2 day 1 day + more

Sunday - - - - - -- - - - - - - - -- - - Saturday - - - - - -- - - - - - - - -- - - Friday

The training over the last 3 days has been a bit of an experiment in restraint, boredom and trying to read, on a static trainer with the fan blowing in your face. The first 2 days were done at a relaxed pace and output with my HR average of 125ish (259W 1h 35m), 128 (262W 1h 46m) and 136 (282W 1h 42m) with todays session including 30min at 350W (155bpm avg).

The first 2 days were at an easy enough pace and generally felt quite good at the end of each session as they were just above recovery zone, although I did the majority of it at a lower cadence. Todays session I felt quite good and after half an hour I thought I'd increase to sub threashold power and see how my HR responded, backing off when it was getting close to going over 160bpm.

Will be interesting to see how I feel during tomorrow nights session (providing I get the time).

Conclusion - more of the same in my plan.

Good start to the winter ?

The combination of yesterdays session and tonights left me feeling quite good (new 5 sec max)and very hopefull for next years results with the only big issue being time. My commute to the station has changed a little from the sprint sessions to one of a little more moderation but higher gears for the hills. The moderation is a partial attempt to prevent myself from catching a cold (chilled lungs in a sweaty train is not good) and to get in some strength training instead. The direction to the station is more downhill than up and that provides 2 climbs to navigate, although the first is outside the door and not too good to start off on. Comming home is a lot better as I put it into top and then wind up the hill on return, which provides something like a 20 second all out blast on the legs at 60-70rpm.

The other strategy, which I have been thinking about is the development of fast twitch vs slow twitch and the "genetic" bias which seems to exist and the theories about the difficulties in trying to get fast twich fibers to develop. My thought is around a different in training style for strength which does not involve slow strenght actions.

Leg presses are good for strength but they would only develop slow twitch fibers because the time for the leg extension, when compared to a pedal revolution is much, much slower. The other option is to train on the bike, but, instead of changing up a few gears and slowing to 60rpm why not effectively do an all out 10-20 second effort at 100-120rpm ? After all, if your training for sprinting then why not effectively sprint train ? That said the efforts should stop well before your HR gets up too far as all your after doing is getting fast high power cadence in.

This is the combination that I'm going to apply this winter for my strength build combining some high spin high power with the slow hill commutes and see how this works out.

10 mile TT test 22:23 at 379W

Was going great guns, up until just after 7 minutes when the half litre I drank 15 minutes ago started to threaten a return and backed off. Up until that point I averaged 415W but my heart rate had crept upto 174bpm. After a brief easing off for a few seconds I pushed on at a lower pace (366W) to cap my HR but that droped the wattage average down to 397W by the 11min mark and the drink was still not settling. After 25 seconds at 250W I upped the pace again to around 364W and finished off the distance, which dropped the average down, still at least it was above my 25 mile pace so have not lost too much so far.

Weekly total 4h 3m

Not a great start so far for the week, although a stready increase in TSS for each session to 78.9 today at a very relaxed IF of 0.66. Distance was 86 imagic miles as it was all on the trainer spread across 3 sessions.

Winter training starts with a whimper

Well, after having the best part of a month off the bike I certainly noticed it as all those odd bottles of wine, chocolate and cakes cought up. In terms of fitness it has not dropped off a cliff but it is certainly noticeble as to what you loose after a few weeks of treating your body like s**t. For my next years training I need to get into a more balanced regime, which does not involve vegitating in front of the TV, rather sleeping instead as this will go some way to remaining health.

Tube and train travel in London seems to be a strange place in winter as hoards of people insist on dragging themselves into work coughing and spluttering all over. Thoughts on this are to keep my immune system as topped up as possible without reaching for the vitamins until required. From a training and balance perspective this also means base is base training, no mad moments on the club runs and lots of sleep so that I'm in great shape for late March before winding things up.

Goals for the winter are to get out for at least 6 hours at the weekends and include indoor trainer sessions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday towards the back end of winter. This should give me a block of 4 days volume and a weekly total of around 10-12 hours of quality riding. With this volume, based at the right intensity, I figure that it should be enough to get me where I want to be by around May/June, which is in the >400W category. 1st race will be mine.


Finally got around to putting a new chain on, although I still need to give the bike a bit more of a clean and sat on the trainer for half an hour easy spin. Next real job is to get the sterio moved in and update the music tracks, then I'm all set for a stready build.

My ergomo battery finally gave up the ghost and cyclepowermeters were very quick to exchange the unit out, arriving the next day, which is a rare level of customer service these days. For my next bike (2008 purchase) a power meter will be a must adn they will be top of the list.