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.