Hungry

Did the Hampshire Hilly Hundred yesterday. With the ride to and from Kingsclere it came to a total of 120 miles so comfortably the hardest ride of the season to date and first time over 400TSS points.

Good news was that Giant and my touring gear coped very well with the ride, which included several very bumpy bits (nothing fell off, a good sign).

Bad news was I did not fare quite as well. I was aiming for a 205W+ average. Started well but found it hard to maintain the intensity after 4 hours. Was not helped by having to make several halts/backtracks to check route. Still even taking this into account I found the going got tougher.

Overall it took 8 hours:
2 hours at 207W/239NW
2 hours at 199W/229NW
2 hours at 180W/219NW
2 hours at 170W/208NW

So as time wore on I wore out. Began to feel hungry after 6 hours, so Nutrigrain/jelly babies/raisins are enough. Stopped at a delicatessen in Overton
http://www.hampshire-information.co.uk/details.asp?listid=306
for a bacon sandwich and this worked wonders. For the future will take some more filling food as well as jelly babies.

Still on the good side I made pretty good speed. The whole ride was done at an average of 25kph which isnt at all bad considering I was back on the Marathon+/Slime tubed Giant carrying a fair bit of gear, there was a fair breeze and the route (both elevation and road surface) was far from smooth.

Hungry Hampshire Hilly?

Rest day today. Planning a big ride tomorrow though (in perhaps daft hope BBC weathers sunny prediction is right) and will be doing an all day outing following the route of Hampshire Hilly Hundred http://www.sportivecycling.org.uk/

Apart from being a test of the legs am also planning this as a check out of my touring gear which I will be using on the Giant in France next week. Last time this was used was on the TDF so will be like good old times.

Also planning to make the ride a test of feeding strategy. Using the Tri-Talk nutrition calculator I am guesstimating I will need to take in around 2200kcal if the ride takes around the 8 hours I guess it will given the distance, climbing and heavy bike. I will be aiming to ride this at a steady 210W and will be taking a mix of bars, jelly babies and raisins. In theory these add up to the 2200kcal I will need. It will be interesting to see how the last hour compares to the first.

Wet, windy but happy

After the initiation by fire last weekend yesterday was wind and water as, surprise, the BBC forecast turned out correct and it bucketed down and blew a gale at Thruxton for my second road race.

Arrived, signed on and sat in the car, only emerging at last minute for a couple of laps at the pits and almost missing the start. Learning from last week checked how many laps and was pretty relieved to hear that we would just be doing 8.

I wanted to go harder than last week, the more so given the weather so as to keep warm. Start was again hard but not fast as we pedalled into a gale, the wind blowing in a very different direction. As a result the climb into the chicane at the end of the lap was not too difficult but the approach was made tricky by a vicious cross wind.

On the second lap some of the youngsters made a break and I tried hard to close them down. The was the first of a number of bursts of enthusiasm from the juniors and each failed, some learning from me. I did a fair share of leading, though the group as a whole seemed to lack any organisation, people taking long turns to pull at the front.

The going was tough, I did not spend much time looking at watts but when I did (mainly on the short climb) I was pushing well over 300. I had little trouble keeping up and with the lead and despite, again, losing count of the laps I stuck with the front group actually being in the lead with half a lap to go. But no push left to power up the final sprint and trailed in around 15th or so.

Did a few warm down, very wet, laps then headed home. Got very cold unshipping bike and was happy to get a warm bath.

Downloaded the stats for the ride and was slightly surprised to see how hard the race had been. Averaged 292W/309NW and set an all time PB for 60 minutes normalised power of 299W. Given that 8 minutes of this included the warm down this left me pretty pleased. As result have changed WKO so my threshold is now 299W.

EZ riding

As noted previously decided to use Lifecycle for a bit of VO2 work until lighter evenings arrive.

Being an exercise bike the Lifecycle comes with a number of programs that help lend variety to training and take some of the hassle out of the process. One of the ones I use quite a bit is the "EZ" drill. This apparently stands for "easy" in American though in fact in can be far from this. Basically its a ramp up from a base to beak 75% into the work time, then back to base again. At the highest level 20 setting the peak is 400W which would make this drill harder than my last MAP test (because unlike the MAP when you hit peak you have to keep going..)

Did not feel quite like going for 20 last night but did set target of a warmup EZ12 for 12 minutes then 4 EZs of 20 minutes each going from level 16 (300W peak),17-320W, 18-345W and finally 19-375W. I was not sure at the start I would make it from the end and the last 2 intervals were tough but I just about made it. Used Powertap to capture HR and transferred watts manually to be able to load into WKO.

Work interval for the 5 EZs ended up at 111TSS/246W over 9o minutes with a peak 5 minutes of 344W which aint bad. In terms of VO2 it was just a toe in the water but ended up with near 12 minutes in VO2 territory which is a start.

Other good thing was how tightly my HR matched power. Nice steady rise as power goes up and rapid recovery as it comes down. No sign of it maxing out even on EZ19, peaking at 176bpm.

Last thing of note was that (as I found in test I posted a while back) the Lifecycle seems to be pretty good at delivering accurate watts. I did not seek to replicate conditions for the MAP but in terms of perceived effort the max work at 375W seemed similar to the test and the HR relationship to power ditto looks comparable.

2x20 Fixed/Roubaix Rollers

Did a couple of getting to know my bike sessions last couple of days. On Tuesday hooked fixed up to turbo for a 2x20 workout which was also intended to work out interval function on Ergomo and check the HR belt I got for it (it uses Polar coded).

Ergomo interval is nice once you get used to it. Shows useful stuff like averages of power/HR/speed and you can do up to 30 which should be enough for most things. Also like the feature that lets you see TSS/IF on the fly. Very handy.

Workout went pretty well. First 20 I did slow ramp up building to end. Worked out at 285W with just 2.4% decoupling. Second I started harder and did 20secs in each of the starting minutes at 300W+. This was tougher and I drooped a bit 3/4 of the way through. But pulled myself together and pushed on to finish with 283W. Decoupling over 6% (not surprising given power ups and downs).

HR still puzzlingly low, maxed at 173.

Yesterday put Roubaix on the rollers. Target was to get some practice riding on drops as dont tend to do this much so want to practice as will be useful in keeping speed up on sportives (and if I do many more road races).

Amazed how stable the Roubaix felt compared to the Giant. Think this mainly due to tyres and probably especially the slime inner tubes on the giant. These must slightly unbalance the wheeel.

Anyway turned out to be comfortable riding on the drops, though interestingly found I needed to add 5mm to the seat height to feel best. Once got into groove stepped down the gears and ended up in my biggest 53x11 gear. As a result the speed for the 65mins of the workout was pretty quick (50kph) though the watts relatively low (255W/260NPW). Decoupling good at 2.6% and HR felt comfortable. Towards end made specific effort to push above 170 at which time watts hitting 330+.

Interesting comparing power with the Giant. While on Roubaix 50kph is an easy 255W or so on the Giant I was doing 40kph intervals at 305W+. Explains why the Roubaix felt so light after riding all winter on the Giant.

Only issue I have is that seems will be difficult to do 330W+ VO2 intervals on the Roubaix on rollers. This looks like it will mean having to pedal at 100rpm+ and over 70kph which is quite hairy. Other option is doing on the turbo but this will mess up rear tyre. Doing fixed on turbo OK for tyres (as keeping the Marathons on it) but needs me to go over 110rpm. Could go out to ride hills in town but all of them have roadworks + temp traffic lights on. Could go out of town and ride hills but means going down hill quick in the dark.

So will adopt plan L and do a bit of VO2 on Lifecycle for next couple of weeks, after which time evenings will be light enough for post work rides.

First Road Race!

Did my first ever road race at Thruxton yesterday. Good news on the weather front as contrary to BBC pessimism it was nice and sunny if a bit blowy.

Got to the start nice and early to register and then did a bit of warm up on my Roubaix, its first outing of 2008. It felt light as a feather after the winter Giant, though I did notice every bump in the tyres.

I had a lot of butterflies in the stomach leading up to the start. They got worse when I saw how big the field was, too many to count but included riders with numbers up to 70+ on top of which were a number of women riders who would be sharing their race with ours.

Started at the back of the bunch which turned out to be a bit of a mistake. Last time I was at Thruxton it was on a motoring experience day and I was blasting round in a Porsche turbo at 100mph. Very different having to do it under your own power but some things remained the same, especially the importance of getting corners right. I took these too slowly at first and suffered the "concertina" effect I had heard about. This is when the leading riders in the group accelarate away and you need to ride twice as hard to keep in touch with the group. It took me several laps to work out how to ride most efficently and keep in touch and the graph above shows this with several power spikes in the earlier laps (which is me riding like billio to get onto someones wheel again.)

Found it does not pay to be a gentleman. On one corner I heard a woman warn she was on my inside so I braked to let here through. Everyone else went as well and I was all my own and took a bit of puff to get back.

This was a bit easier because other learning is that laps are of two halves, as the speed graph above shows. Downhill, with a following wind we pushed 60kph (I did not realise I was going this fast at the time,..) Then you turn, first across, then into the wind and up a hill. Here the whole bunch grinds to a halt. Knowing this gives a chance to catch up on each lap (though only in the beginners race, I understand in higher races this is where you push, trying to get the others to crack).

Started to very much get into the swing of things as the laps passed by. So much so that by the end of the 9th lap (of 10 it turned out though start sheet said 11) I was at the front. Only problem was that I had not been counting and when my earpiece came out (true to habit I was listening to trance music) I sat up to put it back in. Just about then I heard the bell go and everyone disappeared and I was on my tod. I set off in chase and caught half the stragglers but could not latch onto the lead group. Still I ended up around 20th which wasnt bad for a first attempt.

(The speed graph above shows my error very well. Each lap is shown as a nice smooth V except for the last which has a little W at the bottom which was me speeding up, slowing down to put ear piece back in, hearing bell and trying to speed up again). Still the last lap wasnt bad, I did most of it solo and still managed over 40kph. Interesting learning on the hill on last lap as well, my cadence was below 70 and I was finding it hard work. I kicked down a few gears and up into the 80/90 rpm zone and power shot up.

Overall watts for the race were 235/264NW, so not too tough, it was just the occasional that caused a bit of pain, plus the last lap. HR averaged 154 with a max of only 171. Cadence was mostly above 80 but slowed on the hills (need to change down). Decoupling was very good -0.5%.

Felt a bit of a prat for getting last lap wrong. As bit of punishment went for a 60 minute post race ride, first 30 mins I pushed a bit and it was a bit harder than the race itself. Got home and did a couple of hard workouts on indoor bike then recovery, catching up on the Sopranos.

Definitely enjoyed the experience. Another race on next week so will give it another go, hopefully learning the while.

Feel bit poo-ey but train OK

Been feeling a bit under the weather. I put this down to finally getting serious about losing the last few pounds separating me from target weight of 11stone (aka70kg). Made some good progress with this after getting Fitday, so far losing 4lbs. However have done this a bit too quickly in just 10 days. But will persevere as want to focus on training.

Anyway yesterday had scheduled myself to do first focussed threshold workout of build, starting not too hard at 6*150kj intervals with work 100kj at 300W+ and rest 50kj.

Must say did not fancy it much following the Audax the day. However have been reading book about Robert Millar part of which covers his training regime (which was pretty tough) and used as inspiration to at least get out into the garage and onto the rollers.

First couple of intervals felt like hard work but then I started getting into the swing of the drills and actually quite enjoyed the last 4 intervals. Only inconvenience was my bike had some difficulty shifting front gear and fell off the rollers a couple of times. Average of the intervals was 305W, each taking around 5m:30s. Rest varied from 190 to 240W (each a bit harder than previous) HR was well controlled, it averaged 159 during the total 50 minutes of the session (which had an NP of 275W) hitting a peak of 170, well under my max 185. TSS for the whole ride was 100 dead (but felt easier than doing a 25TT..)

Played around with the intervals in terms of cadence. Did first three in high 80s then upped and lowered revs into 70s. For the final interval built up power gradually by keeping revs solid and changing into bigger gear.

I found, as ever, that despite received wisdom it feels easier to me to have big gear, slow revs.

Like this drill and will continue, adding a couple more intervals next time to take the whole time of the work session over the hour level, then see about uping the work kj in each interval, with the aim of biting small bits off the elephant of getting to an average of 300W+ for the hour.

Fixed Ergomo

Ergomo arrived and I successfully mounted it onto my fixed bike.

Job was pretty straight forward, just a question of switching bottom brackets and wiring up speed sensor. Did find, as for HAC, that the supplied magnet for the speed sensor was too feeble and replaced with spare Mavic one I had (test of for a magnet is how hard is it to separate from a screwdriver)

Took it out for a spin last Wednesday and was pleasantly surprised by how easy I found the going.

First impressions are that the Ergomo's head unit seems to have more functionality than the powertap, including TSS/IF measures and an altimeter. Needs a coded Polar chest strap for HR though so need to get one of these. Also like the fact that it uses a rechargable battery which also powers the sensor in the BB. Better than the Powertap.

Link to WKO worked pretty much first time as well.

Ard Audax

Did the clubs March Audax Sunday and found it harder going than expected. Can't blame the weather, it was nice and sunny though the wind was blowing a bit.

But felt a bit under the weather. Put this down to a combination of actually managing to lose a bit of weight at last and not eating enough during the ride. Also was well overdressed for the conditions with four layers on top + thermal beanie/gloves. Carrying a backsack did not help either (I was expecting ride to be at an easier pace so added this to give a bit more load).

Overall stats for the 4 hour ride were an average power of 192W/236NPW, TSS 262, HR 89-182 av 155. Interestingly this is exactly the same as the first 4 hours of the Snowdrop I did start Feb (192W/235NPW/TSS 256/HR 101-181-av 149).

It was however some 20W less than my all time PB on the first day of the Wessex last year (211W/257NPW/TSS 339/HR 93-177-av150) (which by coincidence matched my effort on my fixed ride earlier this week). This is a bit worrying and I will start upping the intensity of my longer training rides now base season is passed

Weakened in Wales

Went back to Talybont YHA with NRC for a weekend in Wales. Quite brave it being February. Weather turned out more damp than wet and cool rather than freezing.

Due to car problem had to get a lift and this resulted in bit of a cheese as I managed to forget the bag with my cycle shoes. Only realised on arriving so had no choice but to do the first mornings ride using my trainers. Actually was not as difficult as it might have been though did have a nasty moment when fell off the pedals whilst trying to negotiate a cattlegrid on a 15% hill. Only narrowly avoided crushing goolies on the cross bar.

We had coffee in Brecon, luckily a cycle shop was only 50m down the road so I took the opportunity to get myself some shoes. Also got some eggbeater pedals, reckoning they would be a bit easier to engage on the fixed.

First day route was a bit curtailed due to the weather but we still managed 75km including a tricky first climb southwest of of the YHA. Returned to YHA and had food (still good) and beer (even better) and we retired leaving route options for Sunday open depending on weather.

Sunday was damp/misty. Plan had been to do Gospel pass but at 540m the top was bound to be cloudy. So we reversed planned route and headed northeast via Talgarth to Hay on Wye. One evil little climb on the way caused a bit of mayhem with number stopping due to combination of steep hill and slick mud. Fortunately I kept going, Schwalbe Marathons and MTB experience proving useful.

At Hay group split. Most headed north west to return via rolling route. Four of us decided to tackle Gospel from the harder Hay side. Good climb but top found me strangely lacking in energy. Combination of several weeks hard training/losing weight and running on water (theory: this help body use fat) hit me and I found going hard. My Schwalbe Marathon Slime filled wheels plus the fact I was carrying a backsack probably did not help either. Anyway struggled a bit to get to the top. Recovered during long descent.

Vista proved invaluable, though the four of us became 2 twos as when we were in line hurtling down hill lead 2 missed turn right. Two of us headed to Crickhowell where we got soaked, however we still tackled Blaen Onnau. Easier than Gospel but I still found it tough, still dug in and forced myself to do 260W despite being knackerd.

We arrived back last at the YHA, ride home very hungary and happy find Mrs Ms beef casserole waiting on return. Found I had lost 4 lbs in 6 days, indication overdoing it a bit. Looking forward now to a week of rest and recovery. (In which context not too disappointed to find we had scratched from Didcot rollers as could not muster a team).

Fitday - food planning for geeks

I have a new fun tool to play with along with WKO. Just got a copy of "Fitday" a tool that keeps track of what you eat, what you do and helps you reach a target weight in a safe and balanced way. Only rider is that you need to be a bit of a geek in terms of entering info on what you have eaten/drunk/done. Good news is I am a bit of a geek and so hoping this will finally help me hit my target 70kg before May.

Its been a hard days week

Last week was the hardest of the year so far. Did a 2x350kj session out on the road Saturday, both work intervals being around 285W. Also did some form sprints at the start of the ride and surprised myself by hitting 939W which is a (not very good admittedly) PB.

Saturday evening went to the O2 to see Smashing Pumpkins and arrived back late. But still struggled up to go for the club ride on a lovely crisp winters morning down to Whitchurch. The cold air woke me up and the fact we rode 60km before the stop gave me the excuse to have a couple of excellent pints of Arkells Kingsdown Special.

Revivied, I managed to summon up the energy to go to the flicks and see No Country for Old Men which was OK but not as good as hoped.

End of week stats saw me notching up all the 9's : 996 TSS points for the week and CTL up to 99.

(If I had included TSS for moshing at Smashing Pumpkins might have clicked both over..)

Taking Monday right off as apart from being a wee bit fatigued from all above giving blood. Then will ramp up for final base week culminating in a weekend trip back to Wales.

Happy St Valentines day hangover

Following day after day of sun, the weather on my day off on St Valentines day was cold and grey. Still happy I took the day off as had a bit too much wine the night before so had a slightly heavy head. This tested my resolve a bit but I decided to go out for a ride nonetheless.

Turned out to be a good decision as nothing like a bit of fresh air to clear a cotton head. Did 80km loop round Marlborough and back including one long climb plus another short sharp trip up Spring Hill. Aimed simply to keep watts at 200+ but not to go into red in terms of HR.

Ride turned out great. Averaged 221W/251NPW for the whole ride including warmdown. Work portion was 238W/259NPW and my HR average was a sedate 152 with a max of 168. Could definitely have gone harder if I had wanted. Average speed was over 28kph which is not bad given I was dressed up the nines on my tractor tyres, slime tubed Giant. Also pretty good in this regard is me hitting 79kph on a descent.

Another good thing was I felt I was pedalling smoother, down I think to the rollers. So all in all good job I went out...

Marmotte and power

Someone very kindly let me have WKO files of their recent Marmotte rides. These are especially interesting because they were all done between 7:05 and 7:45 hours (so pretty much in my target zone) and source of the files admits he is, like me, not the best descender.

I used these to compare with my guesstimate of power that would be needed to do the ride in around 7:30. I guessed (normalised power taken from climbs of mountains already done with similar profile)

Glandon 245W
Telegraphe 247W
Galibier 264W
Alpe D'Huez 249W

The actuals were

Glandon 260W
Telegraphe 257W
Galibier 234W
Alpe D'Huez 255W

so very much in the same area. Average NP for the whole ride was 240W which is tough but does not seem impossible (I did 9 hours at 220W on my epic post Raid Pyreneen 5000m day.) Further comfort comes from knowing that after 5:30 of the Tour of the Black Mountains I was able to comfortably do a 20minute climb at 266W while keeping some in reserve as another 40 minutes of cycling followed.

One slight wobbler is the fact that to compare like for like I will need to lose 4-5kg to get down to 70kg, while keeping power at same level.

Other minor concern is that the 2008 Marmotte goes up Croix de Fer rather than Glandon which adds a bit of distance and climbing. So goal got just a bit tougher.

Still helps focus training and for upcoming sportives gives me some specific targets in terms of climbing power and overall ride power.

Enough Power?

When is enough enough? I needed to ask this question of myself when deciding to get some power meters for my Langster and Giant MTB.

So far I have been guessing my power when using this and uploading into WKO. However, sad geek that I am, this leaves me a bit unsatisfied as I dont get the post ride thrill of downloading my power stats and seeing how I have done (most especially following the SPAM as pretty sure I surpassed myself during the event but will never know.)

As a result I know I am not using either bike as much as I should (the Giant has been unused since the SPAM and only the mud from that event washed off last weekend). So I have pretty much taken the decision to get an Ergomo for each bike (chose Ergomo over PT because easier to fit and think its a bit more waterproof than the PT for the MTB).

My conscience nagged me this may be contrary to the spirit of enoughness but I believe there is no contradiction as it for sure that the Ergomos will get full and enduring use and getting them means my underused bikes will get much more of an outing. So I have removed the BBs from both...watch this space.

3x333

Following my century Sunday, Monday evening I did a 3x333kj. (As previously mentioned I find it more challenging to go for a KJ total on intervals rather than watch a clock tick down. )

I figured that if 350kj was 20 mins at 300W or so then doing 333kj would be round about 20 mins at just under threshold. So I set the goal of doing 3 intervals of 333kj at between 270W and 280W on my rollers.

First was 271W but surprisingly comfortable, my heart staying mostly in the 150s. Second I aimed at 275W and again was not too difficult. So I decided to have a bit of fun and for the last I put The Black Parade on the headphones, engaged big gears and just pedalled away, stonking out the choruses at 400W+. Final interval was done at 300W.

All in all an excellent session. The first 2 intervals were 20mins or so and HR decoupling was only 2.5%. It was a bit bigger for the last interval, due to me hammering away during the choruses.

Other bit of good news was I was steady as a rock on the rollers and did not fall off once. In fact so confident that during the warm down I (very briefly) tried riding hands off....

First Century

Amazing weather over the weekend prompted me to go for my first century of the year. Club run was a park'n ride from Marlborough so I decided to cycle rather than drive there. Joined by a couple of others from the club, one of whom learned a bit about riding in a group as he broke wind for us all the way there.

Once there we went for a great ride out over the plains to Malmsbury, where the coffee shop was overrun with people in multicoloured lyrca as another cycle group hit town at the same time as other.

On the run back we went over a couple of toughish hills, including Hackpen and I was quite happy to acquit myself well on the climbs. Cycled back to base in company with Alun, going up Spring Hill which apparently is 22% in parts.

Ride was natch the hardest of the season to date at 343 TSS points. I also set a season best 1 min PB of 451W.

Easy listening

Had another good session last night. Pencilled in a tempo roller session in the 240W or so range.

Went very smoothly, I averaged 220W/235NPW for the whole workout with the work portion being 70mins at 240W/245NPW. What was pleasing was how easy it felt. One indicator was that my HR averaged a very comfortable 145bpm but maybe a better one was that I was able to listen to a couple of "In Our Time" podcasts plus the latest "Material World"* . The fact that I was able to concentrate on these programmes is a pretty good indication that I was not finding the workout too hard.

* covering such diverse topics as tectonic plates, the Gaia "hypothesis", Rudolf II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_II, systems biology and the fact that we are just about to end one geological epoch and start another http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene (aside on this: interestingly the reason for this is apparently due to the fact that humanity has now left a mark on the planet so traces can be found in the geological record (nice segue here also to Gaia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesistouched on earlier. The contributors seemed to intimate that this was a bad/sad thing. I don't get this I am afraid. I think the fact that humans have left a mark on the world is overall a good thing, the only alternative being that of no humans in the first place.)

Brand new toy

Taking heed of my recent comments re knowing when enough is enough I have nonetheless gone ahead and bought a Garmin eTrex Vista HCX https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=8703

I have been trying out one of these for the past couple of weeks, courtesy of a fellow cycling club member, and have already been sold on the benefits compared to the old fashioned alternative (i.e. a map). This year I have taken on planning some club rides and despite much forward planning each time I have gone out on a ride I have missed turnings and/or had to make frequent stops to reach back into my pocket and consult my map to see if I am still on track. With the Vista I still have the fun of marking out the route on a map in advance, but I can then store and follow it on my handlebars. It makes for a far more rewarding ride and my "enough" conscience is quite clear.

Another great thing is that I can take it on tours in the UK and abroad. Here not only help plan routes but also keep a record of where I have been. A regret from my TDF 2006 is that at the end of the ride I could not remember exactly where I had been...yes I knew in general terms (and I have a Michelin map where I traced the route I think I took) but it would have been nice to have a complete record. With the Garmin thats no problem, it remembers where you have been and when you come home you can relive your ride in a fly through on PC. This is in 3D so you can even go up the mountains again..This may sound a bit weedy but strangely flying through a route done brings back memories.

Base 3 - getting tougher

After a sort of rest week last week this week is start of base 3 so planning some long hours.

Saturday Kicked of doing first away Audax, the Snowdrop Express. http://www.beaconrcc.org.uk/audax/express/index.html

Travelled up the night before (stopped here: http://www.gardencottages.co.uk/, highly recommended...) and as I arrived so did a blizzard. Happily it did not linger, however ride next day was affected and we spent first third on main roads (no fun). Happily was able to ride remainder on planned route (Etrex came in very handy). Rode quite hard, especially on first section when with a group. (Did an hour at 237W/277NPW). First section was 198/255 second 195/229 and third 165/196. Whole ride 185/229. Will start doing longer rides with proper sports drink/food and try to keep constant effort going.

Saturday evening was annual meal, very nice too. Joined by Mrs M and spoke to couple of chaps re riding as a team at Highclere. Also discussed having a go at some road racing just to see what its like..

Sunday led the club run. Weather not too bad and we took the long route out. Windy so hard going and only 6 made it to the welcome break at Pewsey Wharf. Happily beer on sale so had a pint and we returned on the flat.

Tuesday had a day off so put in some serious roller work.
Wednesday: club turbo night, Gears 7-1 as usual only 30secs rest. Bit flat but kept going to end and in fact felt strong on last interval.

CTL is up to 92 and will aim to keep it around this level for remainder of week.

Knowing when you have had enough - advice needed

As a segue from the previous post, one area I don't know where I have enough is in the area of training. As a newbie to serious cycling I don't have the experience of knowing how hard to push myself when training. I know the theory (in a nutshell pushing your body hard for a while, then resting a bit so it reacts to this pushing by getting stronger/fitter then repeat)

But how hard/long to push is tricky to judge and to a large extent comes via trial and error. As an e.g. my ride through the Dolomites last year should have left me knackered. I averaged a "Training Stress Score" of 335 and an intensity factor of 0.75 over the 10 days. According to the WKO guide (http://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/power411/defined.asp) a TSS of 300-450 means the day was a high stress day with some residual fatigue present after 2 days. But I felt fine most days and finished the event feeling fine and ready for more. Conversely the day after my last MAP test I felt quite flat.


I don't think I can wait years using trial and error to find out how much training is "enough". So I have contacted Ric Stern (http://www.cyclecoach.com/) with a view to getting some professional training advice. Having filled out a long and exhaustive questionaire I am now awaiting some feedback. Will be interesting to see what this turns out to be..

Odds n sods

The week or so since my last update was taken pretty easy. Had a couple of nice meals (at Malmaison, Reading and the Yew Tree, Highclere. At the latter the owner Marco Pierre White apparently made an appearence, though I did not see him..)

The Yew Tree meal was in celebration of our son's 18th birthday, a bit of a landmark. In honour of this we bought him a number of gifts including a type writer, an acoustic guitar and some beer (to be precise a polypin of Good Old Boy, as an alternative to the lager usually drunk by teenagers.) Both are children are now officially adults. Scary.

Also have been catching up on some reading. Particuluarly impressed by "Enough" by John Naish. (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Enough-John-Naish/dp/0340935901)

The central tenet of this book is that we would be happier if we could realise when we have enough of something and having more won't make us any happier, indeed could make us feel worse. (Interview here gives a feel of the ideas:
http://www.newconsumer.com/news/item/we_speak_to_john_naish_author_of_enough/

This simple proposition is one of the pieces of wisdom I have come to realise as I get older. An e.g. of how I applied a couple of years back was in taking the policy decision to break the ages old habit of listening to the Today program from the moment of waking to arriving at work. I felt I had reached to point of news saturation. This doesnt mean I have cut myself of from the real world, I will listen to news headlines/peruse the BBC online news/watch the occasional newsnight and avidly listen to podcasts on subjects of special interest or quality ("From our own correspondent" being an e.g. of latter).

What I dont want to do is fill every idle moment with news updates which seems to be the desire of 24 hour news channels (and apparently society in general if the evidence of our dentist waiting room is anything to go by. A giant plasma screen has been installed there showing BBC News 24 as if somehow hearing about a stock market crash here or the latest news of the diana inquest there is going to take patients minds off the upcoming visit to the dentists chair...)

Back to the book, the crucial world is in the title. One of the pre-requisites to knowing when you have enough is having sufficent of something in the first place. So really its a new experience for us, as recently as my parent's generation scarcity was the norm. Also having enough means having more than nothing. So its OK for me to want (any buy) a high tech gadget that I can attach to my bike to help me navigate my rides without constant stops/recourse to maps.

First 2x20

There was a post on the BikeRadar training forum about "2x20" drills so I thought I would try them out with a view to adding into my late base build training.

Did this last Friday as starter to a deliberately hard weekend, done in the knowledge that week following would include a couple of days off.

I decided to target 300W as the 20 minute effort, being midway between 20 and 60 minute pace. Given this target I decided to use the rollers rather than turbo to help with speed skills.

First interval was largely about finding the right gear/cadence. I found third from back cog and around 95rpm was about right to average 300W. I aimed for a target of 350KJ as this felt like it would happen in approx 20 minutes and I find having an energy target more motivating than watching seconds pass by. The interval was hard but doable ending up at 301W average over 19:32.

I deliberately did not monitor HR but the interval felt quite hard by the end. I took a 50kj breather then started another interval, this one on top cog but turning over at a far more sedate 73rpm. I felt it "easier" to keep the power up this way and was going quite well until I lost concentration and fell of the rollers. No harm done, but lost momentum and limped over the line with a 295W average in 20:18.

On WKO+ the most interesting plot proved to be the HR line. On interval 1 this moved up steadily through the interval, hitting 180 by the end. Interval 2 the HR was flat lining until I fell off...This ties up with my feeling out on the road, where, despite knowing the theory about high cadence being best, I find myself most comfortable on the flat turning a big gear over more slowly.

Overall found the 2x20 drill to be pretty hard but also a pretty good workout. I will include in base/build weeks from now on.

How much to eat on a sportive

One of the many topics covered in the tri-talk podcasts was how much you need to consume in terms of calories during an even.

There is a handy calculator here http://www.tri-talk.com/TriTalkNC/TriTalkNC.htm

that allows you to play around with various variables and come up with an estimated cals/hour.

It confirms something I have learned by experience, that I don't need to eat as much as I expected. On my most strenuous sportive last year (Tour of the Black Mountains) I burned 4800 cals or so over 6:30 hours at an average effort of around 80%MHR. It reckons I need to consume between 250-300 cals per hour, which is not too much.

Backing this up is my Dragon experience, the only time I have ever bonked in my life. On this event I went for 6 hours doing 4000 cals at 80% drinking only water (becuase I forgot my sports drink) and eating about 4 bananas and about (because I lost most of them) 8 flapjacks. I think this adds up to around 2000 cals so I guess I had around 2000 cals stored in glycogen.

Another good day - fixed ride, podcasts and turbos

Another good day yesterday. Weather grey but still good enough to go for a 50km ride on my fixed bike. Aim was just to take things easy as turbo session planned for the evening. So listened to some of the tri-talk podcasts I downloaded.


They turned out to be pretty good. Yes there was some advertising but the host David Warden is very open about what is advertising and comes across first and foremost as a keen enthusiast who wants to share his experience.


Came home not too tired and later in the day did a very good turbo workout with NRC. Still on the 4minute work intervals big ring 7>1 rear. Now down to 1:30 rest. I put in a very good series of intervals
G7 243W HR130-162 Avg 153
G6 264W HR134-166 Avg 158
G5 291W HR140-171 Avg 164
G4 301W HR138-174 Avg 165
G3 307W HR148-175 Avg 169
G2 317W HR146-176 Avg 169
G1 327W HR143-182 Avg 171


On all but the last I kept breathing nice and easy to keep this an aerobic session (on last I gave it a bit in the last 30 secs) and comfortably held and slowly raised the power through each interval. Resultant graph looks pretty nice. Next week is a rest week (and my sons 18th birthday) so will be taking it easy and miss turbo. Will be interesting to see how I fare the week after when rest will be down to 30 secs.

Isnt the internet wonderful

The internet can be wonderful at times. I have a number of books by Joe Friel and have recently being looking at his blog (see sidebar).

Yesterday he mentioned that he would be giving a talk re training for cycle events, specifically a century ride. I posted a comment to say that I would like to have gone but difficult given my living in UK and wondering if talk would be available as a podcast.

He replied the same day advising me to check out http://www.tri-talk.com/ which I did to find a whole host of podcasts that will help pass time in traffic jams for weeks to come.

Fartleking Away

My smorgesbord approach to training continued well last night. Following my hardish ride Sunday I still felt good so thought I would do some roller work.

This ended badly last time I tried it as I could not seem to keep going and struggled to do much over 220W, not helped by the fact I was finding it hard to keep on rollers.

I attempted to fix the latter by moving front roller forward one notch and that seemed to do the trick, I felt a lot less wobblier.

I started my session with view to doing better than last time, which would not be too difficult, and maintaining 235W plus. To help I set some session rules:

• I would warm up properly in middle ring, middle rear cog


• I would keep cadence between 80-95rpm


• I would watch the watts average. Following the warmup I would increase cadence so it started to go up gradually. Each time it crossed a 10W step I would up a rear gear then move to big ring and continue


• Once I got to 170bpm (so round about my LT) I would ease off cadence and then maintain a range 162-170bpm


• I would stop at 800KJ.

The results were very pleasing. The session was hard but not at all a killer and I progressed nicely the average watts eventually moving up to 260 over the 50 minutes or so it took to do the 800kj of effort. As a whole I think the session was a sort of fartlek, with me playing around with pace and power in the higher aerobic zone.

I was not monitoring my actual watts during the session and was surprised when I downloaded to see that for 40 minutes I was averaging 280W which should be my FTP with peaks over 300W. Think this plus the MAP test I did last week means I should up my FTP a bit. Will adjust to 290W from now on, which means my sweetspot zone will be 245W-275W.

Sunday club run - hardest day yet

Did the club run down to Thruxton yesterday. Weather wettish and windy plus a few hills. Ended up doing 80km or so. Run in took us up to Wash Common so peeled off just before home and did 5 runs up the lane that runs parallel to the Andover road. This is a 1 mile run that goes uphill at around 1-2% pretty much all the way. 5 intervals averaged from 266W to 324W each one increasing from the last. Pretty happy with this.

All in all ride set a new high for this season of 284TSS points.

MAP comparison - November to Han

I took a bit more of a detailed look at the 2 MAP tests I have done so far. The chart above shows the power and HR curves for the two tests (power curve is a rolling average of past 20 seconds power to keep curve smooth)

The power curves are pretty much identical up to around 270W, then they start to diverge with the November test being about 10W higher. The reason for this is I adjusted the power readout to average over 30secs for training and forgot to reduce.

More interestingly the HR curves are separate right through the test, with the January curve being consistently less than the November curve, consistent with my being able to keep going for longer. Conditions were pretty much the same in terms of temperature, so I put at least part of this down to my training.

That said very aware I need some more data before I can make any firm conclusions. Will continue to focus work on the zone 240W-280W over the next 4 weeks and retest again after then. Will be interesting to see if HR in this zone maintains its gap (or hopefully widens).

One variable I know I will change for the next test is not to display HR. I know my "max" is around 185 and think this may be a limiter as when I see the HR getting above 180 I think I must be near the end. (One other benefit I get from having a power meter. Getting power up is a motivator for me but seeing HR touch unknown zones makes me worried.)

Going for Gold?

Just taken a look at the Tour of Wessed details http://209.132.24.3/downloads/Information_manual1.pdf

The standards are pretty tough, which is probably as it should be. For me gold means
Day 1 148km 5:00 (avs 29.6kmh)
Day 2 166km 5:30 (avs 30.1kmh)
Day 3 171km 6:00 (avs 28.5 kmh)

The times are doable, I averaged 30.2 on the TOW day1 and 28.7 for the 188km Tour of the Black Mountains, but will leave little margin for error. The weather+riding single speed meant I only did 26kmh on TOW day 2 this year and this combination left me pooped for the final day when I averaged the same speed. Still I have more experience now and hopefully will be fitter this year than last. So overall glad the standards are so tough and prefer this to situation where I can get a gold when not even trying.

January MAP test

Did first MAP test of 2008. Felt a bit rough past couple of days, due I think to slightly overdoing the diet. So had a day off yesterday and did MAP this morning.

Felt pretty good and result very pleasing. Kept going for a minute more than Nov test and broke 400W with MAP of 401. Gives me a power/mass of 22.63 which is still "Good". Training zones in line with my training plan. Given I have not been doing any specific training in the higher zone 6 end hope that I can improve further. Time will tell...

Russel Brand - fails the exercise bike test

Slightly off topic, but not entirely. Started cycling as way to get fit and lose weight and remains key goal. Helped in this by having an indoor exercise bike + a small DVD/TV. So I often pedal along while watching a film/TV series.

One by product of this is that how good or otherwise the DVD is can be judged by how hard I am exercising. The better it the easier it is to pedal (e.g. now watching the Sopranos and for some episodes have been chugging along at a good tempo pace without even noticing.)

On the other hand if the show is rubbish I find pedalling harder. To date the worst thing I have seen was the film Alexander. However this was beaten yesterday when (at sons insistance because apparently I am the only person in the universe who does not find him funny) I watched a DVD of Russel Brand's live show. This was real hard work, despite choosing a very easy exercise program it was hard to keep concentrating. Fortunately the DVD skipped a bit which gave me the excuse to fast forward through long sections where all he did was moan about how he had been treated at some awards or other or read out bits of the Daily Star to his audience.

Opinion isnt changed. Don't like or dislike Russel Brand, he just isnt funny.

Marmotte - expanded

As result of earlier enquiry into multi day sportives (see earlier post) I found that there are a few more events taking place in Oisans at the time of the Marmotte.

These are
Vaujany Sportive (173km)
Grande Rousse (40km but 1600m climbing)
Grimpe Alpe (TT up Huez day after the Marmotte)


I have decided to do these as well. The Vaujany I will used as a f peak training ride plus it will be useful to get some experience of riding a mass sportive prior to the Marmotte.

The Rousse looks the sort of distance to do a final event week ride to keep me sharp and the final Grimpe should hopefully be just a bit of fun to round off the whole trip.

Result of all this is that I should be spending a couple of weeks in the Alps end June. Looking forward to it already..

Cereal Day

Despite my exploits on the bike over the weekend I still managed to put on a couple of pounds. This is a not unfamiliar situation, all of my long rides away have resulted in me coming back heavier than when I left.

Reason is that having slogged your guts out it feels only fair to fill them up again. At home my tendancy is to gaze longingly into the fridge with what Mrs M refers to as an "anteater" look, hoping to find some delicacy or other, usually involving cheese.

I have come to the conclusion I have little self control. So what I have started to do is have the occasional "cereal" day. This is pretty simple, on said days I will only eat bowls of cereal (the "good" ones like shredded wheat, weetabix etc.). I reckon these are about 200 cals a go with a reasonable balance of carbohdyrates/protein/fat/fibre, I allow myself one every couple of hours or so which I reckon ends up with me eating 2000cal or so on a day when I will just do some light recovery work.

Hopefully this will result in my shedding a few pounds before May.

Base vs Club ride

My two rides over the weekend showed what I think is the difference between a focussed base ride and a club ride. My base ride is below (smoothed to 5:00). The lines on the power graph show the start of my Endurance (157) Tempo (213) and Threshold(255) zones. Apart from the false start (my mudguards were playing up) and end warm down almost the whole ride is above the lowest endurance zone. (Even more would have been had I not needed a few map stops and avoided falling over in a ford..)

By contrast my Sunday club run shows a quite different picture. Here most of the effort is in the active recovery zone, with just a few spikes for climbs and the likes. While I felt tired at the end of the ride this was more of a rollover from the previous day than due to the ride itself and on Monday morning felt less tired than Sunday morning.

Hard old weekend

Had a hard old weekend of training. As an entre Friday evening did a max strength session, getting to target in terms of main exercise (single leg step ups 67kg). Then finished watching (and hugely enjoying) the last couple of episodes of the first Sopranos series.

Weather forecast for the weekend was constantly changing. So when I got up Saturday to see the sun shining I decided to have a ride out to Pewsey to recce the next club run I was due to lead. I did not go out with any special training plan in mind but feeling good aimed for an average 200W over the ride. Managed this comfortably averaging 210W(24oNP) for 3:45. Only downer (literally) was me falling over on a flooded road. My own fault, tryed to coast through to avoid getting too wet and ran out of momentum half way through.....

Sunday was forecast to be rain and wind. So I got well togged up for the club run, even to extent of using shower cap over helmet. This worked perfectly in making sure it did not rain at all. It was a bit windy and had to work a bit harder coming back than going out.

All in all did 9 hours over the weekend covering some 166km with 450TSS points. This resulted in my PMC CTL taking quite a hike upwards so will steady down a bit in week to come.

Multiday sportives/interesting tours.

Doing the Tour of Wessex again this year and also the Tour of Ireland. These are both multi-day sportives and thought it would be interesting to see if there are other multi-day events out there. After all if you take the trouble to go somewhere to ride a sportive why not do it for several days rather than just ride and come back.

So put a post up on Bike Radar and got some interesting replies.

Here is list to date. I have made a guess as to whether event is a sportive or tour (former meaning lots of riders, timed). All look very interesting and already thinking about 2009 and possible change of 2008 plans to do the Oisans event in July.

Sportives

UK 3 days Tour of Wessex - tourofwessex

UK 2 days Cycle Cairngorns cyclecairngorms

Ireland 4 days Tour of Ireland tourofireland

Italy 6 days Giro delle Dolomiti girodolomiti

Sardinia 7 days Giro Sardinia Giro Sardinia

France 4* days Trophee de L'Oisans bike-oisans (* 4 events spread over 7 days including the Marmotte)

France 2 days Cleremont-Aurillac ctmontferrand

Italy ? days ????? two events start August on this site but no details bicimilano

Tours

USA 7 days Ride the Rockies ridetherockies

USA 7 days Bike tour Colorado bicycletourcolorado

France 4 days Raid Pyreneen bikepyrenees

Italy Tour of Italy 33(!) days bike-dreams

Cardiac Drift - some more...

Found a useful secret in WKO (thanks to Joe Friel blog

http://www2.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2007/08/ironman-uk-power-graph.html

(see comments for instructions)

on how to get WKO to show a measure of cardiac drift. I went back to the cardiac drift test I did a bit earlier and is showed for 30 minutes at 200W my drift is 2.8%.

In other tests 30 mins at 230W showed a drift of 4.6% and 90 mins of varying 160-185W actually showed a negative 2.6% drift.

Interested in this new measure I went back to my time trials last year these showed

H10/3 10mile flat TT (first ever) 325W (NP 328) drift -1.39%

H10/3 10mile flat TT (second ever) 328W (NP331) drift 9.2%

These show in figures what happened in practice. First time out I took things conservatively going out then put power on coming back but still had a bit to spare.

Second time out I pushed too hard in the first half, averaging 337W(NP345) but got knackered. This shows in a drift of 13%. So had to peg back on return averaging only 317W.

H10/3A (rolling with headwind) 10 mile TT 324W(NP 331) drift 10.2% - again got pacing wrong as first ride on the course and did not leave enough for headwind coming back.

HC248 (hilly 24km TT) 304W(NP313) drift 4.6% - first time on an unfamiliar course, so took things conservatively

HCC247 (flattish 25mile TT) 280W(NP 284) drift 3.7% - first (so far only) 25 mile ride which I did at last minute. So again rode conservatively.

So overall interesting how drift measure ties up with how I rode. I guess one measure of fitness is being able to push up your power while keeping drift stable. Will be interesting to see what rides in 2008 will show.

Wi

Powertap flat battery frustration

NRC turbo session last night. Still doing 4 minute intervals on big ring from 7th rear cog down to smallest. Down to 2 and a half minutes rest.

Was planning to try doing these at 290-320W but my Powertap again refused to read the rear hub. Bizarre as was working fine Saturday.

Replacing the batteries sorted the problem out but could only do this once I returned home so no power data for session which is a smidge frustrating...

Training smorgasbord

Responded to a forum question yesterday asking how people dealt with training plans, where planned workout could not happen for one reason or other.

This was something I learned from last years experience. I found that trying to plan a given workout on a given day was both time consuming and pointless. More often than not I did not do the workout and sometimes even when I did some of the fun was taken out because it felt like going back to school.

So this year have adopted a smorgasbord approach. I have a range of workouts suited to the training phase I am in and pick and choose from that according to time, conditions and how I feel. I use WKO and its performance management chart to take care of ensuring my overall training load is on plan.

Today was good example. I had a day off so had planned a middle distance fixed "E3" ride. I got up to find that weather was combination of wind and rain and prospect of slogging round for a few hours outside had little appeal. So instead I stayed indoors and did a highish (for base) M1 session where I ramped up from 230W to 300W over 60 mins. The whole session including warm up/down came in at TSS 115 IF 0.847 (This compares to my last fixed ride that was 2:40 long, with a TSS of 106 and IF 0.647, showing loads comparable, albeit at different intensity )

I felt really good and strong doing the workout and overall am sure it did me more good than slavishly following a rigid plan.

Beware black ice

Bit of a downer on Sunday in more ways than one. Volunteered to share the load and lead some club runs. First was last Sunday and I did a recce ride of the route just before Xmas. (as here:
Ride

Snow was forecast for the week, but never materialised, so went to bed Saturday hoping it would not be wet. Woke up Sunday to lovely blue sky, so rode off with a happy heart to the club run start point, resplendent in purple stegasaurus helmet cover (Xmas pres, see SPAM photos).

Very good turnout, something like 15 or so. However a number of stories re icy roads with some saying they had already had a spill. I did not pay this too much heed until we started out. We had gone no more than 400m or so and a call came up someone had crashed. I was at the front so stopped, then turned to go back and see what had happened.

Or to be more accurate tried to turn, my front wheel went at a 90 degree angle to where it was meant to and I hit the road. This turned out to have a sheet of sheer ice right along it.

I was very surprised as I had cycled along said road earlier and noticed nothing. Think this is a case of ignorance being bliss as not expecting ice I had not noticed it.

Anyway unfortunately we had to change route plans and go via main roads. Nonetheless passed 2 accidents during the ride, in both of which cars had gone off the road. Strangely both were 4x4s.

So bit disappointed plans went awry. Still the route is in the bag ready for another try later, when hopefully weathe will be a bit kinder...

SPAM 2008 - what a difference a year or two makes

(Me above sporting fancy new headgear, a Xmas pressie from Ms Miff, that serves a useful purposed of ensuring I can find my piccies in admist all the others (PS bought the piccies above so will scan in once they arrive))

Well another year has passed. And it ended on a real high when I did the SPAM winter challenge yesterday. This is my bellwether event, despite it being ridden in the UK winter in the wet/cold on a mountain bike, while my preferred choice of ride is on a racing bike in the French summer when it is warm and hot.

The reason for this event's significance lies in history. As mentioned in my previous blog entry I took a new year resolution at the start of 2005 simply to lose weight. I nearly bought a Concept 2 to help with this, realising only just in time that it would be too big to fit into the room intended for it. So I got a Lifecycle instead and never looked back. I lost 2 stone in 2005, getting a whole lot fitter in the process. So as 2005 progressed I started cycling for real, and, as mentioned previously in this blog, came up with the idea of doing the TDF 2006. Come the winter of 2005, I had a goal but that was all.

Starting SPAM - 2006

It was around then I made my first (very naive) visits to Banjo Cycles where a leaflet caught my eye. It was promoting the "SPAM Winter Solstice Challenge" (always just called the SPAM by me). This was to be held in January 2006, with course options of 30 or 50km. As it happened I had been doing some training on (an ancient Decatholon from France) MTB so I thought I would enter as a spur to training and compare myself with other cyclists. I chose the 50km option as it did not seem very far compared to the 150-200km I would have to do in France.

The day of the event came around. I still recall feeling nervous at the start. There were 500 entrants for the 50k and some looked quite fit. However I was quietly confident, after all I had been training all year and was getting quite good on my Lifecycle. I had dreams of coming in ahead of the more experienced riders as I had seen previous year's results with many in the 3-4 hour range. I could do 16kph on a mountain bike easily. So a sub 3 hour time was a possibility. In my more giddy moments I even had visions of coming in first...(well it was just after Xmas when the spirit (well wine and beer at least) had been flowing).

Well they say pride comes before a fall. In my case this was literal. In fact pride came before a number of falls, each leaving me more muddy and dispirited than the last. The weather for the 2006 SPAM was not bad but it was cold with a light drizzle that bound mud to my bike in an icy slushball. I was cold/wet and not going very fast at all. Far from being at the front I was very much near the back, I can recall long periods of riding alone being ever so slightly worried that everyone else may have finished. My old bike did not stand up to the conditions, it became clogged with mud and after a while the shifters stuck so I was effectively in a single gear. Much of the time it took so much effort to pedal it was quicker to get off and walk. I can honestly say it was the hardest event I have ever ridden in.

Still there was a moment of epiphany that I still look back to when I need some cycling strength. At some point in the ride, after what already felt like an age, I reached some marshals who was separating the sheep (following those on the "short" 30km ride) from the 50km mountain biking goats. By this time I was already pretty much at the back of the field. I was asked which route I was following and I said (very wearily I think) 50km. The marshals pointed left, up (another) muddy hill but their faces softened and I was asked very solicitously if I was sure I wanted to go that way. I could instead turn right and downhill to the finish, warmth, hot soup and bananas.

I have to admit I faltered. I thought I was already near the finish. Instead I was only just over half way. I was freezing, my bike was knackered and I was in an even worse state. I could give it all up and head for the finish. No-one would know. I wasnt a member of a club or anything and didn't have anything to prove. That was a crucial test. If I had given up and headed downhill for the finish I dont know if I would ever had started let alone finish my TDF. But I didn't give up, I headed uphill into another 2 1/2 hours of muddy hell.

So I finished SPAM 2006 but only just. I was not in fact last. I finished 466 out of 476 taking 5 1/2 hours. So 10 poor souls were even worse than me! I think they must have finished in the dark. It was all a chastening experience, I realised I had much to do in terms of training. But it also showed me I had the will to persevere if needed and that helped a lot, both in training and events since.

I also had another goal. Finishing the TDF was one thing but the SPAM was unfinished business. It had humilated and almost cracked me. I was not going to let it rest, in Arnie's immortal words "I will be back". (But with a new bike I ditched the Decatholon for a cheap Giant XTC, subsequently upgraded with SRAM gears as the one thing I did not EVER want to happen again was lose the ability to gear change in some muddy field far from home.)

SPAM 2007 - Return and some revenge

So I entered SPAM 2007, which took place almost a year ago. My goals for this event were a bit more modest. To finish better than 2006 (and fall off less). I managed both despite a muddy bath in the first km. I pushed hard all the way round and finished just above halfway down the field in 172nd place out of the 383 who finished. My time of 3:26 was a bit academic as the course was shortened due to bad weather and was more like 40km than 50km. The result left me pretty satisfied and I felt I could hold my head up.

SPAM 2008 - SPAM Surprise

With honour being upheld at the 2007 SPAM I didn't give any thought to the 2008 event. In fact my MTB bike and shoes remained unused and unwashed throughout 2007 as I concentrated on the road, club runs and sportives replacing my MTB rides. I sort of assumed I may do the event but only started to think about it this month, which turned out to be nearly to late as when I checked the SPAM site:

http://www.spambiking.co.uk/index.asp

I found that SPAM 2008 was to be held on 30 December 2007. This was good and bad news. Good news is plenty of time to recover afterwards. Bad is that it meant almost no pretraining and coming right at the end of Xmas week when pud = pounds gained...

I did think if it would be worth entering but then I remembered 2006. If I didn't enter did it mean I was scared? Didn't want to entertain that thought so washed off MTB and shoes and had one run down the canal tow path, pre Xmas. I must say this reminded me of why I liked MTBing so much. Its hard work but fun buzzing around the countryside and maps take on a whole new dimension when you can look for off road shortcuts.

Not being too concerned about doing well I did not let the upcoming SPAM spoil Xmas excess and I ate drank and was merry. Bike and stuff were stuck into the car Saturday night ready for a prompt start and I headed along the now familiar road to Erlestoke. I parked nearby and opened my boot only to find my front tyre was flat and Zen Stone (MP3 player) battery dead. I did an emergency tyre change then headed off to register. I found that the start was not for another 30 mins so whizzed back to the car to charge up my Stone a bit. Made it back to start where I met a couple of guys from Banjo. (One of them was Adam who had taken me out on my first training run back in this mist of time.)

We started off, thankfully not into a muddy field (as happened in January). So no early falls, but there was a steep old hill that I remembered from 2006. Happily I made it up a lot easier and set off. I had no real targets, I had thought about treating the event as an endurance training ride but found my HR following the first climb was much higher so I thought I would just push on. Unbeknown'st to me the course turned out to my liking. After some country sections there was a long road section where I just hunkered down and pedalled. I found that I got overtaken on the country but then overtook back on the road. Anyway I had a great time always just staying on the right side of the red line. I got off and pushed on a couple of hills (simply because it was as fast as riding) but otherwise had a great ride. I didn't fall once, despite some slightly hairy moments. In fact the worse thing that happened was my Stone finally running flat which affected my rhythm a bit. But I made it to the end which came a lot quicker than I expected.

I finished in 2:47, an incredible time and not one I would have thought I was capable of. This left me 102nd out of 336, so now in the top third. Better still its pretty much half the time I did the 2006 event in, put another way I was reaching the real finish of the SPAM 2008 in round about the same time as I met the marshals separating sheep from goats in 2006.

I was pretty elated by this. Especially because though I had pushed quite hard I had never felt on the edge and though a bit tired at the end I felt a lot better (and today feel fine).

PS: My time was good. For me. But the winner did the course in under 2 hours. Respect.

12 months on - 2007 v 2008

It was interesting for me to compare my performances in Jan (SPAM 2007) and Dec (SPAM 2008). Subjectively January was tougher, I trained for the event and gave it my all. However the stats told a different story, as the graphics below show.

In both the yellow section shows HR from 150-170, which is top of my aerobic to sub threshold zone.

2007:

This shows a pretty even split. Overall average is 149bpm, 45% is below 150bpm, 55% above with just a couple of minutes above 170bpm.

2008:

Everything has moved up by 10 bpm. Average is 159 bpm: just 11% is under 150, 79% is in the 150-170 range and 10% (17:15 mins) over 170. The hills at the start kicked my heart into life I kept that going through the road sections. The decline at the end is expected but its only relative to the early portion. Partly its accounted for by me having to slow to fish out food and drink. I also definitely miss my trance music when it stops.

Overall the most surprising thing about the ride, even more than the time, was that with no preparation I set a PB in terms of HR. 163bpm from 1.10 to 157 bpm at 2:56 beat my previous effort on my eyes out Lambourn triangle ride end August. Its some regret that I do not have a Powertap on my mountain bike as I am pretty sure I would have set some power PBs. Maybe next year.....

Weight of my body (and mind)

It being this time of year it seems appropriate to reflect on the progress of my diet. Weight, the mission to shed some, was the route that got me into cycling, kicked off by a New Year 2005 resolution. Back then I was a portly 14 stone plus, I bought myself a top notch exercise bike and some digital scales in Jan 2005 and started pedalling. Progress since then has been pretty good:

(Graph weight in lbs since May 2005 to end Dec 2007, blue line = weight at start of day, red = rolling 3 week average)

Graph above shows how my weight came down steadily through 2005/first half 2006, then stabilising after my TDF.

The graph below shows weight during 2007 remained pretty consistent though with a few ups and downs. The ups came naturally enough around holidays and a business trip to the US. Bizarrely I also came back from my two cycling trips weighing more than when I left. This was not too much of a surprise actually, since the same happened on my TDF, after a hard days riding the temptation to tuck into a good meal is just too much.
My scales also give the option to record a fat%. This can be a bit inconsistent as varies according to the time of day you measure and also if you have just exercise/eaten. I take at the end of each day. Notwithstanding the variances there is quite a clear trend down mirroring my weight loss. The recent trend upwards is puzzling. Not planning to do anything it but will keep an eye on it and see how start of harder training affects it.

Cardiac Drift Test

I decided to try carrying out a cardiac drift test yesterday, to complement the MAPs I have been doing.

Logic is that these should provide an indication of how my aerobic capacity is faring. Given that's the most important for the events I ride makes sense to see if I can check it.

So did a relatively simple test. Set my Lifecycle to Watts, 200W for 40 mins, put on an episode of the Sopranos and pedalled until the credits came up (50mins or so later so got a warm down in as well.). Reason I chose 200W is that it is towards the higher end of my endurance zone of 157W-212W calculated a la Coggan from an FTP of 280W.

Then looked at the HR curve, treating the first 10 mins as a warm up then looking at the next half hour breaking it down into 2 chunks of 15 mins.

Result below (Y axis 110-140bpm):

Shows that in fact took me about 25 mins to get me warmed up then flattened out around 137 bpm (about 75% of my MHR c. 182) So will take out from this:

• My 157W-212W estimate of my endurance zone is in the right area but maybe a little low.
• I should plan to redo the test watching a couple of episodes and see how much my HR changes once I have fully warmed up
• I will try again but in my tempo (213W-254W) zone.

LEL 2009: I am in...

Received an acknowledgement for my LEL 2009 entry. So I'm in, now, as the web site tells me, just another 585 days, 14 hours, 48 minutes and 56 seconds to prepare

HAC4 vs Powertap

Finally sorting out a fixed bike is good news but gives rise to the question of how I log rides in WKO, since natch it has not got any power meter.

However I do have a HAC4 computer, which gives a measure of estimated power based on riders speed, weight and ascent. The manual that comes with the HAC says that this is accurate to +- 20W on climbs and +-40W on the flat.

I thought I would carry out a test to check this out. So yesterday I made two rides along the same 18km course, one with my fixed bike+HAC4 and the other with my Giant winter bike+Powertap.

Both bikes had the same tyres (newly fitted Schwalbe Marathon pluses) and both+me weighed pretty much the same 85kg (which was the weight I entered into the HAC)

The weather was cold but very still, with no wind to speak of.

I chose a course that took me out and back to Kingsclere, the next village. It consists of a short climb just after the start and again just before the finish. (see below). There are no junctions or other reasons to stop on the road so I could make the rides pretty similar. I did the first on the fixed then repeated on the Giant. For the second ride I used a constant gear with the same ration as the 42x18 on my fixed. I used HR to pace, trying to keep second ride same as second, taking both rides easy. The only issue I encountered was that I accidently switched my light on during the first couple of minutes on the fixed, which messed about with the HR until I switched it off.

(Course profile above showing 2 climbs and the rolling middle section.

Once done I downloaded the Powertap file into WKO and exported into a csv file so I could use Excel to compare. The HAC file was loaded into Hactronic, then I used Snagit to save the raw data into a txt file, again to be used in Excel (pain having to do this but don't know of way to save raw data with power).

Results were quite instructive. I managed pretty well in terms of HR as the graph below shows.
(HR comparison, Powertap is red HAC is green) The funny HAC data at the start of the ride can be seen but afterwards the two graphs pretty much track each other, being slightly offset due to differences in ride speeds)

The power readings make interesting viewing:

Here the green HAC line seems to track the red Powertap one quite well through the two climbs but in the middle, rolling, section is much smoother and consistently less than the Powertap. (The smoothing is probably due to the HAC sampling every 20secs rather than 1sec, but this does not account for the difference in outputs.)

In terms of numbers a comparison of the WKO evaluation of the two rides is below:

This confirms I did pretty well in keeping HR constant and also shows how the power measures (Work, TSS, NP and Power) are all 11>25% up when measured by Powertap.

Breaking the ride into sectors explains the difference a bit more:

The climbs show much better correalation between HAC and Powertap in terms of average. (Maxes will always be a problem for the HAC given its sample rate). However the rolling mid section shows the average power is significantly different, in fact pretty much by the 40W HAC say will happen.

I used this to play around with the HAC file. After a bit of trial and error I found that adding an arbitrary 20W on each HAC4 record with a gradient of between 1 and -4% yielded a TSS and average power prettty much the same as the Powertap and the graphs between the two were more alike. Most of my rides will be similar in terms of terrain so will use this as a frig factor for purposes of upload to WKO in future.

Riding Fixed

I finally got around to converting my Langster to a fixed wheel yesterday. This was a bit more complicated than expected, due to me also fitting Schwalbe Marathon Plus 28s so as to do all I could to guarantee that I would not get any punctures. These tyres were just a bit too big for the brakes and so I ditched the latter, since they are (I am told) redundant if you are riding fixed.

I did a cautious first run down the road to Kingsclere and back. After a while I got used to the fixed sensation and found everything bar going down hill good fun. I did a follow up ride on my winter Giant next and noticed I was a lot more aware of the pedalling action. So will continue with a few fixed excursions