Thursday, June 30, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Penultimate days training
Today was V02 intervals, despite being a brilliant sunny day it was very cold, so not wanting to force cold air into my lungs a few days before leaving for my trip and the fact that earlier in the year I decided that I wouldn't do more than two consecutive weeks of quality work without a backing off for a recovery week before pressing on.
Knowing that I would lose two days of riding in the journey it is tempting to keep hammering right up to flight time, however I reason that journey will be hard enough without my body trying to recover from a hard week of training as well, in anycase particularly the last week was very pleasing so no point in pushing over the top now.
So I reduced the workload to 2 x 3 mins, 3 x 2 mins and 4 x 1 mins, upping the power as the interval time reduced and keeping the rpm right up to force up the heart rate, job done and power and heartrate just where I expected them to be. Next week will let me know whether it is good enough!
Tomorrow I will do half a sprint session and on Thursday just a couple of hours easy endurance, hopefully that way I will cruise through the flights on Fri/Sat.
My bike is ready, new chain, new cassette, new cables, new brake blocks and of course new tape. I will ride it the next couple of days to make sure everything is as I expect, then final adjustments, a clean and polish on Thursday before I pull it apart to pack in the hardshell case that although cumbersome in the airport has done a sterling job in getting my bikes through many journeys unscathed, hope this one is the same.
Knowing that I would lose two days of riding in the journey it is tempting to keep hammering right up to flight time, however I reason that journey will be hard enough without my body trying to recover from a hard week of training as well, in anycase particularly the last week was very pleasing so no point in pushing over the top now.
So I reduced the workload to 2 x 3 mins, 3 x 2 mins and 4 x 1 mins, upping the power as the interval time reduced and keeping the rpm right up to force up the heart rate, job done and power and heartrate just where I expected them to be. Next week will let me know whether it is good enough!
Tomorrow I will do half a sprint session and on Thursday just a couple of hours easy endurance, hopefully that way I will cruise through the flights on Fri/Sat.
My bike is ready, new chain, new cassette, new cables, new brake blocks and of course new tape. I will ride it the next couple of days to make sure everything is as I expect, then final adjustments, a clean and polish on Thursday before I pull it apart to pack in the hardshell case that although cumbersome in the airport has done a sterling job in getting my bikes through many journeys unscathed, hope this one is the same.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
One week to go
Well technically 5 days actually.
Had some scary news from my pal Tommy, we're the same age and race a lot together in both age group and graded racing. If you thought about a couple of blokes our age you would think we're as fit as they come, results would generally back up that view. However Tommy told me that he had a heart attack after his race last weekend, not a super serious attack, but a heart attack nonetheless. Scary stuff and I hope that Tommy can come back to racing soon.
This week has been really good from the training perspective. A full on sprint session on Tuesday. An easy endurance day on Wednesday where my legs felt like putty. a V02 day on Thursday, 3 x 3 mins, 4 x 2 mins and 5 x 1 mins, which was probably my best session since before Easter, hit all the power numbers except the last where I was 3! watts off and really worked the heart rate. A day of threshold intervals on Saturday which saw me 15 watts up on last week. Level 6, 60 second hill sprints on Sunday on a 6% climb, steepest towards the top, sprinting as hard as I could over the top for the conveniently placed road sign. I was going to do 8 repeats but since I threw up after 7 repeats I decided that was enough for the day.
So I'll take Monday off, train on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a recovery day on Thursday then packing the bike etc. I fly to Amsterdam on Friday. Whoo Hoo!!!!
Had some scary news from my pal Tommy, we're the same age and race a lot together in both age group and graded racing. If you thought about a couple of blokes our age you would think we're as fit as they come, results would generally back up that view. However Tommy told me that he had a heart attack after his race last weekend, not a super serious attack, but a heart attack nonetheless. Scary stuff and I hope that Tommy can come back to racing soon.
This week has been really good from the training perspective. A full on sprint session on Tuesday. An easy endurance day on Wednesday where my legs felt like putty. a V02 day on Thursday, 3 x 3 mins, 4 x 2 mins and 5 x 1 mins, which was probably my best session since before Easter, hit all the power numbers except the last where I was 3! watts off and really worked the heart rate. A day of threshold intervals on Saturday which saw me 15 watts up on last week. Level 6, 60 second hill sprints on Sunday on a 6% climb, steepest towards the top, sprinting as hard as I could over the top for the conveniently placed road sign. I was going to do 8 repeats but since I threw up after 7 repeats I decided that was enough for the day.
So I'll take Monday off, train on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a recovery day on Thursday then packing the bike etc. I fly to Amsterdam on Friday. Whoo Hoo!!!!
Thursday, June 16, 2011
JUNE 16TH
Well the Queen's Birthday weekend Tour didn't quite go as well as past years. Partly I think because I hadn't raced over the last 3 weeks, race tempo and efforts are always different, partly because the quality of the entry this year was significantly higher than recent years both in quality and ages! It unfortunately meant that I was giving away a lot of years! to a very strong field.
So one third place was all I managed so not a total right off and in the process of launching a counter attack I managed my highest power output since the day after the ICF worlds where I was convinced I was a medallist until I punctured with 15km to go, the next day I got angry and powered it up in a sprint. The weekend gave me a power figure pretty close so I take that as a positive.
The last two weeks training is going to consist of mostly 'quality' sessions, my base is strong, I feel I just need to get those high power V02 efforts and some sprinting underway, maybe a couple of sessions of 90 second hill sprints. All very painful but I think necessary at this point with only two weeks to go.
So one third place was all I managed so not a total right off and in the process of launching a counter attack I managed my highest power output since the day after the ICF worlds where I was convinced I was a medallist until I punctured with 15km to go, the next day I got angry and powered it up in a sprint. The weekend gave me a power figure pretty close so I take that as a positive.
The last two weeks training is going to consist of mostly 'quality' sessions, my base is strong, I feel I just need to get those high power V02 efforts and some sprinting underway, maybe a couple of sessions of 90 second hill sprints. All very painful but I think necessary at this point with only two weeks to go.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
June 5th
I've clearly been a bit remiss with the frequency of my posts over that last month or so!
However a quick recap of the training and racing. Having moved from 'Base' to 'Build' then to a combination of 'Build and 'phase', I'm moving pretty much into pure 'Race' phase stuff now to try and bring out some speed to lay on top of the endurance base I have built since last December. It was very rewarding to note that after just one pure sprint session I had added to 50 watts to my peak power from that session, of course I now have to work on pushing another that 100 watts and stretching the power out over say 12 seconds.
The racing has gone very well, after the first 'Open' event where I struggled a bit I really managed to step it up and although my bunch never seemed to get up, which I put down to the handicapping, I was pretty pleased to still be up there at the end pushing as hard as I could. Maryborough went OK, won the State Road championships by being as aggressive as I possibly could but I paid for it over the next couple of days in the TT and the criterium, I was pretty legless. I did bounce back for the Cec Cripps on the Monday riding strongly but again we weren't able to get up (or get caught).
National Championships in Adelaide was OK, my head wasn't really 'on' properly for the TT so I could have been better, the road race finished at the top of a very 'Ray unfriendly' climb with 9% ramps and was blocked at the finish of the criterium by a rider more interested in seeing me slowed than winning himself, I did briefly think about riding through him but decided I wanted to go to Belgium more! So a collection of bronze medals was my reward for that long boring drive but I guess that was more than most and I already know my sprinting is better.
I've picked up a bit of a cold this week so I've throttled back quite a bit, I know I've got a huge base so a few days off of the bike isn't going to cripple me so a few days rest and recovery its going to be this week.
However a quick recap of the training and racing. Having moved from 'Base' to 'Build' then to a combination of 'Build and 'phase', I'm moving pretty much into pure 'Race' phase stuff now to try and bring out some speed to lay on top of the endurance base I have built since last December. It was very rewarding to note that after just one pure sprint session I had added to 50 watts to my peak power from that session, of course I now have to work on pushing another that 100 watts and stretching the power out over say 12 seconds.
The racing has gone very well, after the first 'Open' event where I struggled a bit I really managed to step it up and although my bunch never seemed to get up, which I put down to the handicapping, I was pretty pleased to still be up there at the end pushing as hard as I could. Maryborough went OK, won the State Road championships by being as aggressive as I possibly could but I paid for it over the next couple of days in the TT and the criterium, I was pretty legless. I did bounce back for the Cec Cripps on the Monday riding strongly but again we weren't able to get up (or get caught).
National Championships in Adelaide was OK, my head wasn't really 'on' properly for the TT so I could have been better, the road race finished at the top of a very 'Ray unfriendly' climb with 9% ramps and was blocked at the finish of the criterium by a rider more interested in seeing me slowed than winning himself, I did briefly think about riding through him but decided I wanted to go to Belgium more! So a collection of bronze medals was my reward for that long boring drive but I guess that was more than most and I already know my sprinting is better.
I've picked up a bit of a cold this week so I've throttled back quite a bit, I know I've got a huge base so a few days off of the bike isn't going to cripple me so a few days rest and recovery its going to be this week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)