I got a new gadget!

It's the Mavic Ultimate bike computer and I must say I'm quite impressed. This is an example of the data it can give me post-ride so that I can review it at my leisure. I haven't set up all the parameters yet but we will get there.

The Long Rides Are Getting Longer ...

A great ride this morning. I had to ride Sunday rather than Saturday this week as my daughter had dance exams on Saturday. It was great to go along and watch her dance; the confidence they have to stand up and perform in front of a crowd is just amazing. Some of the kids were just awesome dancers as well.

Anyway, back to cycling. The weather forecast for Sunday earlier in the week had been rubbish, but today it was mild and we stayed dry, although the wind did pick towards the end it never seemed to reach the forecast 15mph. I wore normal cycle mitts for the first time this year and my fingers didn't fall off - Spring is definitely here. It was a tough route; over Portsdown Hill and onto the Southern Sportive route including the climb past Ditcham Park School before cutting off the top of the sportive route and going through East Meon and up the side of Old Winchester Hill before heading home. It was a really enjoyable ride and as a group of 4 there was plenty of chance to chat and let the miles roll by. The P*ncture Fairy paid me a visit but I was the only one in the group to suffer from that today. Overall, a 4 hour 20 min ride and 110km covered. I rode with a HR monitor for the first time in years and look forward to analysing the detail from the ride (when I can work out how to get the computer off the bike!).

This finished off another good week. 9 hours 25 minutes of training including 270km on the bike; my average weekly bike mileage is now 186km/116 miles. I'm still tweaking my training programme to include lessons learned from the changes I've made to my lifestyle of late, and once this settles down I will let you know.

Train smart folks.

Friday

Typhoid jab... :-(

2 (yes 2) visits to the dentist... :-(

No training (see above)... :-(

Boys home for Easter... :-)

New saddle (white Specialized Toupe) arrived... :-)

Got a great deal on a Mavic Ultimate USB bike computer... :-)

Week 12 of my 2010 Season

and I've just broke through the 2000km of cycling barrier.

As an aside, I was looking for a picture for this post and put 'old man cycling' into the Google images search engine - and there was a picture of me! WTF???

Another Long Ride, Another Soaking

And - ssshhhh - you know who paid us a visit.

Out with Coastal Controller for another long ride today and the weather forecast was spot on. It wasn't too cold but it was very windy and we got soaked to the skin, and not for the first time this year. How wet was it? Well both our bike computers gave up. So the stats for today's ride are just estimates; I clocked 3 hours 35 riding time and about 90kms. I was out for over 4 hours but the P*ncture Fairy paid Jonny a visit and after changing the inner tube we had to stop a couple more times to top it up with air - it seemed to still be leaking but not actually going flat. Strange. We also had to stop to strip off after about 30 mins as it was much warmer than we had anticipated.

The route we chose today was a challenging one, incorporating the first hour or so of the Southdowns Sportive route around Southwick, but of course to get there we have to ride for about 45 mins, including going over Portsdown Hill. Overall, a really enjoyable ride, despite the weather and 'issues'.

When I got home there was a phone call from the LBS telling me my Litespeed was ready for collection - FANTASTIC. I duly raced down and collected it and it looks great (I will get some pictures when the weather brightens up a bit). The only downside is that they were unable to fix the freehub and said it needed to go to a Mavic Service Centre. There are a couple of Mavic approved workshops nearby so I need to get the wheel to one of them asap.

A quick review of my training diary shows that my average training hours per week is now over 7 and the bike mileage is over 110 miles per week. The weight is dropping and I'm feeling good.

Train smart folks.

Excited and Motivated

I ditched my planned turbo session tonight. Doesn't sound like I'm very excited or motivated but I am. The reason I ditched my session was because I wanted to work on my Litespeed and get it sufficiently bolted together so that I can take it to the bike shop this weekend for final cabling and setting up. I fitted new tyres and inner tubes, bottom bracket, chainset, front and rear mechs, brakes, and adjusted the saddle so its roughly in the right place. The bike is looking really sweet and I am so looking forward to riding it this year. The first event will be 83 miles of the New Forest Spring Sportive on 18 April but I need to get out for a couple of shakedown rides on it beforehand to check the set up etc. And being a weight weenie I will weigh the bike when it's finished; in theory it should be comfortably under 17 pounds. And take some photos of course.

To take advantage of a lightweight bike you need to be a lightweight yourself, and I'm glad to say that I'm making really good progress in this respect. I will provide a detailed report of how I've achieved this in due course.

Train smart folks; spring is just about here.

What a Great Week!

Sometimes you just know that you have had a good week of training. It may be the volume, it may be the quality, but you just know that you have hit all of your targets for that week and the training is now 'in the bank'. Well for me, this week was one of those weeks. I usually overload my programme and work on the assumption that I will lose 2 or 3 sessions per week (sometimes more) due to work or family commitments, but this week I made every session (with some adaptations to allow for fatigue). So the volume was good and the quality was good - RESULT!

In plain terms it means I have clocked up over 13 hours of training and 333km (206 miles in 'old money') on the bike; there have been lots of low intensity miles but also 2 good quality turbo sessions. I have continued rowing and my pace has steadily increased in recent weeks and this week included some 75 minutes of rowing as well as a stretch and flex session that I have neglected in recent weeks. I also bagged a long road ride with Coastal Controller (thanks Jonny), notching up over 3 hours and 80kms on a very pleasant Saturday morning; surely it can't be long until shorts and t-shirts are the order of the day? It's amazing what confidence a good training week gives you, and a few other changes in my life have also seen me lose 3 pounds of lard this week and am now within just a handful of lbs of my 2010 target race weight.

One of the sessions I adapted was this morning's turbo session; I had planned to do an hour at 38kmh (Challenge Barcelona target race pace) and take the average HR and see how this reduces through the summer. However, there was some fatigue in my legs this morning so instead of overloading them with another hard session I decided to build gradually and then only do 10 mins at 38kmh. I picked a gear and went up one gear every 10 minutes and at 50 minutes I was at 38kmh and maintained that through to the hour point; the HR was stable at 151 (give or take a beat) or 81% of max HR. I'm very pleased with this as a starting point and hopefully with fitness gains over the next 6 months I can reduce this by a few beats; ideally I would like to get this figure close to 140 but have no idea if this is possible in 6 months.

I've also made arrangements for my Litespeed to receive the TLC it deserves at the local bike shop and it should be ready in plenty of time for the New Forest Spring Sportive next month (18 April to be precise). I am so looking forward to riding this bike again after a long winter on gym, turbo and training bikes.

2010 is shaping up to be a very good year on a number of levels; I hope yours is going as well as mine. Train smart.

Cadence

I promised you something on cadence some time ago, and here it is. Nothing earth shattering and no panacea for any cycling woes you may have. But hopefully it will give you some food for thought and maybe try something different and see what happens.

There has been much debate on any number of cycling forums about what is the correct pedalling cadence. The truth is, there is no specific cadence that will be right for everybody, you just have to work it out for yourself. Based on my limited knowledge of physiology I believe that if you have skinny legs but big lungs then you can spin a faster cadence, but if you are big and powerful then a slower cadence may suit you better. A bit like Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich; both excellent time triallists and usually finishing within a few seconds of each other but their pedalling cadences were vastly different. Armstrong with his large lung capacity spinning away against the powerful legs of Ullrich pushing a big gear. The results were very close but the journey was significantly different. So why have I joined the debate? Recently, a friend mentioned that their coach of the time had said that Chrissie Wellington (CW) had won the Kona IM World Champs at an average cadence of 66rpm. Blimey, I thought, that is very low. The next time I was on the turbo I put the bike in the biggest gear (53 x 12) and pedalled at 66rpm. 35.8kmh. Mmmm, CW averaged just under 38kmh at Kona so if the claim was true she must have been pushing a 53 x 11 all the way round. Now take in to consideration the CW herself described the wind on the return leg as 'brutal' and you begin to see the tale unravelling. So I hit the internet and, unsurprisingly, Slowtwitch came up with a whole thread on the subject of CW's cadence at Kona. Blimey (again!), is it really such a hot topic? Anyway, after reading a number of posts arguing high v low cadence and CW this v CW that, the truth came out. No-one knew what CW's average cadence at Kona was for the very simple reason that she didn't have a cadence meter on her bike! I guess when you do as many miles as CW you just 'know' what is right. I was concerned, though, that a professional coach would use such a quote without first checking its validity, but hey ho, who am I to question such things.

So where do I stand on the cadence debate? If you have a turbo trainer it can be very useful to experiment with different cadences and see how each feels. Use a power meter, HRM or any other measuring device to see how you are feeling actually impacts on performance. For example, I found that my HR dropped by a few beats if I put the bike in a gear and span at my usual cadence (about 92/93 rpm) but then shifted up one (harder) gear and let the cadence drop until the speed matched the previous gear. Not very scientific but these are the sort of things you can do on a turbo. Occasionally I shut my eyes (this one is best done only on the turbo!) and spin for a few minutes seeking that 'sweet spot' feeling. When I find it I open my eyes and check the cadence; I'm not usually surprised. I do know, though, from experience, that if my cadence drops significantly (and by that I mean low 80s or lower) then my power drops away very quickly. This is the main reason why I have a compact chainset on my road bike as it allows me to maintain my cadence up all but the very steepest of hills without wearing my legs out too much. Yes, I can drag my sorry a** up a steep hill using a 53/39 chainset with a 12-23 cassette but at the top my legs are much fresher using a compact and I can push on over the top, rather than having to spend a few minutes recovering.

So there are my unscientific thoughts on the cadence debate. I'm interested in the views of others, especially those who use much lower cadences than 'the norm'.

Another Week Goes By

on the journey towards my 2 Ironman distance relay races. As mentioned in my previous post, this week has been compromised by work commitments that had me travelling and stuck in a lecture room for 2 days. And then on Friday we went round to friends for dinner and had a most enjoyable and relaxing evening. Unfortunately I was not very 'alcohol aware' and and overdid the red wine and woke up with a raging hangover and was somewhat ill. I also did something I haven't done for a very long time and stayed in bed until 4.30pm. I then managed a one hour walk with the dog before hitting the sofa again.

What I'm leading up to is that once again a week has gone by with a few good sessions but nowhere near the volume I want. I was up bright and early this morning for a ride with Coastal Controller; fortunately he was better prepared today and we manged a little over 2 hours together, and I clocked up 2:43 by the time I got home. On the positive side, we didn't get wet today, on the minus side it was chuffing cold, with frozen rivers of ice across otherwise clear roads. I lost the feeling in my toes after about an hour but a long soak in a hot bath when I got home made it all worthwhile. What another low volume week means, though, is that my average cycle mileage this year has just dropped under 100 miles per week.

Here's hoping the weather warms up soon. Train smart folks.

Just when things were going so well...

...no, I haven't got man flu again unlike a few fellow bloggers. But today i had one of those 'workshop' events that required an early start and 90 minutes down a busy motorway. Then 8 hours in a room with a working lunch consisting entirely of sandwiches, wraps, pizza and pastry, and then 90 minutes home down a busy motorway. The workshop itself was worthwhile but nutritionally it was a disaster and I ended the day thoroughly knackered, dehydrated, no exercise and having consumed vast amouts of calories via carbs. All in all, a pants training day.

Things can only get better...