Back on the bike.

I've been away from the bike for a few months over winter and I'm certainly paying for it! It's very easy to kid yourself into thinking that you can hold onto some fitness and it won't be that difficult to get back to where you were, but reality soon hits hard when you start riding again after a long break. This week I've ridden on four occasions totalling around 7 hours. The first ride, of 36 miles, left me with the knock at around 25 miles and an average speed of 16.2 mph. The second and third rides were better, in that I managed to avoid bonking, but my power output was feeble!
I realise that I've got to get some miles under my belt, but I also want to try and rebuild some of the power that I've lost, so I did half an hour of hill reps (1 mile steady incline) on Wednesday.
I'm miles away from any sort of form, but even so, I already feel stronger and that in itself is great motivation.
I've also set myself some racing goals towards the end of June / July; with that target in mind I can begin to rebuild some form. In addition to this I've decided to change the club that I belong to. I have been  a member of Lyme RC for about 5 years now. Unfortunately, there is little interest in road racing within the club and despite regular posts encouraging club members to try road racing I was on my own for most of 2012. I want to be able to train and race with friends, so have decided to join Newcastle 2001 racing club. I'm excited about cycling again and that makes all the difference.

Training update

 

I've been putting off using the turbo for weeks now, but the hurricane that seems to be blowing outside has forced me to man up and face the beast! I never mind using the rollers, as they're so much more enjoyable. The turbo however hurts.

Tonight's session was aimed at increasing my power. I've been doing plenty of 'tempo' riding at just below what I estimate to be my threshold and I'm conscious of the fact that my power output isn't good enough. I haven't got an accurate method for measuring my power output, but I'm aware that this ingredient isn't currently present in any of my training. After a ten minute warm up, my turbo session consisted of working up the rear cassette from the 53/23 to 53/12 at intervals of 2 minutes long with a 2 minute recovery. As you can see I only really pushed myself during the last 3 intervals, and even these weren't at 100% effort. This was intentional. I intend to build these sessions up over the next few months. Firstly by increasing the effort, then the number of intervals (I'll come back down the cassette), and finally I'll gradually begin to reduce the recovery time. I only plan on doing one of these sessions per week with at least a day to recover before doing the tempo ride.

So, I'll be doing 2 tempo rides of around an hour or so each, this interval session (1 hour) and two steadier rides if possible of 2-3 hours. Not a huge amount of training, but hopefully effective use of time.

 

Tempo riding

A couple of years ago a club mate of mine asked if I wanted to train with him through the winter. He was a decent TT rider and so I saw it as an opportunity not to be missed. The plan was that we'd meet up on a wednesday night and do what he called a 'tempo' ride. At this time I'd never heard that phrase before, but from what my friend told me this would be a ride at a pace that was just the wrong side of comfortable.
    For the first few weeks I was only able to survive these rides by sitting in behind the (not too inconsiderable) bulk of my mate. In fact, for much of the 40 mile ride I seemed to be at what I now know was close to my threshold. As the winter progressed, I was increasingly able to do the odd turn on the front and sitting behind was considerably easier and gave me chance to receover from stints on the front. These rides really did bring me on.
    Looking back, I now realise that those rides pushed up my functional threshold and made me stronger. However, even though they may have been 'tempo' rides for him they weren't for me. In actual fact they were more like interval sessions for me, with every hill sending me way into the red.     
     So, to the point of this post! As my friend has now hung up his wheels and I'm not keen on riding around alone in the dark, I've been trying to drum up interest amongst my club members. The plan is to get out for regular evening rides with the aim of maintaining or improving fitness ready for next year's racing. I've had around half a dozen interested guys who've been in touch. During discussions with some of these fellas the word 'tempo' has been mentioned. Clearly, from my previous experience, one man's 'tempo' speed can be another man's threshold, or another man's endurance ride. In fact, yesterday evening myself and one other rider did a 30 odd mile ride, which for me started at a 'just the wrong side of comfortable' (AKA) tempo pace. Within a few miles though my companion asked me to ease up, as he was struggling with the pace. We completed the ride at a slower pace. I can't help feeling that I didn't really benefit from the ride.
     As I said in my previous post about my data, I feel if anything I need to have at least one hard ride in the week. I'm therefore reluctant to 'waste' training opportunities by riding along at someone elses 'tempo'. On the other hand, the alternative is riding alone in the dark - more dangerous, and without the commitment of having to meet someone, I can see motivation being an issue. So, as always I have more questions than answers! Maybe, when I've achieved something in cycle racing I'll have some answers...

A plan for next year

One thing is certain, I'd like to be a better cyclist next year. With this in mind the wisps of a training plan are beginning to coalesce. I know what I need to do to ride my bike faster. That's the easy bit really. The difficult bit; the bit that's not yet clear in my mind is exactly what I want to achieve next year. To clarify, my dilemma is whether to enter one off TLI or LVRC races, or to actually try to progress through the British Cycling ranks from 4th cat upwards.
     If I was still in the bloom of youth, then the decision would be an easy one, obviously it'd be the BC route. At my age though I do wonder whether there's any point to me going down this route. How far could I realistically progress?
     Maybe I'm looking at things wrong. Maybe I should be simply aim to make some progress and see that as a goal in itself? After all the down side of entering one off races is that effectively each race start would be like being back at square one. There'd be no measureable progress.
    I think that the question I need to find an answer to is whether I'm racing for the pure enjoyment of racing, or whether I want more of a long term goal.

Repurcussions

Sitting here in my little bubble, typing away random train of thought stuff, it's easy to forget the responsibility that comes with blogging. Not the heavy, bringing kids up, type responsibility, but rather the responsibility to get things right.
I'm referring to my previous post regarding the fall of Lance. Clearly, (following the comments that I've received about the post), I was airing, what I'm now aware was, a naive opinion. Like most people with an opinion, I don't know the big picture. Yet another lesson learned - get your facts right!

Thanks for reading - I hope that future posts contain more substance!

Data, what does it all mean?

As promised here's the data from my last few months of training (see images below).

I've downloaded this as and when I've ridden, but to be honest I can't say that I've ever really 'analysed' it. In fact I've barely looked at it!

The thing that struck me when I did look at this data was simply the lack of time spent on the bike. 16 hours a month just isn't enough, and that's my best month! 8 hours in June...no wonder I struggled! The bizarre thing is, I actually felt during these months that I was getting plenty of training in.

The second thing that jumps out at me immediately is the lack of high intensity 'speed' training. That's not to say I didn't do any HIT training, a handful of these rides were hill repeats, but these weren't done regularly enough I don't feel. I also think that during these summer months I should have been doing more, faster rides. The fastest ride that I did was the 25mph ride (circled) and this was in a race. Looking at this now it seems blindingly obvious that if I'm going to race successfully, I need to be riding at this speed more often. I clearly need to race more!

My training doesn't seem to have any direction. It's been a case of get out on the bike when I can and when I have ridden there's not been a specific aim to the ride.

So, what to do now?

Well, I think that I'm going to have to keep a diary, a written one, not the garmin connect downloads. Hopefully, if the weekly hours are down on paper I'll know whether I'm meeting my hourly targets. Of course that raises the question, what should my hourly targets be? A comment made by one of my club members comes to mind now...'training to train'. What he means is getting into the routine of training. So, over the months running up to Christmas, I want to get into a routine of training for 6 hours a week. If this is managable, then maybe I can up the hours during spring.
The next thing that I need to do is give my training some direction. There has to be more 'speed' training. I'm hoping that the chaingang rides that I'm trying to organise will help with this. In addition to these I also want to do one strength training session per week. Finally, I want to do one long base training ride over winter at least 3 hours at around 18mph - which is what almost all of this years training has been.

I'll try to map this out on a spreadsheet and then upload it. Like managing any project this will of course need monitoring and reviewing. Fortunately, I think that this is exactly the right time of year to get organised. If I feel it needs tweeking then there should be plenty of time before the racing starts.

Of course I could probably pay a coach to do all this, but, hell this is meant to be fun... and also at the moment I've only got myself to let down, employing a coach would be too much pressure!

Race training around North staffs

Folks, I'm sorry to hijack my own blog with a balatant bit of advertising, but needs must!

I'm trying to organise regular training rides starting in the Newcastle-under-Lyme area, with the specific aim of getting riders fit for racing next year (not least of all me!!).

If you're keen to do this details are available on the Lyme racing club forum under the threads 'tempo rides for beginners' or 'Thinking of doing some races next year'
Link: http://www.lymeracingclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4761

Please get in touch if you're up for it.