Saturday Morning, And Worth Looking At

Yesterday afternoon, gated lane, Marefield

"I Pay Road Tax", our rights are as good as that angry vehicle driver's, the site also includes a blog

In addition, on Cycling Info, an excellent post by economist Tejvan Pettinger on the same subject.

Easy's Not Easy

Autumn Oak, Monks Kirby

I didn't cycle as far as I'd planned to do today, but it was still good. After finally getting around to cleaning up all the fallen leaves around the front and back of the house, filling up the compost heap in the process, I went out for my ride just after lunch. I "MADE" myself take it easy. For the first hour I'd averaged around 230W and I kept having thoughts such as "I can just keep it at 230W for the duration". But then I countered that with "hold on, just take the opportunity to enjoy riding along the lanes". I found myself vacillating between the two extremes for quite some time as it's hard to let go of the "I've got to train" mentality. There was a strong wind as I made my way south for 30 miles, but sunshine, pretty lanes and villages made it enjoyable. When I swung round and started making my back I was by then well and truly in the "keep it easy" groove, who cared that average power was dropping by the mile as the tail wind blew me along, I didn't! In fact I took a bit of pleasure in it. It was a good afternoon's riding and still produced 177tss ~ I'd better back off, I'll be exceeding my 2CTL/week target rate of rise!

A Bit Let Down!

Sunday, I thought I'd better pump those super reliable Specialized Armadillo tyres up on my training bike. There was only about 60psi in them and a couple of minutes after being pumped up to 100psi the rear one went flat with a "pshhhh". It was so long since I'd had a flat that I'd almost forgotten how to change an inner tube!

Yesterday morning, the tyre was flat again. I couldn't find any cuts or sharp objects in the tyre so I put it down to having re-used a poorly mended inner tube. I'd just met the lads last night when the tyre went down again! Horror of horrors, I had to fix a flat on the open road but it only took a couple of minutes. I got two miles up the road when, "pshhhh" down it went again. This time I was on a dark road but fortunately had the light from a nearby telephone box to use. The tyre didn't actually go flat again, but every 30 minutes I had to stop to put more air in it. Riding on Armadillos is hard work at the best of times, but when there's only 30psi or less it's like riding through treacle. I just couldn't keep up with my two training partners. I still had a good training session though, power was good and exactly as planned I accrued another 202tss.

A closer look at the wheel when I got home revealed the Armadillo tyre to be in perfect condition, the problem was the rim tape around the valve hole. Fortunately I some spare tape in the garage. This morning, it seemed as if I hardly had to press on the pedals to get to work, which was good as my legs feel somewhat hollow!

The Weekly Cycle

Sundays: 60-90 mins on TT bike if it's not too wet, include 40 mins of sweet spot or sub threshold depending on what I feel like, ~80tss. Hopefully, by doing this, the position on this bike won't feel so strange in the spring.

Mondays: Ride to work, on the way home include 20 mins of sweet spot and 60 mins of something specific. Last week it was 10 min intervals at 100%, yesterday it was 4 min intervals at 115%, ~120tss. Efforts like this help with raising FTP, they recalibrate my perception of perceived effort, the trick is not to do too much to soon.

Tuesdays: Ride to work,on the way home do 90 mins of sweet spot at 90-93%, ~200tss. A tough bread and butter FTP building workout.

Wednesdays: Ride to work and back at recovery pace, ~20tss. "Needs must", a 200tss workout the day before always leaves me somewhat weary!

Thursdays: Ride to work, on the way home do 90 mins of sweet spot 87-90%, ~180tss. Just a couple of percent lower intensity from Tuesday makes the workout a lot easier, but is still building aerobic base and FTP.

Friday: Ride to work and back, ~20tss. Just feeling ready for the weekend!

Saturday: No cycling, go for a walk or do something else. The "off season" mental break day, a chance to enjoy some other pursuit.

Easy Does It!

It's important to keep the overall picture in view at this time of the year. There's a long time to go until the season starts and longer still to reach a peak in performance. On the other side of the coin, unless a training plan is followed, the time between now and the start of the season will soon pass and the opportunity reach peak form could easily be lost.

If peak form at some future point in time is a sole target, then all efforts need to be geared up to achieving it. That means training appropriately in terms of duration, intensity and other skills specific to the target event. Using a power meter over the past two winters has taught me so much and it's this experience that I'm trying to feed back into this winter's plan.

Right now I'm probably very fit compared to the average guy in the street, but in terms of bike racing I've got a lot of work to do. I've lost ALL my speed but before I worry about that, I need to emphasise rebuilding my aerobic fitness. I've got to re-teach my muscles good cycling habits and also get my body ready for the stresses of intensive training in the spring. However, I also have to bear in mind that I can't do it all overnight, so I have to increase my activities little by little, getting my body used to the stresses of training in a gradual fashion.

The winter before last I got carried away with training load. My weekly load in December was as high as at any other time during the following season. This made me fit and strong throughout a long season, but my form plateaued and at no time in particular did any performance really stand out. Last winter I changed that, built up my training load gradually, introduced small increases in intensity (including levels 5, 6 and 7) most weeks and actually manged to peak during the summer. However, I still made a few mistakes and early on in January I got ill because of it. Overall though, last winter was good and I was pleased with my performances in 2009. In order to keep things fresh and to keep on learning, I need a different challenge for next season and that means that this winter's plan needs to be suitably different too. Whilst my plan presently has more "bones" than "meat", I have still started as I mean to go on. This is now week 2 of a new training cycle and already I've completed some very good workouts. This includes building training load at a very conservative CTL increase of 2tss/week whilst making workouts more specific. I'm cutting out even more junk miles than I did last winter which keeps each session's training stress score lower but still gives me the same amount of quality training time on the bike. By doing this I am hoping to string more quality training sessions together on consecutive days but at the same time to maintain a sustainable rate of increase in overall training load. Hopefully, I'll get to next season with a CTL that I know equates to feeling strong without leaving me physically weary, but that has also been built up on a diet of focused training sessions.

Mountain Bike Ride MTB From Blair Atholl ~ The Disappointing Munro

Another mountain bike, walk, mountain bike adventure:

I was the first person to park in the Forest Lodge car park at Blair Athol, subsequently I had the early morning trail to myself and it was only as I was descending back from the Munro’s summit that I met another walker who exclaimed “I’m a bit disappointed with this Munro!” I felt quite sorry for the chap, I’d had a fantastic morning out and my mind was full of the things I’d already seen. I left him with a “Well, I can’t say I’ve ever found a boring Munro yet, you just have to look for different things” and he carried on with his route march towards the summit.

The track exits from the woods onto open wilderness

After very heavy rain the day before the morning sky promised good things. I cycled away from the car park and up through glades of beech, sycamore, larch and pine. Beneath my tyres was a carpet of bronzed beech leaves with brilliant yellow sycamore leaves in stark contrast. The sound of my bike flushed a woodcock out of the undergrowth and I watched it fly up the hill. Once on the open moorland track, I felt a sense of awe at the huge open space of heathland stretching out in front of me. It was all uphill, but with a steady gradient and on a good surface of compacted gravel and hard earth. This was such a contrast to the outing that I’d had the previous week to Am Bastier on Skye: there were no terrifying and vertiginous drops, no need for total concentration where a careless step and subsequent slip would without doubt have been fatal. Bleak heather clad moors of Athol’s hills replaced bleak rock and knife-edge ridges of Skye’s Cuillin Mountains. Here, a sense of solitude and an engagement with nature was easy to realise.

Uphill for a few miles with remote but easy cycling

The track stretched out in front and to my left the burn, still full of white water, rushed downwards. There were plenty of red grouse around and I was constantly being scolded. The sunlight played it’s symphony of light on the land and white clouds still hung to areas of higher ground. After approximately 5 miles, the track rounded a corner and there before me was a large herd of red deer. I counted at least 40 animals then gave up as I began to see more and more against the dark vegetation. Stags were both up and down the hill and the glen reverberated with the deep, from the pit of their stomach roars. The deer, having been spooked by my presence moved swiftly across the extremely deep heather to a safer place from where they could monitor my much slower progress.

Allt Scheicheachan bothy, a mile of rougher track still to cycle

I soon reached the bothy at Allt Scheicheachan and stopped to have a nose around. It was very tidy, with stone flagged floors, a cast iron hearth, tables and bunks. It was a diminutive building amidst a wild landscape. This was supposed to be where I should leave the bike, but after a dash through a rather deep ford and having still maintaining dry feet, I continued to cycle up alongside the burn almost to the head of the glen from whence I proceeded on foot. There had been a thickening of the cloud and the bright sunshine was showing less and less. As I reached the plateau, a golden eagle flying low and almost dawdling flew right over the top of me. As it enjoyed a couple of typical "tumbles" through the air I could clearly see by it’s wing markings that it was an adolescent. I watched it make way over the mountain and out of sight.

The deep heathers were soon replaced by sub-arctic tundra type dwarf varieties, only a couple of inches high, interspersed by incredibly clean looking lichens, and amongst the short ochre grasses, bright green, yellow and brilliant red mosses. It was truly wonderful tapestry of colours and textures. As I neared the summit, which by now was veiled by thin cloud, the rock changed to rounded granite boulders and the path was typically Cairngorm type grit. A mountain hare, upright on it’s hind legs watched me approach then made off though the boulders. A large group of ptarmigan, whistling as they do, casually moved along close by, virtually indistinguishable by means of their plumage against the grey rocks.

Lunchtime view, dull weather but a myriad of subtle hues and tones

After a quick look at the summit’s shelter cairn I descended back out of the cloud and found a good rock upon which to sit whilst I ate my lunch. The views south, west and north over the Highlands were superb as the low light levels revealed the landscape as subtle tones of greys, browns and mauves. I heard a loud rattling sound across the moor and there was another herd of deer with two stags locking antlers, one of them soon distancing itself from the other who proceeded to roar for some time.

After unlocking my bike I set off back to the bothy. A hen harrier rose up out of the heather and as I rounded each bend we had a game of chase with the bird perching then flying on a bit further. It was an easy ride back along the track as I hardly had to press on the pedals, the sun had gone for good but the cloud had risen again and I felt smug about having enjoyed the best of the day. When I got back to the car I realised that my rear light had fallen off somewhere along the way. I hope “Mr Disappointed” found it, I’m sure it would have made his day!

Velocimage #24 ~ The Wall

"Escape Route", the cyclist's and walker's shop in Pitlochry

Hooray, it's Saturday! Unfortunately there's a gale blowing outside so I've been glad to get my fix by reading Robert Jordan's reports on some recent Chung tests on Mid-Georgia Mid Pack Training.