Stats

An interesting stat (or maybe not!), in the whole of 2009 I managed 197 hours and 46 minutes of cycling. So far in 2010 I have managed 208 hours 55 minutes and I still have 9 weeks of the season to go. See, I said it was interesting. :-)

Some great performances at IMs Bolton and Regensburg today. Well done to all.

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.

Planet X Superlight Pro Carbon

At last, I managed to take my Planet X out for my first ride on it today. Only a quick blast covering 22.5km in 40 minutes but it was enough for me to find out that it is a very smooth ride, despite only wearing bottom of the range Shimano R500 wheels. It will be much more responsive and quicker when the Ksyriums go on. It's not massively stiff which means it is more suited to sportive type events which is exactly the type of riding I'm planning to do on it. It was a real bargain so I'm very happy.

Now where did I put the ...

It's almost August and I'm only just preparing for my first race of the year. I've done a few sportives that are fairly relaxed affairs but next week is The Outlaw long distance (for that read Ironman distance) event, a proper race if you like. And it's not just me I have to be responsible for either; as part of a relay team there are 2 team mates that mean I need to prepare properly and do the best I can on the day. It's also a practice run for my main event of the year, the Challenge Barcelona relay in October. I have therefore spent the past few days trying to find all the essential kit I will need, and buying bits and bobs to ensure I have everything. The obvious things: nutrition bars and gels, puncture repair kit and spare tub. And the not so obvious: the disk wheel adaptor for the gas cannister and essential 3rd hand (a cut down wine cork!), pliers (to ensure the valve extension is on tight - the front wheel needs an extension the disk doesn't, so the spare tub extension is only on finger tight) etc. And then there's the need to consider the weather; arm warmers, leg warmers, gloves and/or mitts. Where are they all? And then I had to fit the new visor to my aero helmet. Not too difficult and its another job ticked off and I can now ride without sunglasses which helps with my vision when down on the tribars.

I'm actually really looking forward to the race and hoping our team can put in a good performance and maybe even beat the RAF relay team's time from Barcelona last year - 9:54:36. Looking at the courses I suspect the Outlaw swim to be a faster course, although a 1000 athlete mass start will probably mean the MOPers and BOPers to be slower due to congestion. The Outlaw bike course has a lot more climbing than the Barcelona course (but let's be honest, the average flyover over the A1 has more climbing than the Barcelona course) and so should be slower. I managed 5:17:43 for the bike at Barcelona last year although I suffered from poor pacing and nutrition and had a very painful and slow period from about mile 85 to mile 100. The runs on both courses are flat so should be about equal for pace. I doubt that Nottingham will get close to the temperature we experienced in Barca last year, so that should be much more comfortable and make it less likely to suffer from dehydration issues. Will we beat 9:54:36? I actually believe we will. By how much? I don't know, perhaps 15 to 20 minutes, maybe 25. We shall see.

There are a number of RAF athletes racing so best of luck to you all.

Le Tour

How good is Mark Cavendish? I've thoroughly enjoyed Le Tour de France 2010 and to see Cav win so brilliantly on the Champs Elysees today was fantastic. The camera angle was brilliant, running alongside Hushovd as he started to sprint, only for Petacchi to ease by and then, on the far side, went Cav going like a rocket out of a cannon (as the commentator described it). He left them all for dead and on the overhead shot at the finish line there wasn't another cyclist in the picture. It was a brilliant display of sprinting at its absolute best, it's just a shame he took a week to get into his stride but 5 stage wins at Le Tour is not to be sniffed at. Just brilliant.

Oh yes, the rest of the tour was equally good and exciting - Schleck pushed Contador harder than anyone has before and if he can continue his progress, particularly in the individual time trial, then the 2011 tour should be on a knife edge. Wiggins and Sky were the biggest disappointments but I fully expect them to come back stronger next year. Something to look forwad to.

A New PB!

How do you test your progress?

As regular readers will know I test myself by doing a 40km turbo TT; my reasoning is that this test is within a controlled environment and is repeatable. The time is immaterial in itself as it doesn't correlate to a road TT time, but if I get quicker in this test then I know I am improving.

A quick recap; in Jan 10 I set the benchmark for the year with an unremarkable 61.34 mins for the test, but just a week later this came down to 57.46. Better, but still some way short of my overall PB of 50.33. Things progressed and on 13 May I recorded a 50.48 that I was very pleased with; almost at my PB level and nearly 5 months still to go to my 2010 A race. But I knew that the gains would now become harder to come by, and my move to a Primal Blueprint way of training meant I was heading into the unknown as far as improvements were concerned. Would the Primal way deliver the results?

With 2 weeks to go to The Outlaw I decided I needed to test myself, to give me the confidence that I was progressing and could head to The Outlaw assured that my legs were in good shape. To be honest, I didn't feel that fresh this morning, and as I started my warm up I wasn't sure I would be able to sustain the required effort for some 50 minutes. But I pressed on regardless.

I could bore you with the details, but I'll cut straight to the chase. Today I SMASHED my 40km turbo TT PB, and set the new level at 49.24 - that's 48.58kmh if you're wondering - beating my previous best by a whopping 1 minute and 9 seconds and showing an increase in average power of 6 watts. Pleased doesn't come close to expressing how I feel about this result; I am totally over the moon chuffed. Now add in the fact that I am now sub 70kg and I think it's fair to say that I am in the best shape of my life.

All I need to do now is get my nutrition and pacing strategies right - and how hard can that be?

All the best folks. Race hard, train smart and rest easy.

Short, Sharp Shock

Regular readers of this blog may recall details of a turbo session I use which I obtained from an article in Cycling Weekly, that of 30 seconds of flat out sprinting followed by 4 minutes of recovery at moderate cycling pace (about 32kmh for me as opposed to barely turning the pedals 'do nothing' type of recovery). The article suggested that the limited scientific research behind this session suggested it bought about the same improvements as a 2 hour Level 2 road ride, and yet it was completed in 47 minutes including warm up and warm down.

Well guess what? In the Research Corner of the 15 July issue of Cycling Weekly there is an article that compares a 7 x 30 second 'all out' sprint interval session with a 3 x 20 minute long duration aerobic interval session (carried out at 87% VO2max). Without boring you with the details (get hold of a copy of the magazine and read the whole article if you want the details), the scientists concluded that the short sprint intervals were just as effective as more traditional longer aerobic type intervals to develop aerobic performance. I'm quite pleased about this as this is the sort of training I have been doing this year - avoiding the 75-90% chronic cardio zone and working either below 75% of MHR or above 90% of MHR. I haven't done as many of the 30 seconds flat out intervals as maybe I should have but this will become a weekly staple in my training programme from now on.

Train smart folks.