a new FTP PB 310W/314NW. 30 minute power was also a PB at 317W.

Looking at the splits I was happy with the way I paced the ride. Compared to the previous attempt the sectors were:

Start downhill - 9km

June - 322W/44.3kph (tailwind)

Sept - 328W/43.5kph (headwind)

To Turn - 15km

June - 303W/37.0kph(headwind)

Sept - 305W/42.okph(tailwind)

To Home - 16km

June - 293W/40.6kph(tailwind)

Sept -305W/37.4kph(headwind)

> so I worked harder in all three sectors and especially pleased I kept power constant over the second two. Cadence was up as well with an average of 81rpm compared to 76rpm in June.

Overall then a good way to wind up the 2008 season. Thoughts now moving to what 2009 will bring

Going Green - summer training option..

Green option for next years summer training...
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/07/16/mowercycle-human-powered-lawnmower/

Dash for glory - almost....

My third and last race at Thruxton yesterday. Following experience of the first 2 races I had a plan, of sorts. Part 1 was to shirk work and stay away from the lead, Part 2 was to then make a long break for home to make the most of my "good" 5 minute power and avoid having to battle out a sprint.

Weather was foggy and a bit chilly. But not too windy (though as ever a bit of a stiff breeze on second half of course.

The race started slowly and early pace was very comfortable. As it picked up a few guys tried forlorn efforts at a break but no joy. Daftly, despite best plans I ended up doing a bit of work at the head to catch up a couple of times.

Trace above and lap stats below tell the story

Lap 1 6:05 160W/206NW 126>144bpm 86rpm 35.9kph

Lap 2 5:14 144W/197NW 127>144bpm 84rpm 38.8kph

Lap 3 5:14 180W/208NW 137>154bpm 82rpm 38.7kph

Lap 4: 5:19 204W/252NW 142>157bpm 80rpm 38.0kph

Lap 5: 5:14 262W/297NW 151>161bpm 83rpm 38.3kph

Lap 6: 5:19 281W/316NW 152>167bpm 87rpm 38.2kph

Lap 7: 5:00 270W/000NW 156>165bpm 88rpm 40.4kph

Lap 8: 5:10 289W/311NW 159>168bpm 87rpm 39.3kph

Lap 9: 5:19 221W/245NW 152>165bpm 87rpm 37.6kph

Lap 10: 5:10 252W/270NW 154>162bpm 85rpm 39.5kph

Lap 11: 4:55 338W/000NW 168>173bpm 89rpm 41.5kph

Early laps very low effort, but some harder laps following as I took lead. Partly because its fun, but also trying to stretch field out a bit and check out course.

On final lap I pushed a bit, expecting to stretch field out again. Turning round I found I had escaped and had a large gap. So I put head down and headed for finish. On fast downhill section it felt as if gap had widened and I had (premature) visions of crossing the line solo. But on final drag up to finish I turned round and saw rest of field bearing down on me. Slumped a bit then but rallied and made effort to finish, albeit without and placing.

Looking back at the stats not too surprising that I had not kept away. Break was earned with not too much difficulty, just 40s at 465W. But after then I was pushing 345W which is high but not high enough to escape a full group.

Will learn from this, either breaking later or break then ease down then try to jump off group after catch.

Still all very good fun and definitely something I want to do more of next year.

Mars Alps Tour

Spent the last week doing a tour with Mars through the Alps. Much of the route was the reverse of the 2006 tour so I saw a number of climbs from the other side (Joux Plane, Colombier, Aravis, Saisies). Also did some of the climbs from the Marmotte again (Telegraphe, Galibier) including climbing Alpe D'Huez for the umpteeneth time this year (though took opportunity to head back of village to bag the col Poutran).

Tour inlcuded some new climbs, we all did the Madeline and I branched off and did a few "extras" (Pteret, Pres, Roselend and Lachat). Of these the col du Pres from Beaumont was the best though I enjoyed all v much as nice to get away from the main road/popular climbs..

Another good 10

Another 10 last night, this time on the hillier H10/3A course. Downhill out, uphill back, the difference between the two legs accentuated by a brisk wind blowing downhill.

Following last week adopted similar tactic, going out hard then digging in on return.

Did well knocking 10s off my best time last year (which ride also had power highs). Pleased with this as conditions definitely worse. Power was strong, set another 5 minute PB at 372W and power through much of time was also PB.


Looking at my power PBs now all but one are in the current season. The exception is the 1 minute at 519W. My closest this year was 508W. That said I have not really spent much time training at or riding short hard efforts. Before year end I will have a concentrated effort to beat this final PB.

12 Hour - good training for a 10TT?

After a couple of days recovery from the 12 hour I did the club 10 last night.

I set a ride goal of filling in some of the gaps on my 2008 v 2007 power profile. (I still remember the first time I saw WKO at "Flammerouge" Tony's March last year. One the most powerfull images I got was the ability to compare years in terms of performance. In the graphic above 2008 is the solid line, 2007 the dotted. Over most of the chart the solid line is above the dotted showing how I have improved this year).

Target was 5-6 minute power so I set out to ride the first km at around 300W then put the hammer down and try to keep above 360W.

Turned up on time but a bit late so started down the field. Route was my favourite, H10/3 west of Newbury down A4 to Hungerford and back. Weather was typical August, occasional drizzle and a bit windy. Having done without music for 12 hours last weekend I decided I could do without it for 10 miles. (Quite enjoyed it as bike currently running smooth as silk.)

All went very well. I achieved my training goal and recorded season best power from 5-9 minutes and all time best 5 mins of 359W.

But ride went even better than that. I knew I was going well as speedo was mostly over 40kph, even on return let when I eased off a bit. As ride went on I made a conscious effort to keep it above 40 and managed to hold enough back to finish strong.

Ended up mullahing my PB, knocking 25secs off it with 23.45.

Strangely watts for the ride (321W/325NW) were not any different from slower rides and pacing was opposite to "ideal" with hard first half and "easy" second (not due to wind which was more against on return).

I put improvement down to a combination of factors

- As result of 12 found a comfortable aero position (biggest single factor I reckon)

- Not listening to music I was more aware of breathing

- Seeing speed displayed (previously set to cadence) acted as a motivator

- Being towards the end of rider list I expected to get caught, which had never yet happened. Did not consciously try to avoid this but think must have acted as a spur.

Whatever the reason left me pretty happy.

One final strange thing is HR. It levelled out at 172, which is well short of the 177 that I have done in the past (though more 2007 than 2008).

12 hours - the counting

After the ride the analysis:

Power/Speed:

WKO file for the 12 hour time trial is above (I forgot to take my HR strap so no HR).

Shows the story of the ride pretty well. I was planning to ride at around 210W or so. In first 4 hours I overdid it a bit, partly due to enjoying myself but mainly because I could not see display due to rain!

As weather brightened and I started the B loops the average speed started to drop though power still around the 210W mark average. Both speed and power took a hit between 6 and 7 hours into the ride during the 30 minute transfer upwind between the B and C loops. This was the low point of the ride and first C loop was pretty poor as well. Only averaged 173W/185NW for these sections, just 30.3kph. Remaining 4 C loops were 1.5kph faster but power still only averaged 178W/186NW. Finishing section was hard going, just 166W/180NW and a slow 30.5kph (though not helped by need to slow down 2xper lap to get water).

Food:

I started off with 4 bottles of PSP + 6000 cals of food (mix of suger sweets, breadsticks, cereal bars, sweet chestnuts and sandwiches). Rain messed food up and I forgot (doh!) I had some cereal bars in my jersey pocket under my gilet. I reckon I ate about 60% of the food so say 3600 cals or so. This probably was not quite enough and I certainly needed to drink more as the sun came out.

Doing unsupported:

It was a good decision not to follow original plan of Mr M Jnr coming along. Route meant it would have been difficult to work out where he could have stopped and it would not have been much help. However mobile (i.e. with car) support would have been a great help. The route was a bit hillier than I expected and I suffered a bit from all the stuff I had to carry. Also it would have helped to have dry food rather than wet mush. Biggest needs though were

-more sports drink (the stops only supplied water, if you kept moving you only got 1/4 bottle. If you stopped it took an age to fill up)

- moral support. My spirits dropped a bit during the B and C loops and I could have done with a familiar face. I could also have done with someone to do the sums for me in terms of pacing. Due to my detour and the fact that my powertap does not record time stopped I was not sure how far ahead/behind the pace I was.

The next time?

Any challenge that really pushes you is a funny old thing. At the time it cannot be over quick enough but soon after you feel like trying again. This is definitely the case for this event. With hindsight I regret not pushing a bit harder and at least got past the 247.1 mile club record.

So I will give the event another go next year, choosing a race more in advance to be sure of getting something that is both a fast course and makes support straight forward.

I will also use aerobars (and other TT gear) next time. I did not want to do this for my first attempt as I did not want to feel that, if I broke the record, it was just because of my equipment.

My ride on Sunday pretty much settled this score. Had I not taken a wrong turn and if the wind had been just a bit less strong I would have taken the record and so have no qualms that my next attempt should try to set the bar as high as possible.

12 hours of wind rain and some pain...

Well its over. Did my first 12 hour time trial on Sunday and, not surprisingly I guess, it was probably the hardest days cycling of my life.

Limitations on dates meant the event I took part in also happened to be the National Championship. So it was quite a large affair with over 100 riders taking part. The course was around and about Cambridge/Newmarket and consisted of 4 sections
A - Up and down the A11 dual carriage way a couple of times (around 85 miles)
B+C 2 different loops of around 13 miles, each ridden a number of times (in my case 4 times round B and 5 times round C)
Finish: A final loop of near 14 miles that you ride until your time is up (I got round 2 and a bit times)

Having originally planned to rope in Mr M Junior I eventually decided it would be easier to do self supporting as it was not obvious where Mr M J could wait given the various loops. I stayed nearby at on the "Genome Campus", a strange mix of Regency manor house and cutting edge research institute.

12 hours of riding means an early start and I got up at 4.15. On going outside I found, to my gloom, that it was drizzling. Found the start and got numbers, also noticed warning specifically banning use of MP3s.

I loaded food and drink onto bike. Plan was to take all food with me, some on tri-bags on crossbar, reaminder hanging off rear. I started with 4 full bottles, planning to fill up at stops.

Start facilities were nice but only had one poo loo, not really enough given number of competitors. Time was pressing and so had to make use of womens facilities (fortunately was not spotted...)

Only just made it to start in time, still drizzling. Set of and went all of 250m before one of my bottles dropped off the back of my bike. Sorted quickly and set off again.

Ahead of time I thought the first A section would be the worst as it was up and down a long stretch of dual carriageway. However this turned out not to be the case and this was the bit I enjoyed most. The road surface was good and I made good time. This was despite the drizzle turning into occasional downpours. Unfortunately during one of these I managed to get lost and went up the wrong bit of road. Realised after a mile or so and had to conduct a tricky u-turn that including manhandling bike over crash barrier. Still one advantage of early start was that there was not much traffic...

At the end of the A section, despite being soaked, my sprits were high. After 4 hours I had covered over 140km so a healthy average over 35kph. We then moved on to the B course and that coincided with good and bad news on the weather front:
Good news - the rain stopped
Bad news - the wind picked up. It had already been blowing but now this developed into a strong wind.

The B loop was not really flat, more rolling and it had some sections that combined uphill with upwind that sapped the legs and damaged my morale. On the second loop I decided to stop. I rummaged through my food bag and found the rain had seeped in and turned some of my food to mush. Still I scoffed a chicken sarnie and restarted. Though not with much joy, I could see my average speeed falling and started to get a bit down. Not soon enough I was waved off the B loop and onto the C.

This transfer was the low spot of the ride. It was 15km, mostly down a dual carriage way, all the way into wind. It was very hard work and I hated it. Eventually we came to loop C where the sun was out and there were lots of spectators. I even heard someone cry "come on Martin" which confused me a bit. This loop was more enjoyable than B being a mix of slow into wind and fast wind behind. I was running very low on water by this time so made some stops to fill up. This plus taking it easy on the downwind stretch meant my average speed continued to fall and hopes of beating the club record started to dwindle.

They were pretty much gone by the time I was waved onto the finishing course but I soldiered on, aiming to at least hit 240miles. Eventually I was flagged down and told I could stop. Luckily this was right next to the control so I only had a short ride back.

Results took a while to come through but when mine came up I was happy to find I had managed 241.6 miles. Just 5.5 miles short of the club record, even less as the extra couple of miles I did as a detour obviously did not count.

During wait for results the mystery of the "come on Martin" yells of encouragement was cleared up. An ex Newburian was supporting one of the other riders. By coincidence he was the brother of the clubs junior record holder (the one that is longer than the senior one I was trying to break).

Result of the main competition was close, being won with 284.5 miles, just 0.65 miles from second place. Winner, Ian Cammish, is apparently 51, so doubly impressive and encouragement to keep training.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/Ian_Cammish_Wins_National_12Hour_Championship_article_265729.html

M & Ms big adventure

Not sure how many beers I had had over a Cornish meal with Mrs M but at some point or other, somehow or other we came up with a cunning plan for a joint challenge to keep us active and save us from premature senescence.

No matter how good Mrs M becomes on 3 wheels its unlikely she will be joining me going up (and much less likely down) any Alps

However she is a good walker and talking about this and what to do when we both have more time on our hands (as birds fly nests and we lay down tools) somehow we both hit on the idea of doing a long walk.

Its much better if any journey has a purpose (e.g. as my original plan to ride the tour) and Mrs M has always wanted to visit Iona, a (very) small island of another (slightly bigger) island off the north west coast of Scotland.

http://www.scotland-inverness.co.uk/iona.htm

So we put 2 and 2 together and came up with the idea of walking there (or at least the bits that did not involve boats). Originally the intention was to walk from home but we thought that may be a bit much so revised plan to start from Durham.

Plan was hatched Friday night and we spent much of a dismal Saturday buying some books and doing some first planning. On first appearences we seem to have lucked out. A route from Durham can make use of some of the long distance footpath network and, judging from Rough Guide advice on distance per day, a rough and ready route marked out on my Truckers atlas seems to show us needing about 30 days or to make the journey. So a pretty big challenge but well doable....time will no doubt tell but this blog will have to broaden into Mr Ms Iona Adventure some time over the next year or so...

Many happy returns

Mrs M and I kept an appointment we made 25 years ago and spent last week having a second honeymoon at the same hotel in Newquay were we celebrated our first

http://www.trebarwith-hotel.co.uk/

Happily the hotel had not changed much and we had a great time, despite a typically British week of summer weather that saw more use of brollies than beach clothes.

Newquay was much the same as we left it 25 years ago though there seemed to be a lot more emphasis on surfing and no signs of things made from shells or naughty postcards.

Arriving Friday,
Saturday we looked around and spent some time enjoying the sun on the beach just below the hotel.
Sunday we got wet, joined the National Trust and Mrs M made her first ride on her new trike
Monday we went to the Eden project, which was very impressive
Tuesday I went for a long (wet and windy) ride up to Boscastle and Tintagel where I holidayed as a lad
Wednesday Mrs M got smelly therapy and I got a surfing lesson (and chaperoned her for lunch in a dressing gown)
Thursday we enjoyed some more sun on the beach
Friday was spent by me lazing on beach, Mrs M explored Newquay some more.
Saturday set a record for worst weather experienced on holiday so we passed time at hotel and having nice pots of tea/cakes and planning ahead......

We came back with "Trebarwith" a new addition to our bear family plus a new long term challenge....

12 hour TT - how much to eat?

I am still mulling over how much to eat on the 12 hour TT this weekend.

Interesting couple of articles here

http://www.saris.com/athletes/PermaLink,guid,6db7d592-53a6-4a3e-839b-93703a780ba8.aspx

and here

http://www.saris.com/CalorieCalculator.aspx


Based on latter I have done some sums:

Assuming I weigh 73kg on the day of the ride and that I am pretty fit I will have

73 * 25 cals of onboard glycogen so around 1900 cals.

Assuming I do my plan 220W per hour then I will be using something like

220 * 12 * 3600/1000 = 9500kj

I reckon I am pretty high efficency so cals = 9500 * 1.05 = 10000

The ride will be a bit harder than easy so say 60% of cals come from carb = 6000

So less 1900 from onboard so means I will need to eat around 4100 cals during the ride, about 340 cals per hour.

So that's my plan...interesting to see how it turns out

How to adjust front derailleur

This can be a bit tricky.

Guides to do this are here

//www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=75

and for Shimano here

http://techdocs.shimano.com/media/techdocs/content/cycle/SI/SI_5JD0A_001/SI_5JD0A_001_En_v1_m56577569830616200.pdf


Indebted to Grahamharpin off Bikeradar forum who knocked up this easy to follow checklist

• Lift the bike so the pedals will drive the wheel
• Slacken off the cable tension, this will move the mech to the smallest chainring.
• Shift rear to largest sprocket
• Adjust lower stop screw so there is about 1 mm clearance between chain and front mech cage.
• Tighten cable again as far as it will go
• Shift to biggest chainring & smallest rear sprocket
• Adjust upper stop screw until the change up to the big chainring is easy and does not overshoot.
• Set rear sprocket to middle of the cassette
• Change down to lowest chainwheel, if the cable was really tight it probably will not change down so gradually relaase cable tension until it changes cleanly.
• Check change over both (or 3) chainrings.

Tour of the Black Mountains - the climbs

The Tour of the Black Mountains has a great sportive route, in my opinion the best in the UK due to the extent and variety of its climbs, linked to great views and (generally) good roads.

The climbs start from the off with 20km up an ever increasing gradient to Gospel pass.

Then after a long descent you a false flat leads you south of Brecon where you head west up the Mynydd Illtud. After that you turn south and a succession of climbs hits you, long ones, steep ones and long steep ones (longest steepest coming on the 160km/100 mile mark).

Finally there are a couple of stings in the tail on the run in to home.

All in all I count 13 climbs in all, listed below. These add up to 2300m climbing. The ride is rarely flat though and you end up doing another 13oom of climbing to make a grand total for the route of 3600m over its 185km length.

(Distances in kilometres)

		Route	Route	Elevation		Distance	Metres	Gradient
Climb		Start	End	Start	End	of Climb	Climbed	Average	Max	Comments
1	Gospel Pass	1.3	20.6	121	540	19.3	419	2.2%	16.2%	U valley, the further you go the steeper it gets.
2	Mynydd Illtud	57.6	63.0	134	340	5.5	206	3.8%	10.1%	Old roman road. Look left to see Pen y Fan
3	Cerrig Duon	76.8	84.1	210	473	7.2	263	3.6%	11.5%	Turn south and head up
4	Bryn Rhudd	89.8	93.8	222	378	4.0	155	3.9%	7.9%	Main road drag on A4067
5	Chwyth	95.3	97.3	338	418	2.0	80	4.0%	6.6%	Short climb after leaving A4067
6	Bryn Melyn	103.7	105.6	257	446	1.9	188	10.0%	14.4%	Sheer climb with hairpins, don’t look up at the bottom, feed at top
7	Aber Illia	112.4	114.2	248	346	1.8	99	5.6%	18.9%	Unexpected wall round a corner in the woods.
8	Sychbant	118.0	122.6	244	400	4.6	156	3.4%	9.2%	Straight on through the cows
9	Ponsticill Reservoir	132.3	134.2	257	362	1.9	104	5.4%	9.2%	Climb out of Merthyr ending in forest
10	Creigiau	140.0	141.5	329	438	1.5	109	7.3%	16.1%	Steep towards end just before feed.
11	Blaen Onnau	158.4	162.7	121	441	4.3	320	7.4%	11.0%	A mini Alp at 100 miles, great descent
12	Crickhowell	170.6	172.0	96	210	1.4	114	8.1%	11.7%	Evil climb around the corner out of Crickhowell
13	Forest Coal Pit	176.7	179.2	162	249	2.5	87	3.4%	11.8%	Last climb of the day!

Gradient details of some of the climbs:

A new challenge - 12 hours on a bike

The Marmotte was my main target for this year and now I am suffering a bit from post goal gloom...what to do next.

Actually I already had an inkling from a conversation back on our club tour in France. Ours being the club it is the topic of time trialling had come up at some point or other (not sure why) including 12 hours. This are rarities and our senior mens club record (247 miles) is a bit special for a couple of reasons: it was set back in 1977 (not quite as old as the woman's which dates back to 1964!) and the record for a junior is actually more (255 miles).

Struck me that the 247 miles does not seem so far if you think of it as just being a bit more than 20mph. The problem is the 12 hours bit. However have done day long rides before and reckon I might be able to cope with doing 12 hours non-stop.

Only one way to find out so I have entered an event on 17th August. Just happens to be the National Championships so will be interesting.

Got some good advice that will need a helper to feed and encourage me so I have roped in Master Miff to come along as well..

Marmotte Guide

Last post on the Marmotte.

Had some time on my hands on the journey back to France so wrote up a guide to the Marmotte based on experiences there.

Put link for it in Wiki under article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Marmotte

Direct link to article here: http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=693883&da=y

(Any changes/comments feel free to email me or add some stuff into Wiki...)

Marmotte - Compared to the best

Following on from last post there another comparison to be made is with that of Andrew Bye, a top British road racer who came in 9th. http://andrewbye.blogspot.com/

Table below shows how we compared on the various sections of the event. It's possible to add a couple of columns to each set of stats to look at power/weight and power as a % of FTP (Andrew did a MAP in January with a result of 457 which gives FTP of 343 (assuming 75% of MAP). My FTP (as per 25TT) is 305 (BTW my most recent MAP was 408 = 306 @ 75% ) 

		Me 2008		71	kg			Andrew Bye		74	kg
Section	Distance	Time	Work	Power	Npwr	Npwr/kg	Power %	Time	Work	Power	Npwr	Npwr/kg	Power %
Start to Glandon base	13	0:23	230	152	198	2.7	65	0:23	311	222	273	3.8	80
Glandon Climb	23	1:23	1262	254	268	3.8	87	1:04	1281	331	355	5.0	104
Glandon Descent	42	1:09	572	137	201	2.8	66	0:24	203	137	177	2.5	52
Glandon base to Telegraphe								0:36	606	277	293	4.1	85
Telegraphe	12	0:50	763	250	254	3.6	83	0:40	821	335	338	4.8	99
Tel descent to Gal base	5	0:07	29	74	119	1.7	39	0:06	239	171	239	3.4	70
Galibier	18	1:24	1112	224	229	3.2	75	1:06	1224	306	309	4.4	90
Gal descent to ADH base	48	1:08	396	101	170	2.4	56	1:02	694	185	224	3.2	65
Alpe D'Huez	13	1:10	934	222	229	3.2	75	0:54	1019	313	318	4.5	93
	175	7:34	5298	195	230	3.2	75	6:19	6398	273	306	4.3	89

The statistics from Andrew Bye make impressive reading especially the absolute power on the climbs. (The first climb seems to have been done at over FTP which probably means my guess of FTP based on a January MAP is low.)

The biggest lesson for me, I think, lies in the power % column. Even if I have underestimated his FTP it looks as if Andrew rode the event at a much higher relative intensity than I did. His climbs were all over 90% and is overall ride was at 89%.

My figures seem a bit timid by comparision, after the Glandon (87%) I rode the remaining climbs at a more conservative 80>75%, with my overall effort for the ride being just 75%.

I will try to take some lessons from this:

• I am too scared of pain. Partly I am a coward, but this I think is also because I came at cycling through doing long solo tour when each day needed to be judged because there was always another (often harder) day to come. So I am more used to pacing myself to finish rather than finish fast.
• Power meters are great for training and pacing but I think I am now paying a little too much attention to mine. I felt great on the climb of the Glandon but got worried because I was over schedule and to some extent I think I made myself take it easy on the last climbs for fear of blowing up.

Coming up this weekend I will be doing another sportive (the "Legbreaker") which I entered just to get the opportunity to see a new bit of the country. I will try an experiment and tape over the displays on my Powertap and Etrex and just ride on feel. There are some tough hills on the ride and I will try to push myself up to and over my pain threshold on these. Should prove interesting...