OK so I have been slacking in terms of blogging and am rolling two weeks into one in this post so it might be on the longish side.
Monday 1st July
Monday is fast becoming my tempo training day and going on the same route so it's good to see if the training is benefiting me. My legs were a bit stiff to start off with after the club ride on Saturday. I think I am going to have to start doing recovery rides on a Sunday, hopefully flush out some of that lactate to train better.
It was windy and head winds are a killer it makes things so much more difficult on your legs when you're riding solo. It felt like I didn't get a tailwind at any point but I must of I just didn't feel the benefit. I also had an issue with my Garmin 500 constantly auto stopping so some of the times might not have been completely accurate. By the end of the ride I felt good, 18 miles in around an hour.
Tuesday 2nd July
Rest Day
Wednesday 3rd July
Rest Day
Thursday 4th July
Happy Independence Day to any Americans out there, I know by the time you read this it will be a distant memory. Training hasn't been too good this week so a quick tempo ride just under 13 miles, some parts of the route I have been on before but one bit was in reverse. It was tough, some short sharp climbs that hit my legs hard but after a while they came back to me. The final climb I made up for it bettering some my previous times up it and actually having something left in the legs to push on the flat. Normally once I get over a hill my legs disengage from my brain and only come back once they have recovered enough as they know my brain will tell them to keep pushing, a sign I am getting fitter which is always good.
Friday 5th July
Rest Day, I know another one.
Saturday 6th July
Today I decided to change it up a bit and add something new. Hill repeats, thinking about it scares me even though I know I have to do them as it is great for strength work and interval training. Also if I want to race at Redbridge Cycling Centre on a Thursday night they have a hill that you have to repeat 10 times, so I need the practice. The hill I was going up is only 0.4m but averages 6% I knew my legs would burn but no pain no gain. As I had no idea how I would feel after one I had no idea how many times I would repeat so I would play that one by ear. All the climbing would be done standing and in the big chain ring. It was painful, fortunately there was a bouncer on a part of the climb encouraging me each time I went past. I ended up doing 5 repeats before heading home and found another short climb which caught me out, but I battled through it my legs pretty much wanting to disown me.
Sunday 7th July
Rest Day, This week really was quite flat but hopefully next week I pick it up.
Monday 8th July
My standard Tempo ride today. A week ago I said that I need to start doing recovery rides the day after a hard session but this time it will be done. The first part of my legs didn't want to cooperate due to them being stiff then the downhill section was into a head wind so where I would normally recover a little I was having to push to get through the wind. I had a crosswind up a hill and then a great tailwind heading back to Shenfield and then another up a climb to Brentwood which done wonders for my best segment times on Strava, in comparison to the last weeks it was fairly similar but taking into account my harder training on Saturday and minimal training last week I am glad I didn't go backwards. 18 miles in just over an hour.
Tuesday 9th July
Rest Day
Wednesday 10th July
I was thinking about the idea of attending the club time trial but it needs me to actually make a decision before the day as would need somewhere to look after my son for 20 minutes or so until my wife gets home. Seeing as I wasn't participating in the time trial I decided to add sprint training into my training. Given that as a runner I was a sprinter I was quite looking forward to this. I went onto the rollers and yes I am a baby and still using the stand but for the most effective training it makes sense.
I had a 10 minute warm-up and then into the sprints. The plan was 20 minutes which would consist of 30 seconds sprint the 30 seconds rest. I learnt quite quickly that there wasn't enough rest and the effort wasn't lasting 30 seconds so I changed the timings to 15 seconds sprints 30 rest then to 20 seconds sprint 40 rest. I was dripping in sweat and shattered it was a good workout and great for working on my leg speed my cadence peaking at 150 in the biggest gear.
Thursday 11th July
I hadn't had an endurance ride in a while so got on the rollers again and the aim keep in Zone 2 working on my endurance. I thought I might be a bit heavy legged after the previous days exploits but they were fine. As I have said before the hardest thing with indoor training is the boredom factor. Tonight I watched some of the Ashes and the the last 10 minutes I watched cycling I had recorded, I rewound it 10 minutes from the end for last 10 minutes of my ride to keep me entertained and sprinted when they did might as well get my body used to sprinting at the end of a ride. Indoor training is great for working up a sweat. This week is already on level terms with last week. The trouble for me is finding time to fit everything I want in, next week on my days off I am thinking of throwing in some double sessions, thought those ended when I had my last pre season as a footballer.
Friday 12th July
Rest Day.
Saturday 13th July
Today my aim was a longish solo ride and put in a new hill. It never ended like that as I couldn't remember where I needed to go but next time I go this way I will certainly attempt to tackle it. My dinner the previous night was a BBQ and people that know me know that I tend to just eat meat at BBQ's and then odd burger bap with my burger so severely lacking carbs. Missing out on carbs the night before affected me on in the ride. I felt like my legs had nothing to give me in terms of any increase in effort but my heart rate remained low compared to how I felt, not happy. Also, I had run out of my SIS electrolyte drink so had to use Lucozade, obviously my dinner the night before didn't help but I didn't feel any benefit from the Lucozade where I am sure the SIS would have helped me along a bit more. I covered 28 miles and averaged 17.5MPH which in context of how I was feeling was pretty good.
Sunday 14th July
Rest Day, the plan was a recovery ride but I failed to do it again. I am going to dig out the skins recovery tights (forgot I had them) plan is to sleep in them even in this weather.
Conclusion
This has been my busiest week in terms of sessions and I have enjoyed it, I am contemplating on racing this week as the series will be coming to an end soon. I am not going to sit here and say my target is to finish is the top 20 as I know the majority if not all will have been doing this for a while and some will be of the category above that I am in. It will be good to see where I am at and how long I can stay onto the main group for. If I do end up doing it wish me luck. I didn't my wife to proof this post so it is probably full of grammatical and spelling errors.
Showing posts with label cadence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cadence. Show all posts
Sunday, 14 July 2013
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Week 1 of structured (kind of) training
As I stated before my training has to fit around being a Husband and Dad and around my work, to maximise my training I have investigated this quite in depth and found that heart rate (HR) zone training is the best possible training for a cyclist. As you can imagine on the internet there is a huge amount of information to do with it but found that they are all similar. One of the articles I read which breaks it down quite simply is here http://www.bikeradar.com/fitness/article/heart-rate-monitor-training-for-cyclists-28838/
I missed the whole winter training so am effectively playing catch up which is not ideal but I have to start somewhere. I can go real in depth and geek out about the training but I may save that for a separate post at some point. I have the Garmin Edge 500 which is perfect for tracking my rides and making sure I am staying in the correct HR zone. My training will be a mix of tempo, endurance and interval rides as I am hoping to lengthen my training sessions.
I planned to join the club run on Saturday but on my way to the meeting point I realised I forgot my cycling shoes. I came home and decided to go out on my own within a mile I had a puncture and my tyre had split. A new tyre was required and meant no riding for the day. Sunday I didn't go out as I was shattered for some reason, so rather than train tired and risk injury I had a day relaxing.
Monday 24th June
After having the weekend off I felt fresh and my legs felt good so I went out on a tempo ride with some lactate threshold training mixed in as well. I went out for 18 miles on a route I know well. I had a technical issue the first few miles as I was unable to change into the big chain ring but that rectified itself. I felt good throughout the ride the small climbs that are on my route were tough as usual but I am learning to like them. I averaged 18mph which I was happy with, the wind was not a factor, I had a good stretch after then got myself ready for work.
Tuesday 25th June
Rest day.
Wednesday 26th June
I decided that now was a good time to pop my time trial cherry. Glendene run a time trial every other Wednesday. It is two laps of a 5 mile course, I set myself a target of 30 minutes to finish the course. I decided to do a recce of course in the car. I started to get nervous driving down to the course, sad I know. I got to the course and it had more bumps in it that I had hoped for but it didn't look too bad.
My preparation wasn't great I had 4 and a half hours sleep. My fluid intake during the day had been pretty shocking as had my food intake. I ate half a carb bar as I arrived at Navestock, paid my fee to enter and cycled down with a few others to the start line that was my warm up again not ideal. My number was 11, chatting away with the rest of the riders it took my mind off what I was about to do. The rider ahead of me went off 1 minute and it would be me.
I had changed my cycle computer around so I knew what my average speed was, what a stupid idea that was. My plan was set off steady on the first lap and then try and pick up on the second. I heard 10 seconds it snapped me out of it, the countdown reached the end and I was off. I set off like a greyhound and killed myself my legs they were already begging me to stop. Obviously I didn't and continued on my way. The bumps were more intense than I had expected, my position on the bike was far from aerodynamic, I just wanted to get through it, I attacked the climbs and tried to recover on the downhill sections. It was tough and knowing that I was just under 20mph was frustrating, I saved a little bit for the final run in and finished with a time of 30:07. I was happy to be so close to my target. I was shattered though, it was one of the hardest things I have put myself through. After downloading the data from my computer my HR peaked at 208 and averaged 178 for the time trial, so my next time trial I will build up my pace and attack the downhill sections as well as the up hill ones.
My target for the next 10 mile time trial is 29:15.
Thursday 27th June
My legs didn't feel too bad but I didn't want to over do it, so I got the rollers out for an hour recover/endurance ride. I am not going to lie riding on a indoor trainer is dull compared to riding out on the road, maybe I will play some of the cycling I have recorded on Sky to keep me going. My hour on the rollers made me realise that I need a turbo, my previous roller sessions I had been in a medium gear. This time I was in my biggest gear and keeping a cadence of 90 and just about managing to maintain my HR at 150, it seems my fitness has improved quicker than I expected and the lack of resistance means I can't do any meaningful intervals. So the rollers are out and a turbo is on the way in. I felt good on this ride, I think I also need a fan as within a minute I start to sweat like i'm in a sauna.
Friday 28th June
Rest Day.
Saturday 29th June
Today I made sure that all my kit was in the car so I didn't miss the group on the club run. The night before I had quite a carb heavy dinner.
We set off from Blackmore at 09:15 and headed up to The Blue Egg in Great Bardfield. I was feeling a lot more confident with my fitness and my bike handling so I went a bit further up in the group and found it easier as catching up with those in front after a corner required less of an effort than being near the back. We hand a couple of punctures in the group which probably helped me stay with the group and even take part in the group sprint at the end which I managed to keep pace with.
Unfortunately because of the two punctures we had in the group I had to leave earlier than the group as I had things to sort out at home. One of my clubmates offered to leave early and show me back. The difference of riding on your own/in a pair to riding in a group still astounds me. We headed off and had a good ride windy at times and that's where we were missing the group as you can 'hide' from the wind. The trouble with leaving early to come back was we were like the carrot. The faster riders of the main group would be racing to catch us up. They did, with about 3 miles to go. I tried to hang on the back but they were just going way too fast for me to pick up the pace and maintain. A few stragglers passed me but I managed to finish on my own with a bit left in the tank.
It seems silly but I can feel myself progressing and when I look back on my ride history on Strava I can compare my performance then to now. At times I even think that I am cycling within myself and that I could kick on sometimes in the group rides, but then the others would be able to kick on a lot more than I can. The aim is still to compete in some races towards the end of the season, I could race now but know that I would not be able to keep up but that said they to a Go-Ride race event at Dunton Test track which would be nice a flat so the pace will be high but it will be a good test, my weight is just under 75kg so still some work in that department.
Next week I have nothing planned in terms of time trials or races just training but you never know I may find something that I can compete in. If you want to follow me on Strava search Gary Cohen and if you are on twitter my add is G_D_Cohen.
Also a special thank you to my wife for one putting up with me and my training and for proof reading most of what I type as my grammar can be pretty shocking at times.
I missed the whole winter training so am effectively playing catch up which is not ideal but I have to start somewhere. I can go real in depth and geek out about the training but I may save that for a separate post at some point. I have the Garmin Edge 500 which is perfect for tracking my rides and making sure I am staying in the correct HR zone. My training will be a mix of tempo, endurance and interval rides as I am hoping to lengthen my training sessions.
I planned to join the club run on Saturday but on my way to the meeting point I realised I forgot my cycling shoes. I came home and decided to go out on my own within a mile I had a puncture and my tyre had split. A new tyre was required and meant no riding for the day. Sunday I didn't go out as I was shattered for some reason, so rather than train tired and risk injury I had a day relaxing.
Monday 24th June
After having the weekend off I felt fresh and my legs felt good so I went out on a tempo ride with some lactate threshold training mixed in as well. I went out for 18 miles on a route I know well. I had a technical issue the first few miles as I was unable to change into the big chain ring but that rectified itself. I felt good throughout the ride the small climbs that are on my route were tough as usual but I am learning to like them. I averaged 18mph which I was happy with, the wind was not a factor, I had a good stretch after then got myself ready for work.
Tuesday 25th June
Rest day.
Wednesday 26th June
I decided that now was a good time to pop my time trial cherry. Glendene run a time trial every other Wednesday. It is two laps of a 5 mile course, I set myself a target of 30 minutes to finish the course. I decided to do a recce of course in the car. I started to get nervous driving down to the course, sad I know. I got to the course and it had more bumps in it that I had hoped for but it didn't look too bad.
My preparation wasn't great I had 4 and a half hours sleep. My fluid intake during the day had been pretty shocking as had my food intake. I ate half a carb bar as I arrived at Navestock, paid my fee to enter and cycled down with a few others to the start line that was my warm up again not ideal. My number was 11, chatting away with the rest of the riders it took my mind off what I was about to do. The rider ahead of me went off 1 minute and it would be me.
I had changed my cycle computer around so I knew what my average speed was, what a stupid idea that was. My plan was set off steady on the first lap and then try and pick up on the second. I heard 10 seconds it snapped me out of it, the countdown reached the end and I was off. I set off like a greyhound and killed myself my legs they were already begging me to stop. Obviously I didn't and continued on my way. The bumps were more intense than I had expected, my position on the bike was far from aerodynamic, I just wanted to get through it, I attacked the climbs and tried to recover on the downhill sections. It was tough and knowing that I was just under 20mph was frustrating, I saved a little bit for the final run in and finished with a time of 30:07. I was happy to be so close to my target. I was shattered though, it was one of the hardest things I have put myself through. After downloading the data from my computer my HR peaked at 208 and averaged 178 for the time trial, so my next time trial I will build up my pace and attack the downhill sections as well as the up hill ones.
My target for the next 10 mile time trial is 29:15.
Thursday 27th June
My legs didn't feel too bad but I didn't want to over do it, so I got the rollers out for an hour recover/endurance ride. I am not going to lie riding on a indoor trainer is dull compared to riding out on the road, maybe I will play some of the cycling I have recorded on Sky to keep me going. My hour on the rollers made me realise that I need a turbo, my previous roller sessions I had been in a medium gear. This time I was in my biggest gear and keeping a cadence of 90 and just about managing to maintain my HR at 150, it seems my fitness has improved quicker than I expected and the lack of resistance means I can't do any meaningful intervals. So the rollers are out and a turbo is on the way in. I felt good on this ride, I think I also need a fan as within a minute I start to sweat like i'm in a sauna.
Friday 28th June
Rest Day.
Saturday 29th June
Today I made sure that all my kit was in the car so I didn't miss the group on the club run. The night before I had quite a carb heavy dinner.
We set off from Blackmore at 09:15 and headed up to The Blue Egg in Great Bardfield. I was feeling a lot more confident with my fitness and my bike handling so I went a bit further up in the group and found it easier as catching up with those in front after a corner required less of an effort than being near the back. We hand a couple of punctures in the group which probably helped me stay with the group and even take part in the group sprint at the end which I managed to keep pace with.
Unfortunately because of the two punctures we had in the group I had to leave earlier than the group as I had things to sort out at home. One of my clubmates offered to leave early and show me back. The difference of riding on your own/in a pair to riding in a group still astounds me. We headed off and had a good ride windy at times and that's where we were missing the group as you can 'hide' from the wind. The trouble with leaving early to come back was we were like the carrot. The faster riders of the main group would be racing to catch us up. They did, with about 3 miles to go. I tried to hang on the back but they were just going way too fast for me to pick up the pace and maintain. A few stragglers passed me but I managed to finish on my own with a bit left in the tank.
It seems silly but I can feel myself progressing and when I look back on my ride history on Strava I can compare my performance then to now. At times I even think that I am cycling within myself and that I could kick on sometimes in the group rides, but then the others would be able to kick on a lot more than I can. The aim is still to compete in some races towards the end of the season, I could race now but know that I would not be able to keep up but that said they to a Go-Ride race event at Dunton Test track which would be nice a flat so the pace will be high but it will be a good test, my weight is just under 75kg so still some work in that department.
Next week I have nothing planned in terms of time trials or races just training but you never know I may find something that I can compete in. If you want to follow me on Strava search Gary Cohen and if you are on twitter my add is G_D_Cohen.
Also a special thank you to my wife for one putting up with me and my training and for proof reading most of what I type as my grammar can be pretty shocking at times.
Thursday, 20 June 2013
The last couple of weeks
In my quest I decided that I needed to utilise my time at home when my son in sleeping. So instead of sitting on my backside watching tv, I can sit on my bike watching tv while training. The world of indoor bike training is a lot bigger than I thought. I had a pretty small budget so that made the market some what smaller.
The two categories of trainers I was looking at were turbo trainers and rollers. In the end I went with rollers and found a set on eBay with a stand. The reason I went with rollers is because I can just put my bike on it and ride, as well as improving my pedaling action, core strength and the bonus of getting comfortable with my bike. The turbo trainer you have to attach your back wheel and when time is valuable the quicker option made sense, the only downside being the set I had bought had no option to increase the resistance but I am sure I can work around it.
I had watched some youtube videos and some disasters on them. From the research I had done if you didn't use the stand it is best to put the rollers in between a doorway so you can quickly gain your balance again. Unfortunately I haven't got a doorway suitable for this so I improvised with the high chair on one side. This worked, but transferring my hand from the high chair to the handlebar was proving challenging without losing balance. In the end I managed it and kept my balance for 15 minutes before getting over confident and coming off the side. Fortunately I didn't injure myself.
Slowly but surely things are coming together. Sunday 26th I joined a couple of club mates on a ride up to High Beech, Epping. This time I had an isotonic drink and two energy gels. I had two weetabix and two slices of wholemeal toast for breakfast lessons 1-3 learnt. The ride was good and full of hills and they dropped me on each one and waited for me on the top. Although I hate hills I know I need to do more for my legs to get use to them.
I was given some advice on the ride in regards climbing hills. Anyone that has done a fair amount of cycling probably knows this but me being pretty much new to this had no clue. If the hill is a long one you want to sit back in the saddle, hands on top of the handlebars and relax your arms and shoulders. Why? you may ask, standing up a while climbing a hill incorporates your arms more and uses up vital oxygen needed for your legs, the relaxing part is for your chest to expand as and fill your lungs as much as possible. So far it has helped and that fact that it improves my stamina through spinning my legs is a bonus.
I have since been out on another club run, in general I felt a lot better although I was dropped on a hill because I thought I was in the small chain ring when in fact I was in the big chain ring and run out of gears. Then when I caught up they began the charge to the cafe and there was no way I was going to keep up with them. On the way home they averaged 21 mph over 30 miles, I bother trying to keep up and averaged 17 mph but was happy that I didn't get to the point of having nothing left in my legs.
Slowly but surely I am improving. What I haven't told you so far is some of the cyclist in the group are twice my age and wipe the floor with me. I can't think of many sports where a person in their twenties with a decent level of fitness is unable to keep up with someone in their 60's.
So the plan for my blogs now is to update weekly with my training plan, how training is going and once I start to organise myself I will add my current food and drink intake and hopefully we will see how I am progressing. I think now is a good time to set a goal for the current racing season. The first is to earn a point in a road racing event from what I have seen from some of those that race in the same category it is going to be tough but there is no point setting a goal that is easy to achieve.
I have found out that I have a place in the 2013 Prudential Ride London-Surrey 100 and will be raising money on behalf of The Maypole Project, if you have any spare change to donate please click here.
The two categories of trainers I was looking at were turbo trainers and rollers. In the end I went with rollers and found a set on eBay with a stand. The reason I went with rollers is because I can just put my bike on it and ride, as well as improving my pedaling action, core strength and the bonus of getting comfortable with my bike. The turbo trainer you have to attach your back wheel and when time is valuable the quicker option made sense, the only downside being the set I had bought had no option to increase the resistance but I am sure I can work around it.
I had watched some youtube videos and some disasters on them. From the research I had done if you didn't use the stand it is best to put the rollers in between a doorway so you can quickly gain your balance again. Unfortunately I haven't got a doorway suitable for this so I improvised with the high chair on one side. This worked, but transferring my hand from the high chair to the handlebar was proving challenging without losing balance. In the end I managed it and kept my balance for 15 minutes before getting over confident and coming off the side. Fortunately I didn't injure myself.
Slowly but surely things are coming together. Sunday 26th I joined a couple of club mates on a ride up to High Beech, Epping. This time I had an isotonic drink and two energy gels. I had two weetabix and two slices of wholemeal toast for breakfast lessons 1-3 learnt. The ride was good and full of hills and they dropped me on each one and waited for me on the top. Although I hate hills I know I need to do more for my legs to get use to them.
I was given some advice on the ride in regards climbing hills. Anyone that has done a fair amount of cycling probably knows this but me being pretty much new to this had no clue. If the hill is a long one you want to sit back in the saddle, hands on top of the handlebars and relax your arms and shoulders. Why? you may ask, standing up a while climbing a hill incorporates your arms more and uses up vital oxygen needed for your legs, the relaxing part is for your chest to expand as and fill your lungs as much as possible. So far it has helped and that fact that it improves my stamina through spinning my legs is a bonus.
I have since been out on another club run, in general I felt a lot better although I was dropped on a hill because I thought I was in the small chain ring when in fact I was in the big chain ring and run out of gears. Then when I caught up they began the charge to the cafe and there was no way I was going to keep up with them. On the way home they averaged 21 mph over 30 miles, I bother trying to keep up and averaged 17 mph but was happy that I didn't get to the point of having nothing left in my legs.
Slowly but surely I am improving. What I haven't told you so far is some of the cyclist in the group are twice my age and wipe the floor with me. I can't think of many sports where a person in their twenties with a decent level of fitness is unable to keep up with someone in their 60's.
So the plan for my blogs now is to update weekly with my training plan, how training is going and once I start to organise myself I will add my current food and drink intake and hopefully we will see how I am progressing. I think now is a good time to set a goal for the current racing season. The first is to earn a point in a road racing event from what I have seen from some of those that race in the same category it is going to be tough but there is no point setting a goal that is easy to achieve.
I have found out that I have a place in the 2013 Prudential Ride London-Surrey 100 and will be raising money on behalf of The Maypole Project, if you have any spare change to donate please click here.
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