Turbo Man's Fitness Blog: Last Hard Session Before The Outlaw

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

Sunday 1 August 2010

Last Hard Session Before The Outlaw

This morning it was time for the last hard session before The Outlaw next Sunday. After some discussion on the RAF Cycling forum I decided that a 50 mile turbo TT was in order, and that as there is no opportunity to warm up on the bike prior to a triathlon relay bike leg, I decided to use the warm up protocol as suggested by the RAF Cycling Head Coach, Dave Green.

So, after taking the dog for a walk along the beach, and without breakfast, I climbed on the bike armed with nothing more than 2 litres of water and a single Trek bar. The warm up protocol is essentially a steady increase in effort over the first 15 minutes or so until you are at your target race (or in this case test) pace. The warm up went well and after 20 or so minutes I settled in at a steady 44kmh. I had a plan to eat, drink and stand up for short periods to keep things comfortable but after 40 or so minutes the sweat was making things a little uncomfortable. At this point I was not confident I would complete the test but I persevered and after 80 minutes I changed up a gear and reduced the cadence to about 85rpm; speed was around 46kmh and I was feeling much more comfortable. Breathing was under control, HR was in the low 160s, power was good and my legs were feeling strong. I'd already decided that with 16km to go I would treat it as a 10 mile TT and push hard towards the end and I was glad that my legs were up to the job.

Despite the slow start I hit 80km in 1.49.15 and am thoroughly delighted with that. Average power was 10% lower than than my FTP and ave HR was about 85% of max, so a little higher than I would want to ride over 112 miles, but then I'm not anticipating riding at 43.9kmh!

So that's it, I have done all the hard training I intend to do before next Sunday's race, although there is one turbo session to be done on Wednesday night to remind the legs what to expect. I will now have 2 very easy days to allow my legs to recover from today's effort, Wednesday's turbo session and then easy days on Thursday and Friday. Saturday I'm travelling to Nottingham so will be a rest day and then Sunday is my personal D-Day. I feel in good condition and certainly better prepared than I have ever been before. So here's hoping for a good race.

I'm off to check how my buddies are doing at IMUK and IM Regensburg. All the best.

1 comment:

Cavegirl said...: Bring it on, I do my test set for swimming tomorrow - 1.9 k tt, fingers crossed.

Wonder how's Si's doing with his running?; 1 August 2010 at 18:44