3x20

I think I really needed to move up to the 3x20 format.
I'm really feeling the benefit of the extra workload. I feel it's stressing my system more.
My legs feel tired for a day or two after a session, which I assume is a good thing.

Last nights session was quite consistent, mainly because I was keeping a very close eye on my cadence, keeping it at around 88rpm for nearly all of the session.

I produced: 318w, 319w and 319w for the sessions last night.
Quite pleased with that, really.
Pulse was mid to high 160's which is probably below my threshold heart rate, but I'm not taking much note of heart rate these days, since for me at least, it's so variable.

3x20

I'm kind of getting into the mindset where I don't really want to ride my bike out on the road. I just want to put in 20 minute sessions on the turbo. When I think of getting cold and wet and freewheeling most of the time and having to clean my bike, I'd much rather do some intensity on the turbo. It's kind of heartening when you've made a bit of progress. I just want to make more rather than riding around and not knowing where I am in terms of power/improvement.

Anyway, that's probably just me.

I think I might have mentioned I have an old aluminium Trek circa 2003. It has 9 speed Shimano 105 and I've been thinking for a long time about getting a decent bike. To be honest, I'd feel a bit of a fraud riding a £3000 bike, just because I'm not that good . A bit like the pot-bellied, balding business man buying a red Ferrari. Anyway, I'm thinking something mid-range, nothing too flashy.
I went into Sigma Sport on Saturday and had a good chat with Pete, so in the next few weeks I might be opting for a more up to date model of bike.

For the time being, the trusty Trek will do and today I knocked out a hearty 3x20 which felt good after not having done much all week:

311 watts, 317 watts and 322 watts.

I purposely started off a bit slow and gradually built the session up. The last 20 was quite intense and I was concentrating quite a bit, holding that imaginary fine line in your head between having to ease off and going to hard.

It felt good.

Got back from my business trip late Sunday night and felt pretty tired. Thought I'd leave it till Monday to do another session.
Monday night came and I really was looking forward to doing a hard session since I've been off since Wednesday.
The rest must really have done me good since in my 2x20 I came in with a 324 and a 320 watts. Not bad. As usual the last session felt a lot harder than the first. My knee was ok for the first session but began to play up a bit on the 2nd. Felt quite sore at the end.

My plan at the moment is to carry on with 2x20's this month and next month do some more outdoors rides. Temp stuff. 2 hours, that sort of thing.

Hopefully the weather will be warmer. Then after that month of 2x20's and tempo riding, I'll throw in to the mix a couple of Vo2 max session a week in May and hopefully begin racing in May/June.

That's my plan, anyway, but I never really stick to plans. It also depends on how things go at work plus how long it takes me to recover from the knee operation, which is looming.

All time high!!

Well, I've been making steady progress recently and as I said in my last entry, I thought I'd cut down on the commuting and hopefully this would leave me fresher for the turbo-ing.
This week I got the train in on Tuesday so was quite fresh for the session on Wednesday. I won't be able to do another session this week since I'm away with work for 4 days, so this was my one and only session this week probably.

Anyway, got home and got the kit out. One thing that has really helped me get better numbers is using a cadence meter on my computer. I know that if I start off at 85 rpm and after 5 mins up it to 90 and hold it above 90 rpm for the last 5 mins, I'm guaranteed a good wattage. If you watch the wattage numbers on the KK computer, they tend to dart about quite a lot so you can never be really sure exactly where you are in real time, whereas the cadence meter gives you a pretty good, more consistent feedback.

So last night I went out quite hard from the off and held it at around 90rpm. I felt in control but I knew I was close to the 'edge', if you know what I mean. Came in with 325w.
I took 5 mins break and went again. I was fine for the first 10 mins, but after that the fatigue began to build and I really struggled to hold 87/88 rpm. My pulse was well over 170. Anyway, came in with 310, which wasn't too bad really.

The only minor drawback was my knee was really hurting on the second set. The sooner I get the operation done the better.

Although I've made some decent gains in the FT department, I feel that there's more to come and I think I may start re-structuring my training as a result.

I've been feeling pretty tired recently and getting on the turbo in the evenings has been a struggle.
I've had a nagging feeling that all this cycle commuting I'm doing is not doing me too much good, training wise. All it's really doing is making me feel tired. That and the current Hong Kong merger/acquisition I'm heading up at work. Anyway, Thursday I was due to do a session but I felt so tired I didn't do the session . I got the train into work the next morning and despite a long hard day in the office, I felt a lot more lively when I got home on Friday and thought I'll do a session and miss the club run tomorrow . So that's what I did. 2x20 and came in with a 318 and 315 watt figure. My best yet. I reckon it may be down to me missing the session on Thursday and having a day off the bike on Friday.

Anyway, this got me thinking that I might try experimenting with not cycling in to work a couple of days a week and and only doing the turbo session when I really feel recovered from the last one, rather than forcing myself no matter what and training at a lower power level.

I'm sure this is common sense for most of you but the penny is only beginning to drop for me now.

Oh, and my KK computer has suddenly stopped resetting itself and changing to km/h. The reason? It just needed a new battery. Duh!

For some reason my weight has gone up to 86kg.
Either that or someones sabotaging the scales.

Another 2x20 was dispatched last night with 307 watts and "who knows" watts.
Yes, you guessed it. My lovely ultra high tech, ultra reliable KK computer went schizoid during the 2nd interval and re-calibrated itself to a 26" wheel size.

There's nothing more fiddly than trying to reset a KK computer whilst pedaling at 90 rpm with a hear rate of around 170 while swearing out loud and immediately regretting it cos it takes too much oxygen.
This is the third KK computer I've had since November and each one has had to be sent back due to various anomalies like the buttons not working and the thing resetting to 0 whenever it feels like it.
Well, today I've had enough. I popped out of the office and I've bought myself a Trek rear-wheel cadence computer that will tell me my average speed for the turbo session without me having to rewire it at 170bpm. From the average speed I can tell how many watts I've done by a simple table on the KK web site.

I find it amazing that a company that produces one of the best made and most reliable turbo trainers out there can produce one of the most unreliable and naff looking plasticky excuse for a bike computer ever made.

Anyway, in other news, it seems that the pain I've been experiencing in my knee since my altercation with a certain piece of road is due to some damaged cartilage. Yes, that means an operation and I'll be out of action for about 4 weeks.
Shame really. I'm due to have the thing done in April, so my late start to the season will be delayed even further now. Oh well.

Did another 3 x 20 today and felt quite good throughout.

Normally my 2nd and 3rd 20 are a fair bit lower in power than the first, but today it was pretty constant. 303w, 305 and 307w average. The last 20 was considerably harder than the first though.

Yesterday I was going to do the CTC hilly 50, but I really hate cold weather and I'm glad I stayed inside. I don't normally like to go outside and train unless it's 10C or above.
Old bones, you see.
Yesterday I stayed in and did 2x30 mins SST at about 280 w. Felt quite manageable and I felt quite fresh this morning for the 3x20's.

Sorry for the lack of entries lately.
I haven't given up , honest!

My ISP cut me off for downloading.....ahem....too much data .
Just a few Linux ISO's don't you know, but they took exception anyway.
No ISP hence no internet and since I haven't been close to the internet at work (been out of the office travelling) , I was kind of snookered.

However, I've still been training and I've been making steady progress.
I won't bore you with details of all the data I've accrued, but let's just say that I'm typically well over 300w now for my 2x20's. I've put this down to doing more road rides. Mostly tempo riding alone but also some rides with the Addicombe 19mph posse.

A couple of days ago I thought ,what the hell, I'll do a 1 hour test and see what I get.
I was well rested after a few days off the bike and felt good so I went for it.
For the first 15 mins I held off a bit and kept it just below 290w knowing that I could up the ante in the last 15 mins.
All was going well until the last 10 mins when I really felt it and my pulse was over 180. Well above threshold.
However I managed to hold on and was pleased to see an average of 311w for an hour.
Pretty chuffed.
I'm still mopping all the sweat up ,mind.


All this is good news.
The bad news is I'm still 85kg, or thereabout.
In short, I'm still a lardarse when it comes to most people I see racing.
I would have thought all this turbo sweating would ahve shed a few kgs, but no.
If things continue like this I may even have to give up my beloved Ginsters pies.
Heaven forbid!

Slow Improvement

Since my last 3 day block of training, I've done a couple of 1x30's with a day's break in between.
This seems to have helped my power output a bit and I seem to be making a bit of progress at last.

On Tuesday I did a 1x30 and came in with an average wattage of 289 w . I started off a bit slowly but picked up towards the end. Thursday I did another session and came in with an average of 294w, which I was pretty chuffed about. I started off harder than I normally did and tried to hold it which I managed to do OK, although it took a lot of concentration to hold the last 10 minutes.

Anyway, my geeky graph now looks like this:

click on the graph for a bigger picture

I seem to be getting more fun out of doing the graphs than I do riding my bike, which is a bit worrying.

another block of 1x30 mins...

I've just completed another 3 day block of 1x30 minutes on the turbo:

session 1: 280 watts @ 166 bpm average
session 2: 282 watts @ 166 bpm average
session 3: 280 watts @ 170 bpm average

I'm a bit dismayed to see that my power is not going up appreciably, which is a little irksome.
However, it is still early days, I suppose. I've only had the turbo since the 20th of December, so there's still time to see some improvement.
Anyway, my 30 minute sessions are going OK, apart from that. I try and keep my effort constant throughout and not go for a big splurge in the last 5 mins to get the power average up.
In the interests of geekiness, I've created a nice little graph that shows my 30minute sessions on the turbo:

click on the graph for a bigger picture

Days are along the bottom and watts on the vertical axis.
As you can see, I missed a whole week early on when I lost a bit of interest in this mad escapade.

I went out on the Addiscombe club run on Saturday and sat at the back of the 18mph group and coasted round. Quite a nice gentle ride. Chatted to a few guys who I hadn't met before, which was nice.

I'm intending to carry on with the 30 minute sessions until the end of Jan and in Feb start on the more intense 2x20 sessions. That's my plan anyway, which I probably won't keep to, knowing me. I'm hoping that I can be averaging 290 watts for the 30 minute sessions by the end of Jan.

End of year lethargy

Apologies for the lack of entries of late.

I'd like to say that I've been too busy riding my bike to post any entries but the truth is that I've lost a lot of momentum.
I tend to get bored of cycling pretty quickly and go through phases where other things become more important and I guess I just lose interest. This doesn't really bode well for me trying to race next season. I reckon that you really need a consistent build up of training load in order to make progress.

I forced myself out on Addiscombe the club run last weekend. I went with the 18mph group, I think it was. Didn't want to go but I forced myself anyway. Probably a bad idea. I hate the winter and the cold and turned round when we got to Leigh and went home frozen and demoralised.

I think the bottom line is you have to enjoy your cycling otherwise it becomes a chore.

Despite this lack of motivation I continued to commute into work. Last Friday however, I was enjoying the empty roads at 7am and took a damp corner rather too fast. Next thing I know my face is scraping along the tarmac along with my right leg. I pick myself up and notice the taste of blood in my mouth , the shredded clothes and the bent bike. Hobbled into work with a buckled front wheel and bars at 45 degrees and blood leaking from my face and leg.

nice bit of road rash

Anyway, a few days ago I suprisingly had the urge to get back on the turbo.
I did 3 consecutive days of 1x30 mins , which was pretty hard going.
My data for these session were:
1. 274w average at 164bpm
2. 280 w average at 163 bpm
3. 287w average at 161 bpm.

I tried to do these at a notch below 20 minute pace which seemed to work quite well. I started off really easily and kept it steady
I think I'm beginning to get back to where I was a few weeks ago.