Tricky Training

Today's training stats: Endurance: 2 Laps of Richmond Park and errands

Today's task was 60-120 minutes of Endurance level (HR: 142-152bpm) riding. I had to be in East Sheen for a doctor's appointment at 5 anyway, so although it wasn't very adventurous, I thought I could work this into my training with a couple of laps of Richmond Park.

I had a bit more difficulty today with keeping my heart rate in the required zone. I figure it just happens some days that your heart rate will react in a more volatile fashion. I found that sometimes I actually had to go pretty slowly to get my heart rate back into the zone, because any significant effort was pushing me up into the mixed muscle zone (it's called this because you're using - and therefore fatiguing - two different kinds of muscle fibre, making it more difficult to train each type of fibre specifically).

Having said that, I think it's probably best to be philosophical about it, and not worry too much about sliding out of the Endurance zone, because it's just going to happen when you're on the road and you have to deal with hills, wind etc. The key is just to try to do as much as possible of your work in the target zone.

Apart from that, the ride was fairly uneventful. I'm definitely feeling the benefit of riding at higher cadences...definitely gives you more of a feeling that you could ride indefinitely, because your legs are getting so tired and sore.

When I got back, I had my next week's training programme from British Cycling. I think this is where I get to see the benefit of having had my chat with Garry Palmer last week about training, because in my 'work' weeks, I'm just not going to have the time to do as much as is suggested. Garry just reassured me that those weeks I can take relatively easy, as long as I keep my legs ticking over. If it hadn't been for that chat I would have been more concerned that I wasn't doing enough.

Finally, I read an interesting column in The Times this morning - "A joyous celebration of pain", tagged to the Boat Race, but really about the 'point' of taking part in any painful sporting endeavour. I don't agree with all of it, but a lot of it makes sense.

If you don't have the time to read the whole article, the final paragraph is the one that really struck a chord with me. Some of you may know that I've had a pretty rough time over the last year, and just getting through each day has often been unbelieveably difficult. This last paragraph of the article is subtitled, 'Anti Death' and I guess sums up a lot of the things I've been trying to do to make life a little easier...

"All the guff about dreams and challenges and honour and glory come down to this: the seeking out and accepting of an opportunity to live life more intensely. It's about being alive, about knowing you're alive, about celebrating being alive.

Look at the losers in their agony - they look as if they're dying, the feel as if they're dying, but they have never been more alive. So don't sneer. Don't pity. Envy."