NO LOVE HANDLES ALLOWED!

'It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.' Theodore Roosevelt 23 April 1910

Thursday 12 November 2009

Weight Training Hurts

No, not the actual part in the gym, but 36 hours later. I know I'm not getting any younger but these sessions are taking longer than I expected to recover from. I assume that means they are doing some good?
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Saturday 7 November 2009

Season Prep is Over ...

... it's time for the training to begin. I did my FTP test this morning and am very happy with the results; higher than when I did my first test of 2009 and only 10 watts down on my peak in July (although I may have peaked higher in September had I done another test). So, the benchmark stats are:

Weight 11 stone 11 pounds (75kg)
Max HR 187
FTP 290 Tacx Watts

I watched the Wales V New Zealand rugby this afternoon. Awesome. What a match. No, absolutely nothing to do with the game itself, but the stunning quality of my new toy:
Yes, 42 inches of Panasonic plasma HD quality. The step-up in quality from our previous TV is just unbelievable.
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Thursday 5 November 2009

Max HR Test

It wasn't planned, but 60 minutes on a gym bike is not the most stimulating of sessions and so I started playing games on the bike, you know the sort of thing, max cadence for x seconds, how fast can I do a mile in etc etc. And then the thought came to me - what is my max HR? I'm 46 now so the outdated and hopelessly inaccurate "220 - your age" formula suggests my max HR should be about 174. To cut a long story short, I peaked at 187. Twice. So I guess the old ticker is in pretty good shape. Recovery was swift too. Saturday morning will be the FTP test and then I will have all of my beginning of year stats recorded. Then it will be time for the real work to begin.

Train smart folks.
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Weight Training? Yes or No?

There are plenty of on-line forums discussing the merits of weight training for cyclists; so what do you think? Do you weight train your legs? If so, do you do it all year round or only as part of a winter training regime? And what exercises do you do? If you don't weight train, why not?
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Sunday 1 November 2009

An Auspicious Start

OK, OK, I know I said that I would be out come rain or shine but I wasn't quite prepared for rain, wind and very poor visibility. Consequently, discretion was the better part of valour and I hit the turbo, not a long or particularly intense session and I used it to tweak the gears and get the bike riding smoothly. After its winter overhaul the turbo bike is noticably smoother; I upgraded from Sora 8-speed to Ultegra 9-speed with a Dura-Ace Octalink bottom bracket and it has made a noticeable difference. And all for minimal cost, as these parts were all just lieing around the garage.

As promised I weighed myself this morning; starting weight is 11 stone 11 pounds (75kg) and target weight is 11 stone 4 pounds (71.8kg) or less. I am much further forward than at the beginning of this season where I was weighing 12 stone 6 pounds in early March. Target FTP is 330 watts; we'll see what the stats say on that subject later this week.

Train smart folks.
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