Weekend Catchup

It's been a busy few days, so here are the training stats from this weekend's activities. Unfortunately, I forgot to press 'start' on my Edge when setting out this morning on the Twickenham Cycling Club Sunday ride (of which more later), so the stats for that only cover the second 2/3rds of the ride.

Strength: 5 min Intervals (Cadence 50/90) (Friday night)

Skills: Bike Handling + High Cadence + Out of Saddle (Saturday afternoon)

Conditioning: Twickenham Cycling Club Sunday Morning Ride - 50 miles (umm...Sunday morning)

Just as a recap, the three categories - Strength/Skills/Conditioning - relate to the three types of session recommended in my training programme. At the moment, I'm supposed to be doing a minimum of 3 conditioning sessions, 1 strength session and 1 skills session per week, which I've managed to keep to so far.

I'd targeted doing 8 hours of work this week, and a couple of 2+ hour rides, but I reassessed that a little bit this week, in light of more information about 'over-training', and also being a bit more realistice. As it was, I did 7 hours, and managed to do the recommended number of sessions in each group.

The 30 minute skills session I did on Saturday was actually surprisingly useful. Because I'm so new to riding a road bike, I really needed to get a bit more experience of cornering and adjusting my cadence to suit wind/gradient etc., and although it was only a short session, I learnt a lot.

Prior to this, on Friday night, I'd done a strength interval session to try and build up my power production. The format was: 5 minutes, in a high gear, at a cadence of around 50, followed by 5 minutes in a low gear at a cadence of around 90. The whole thing was repeated 3 times, giving a total of 30 minutes plus warmup/warmdown. I think I got the intensity about right - hard, but not flat out, and although the strength sessions don't seem to be much fun, I'm hoping I'll reap the benefits on Ventoux in July.

Anyway - back to today and the Twickenham Cycling Club Sunday ride. I know that I need to get some experience of riding in a group, holding a wheel etc., and I guess joining a club is probably the best way to do it. It's also a more sociable way of getting the miles in. My big concern was that my fitness levels wouldn't be up to it, and I'd end up being disheartened rather than energised by the experience. I was still in two minds when I got up, but the weather was so lovely that I figured if I didn't go out today, then I would never go out - which would be a bad thing.

So -being careful to wear my least-branded, least-garish gear (The cycling branch of the fashion police are notoriously strict), I headed down to Twickenham Green, to the meeting point.

Everyone was immediately really friendly and welcoming, and I definitely felt 'looked after'. When we set out, Des - who was leading the group - cycled alongside me and gave me some friendly and really helpful advice about the do's and don'ts of group riding and the whole process was neatly demystified for me.

The friendliness of the group was reinforced for me, when after 5 or 6 miles I heard the telltale hiss of air escaping from my tyre, as I got my first puncture on my new bike. Everyone immediately stopped, and it was if a Ferrari pit-crew had sprung into action - I had barely come to a standstill before the back wheel (initial misdiagnosis) and then the front wheel were off, and my inner tube was replaced - the whole process taking no more than 2 or 3 minutes. Again, it made everything much less stressful for me, 'cos I wasn't fiddling around amateurishly, feeling like I was holding everyone up.


Once we got going again, it became clear to me that the most difficult thing about group riding is having the confidence (in yourself as much as the other riders) to sit 6 inches behind the back wheel of the cyclist in front of you and maintain that position without braking or accelerating suddenly. Having said that, once you can do it, the efficiency gains are enormous. I read somewhere that you can use up to 40% less oxygen if you're 'drafting' another rider and whilst I probably wasn't saving quite that much, your cycling just feels a hell of a lot easier.

Partly as a result, the pace of the group never felt uncomfortable, and overall, I felt less tired after this 50 miles than I did after my 40 mile solo ride earlier in the week. The 'hills' also felt a lot more comfortable, but as the benefits from drafting are not so extreme when climbing, I'm hoping this was more a mark of my improving fitness.

The most important discovery was that I'm going to have to get a bit more handy at clipping into my new pedals. Today it was really slowing me up in pulling away from traffic lights and roundabouts, and although I won't have to do that much clipping and unclipping in the Etape, I definitely need to get better at it in the short-term to make training a bit less stressful

Because I've only got partial stats from my Garmin, it might be useful to say here that the ride was just a smidge under a round 50 miles, and it was probably 3 1/2 hours in the saddle.

It was a good start to the training week anyway, and I'm going to need to get ahead of myself in my 'work' weeks. At the moment, I'm working part-time, and the way my shifts works is that one week (eg. this coming week), I work Mon/Tue then Fri/Sat/Sun. The flip side is that I don't work at all in the alternate weeks, so have a bit more time available for training, once my other course commitments are dealt with.

I will have 40 minutes per day of bike commuting time to keep me ticking over, so generally I'll just have to do a long ride and maybe a bigger strength session on the Wed/Thur of my work weeks. This is slightly complicated this week by the fact that I have my physiological testing at Sportstest on Thursday, and you're supposed to be well rested before it, so I'll have to try and fit in some evening turbo sessions after work.

Will let you know how I get on anyway, and there'll be an update after Sportstest on Thursday.

First 'Long' Ride

I know...it's all relative. I had a really nice morning anyway, doing a quick zip down to Chobham and back to Twickenham, all using my Edge 705 to give me "bike sat-nav" for the first time, as well as logging all my stats.

I've popped both the Motion Based and the (now working again) Garmin Connect stats below, as they give you slightly different analysis of the information, and it can't hurt.

Twickenham-Chobham-Twickenham Stats (Motion Based)

Conditioning: Twickenham - Chobham - Twickenham 40 Miles (Garmin Connect)

So those are the basic facts and figures. The reality was that I had a good morning. I guess in my heart of hearts, I felt like I wanted to do a ride with a good chunk of mileage so that I felt like the Etape would at least be a possibility.

I'd planned to do the ride at a quite leisurely pace, because I was also getting to grips with the sat-nav side of my Edge 705. I chose the route by doing a quick search on Bikely - a site which enables riders to share their routes. Once I'd found a route that looked promising, in terms of mileage and scenery, I used the option to download it as a GPX file. It's then a simple matter of copying the file to the GPS folder on the Edge by dragging and dropping - the route then turns up in the list of "Saved Routes" on the unit.

After fitting my newly arrived Look Keo Sprint pedals, and attaching the cleats to my new Pearl Izumi Attack Road Shoes, I was ready to go. At first, I wasn't very confident about the routing the Edge was taking - I didn't seem to be going in the right direction at all, and this meant that I spent more time looking at the mapping screen than I did at the road at some points. However, about 15 mins of winding around the back roads of Hampton, I figured out what the problem was.

The route was a big loop, and without thinking, I'd just assumed that the loop went in a clockwise direction, and had started out. What became clear was that the route was actually plotted anti-clockwise, and so the Edge was doing its best to get me back "on track". Once I'd worked that out, it became clear that the Edge had actually done a really good job of getting me back to the proper route, by using cyclist-friendly roads with very little traffic.

It works almost exactly like a car sat-nav, giving you a warning (in both time and distance), of your next turning, and then giving you a reminder of the turning when you're just about to reach it - counting down from ten seconds on a few occasions.

Having said that, there were a couple of points on the ride when the Edge did get lost without any rider assistance.On one of these occasions it got me back to the proper route after a bit of thinking, but the second time I had to figure it out myself. The best way of doing this is to zoom out the map display, so that you can see the pink line marking your route, and then work your way back towards that line, until eventually the Edge picks it up.

Overall though, it was clearly a much better solution than constantly pulling a sweaty map out of my back pocket, and meant I could concentrate on my cycling, rather than always being worried about where I was.

The jury's still out on the pedals I think. I'm used to double sided Shimano SPD cleats/pedals for commuting, so I think it's going to take me a little while to get used to the engagement process for these Look single-sided ones. When they're engaged, the connection feels very secure, and there seems to be just the right amount of 'play' so that your knees don't feel like they're waggling around all the time, but they never get sore from being in the same position too much.

The shoes felt good though. They seem to fit well, and although there was an occasional twinge around the instep area, I think that's just a natural part of the adjustment process. Again, they felt secure without ever feeling tight and restrictive.

On the way 'out' the blustery wind was pretty much dead against me all the way, but I still managed to keep up a 17-18mph pace, without feeling tired. In fact, that was the encouraging thing about the ride as a whole. My legs and lungs never felt particularly stressed, which is a good sign on the endurance side of things. The ride was pretty flat, but on what 'hills' there were, I managed generally to keep it on the big chainring.

I had a 5 minute stop at a pub in Chobham, to refuel with drinks and an energy bar, but again I was encouraged that I didn't feel like I needed more of a rest. I did need to stretch out my back though, because it was starting to feel a bit sore from bending over in the 'tuck' position. In fact, whenever I felt a bit 'tired' I could generally narrow it down to my back feeling a bit sore, but again I'm hoping this is just part of the adjustment process.

Something that'll be easier to adjust to is feeling part of the camaraderie of the road. It's a small thing I know, but it was nice to exchange a nod and a smile with other cyclists out on the road training. Just makes you feel that you're not out there suffering on your own, and I guess on a deeper level it reminds you that you're a part of a a self-selecting group of slightly twisted loners. For some that might seem depressing - I find it strangely liberating!

By the time I got home, my quads were starting to feel slightly achey, but I had enough energy to manage a sprint to the doorway. I still need to refine my saddle position I think, as that obviously has an effect on which muscles you use. I've gradually been raising the saddle over the last week or so, in an effort to get a more 'powerful' position, but now that I've got my new pedals, I think I might need to move the saddle back slightly on the fore/aft plane, to get the most out of my legs. Will have a go at that the next time I get back on the turbo I think.

As far as the overall training plan's going, I've done almost six hours this week, which is the recommended amount according to my training plan. Although at the beginning of this week I think I said I'd like to try and get eight hours in, the more I read the more I think I should try and stick to the recommendations, in order to avoid 'overtraining', particularly at the start.

I also feel slightly guilty, because although I'd planned to do today's ride mostly in the "endurance" heart rate zone, (Zone 3, in yellow, on the chart) my Motion Based stats show me that I did a significant proportion in the Mixed Muscle Zone ( Zone 4, in orange, on the chart) above that.

This is pretty firmly discouraged in my training book, because it's not particularly useful in conditioning, and stresses two different types of muscle fibre, meaning that it's more difficult to target an individual kind of fibre on your next day of training.

I'm going to put that down as a learning experience though, and remember to drop my gearing and raise my cadence on uphill sections, so that my heart rate doesn't get too high.

I still need to do a 'strength' session from my menu of training activities, and also practice some of my 'skills', so I think I'll do an interval session on the turbo trainer on Friday, and then maybe a short, easy skills ride on Saturday.

I'm going to try myself out on the Twickenham Cycling Club Sunday morning run this weekend, because I need to get some experience of cycling in groups, and that'll give me a big jump on my training requirements for next week.

On the Road

(At the moment (2330 on Tuesday) The Garmin Connect site isn't allowing me to post my training details from today, but will add them as soon as I can)


Update Wed 1700: The Garmin Connect site still seems to be having a few problems, so I've managed to upload my training stats from yesterday onto the MotionBased website, which you should be able to find here: Tue Training Stats - 2 Laps of Richmond Park.


Despite the title, I'm not going to deliver today's entry in Beatnik style - mainly because I'm a bit poetry'd out after last Friday's late night writing session. What the title actually refers to is that today I finally got out and about on my new road bike, and did a proper road training session. Nothing overly strenuous - just a trip up to Richmond Park for 2 laps.

That only tells half the story though, because although the weather was grey but fine when I left, it was already quite blustery. On my way up to the park, the wind got stronger, and about half way through lap one, the rain started whipping in horizontally. I hope you'll bear that in mind when perusing the stats above. (While I'm on the subject, can I heartily recommend the "player" function on my stats page. It rather cleverly displays all the major readings - heart rate, cadence etc., against my map location during the ride. Kinda fun).


Lots of positives to come out of the day - the bike felt (no pun intended) really good on the road, and as a road-bike novice, it was good to get a bit of practice at shifting up and down the gears and controlling the drop handlebars. My hand position on the brake hoods also felt a lot more comfortable than it did on the turbo. I've figured out now that because the back wheel is raised slightly when its attached to the turbo, there's more pressure on your hands than there is when the bike's on the flat.


On the flat, as hoped, my cruising speed was 2 or 3 mph up on what I can do on my Sirrus Comp. Travelling at 17-18 mph was pretty comfortable and didn't feel like I was putting in much effort at all.


I also got to try out some energy food - A Sis Gel and an Energy Bar. The gels are a very strange gloopy consistency. They taste ok, but the 'feel' of them could take a bit of getting used to. I really liked the Energy Bar though. It had a sticky, toffee-like consistency. I think it was an Apple and Blackcurrant flavour one that I had, but there was a nice overtone of dried apricot too.


The bad news was that I'm clearly going to have to work hard on my climbing. As you'll see from the gradient map in the stats, the little bits of climbing in my circuit were really very short, but my heart rate and breathing shot up slightly alarmingly. I'm hoping this was at least partly the effect of the wind, but I think even without the wind I would have been pretty uncomfortable.


At least I know now though, and it's not too late to work on it. I think I've earned my 'rest' day tomorrow, although I'll do a couple of hours in the gym in the morning on Yoga and a few weights - so not really 'wasting' any training time I don't think.

The Honeymoon's Over

There's been a small hiatus, in both blog and training terms, because my sister got married last weekend. Despite my best efforts, I didn't get a chance to throw in any gym sessions, because there was lots going on, but lots of fun things happened anyway.

First and foremost, my new bike (Felt F55 2008) arrived last week. I had an inkling that it was going to be good when I helped the delivery driver take it round to the back of the house, because even in the box it was much lighter than I expected it to be.

When I finally got it open, I was even more thrilled. She (for she's definitely a 'she') looks absolutely beautiful and is stunningly light. You really can lift her up with one finger, and every extra bit of weight I can trim will make a massive difference over the distance of the etape.

I also took delivery of a new Garmin Edge 705 - the GPS/heart rate monitor that I mentioned in a previous post. The kind people at Garmin have let me have one for review purposes, and I intend to make full use of it to track my training in as much detail as possible.

Unfortunately, I haven't yet had a chance to take the bike out, because I've been so busy, and indeed will be for the rest of the week. I've got an assignment for the Creative Writing Course I'm doing at the moment, which has to be handed in on Friday, and I've not got very far with it yet. Hopefully, I'll finally get out on Sunday and have a decent ride.

I did go to my usual Wednesday morning Yoga class this morning, and after that I did a solid 30 minutes on one of the exercise bikes. I basically did 8 minutes at effort level 6, followed by a couple of minutes recovery at effort level and then repeated that.

From now on, I'm going to try and take as many positives out of my training as possible, and the nice thing was that my legs didn't really feel tired during any of this stint - I just got very sweaty - which made me feel uncomfortable, rather than particularly fatigued. I also got a second wind after about 15 minutes, and managed to put out more power, at a higher cadence, over the second half of the session. That's reasonably encouraging I think.

I popped into work this evening, to check if there were any more details from Sky about the Etape, and indeed there were. The most important thing was the first month of our training programme, which has been put together with some of the coaches from British Cycling.

The headlines are that in the next month, I should be aiming at 6 hours of bike work in week 1, 6 again in week 2, 8 in week 3 and then down to 4 in week 4.

The work is split up into three key areas - Conditioning, Strength and Technique - with the initial focus being on Conditioning. Within each area, there are a number of different exercises. It's all very clearly set out, and all seems to make sense. At the moment, I've been placed at the "beginner" level, which suits me just fine I think, although because I have a bit more time off than most people, I think I will aim to do a bit more time on the bike than is suggested.

It did remind me that I probably need to get hold of a turbo trainer so that I can do work at home without going to the trouble of going out, particularly when the weather's bad, and I can also measure my performance a bit more accurately. More gadgets...mmmm.

On the science front, I took delivery of a Science in Sport starter pack of energy bars/gels/electrolytes/recovery drinks etc. which I wanted to try out, in order to see which flavours I like. Will be interesting to see if I can feel the difference, particularly with the electrolytes and stuff that are for drinking when you're doing exercise. Anything to help with the endurance side of things will be very useful.

Last but not least, I managed to get "starting point" figures for my weight, water percentage, muscle mass etc. from my Tanita scales on Monday, under reasonably controlled conditions. I'll try and get those details every week so that we can hopefully track the improvements.

Here they are anyway:

Weight: 11 stone 10 pounds

Body Fat Percentage: 18.4%

Visceral Fat Rating: 6

Basal Metabolic Rate: 7380KJ/1764Kcal

Muscle Mass: 9 stone 1 pound

The Visceral Fat rating is basically that fat that is in the internal abdominal cavity, surrounding the vital organs. Men tend to "lay down" more fat in this area, particlarly as they get older, hence the "beer belly".

The Basal Metabolic Rate is the minimum level of energy your body needs when at rest, to function effectively. The higher the rate, the more calories you burn - so I think it's better to have a higher BMR, although I'm not sure as yet how much this can be altered by training. We'll see I guess.

Encouragingly, all those readings seem to be pretty much slap bang in the middle of the "healthy" ranges. The only one that's a little out of kilter is the body fat percentage, which is towards the top of "healthy", but there's plenty of time to work on that.

First Steps

I've just got back from a doctor's appointment in East Sheen. I cycled there. It's not particularly far - after getting a bit lost I ended up doing 12 and a half miles or so - but it was symbolic really. Symbolic that I'm taking this seriously.

It was hideously cold and pretty dark, and normally I would have driven, but I just felt it was important that I cycled there to put down a bit of a marker for myself and get into the swing of "training" as quickly as possible. I think it's fairly obvious that for the next 5 months or so, I'll have to commit to not driving anywhere, unless it's completely unavoidable. All my local travel will be by bike. I just hope it warms up a bit. Soon.

It was actually my second doctor's appointment of the day, cos I had to go and see my GP to get a letter saying that I was fit enough to start the training. There was a small panic when the doctor took my blood pressure, because the first reading was a bit high...but she figured it was just because we were chatting, and I was leaning forward with my legs crossed. For about 20 seconds I was wondering if my Etape adventure would be over before it had even started, but thankfully she had another go and everything was completely normal.

I've also made an appointment at the gym for next week, to put together a training programme to focus on my cycling. I'm going to go to a few Spinning classes to try and add a bit of variety, while still doing some bike-based activity. Realistically, my proper training won't start until after the 28th - because that's when my sister gets married - but until then I'll be doing as much as possible to prepare the groundwork.

One nice bonus to preparing for the etape is that I can start eating as much as I like, without worrying about putting on weight. I guess I'll have to make sure I'm eating the right stuff though - that's my next bit of research I think.