Come out, come out wherever you are………
Damned if I just can’t get myself motivated! I’ve moaned and complained about the crap weather, and while we are not having a great summer I should be out on my bike, but just can’t get myself motivated over the last few weeks.
I’ve been very bad about getting out on the bike the last few weeks, one excuse after another, work, bad weather, or just couldn’t be bothered! And looking at the weather forecast this evening it appears that we are going to be having several days of rain from the early hours of tomorrow morning!.
Where the hell has the sunshine and the summer gone???
We have had some nice weather but certainly nothing that I would count as “Summer”. If the weather has been good, its been windy with it! By the looks of things I’m going to have to “dirty up” my “wet” bike. And I spent hours cleaning and polishing it up and stored it away not really expecting to have to take it out again until Sept/Oct. Seems like if I want to keep cycling this weekend, its going to have to come out!
Heart rate was up for the ride this evening but hardly surprising given my lack of training for the last few weeks. I had an average Power of 233 watts which is in my Tempo range for the ride. And the wind was certainly a challenge for me. When you are a fat bloke like me, wind, surface area and resistance take on extra meaning 
But a very enjoyable ride nonetheless, and despite two attempts by motorists to squish me, I survived quite well. The driving technique used around here seems to be, when on a narrow lane and you see a cyclist coming towards you, rather than do the sensible thing and slow down, instead close your eyes, grip the steering wheel so tight that your knuckles turn white and rely on good fortune to get through the gap. Then again we are not entitled to use the roads are we :-/
Anyway, here is this evenings ride……….
I flippin’ well hate the bloody Dawn Chorus!
For some reason we have a flock of Sea Gulls that appear to have made their “hang out” on the ridge of neighbouring roofs, and the screeches are enough to drive you totally bonkers! I wish I owned a gun!!! They were responsible for me waking up at 5am this morning and preventing me from being able to get back to sleep. I’m a real fussy sleeper (shame I wasn’t so fussy about what I eat!), but I need total darkness, total silence, and total comfort in the bed, otherwise I’ll just toss and turn, wake up several times a night and just find it difficult to get back to sleep.
Anyway, having had my attempts at a decent nights sleep interrupted several times I decided to just get up and jump on the bike. Now to be fair, I’m good at getting up early, I’ve always been an early riser. But while I can get up early I don’t usually feel like jumping on the bike until I’ve warmed up and had breakfast. Most of my training rides are in the evening for that reason. But I figured that an early ride would be good today, as I’m looking to see the British F1 Grand Prix and the Tour De France on TV later. And so off I went.
It was great this morning actually, especially that early, no cars on the roads, and zero wind, which makes a pleasant change from my other more recent rides where it was very “blowy” indeed. It was easy to get into a decent rhythm and I was able to use a road that I would normally avoid as it is generally very busy and very dangerous. I didn’t want to do anything hilly, so decided to do something with a bit more pace, and averaged 19 mph for the 36 miles which is “decent” for me. Especially when you think I’m carrying the equivalent of a small child in excess weight around my waist
Average Power of 240 watts according to Training Peaks and Average HR of 156bpm so right in my Tempo range for Power and HR fairly low for that effort too. So I’m happy with that. I’m not training for anything in particular either so I thought a more “pacy” ride, but shorter than the usual “long ride” of 50+ miles.
Now then, back to sleep!!!
This mornings ride……..
I felt a bit whooped after this ride. Hardly surprising I suppose since I’ve been doing very little over the last few weeks. Average power of 211 watts and average heart rate of 158bpm, which is low and high on both counts. After a few weeks of doing nothing I suppose thats to be expected. Anyway, lots of heavy rain forecast later this afternoon, although thats hard to see with the temperature at 25°, clear blue skies although a southerly wind making the outward leg into a headwind. Still a nice day for a ride even if I didn’t set any records.
Hopefully the rain will dump what it has to on us overnight and we can get back to some nice cycling weather. Rumour is that we might be in for a mini-heatwave next week, so something to look forward to if its true. At least I managed to get my ride in and no use the rain as an excuse, I may have a rest day tomorrow depending on how much rain there is around.
Todays ride………..
I’ve been struggling with the whole healthy lifestyle “thing” over the last few months. Life is a roller coaster of excess for me, I’m either “all in” and doing everything right. Or I’m “all out” and there is no discipline at all. Seems like the last few weeks have being like that. Its always been that way, as if I need to throw a “mental” switch to turn stuff on or off. The happy balance that would allow me to have a decent mix of everything doesn’t seem to exist in my psych for some reason. So I’ve either got to be training and eating “exactly” to plan, or I lose it and I eat whatever I want in quantities that I don’t need, and do no exercise at all. I’m glad I don’t drink or do drugs, I reckon there would be no saving me. I’m sure there is some clinical name for it, something to do with compulsion, but its pissing me off that I can’t seem to get on top of it!
So recent weeks have not been particularly easy to get motivated, but I’ve had a good healty eating week last week, the first in many weeks! And I need to get on the bike this week again start burning off the calories. And god knows I need to shed a ton of weight!
Tonights ride……..
First ride out for nearly two weeks. A combination of a very busy work diary, some very wet weather, and a “I can’t be arsed” attitude give me as many excuses as I needed to stay indoors. But I can feel myself “clogging up” so I thought I needed to arrest my lethargy and start clearing the pipes or stoking the fire or however you want to describe it. Time to get back out on the bike. We have winds blowing at an average of 15mph gusting to 29mph according to my local weather station here, and it certainly felt like it.
As expected after two weeks doing nothing, my Heart Rate is up more than usual, although I’m sure the wind will account for some of that. Average of 161 bpm and average of 229 watts for the ride. So I need to get myself out more regularly again, although the weather is fairly crap. Hopefully the rain will stay away now. The “wet” bike has been all cleaned, lubed, and polished, and I don’t want to mucky it up prior to winter or I’ll have to clean the whole thing down again.
Heres tonights ride…….
Following last nights FTP test, it was pointed out to me (thanks Steve) that 291 watt threshold is about 39% of 1 Horse Power. There are 746 Watts in 1 HP. So I have a little bit of work to do, to manage reaching an FTP of 1 HP Thanks for the factoid Steve!
Anyway, tonight I decided to do a Tempo ride with my new Power Zones all worked out from last nigihts test. Its still quite windy out, the local forecast is saying about 16mph which is an additional challenge of course, but the weather remains good for cycling at least.
I did a new route this evening, and discovered a couple of new hills I’ve not been up before, so that will keep things interesting for a while, one of the hills I actually came down rather then went up, but its definitely got potential. I’ll have to plan a route to take me up it as some future point. I managed an Average of 229 watts, and average HR of 145 bpm, so a fairly comfortable ride despite the wind and the hills.
Tonights Ride………..
I started training with my power meter about five weeks ago, and at that time I did a functional threshold power test which showed my FTP at 280 watts. However during some recent rides I had noticed that I was finding it a little bit easier to maintain that level for longer than the 20 minutes it takes to run the FTP test. So last night I decided to do another test to see if I could detect any level of improvement, or an increase in my FTP power.
I’m following the guidance set out in the book “Training and Racing with a Power Meter” by Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan, and in particular the FTP test that they recommend. I’ve actually saved the workout into my Garmin Edge 800 so that I can decide to do the test whenever I feel like it and the Garmin talks me through the various steps in volved. These steps include a warmup, some fast peddling sessions, a five-minute all-out session followed by a short rest, and finally the 20 minute main event, at a time trial pace from which you determine your FTP.
So having completed the test last night, and got home to download the garment to my computer so that I could examine the results and work out if I needed to make any changes, my FTP has increased from 280 watts to 291 watts. So this is a small but welcome increase after just five weeks of training. In the end I still felt like I could have worked a bit harder, but I’ll continue to do these tests every 5-6 weeks or so, and keep an eye on improvements.
Last nights FTP Test ride……………
Chris and I went along to see what the local racing was all about at Fowlmead, our local Closed Circuit track, which I referred to in my last post. I took the camera with me and took a few snaps. This was our first time to really pay any attention to the local racing scene, but we were certainly encouraged to take a bit more interest. I’m in no state of fitness to do a proper “race” but its certainly given me an objective to chase. These guys are Elite/Cat1/Cat2, we weren’t able to stay long enough for the Cat3/Cat4 race, but we are going to do a novice session on Friday night just to have a go around the track at Fowlmead.
Who knows where it might lead
I joined Chris early this morning for a long ride, we were planning to do something in the region of about 60 miles. The first 20 or so miles were nice and flat, and also wind assisted and we pushed along at a very nice pace. But as we started to turn back in a northerly direction we ended up with some very strong crosswinds and headwinds. This was hard enough but in addition to the wind, we also ended up climbing some fairly steep and long hills. This is a route that we’ve never tried before so quite a lot of it was new to us.
As usual Chris was miles ahead as far as climbing was concerned, but I was able to console myself with finding fairly decent pace on the shallower hills and on the flat sections of the course where my excess weight was not such a disadvantage. In fact I’m beginning to wonder whether having a bit of extra poundage might be a bit of an advantage into such a strong wind, since you don’t seem to get thrown around as much.
The last 10 miles is all quite tough though, and the wind was so strong that even on some of the downhill sections where you would normally expect to get some relief, it still proved tough riding straight into such a strong headwind. However it took us just short of four hours to do 63 miles, with an average pace, despite the wind and the hills of just over 16 mph.
I was feeling quite tired after this morning’s ride, but instead of doing my usual thing of sitting down in front of the TV, Chris and I went out to look at some bike racing at Fowlmead which was going on this afternoon. These races are organised by the South East Road Race League. This was really a first look at some local racing and we figured at some point it will be nice to have a go. They also provide sessions for people who have never tried it before and I think going to give them a try maybe next Friday night around the road circuit which is totally traffic free, has a pristine surface, and just looks like really good fun. So this might be just the thing I need to encourage me to drop the weight faster than I currently am, and perhaps I might just get brave enough to enter a Category 4 race.
Certainly food for thought, and definitely a future objective.
This mornings ride…………..
Training Log