Giro da Living Room

So finally today I felt well enough to get back into some form of training, starting with yoga this morning, which felt really good. Was also good to get some stretching in, because even while I've been ill I've been struggling a bit with a sore left knee. It seems like it's almost certainly Iliotibial Band Friction Syndrome, so in a way it's probably a good thing that I've had a bit of rest over the last couple of weeks.

I'm hoping that my new pedals will mean that I get less pain from this, because they allow my knees a bit more freedom to 'float'. I also learnt a bit of ITB stretching when I did my 'ski fitness' class at the gym earlier in the year, so I guess I'm just going to have to do lots of that over the next couple of months.

I was only easing my way back into training today, to see how I felt, and as the weather was rubbish, I just did 45 mins on the turbo trainer at 'endurance' level. Luckily, my 45 mins coincided with the final stages of today's stage of the Giro d'Italia, which I've been following over the last couple of weeks.

Things seemed ok, although again my heart rate is a bit higher than it would ideally be for a given level of effort, so I was only turning a fairly low gear. No ill effects from it, and my knee actually felt a bit 'looser' afterwards. Tomorrow and the weekend I'll probably do similar fairly easy efforts and then aim at a bit more 'threshold' stuff next week ahead of the Highclere Sportive which is a week Sunday.

At the moment, I aiming to do this just in order to give me an idea of whether I'm in any position to do the Dragon Ride the week after, but if I'm feeling good I might actually give it a miss and continue with my more structured training.

Finally, I didn't have a chance to post them earlier in the week, but I did take all my usual measurements on Monday, and you can see them below. Still gradually losing weight, although a lot of that can be accounted by a loss in muscle mass as a result in the loss of training, so I guess we'll get a more accurate impression of where I am when I've been back in training for a couple of weeks.

Weight: 10 stone 12 lbs

Body Fat: 16.9%

Visceral Fat Rating: 5

Basal Metabolic Rate: 6934 kcal / 1657 kJ

Muscle Mass: 8 stone 8 lbs

Water: 57.7%

Tale of the tape and the tissue

Sorry there haven't been any updates for a week or so - that's really for two  reasons. Firstly, I had a scheduled complete week off in my training programme, to allow a bit of rest and recovery. Secondly, for the last five days I've had proper, full-on, can't get out of bed, would rather be dead than this - flu.

This wouldn't have been a problem, except that I'm still pretty ill, and I'm almost certainly not going to get any training done this week either. I guess I'm going to have to accept that these things happen, and there's not a lot I can do about it, except rest up properly and try and get completely better this time. The enforced layoff gives me a chance to get some writing done for my Open University Course anyway, so hopefully once I'm fit again I'll be able to concentrate properly on my training.

It's Monday though, so as usual, here are my weight stats for the week:

Weight: 10 stone 13.6 lbs

Body Fat: 17.5%

Visceral Fat Rating: 5

Basal Metabolic Rate: 6963 kcal / 1164 kJ

Muscle Mass: 8 stone 8.4 lbs

Water: 57.2%

The only thing to note there is that despite not doing any training, my stats have stayed pretty much the same this week.

As an extra bonus, I thought I'd include this photo taken at the Hampshire Hilly Hundred last week. There were a couple of others, where I looked only 'mildly' uncomfortable, but I think this is the funniest one. As I could clearly see the photographer, I imagine this is me trying to look fairly relaxed and unflustered - which gives you some indication of the fact that I probably wasn't feeling my best!

Hampshire Hilly Hundred (Midi Version - 77 miles)

Today's Stats: Hampshire Hilly Hundred

Well, having finally decided to give it a go, I did actually manage to finish the 'Midi' (77 mile) version of the Hampshire Hilly Hundred.

I woke up with an unpromising sore throat and a bit of a cough, but as the weather was so beautiful (sunny, cloudless and not a breath of wind) and I'd already packed my bike, there was no way I was going to bale now.

I got down to the start point around 8am, and by the time I'd registered and got myself sorted out, I eventually started at about 8.30. It instantly became clear that I was still in the recovery phase from my flu as my heart rate jumped to 160+ fairly quickly, rather than the 145-150 it should have been as I rolled out steadily.

This meant that I had to make a pretty early decision that I was going to take things easily, and not worry about my time, or indeed anything else apart from finishing. Mentally, that was a fairly big concern, as I was remembering my miserable experience of Tuesday, when I was absolutely shattered after only 35 miles or so. That was a shame, as 3 weeks ago, I wouldn't really have had any worries about completing the route - but it was good training for strengthening the mind at least.

As my main priority was keeping my heart rate out of the 'red zone', I had to make sure to rein things back on the frequent hills - slipping it down into a low gear, and just maintaining a slow, steady pace. This wasn't uncomfortable, but meant that I couldn't really latch onto any groups...so I did pretty much the whole 77 miles on my own - again good mental training.

The course wasn't full of loads of huge hills, but as you can see from the elevation chart, itwas very 'rolling', meaning that there was lots of

climbing and very little flat...it was basically just 5 mins climbing followed by 2 or 3 mins of descending, and then the same again...good interval training I guess. In total, there was about 1700m of climbing, which is a reasonably challenging test. According to my Garmin, there were a couple of 25% gradients in there too, although nothing felt unmanageably steep.

The whole ride was very well organised - the feeding stations at around 30 miles and 60 miles coming at just the right points for me and all the signage and marshalling absolutely spot on.

Although some worrying aches and pains had started around the 20 mile mark, I set myself little targets to get to, and as I was very disciplined with my feeding, I had multiple 'second winds' as my carbohydrate gels kicked in. Once I'd got to 50 miles without any disasters, I began to become more relaxed about actually finishing, and that side of things got a bit easier, although the physical stuff obviously got harder.

The last ten miles or so were pretty tough. I figure this was because my elevated heart rate meant I'd been working at my aerobic threshold almost continuously - whether I liked it or not - and you just can't keep that going for very long without feeling the effects. You can make this out from the pie chart on the left here - more than half the ride was done in my upper heart rate zones, and my average heart rate was 83% of my maximum - the anaerobic zone. In basic terms, in this zone, you stop using fat for your energy and use glycogen stored in muscles instead. This creates lots of lactic acid, and if you're producing more lactic acid than you can remove from your muscles, they get very sore. The theory wasn't much comfort to me in those last ten miles, whilst I was living through the practical application!

So, although the ride was more of a struggle than it should have been, there were lots of positives to come out of it. 

Obviously, I finished - and that was the main aim of the exercise, as it will be with the Etape. This was the longest ride I've ever done, by some distance, and was the longest time I'd spent in the saddle. It was good to get that experience, and comforting to note that I didn't become physically uncomfortable, even after five and a half hours on the bike. 

Secondly, I had to show a bit of mental strength and physical fortitude, both of which I'll need plenty of on Mont Ventoux. 

Thirdly, I got to do lots of hard aerobic and anaerobic training - not that that was in the plan - which again will prove useful in weeks to come.

My next big challenge is the Dragon Ride in 5 weeks. I'm hoping that I haven't set my recovery back at all by doing today's ride and that I'll be in much better physical shape for that, as obviously it'll be even harder. I guess I'll just have to trust in all the training I've done so far, and believe that it's all still there - if a little obscured at the moment. Hopefully as soon as I make a full recovery, I'll be back in tip-top (or as near as I'll ever get to that) form again.

Finally, as usual - Monday is physiological stats day, so here they are:

Weight: 10st 13.8lbs

Body Fat: 17.5%

Visceral Fat: 5

Basal Metabolic Rate: 6971kcal/1666kJ

Muscle Mass: 8st 8.6lbs

Water: 57.2%

Staying out of the red

Today's Training Stats: Richmond Park "Wrong Way"

Today was my last day's training before I have to decide whether I'm going to do the Hampshire Hilly Hundred on Sunday. I've got a Childline Training Fair to go to tomorrow, so that means an enforced rest day, which is probably no bad thing.

In an ideal world, I would have done a longer ride today in order to check out my endurance. However, I had to do some writing this morning, and had an appointment in East Sheen in the afternoon, so I combined that with a couple of laps round Richmond Park...(again).

I did try to inject a little bit of variety, by going in the opposite direction from my normal route. This means you only really have one, sharp, climb instead of a couple of smaller ones. It also meant that the strong wind was directly behind me on the stretch down from the Richmond Gate to the Roehampton Gate - leading to some pretty high speeds with not much effort expended.

It was noticeable that my heart rate is now getting down to more normal levels after my couple of weeks of illness - although probably still about 10 bpm higher than it should be. This meant that I had to think about my effort levels. On the first lap, I was out of the saddle on the climb, pushing my heart rate up towards its maximum - but thinking about how I might cope with Sunday's ride, I remembered Shane Sutton talking about 'staying out of the red' ie. not pushing yourself up into your maximum heart rate zone and causing excess fatigue.

It occurred to me that this might have been why I had such a poor time on Tuesday, because there wasn't really much I could do to keep my heart rate down, and it was up towards the top end of my range for quite a lot of the ride. Maybe that was a key factor in seemingly using up all my energy.

Therefore, on the second lap, I made a conscious effort to keep my heart rate in the 'endurance' zone wherever possible - dropping my speed if necessary. When climbing, this meant staying in the saddle, cutting my speed and just keeping a steady rhythm. I definitely felt much better for it, and after doing around 25 miles I didn't feel fatigued at all - a distinct improvement from Tuesday.

Buoyed by that, at the moment I feel like I probably will do the Hampshire Hilly Hundred after all - even if it means taking it fairly easily. It would be good to get the experience of spending an extended time in the saddle, and maybe if I have to suffer a little bit that might not be a bad thing in terms of mental preparation for the Etape. We shall see.

New Pedals

Thursday's my training rest day, as I have my weekly Childline shift in the morning (although my 5.15am alarm often feels like the middle of the night), and I had to go to the Saison Poetry Library on the Southbank to do a bit of research for my Open University Course in the afternoon.

Therefore, no stats or training roundup for today, but if you've had a chance to have a quick look at yesterday's video, you may have seen the bit where I demonstrate the new Speedplay Light Action pedals that I fitted before going out to the park.

I appreciate that not everyone will find the intricacies of pedal choice all that thrilling, but I just thought I'd write a little bit about them in case other cyclists are interested in trying them out.

The main reason for changing from the Look Keo Sprint pedals that I did have was that I was getting a bit of pain in my knees - particularly the left - after any rides of moderate distance. One of the many quirks of my body is that I have quite a bit of curvature in my lower legs - again particularly the left - and I think this was part of the problem.

With 'Look' type pedals, once the foot is clipped into the pedal, its position is fixed very firmly, meaning that the forces through your legs follow a very fixed path. With the Speedplay 

mechanism, the whole of the 'attachment' mechanism is moved to the cleat that goes on the bottom of your shoe, leaving just a 'lollipop' shaped pedal.

This mechanism allows Speedplay to incorporate a significant (15 degree) amount of 'float' into the attachment mechanism, meaning that with every pedal stroke, your feet can wiggle about a bit and find their natural position, thereby hopefully reducing the risk of knee strain.

Another - for me quite significant - benefit of the Speedplay pedal system is that they're 'double

 sided', meaning that you can clip onto them from either side. They also locate onto the shoe cleat much more easily than the Look pedals. 

Practically, this means that when you're pulling away from junctions or traffic lights, there's far less fumbling with your feet, trying to manoeuvre your pedal and foot into the right position. It also cuts out lots of potentially dangerous looking down - when you should be looking ahead at the road - and the regular painful bashes to the shin

 when you stamp down on the pedal to clip in - just miss - and send the pedal spinning backwards into your leg.

So far, the results have been very good. I've found them much easier to use than the Look pedals, and although my knee was pretty sore yesterday morning, after doing another hour and a half or so's riding, the pain had gone by this morning - another really good sign. 

Slight Return

Today's "Not really training" stats: Video Tour of Richmond Park and Sky Positioning Session

Surprisingly, after feeling so miserable and sore last night, I didn't feel too bad at all this morning. The soreness in my quads had gone, and the only pain was a bit of an ache in the side of my left knee. However, I think this is a pedal issue, which I may have gone some way towards solving today....more on that tomorrow I think.

Because of scheduling issues, I haven't had a chance to go to my usual Wednesday morning Yoga class for a while, so although I still felt pretty tired I felt it was important to go today. Not least because it's a good way to get in some core strength work.

In the afternoon, I did a pretty relaxed lap of Richmond Park, and made a little video on the way, which you should be able to see below.

After that, I popped down to Sky, for a bike positioning and maintenace workshop with Ben Wilson from British Cycling.

He seemed to be fairly happy with my position on the bike, only suggesting that maybe I could try moving my seat position backwards slightly. The idea is that this might take a bit of what I feel is the excess pressure going through my hands when I'm riding 'on the hoods'.

A Step Too Far?

Todays Training Stats: Box Hill Loop

I think today, in a bid to check if I was gonna have any chance of doing the Hampshire Hilly Hundred this weekend, I may have pushed myself a bit far...we'll have to see how I come up tomorrow, but right now I feel pretty tired and a bit sore.

It's obviously a combination of still being in recovery from the flu, and having lost a bit of fitness from the training I've missed. However, I wanted to spend some proper time on the bike to see how I was really feeling, and I guess in that aim I've had a kind of 'success', by discovering that I don't feel great!

I decided to do a 45 mile loop down to Box Hill, to get a few more miles in the legs than yesterday, and also get a bit of hill-work in - something which I feel has been a bit lacking in my training so far. It was a really nice ride, beautiful countryside, pretty good weather and my Garmin navigating perfectly, so completely stress-free.

I actually approached Box Hill the 'back' way - cos that's the route that I'd downloaded off Bikely - and this way the climbing's done more gradually - which today at least suited me perfectly. However, I was surprised to find that there was another short, sharp climb (20%!) just after I'd come down off Box Hill, past Westhumble. It wasn't particularly long, but I was pleased that in my slightly fragile state at the moment I wasn't tempted to walk it. Luckily it was quiet, so I could use the full width of the road to zig-zag slightly, and it was encouraging that once I'd got into a rhythm, my legs were up to it, even if my lungs were struggling.

That's about as good as it got though, because the last 15 miles or so were a bit of a struggle. The limiting factor was pretty bad soreness in my quads, which I don't think would have been a problem a couple of weeks ago. I think I'd been fuelling properly - 3 gels including 1 smart gel in a 3 hour ride, and I'd drunk quite a lot of GO and PSP22, so I guess it's just a natural drop-off in fitness. 

Like yesterday, my heart rate was still 15-20 bpm higher than it would normally be for a given level of effort, and for that reason, at the moment I'm feeling like I'll probably give the Hampshire Hilly Hundred a miss. I've still got a couple more days to decide though, and until then I'll treat the rest of the week as a normal training week I guess.

Flu Frustrations

Today's training stats: Richmond Park: Easy

So today, I finally got back on the bike, after almost 11 days off it. A fairly standard cold eventually turned into proper flu. I'm still not back fully fit yet, but I felt I couldn't wait any longer to get back training, and maybe blowing the cobwebs out of my lungs and legs might actually help the recovery.

To try and ease myself back into things I thought I'd do a couple of laps of Richmond Park, not aiming at any particular heart rate or time, just to see how I felt. That also gave me the option that if I felt absolutely terrible then I could just zip home.

Fitness wise, things didn't feel too bad. However, for a given level of effort, my heart rate was 10-15 beats higher than it would normally be. It felt like that was more to do with my body still coping with the after effects of the flu, rather than having lost huge amounts of fitness, but I guess that'll become apparent over the next couple of days.

I didn't feel particularly tired, in a muscular sense and in some senses the ride was encouraging, because I used it to try out some different techniques. For instance, on the hills I stayed resolutely in the saddle, and stuck to a slightly higher gear than I normally would - in a bid to train 'with force' as recommended by Shane Sutton in our workshop of ten days ago. Although you're obviously putting down more power through your legs this way, it definitely felt less aerobically stressful, so something worth sticking with.

My major concern now is that I'm supposed to be doing the Hampshire Hilly Hundred this Sunday. At the moment, I don't really feel in good enough shape to do it. However, if I possibly can, I will, so hopefully my recovery will continue over the course of this week and I'll be up to it by start-time.

One 'positive' side effect of being ill is that it's helped in the weight-loss programme, as I haven't really felt like eating for the last ten days or so! Here, as usual for Mondays, are this weeks Tanita stats:

Weight: 11 stone exactly (down 4 pounds or so)

Body Fat: 17.9% (down 0.5%)

Visceral Fat Rating: 5 (down 1)

Basal Metabolic Rate: 6949kJ / 1661kCal

Muscle Mass: 8 stone 8 lbs (down 3 pounds)

Water: 56.9%

According to these stats, I've now lost exactly a stone since I started out on this endeavour, which is pleasing. The issue this week though, is that I've lost 3 pounds of muscle mass - obviously as a result of not having done any training - so it remains to be seen if my weight loss will hold up over the next couple of weeks.