It’s getting lighter and warmer!

At last! The terrible winter appears to be fading in favour of some (relative!) warmth and lightness! It’s the start of a good season…i hope!

After my outing a few weeks back in horrendous rain, the hub on the back wheel on my winter bike seems to be a little worse for wear. A quick strip down and new bearings should do the trick, but it was all too much for me the weekend before last when I didn’t realise until the afternoon before I was due to go out with the guys.

A quick switch about with wheels, tyres and cassettes and I had the ‘training wheels’ off my Giant on the specialized; a set of Mavic CXP22s. They’re not great wheels, but a lot nicer than the horrible Alex Rims that came on it to start with.

The ride was a good one, covering 55 miles at an average of 17.4mph. I was actually quite surprised as the headwind was chronic for the majority of it. The weather was great otherwise and it was just fantastic to be able to get out and not fear death from cold!

So anyway, next weekend the clocks change in favour of giving us an extra hour of light in the evening – hurray! That means I can start to fade the turbo sessions out a little and actually get some decent road miles in. The guys at work apparently go out every Thursday night and do hill climbs and naturally I will be joining them.

I will also try and get an outing in on Tuesday, probably to do some drill work on the flat and it may even be time to break out the summer bike (and try out my new wheels!).

4 weeks till the first Sportive of the year (the Wiggle New Forest ride) which is 83 miles albeit it on a yet unknown terrain! I need to do well in that, just for a start of the season moral boost.

Let’s wait and see….

Ventoux on the Turbo

I’ve got a DVD showing the climb of Ventoux (on a bike!) which is great for the turbo. Anything more than an hour on the turbo looking on the wall is stupidly tedious.

I say the DVD is great but what I actually mean is that it’s hell. It’s an 1:45 long, with the first 30 being the approach (level 3 of 6 – a nice warm up) and the remaining 1:15 being a full on relentless climb. The first 45 minutes of the climb are at full tilt (6 out of 6), a serious grind; it’s a real killer. It then eases off slightly for a couple of minutes before returning to a good climb (5 out of 6).

I did the full climb last night, just a couple of days after a heavy leg session in the gym and it was a real slog.

I don’t collect stats off my Tacx computer at the end (averages) but do monitor them whilst riding:

Avg HR: 164
Max HR: 177
Climbing Cadence: 70-80rpm
Sustained Power Output: 200w

My power output was a little lower than it maybe could have been, as I was pushing out 230w at some points but i wanted to try and get a good sustainable pace going. by the end of the climb, my HR was sitting at about 172, which is quite high (but also a zone that i can hold for long periods).

I would like to improve to the point where I can sustain the 200w for the duration, but also reduce my HR into the 160s. It’s tough when I know that my bike needs a service and my back wheel isn’t very true. There’s a lot of potential causes for fluctuation in readings…

I’m pretty sure I’m pushing the same power as last time I did the full climb (November?) but am a good 4kg lighter, which has to be a good thing!

It’s been a while….

It appears that my first attempt at keeping a blog or training activities has failed miserably, as I’ve not actually posted anything new since November 2009!

That’s 4 months of training that haven’t been documented! Having said that, there’s been quite a few weeks that were heavily disrupted by snow and breaks.

In reality I don’t know how succesful my my training has been this far. At the beginning of this training season (October) I never set myself any benchmarks, which is something I really regret. It was so often that I read about how important it is to do a series of tests each month, in order to track progress. Sadly I didn’t do that, so now I am left in the dark.

The trouble is that I’m doing a lot of indoor training and only getting out on the winter bike (Specialized Allez Sport). Naturally, that is slightly less performant than my race bike, so doesn’t feel quite as good. I also fail to account for the fact that it’s cold, windy, wet and slow out there, so often come back feeling a little less than satisfied with my performance. Nonetheless I continue to train.

I’m still doing strength and length sessions in the gym 4 mornings a week, followed by at least 4 evening sessions on the turbo (or an outdoor session if the weather is suitable). I’ve got no issue with going out in bad weather, but for an hour of intense training, it really doesn’t work well. On the plus side, I’m soon getting rid of a major responsibility, which takes up a lot of my time in the evening, so my training time can start to slope up. It’s been a limiting factor up to now…

For my records :-
Parallel Squats : 60kg (+bar) – 8-12 reps – 3 sets
Calve raises: 70kg – 10-12 reps – 3 sets
Deadlifts: 30kg (all the weight I can get on the bar) – 12 reps – 3 sets
Stepdowns: BW+10kg – 12 reps – 3 sets
Gym ball hamstring thrusts: 12 reps – 3 sets

Current weight: 73kg (down 4kg from November!)

Average weekly training time :-
Gym: 3 hours
Turbo: 4 hours
Roads: 3-4 hours
Total: 10-11 hours

It’s time to start picking it up! I’m aiming for at least 8 hours a week on the road in April.