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.

Fatter but fitter?!

Today's training stats: Conditioning: Turbo Conditioning Volume 60mins

I'm trialling a new feature today. As you can see above, I'm going to try putting each day's training stats - as downloaded from my Garmin Edge 705 - at the top of the day's blog entry. I just think that, frankly, it's the most interesting bit, and it's the bit I'd want to click on if I was reading somebody else's training blog.

I also have an ulterior motive, because I'm hoping it'll deflect attention from the other stats that I'm going to put in today's blog entry. Every Monday,

I'm going to try and record my weight, body fat percentage, muscle mass etc - that I've got from my Tanita Innerscan body composition scales - in an effort to track the changes. The thing is, I was kinda hoping that my weight and body fat percentage would magically decrease, thereby making me seem like a much more worthwhile person (oops, I think I must have been reading too much 'Heat' magazine again). Unfortunately, that hasn't quite proved to be the case - at least not in this first week. Anyway, without further ado, here's the newly-christened "Tale of the Tanita".

Weight: 11 stone 11 pounds

Body Fat Percentage: 19.8%

Body Water Percentage: 55.5%

Muscle Mass: 8 stone 14 pounds

Basal Metabolic Rate: 7300kJ/1745kcal

Visceral Fat Rating: 7

Basically, all of those seem to be a bit worse than last week's readings, which is disappointing to say the least. My body fat percentage in particular is starting to look a bit worrying, but I'm not entirely sure what I can do about it, because I eat pretty healthily anyway and don't really like a lot of fatty stuff anyway.

Inspired (or depressed..kinda depends how you look at it..I'm gonna go with inspired for now) by this, I've booked myself to have a full physiological assessment at Sportstest. This is a company run by Dr Garry Palmer, who co-wrote Elite Performance: Cycling: Succesful Sportives, which I raved about yesterday. As I said, I was very impressed by the detailed, but clear way in which the book goes into the science of training for Sportives and as I was looking to get a detailed

assessment anyway, I thought I'd look them up. It turns out that although they're based in the Midlands, they also do testing in Hampton, which is just round the corner from me. So, to cut a long story short, I'm booked in for 1 o'clock next Thursday.

They promise assessment of peak power output. VO2 max, power to weight ratio, maximum heart rate, endurance capacity and threshold determination. The key thing is that these figures aren't just to show off to your friends (and frankly I know I'm not going to have anything to show off about anyway), but from your maximum heart rate and your training thresholds, you can accurately work out your individual heart rate training zones, enabling you to train "smarter" as they say. Just to clarify, I would NEVER say that.

It's starting to feel like with all my cycling-related expenditure at the moment, I'm single-handedly administering a fiscal stimulus to the British economy, but I figure it really is a once in a lifetime experience and I want to get to the start line knowing I've done everything I can to be fit enough to finish the etape.

As far as today's actual training goes, I was out all day in town, so my only real opportunity was more work on the turbo tonight. I wanted to push myself a little bit harder today, so I thought I'd have a crack at riding at "Conditioning" volume. This is riding at a level where you have "difficulty" holding a conversation for long periods - a heart rate of 145-155 bpm. I thought I'd just see how I felt on the bike once I got going to determine how long I cycled for, and I ended up doing an hour. I'm just looking at my training sheet now, and it turns out that's the time recommended for "Advanced" cyclists, which I'm pleased about - although slightly concerned that I might have pushed it too far.

Actually, I'm not that concerned, because I felt good on the bike - and my legs again weren't particularly fatigued. I settled on a gear that gave me an equilibrium between my Heart Rate and pedalling Cadence - 150 and 80 respectively. Again, the slight limiting factor was a bit of saddle soreness - you can see this on the training stats where I had to hop off the bike for 20 seconds or so, to readjust my shorts - but there was definitely less soreness than yesterday, and I felt much more comfortable with the riding position.

'Cycling Successful Sportives' recommended loading up with carbs for this activity, as a lot of carbohydrate is apparently used at this intensity. Taking this to heart, I filled one of my water bottles with Science in Sport's PSP22 drink, and one of my bottles with their Go Electrolyte. It's

difficult to tell how much of an effect this had, because obviously I don't know how I would have felt if I hadn't taken them. However, I definitely felt much more comfortable at this intensity than I would have expected, so that's got to be a good thing. As a footnote, I also had a bottle of Sis's Rego afterwards. Chocolate flavour today, which had a slightly malty flavour, but I still preferred it to the Strawberry. I'm running out of the drinks from my SiS starter pack, so hopefully my order from Wiggle will arrive tomorrow. Molly's looking forward to that as she's hoping it'll give her more opportunities to build up her part.

I'm going to try and finally get out on the road tomorrow, so maybe I'll try some of the bars and gels on that ride and see what they're like. The weather's forecast to be 'mixed' and a bit rainy, but I think I should get out anyway. I've got a rest day planned for Wednesday, so I need to do something to have deserved it.

Training proper and Proper training

My training's been slightly delayed by an assignment for the Creative Writing course I'm doing,which I finally got in at 2330 on Friday night. I then had a dayschool in town for that course and then finally I could sit down and relax for the first time in about a month. Except I didn't.

Feeling the clock ticking down towards the Etape, I felt a certain amount of internal pressure to get on the bike and blow some cobwebs out. In practice, this meant me unboxing my new turbo trainer, the Tacx Sirius Soft Gel Turbo, and spending 20 minutes or so putting it all together. I then got the bike out, fixed her on the spindle, and wound her up. You can hopefully see the results in the photos - along with my attention seeking kitten, Molly.

Just to try her out, I did half an hour at what I guess was "Conditioning Volume" - the level where I would have difficulty holding a conversation for long periods and my heart rate would have been between 145 and 155 bpm.

I didn't feel too fatigued, and in fact the main problem appears to be that without the effects of wind, which you get outside, you just get very, very sweaty quite quickly. It was the sweatiness rather than the work that was making me uncomfortable by the end - but at least it felt like I'd got some work done.

It also meant that I could try out my Science in Sport "Go" Electrolyte drink. As I'm clearly going to need every bit of help that I can get, I'm going to try and take the hydration/energy/nutrition side of things quite seriously. I've occasionally used other Science in Sport products before, and I've heard good things about their cycling stuff before, so they seem like a good place to start. With the free measuring/drinking bottle they give you with their starter pack it's very easy to just pour in the "Go" powder up to the relevant mark and then top up with water. I've gone for the Lemon and Lime flavour, and it seems basically palatable, albeit with a slightly artificial, metallic tang.

I was already on a bit of a science kick, because a couple of books that I'd ordered to help me with my preparation had arrived in the morning, and I'd got a chance to start on one of them (Elite Performance Cycling - Succesful Sportives) on the train up to my dayschool. I'm already enjoying it becase a) It seems to be specifically designed for relative novices preparing for the Etape and b) Because it takes a very science based approach to training, which my analytical mind finds attractive.

The training methods the book suggests also seem to tie in with the British Cycling/Sky training programme which I've been given, so everyone's literally on the same page. What the book adds to that though, is a clear explanation of how the body works and responds to training, with particular regard to the importance of carbohydrate intake and processing for the long distance cyclist. It also gives clear advice on what to eat/drink in relation to your training - eg. 2+ hours before training a carb-based mean - In the 2 hours before training drink a reasonable amount of fluid in combination with some carbs in a sports drink etc...

Anyway, after doing my quick spin on the turbo, I realised that it was going to be important for me to be able to accurately monitor my heart rate. As my bike was already on the trainer - I thought this would be a good time to use it to double as a workstand so that I could attach my Garmin Edge 705 GPS/HRM.

This meant attaching a mount to the stem, and cadence and speed sensors to the rear stay, one of the pedal cranks and a spoke. I'm useless at anything DIY, so I initially made a couple of schoolboy errors, but after half an hour or so, I had everything working.

I'm not sure you can quite see on the photo, but on this screen you can have a number of readings - I've got overall time, time of day, heart rate, cadence, speed etc...but you can customise this screen however you want. On another screen, you have the mapping side of things - essentially a bike sat-nav. This means that you can program in the route that you want to cycle, and it will give you turn by turn directions - meaning you don't have to have an OS map in your back pocket and stop every five minutes to work out why you're not where you should be.

The best bit, of course, is the way that these two functions combine - when you cycle a route, and you then have your speed, HR, cadence etc. cross-referenced with your position. All the info from your training sessions can be downloaded to a computer and Garmin's "Connect" website then collates all the data into charts and graphs, and indeed anything the mildly obsessive gadget geek/cyclist could want.

This afternoon, I'd intended to nip up to Richmond Park, and do 2 or 3 laps at "Steady Volume" (fairly low intensity - the level where you have little difficulty holding a conversation) to get a bit of proper on-road time. Typically, it was a beautiful day, right up until the moment I detached my bike from the turbo - at which point it started lashing down with rain and got very windy. I still really wanted to go out - but it soon became obvious that it would have been pointless, and might have been so discouraging that it would have been counter-productive.

Instead, I popped the bike back on the turbo and did a 45 minute steady volume stint - but this time with the Edge set up to give me audible alerts when my heart rate slipped out of a preset target range. This proved really useful, because it meant I could concentrate on the telly - rather than my heart rate - which obviously makes the time go quicker.

This is the first time I've tried this out - but I think if you're lucky, if you click on the link below you should be able to see all the data from my workout today, which I downloaded from my Garmin Edge. Let me know if it works/doesn't work...but if it does, it's kinda cool!

Conditioning: Turbo Steady Volume 45 mins

As this is relatively low intensity stuff, my legs didn't really feel fatigued at all, and I didn't get anywhere near as sweaty as I had yesterday. Today the limiting factor was a bit of saddle soreness, which was making sitting quite uncomfortable. Hopefully this is just part of the adjustment process to a new bike and riding position which will pass reasonably quickly.

Being on the turbo has been a good way to get used to the riding position with my hands on the hoods of the brake levers, as I've never had a road bike before. It also get me used to using the gear changers which are combined with the brake levers. For those of you who don't know - which would have included me up until about 3 weeks ago - you actually used the brake levers to change gear as well as to brake. To change gear, you simply flick the brake lever inwards, towards the centre of the handlebars. As I've said before, I'm trying to be very positive about all my training - so I'm looking at today as an example of what a good idea it was to buy a turbo trainer, because otherwise I wouldn't have got any training done over the last couple of days - rather than a missed opportunity to get on the road.

Going back to the science stuff - as part of my rehydration routine today I also tried SiS's "Rego" recovery drink. I was a bit concerned, because I'd got the Strawberry flavour in my randomised starter pack, and normally I hate anything Strawberry "flavoured". It actually turned out to be not too unpleasant, and in conjunction with my fastidious drinking during my training, has definitely made a huge difference to how I felt after the exercise. Often if I go to the gym and do a reasonably hard workout, I'll feel very tired and lethargic when I get home. Today though, I've felt very energised and managed to get lots of things done after training, which might not have happened normally. I'll be interested to see how much of a difference it'll make to how I feel tomorrow.

For various boring, practical reasons, I'm not sure if I'll manage to get much training done tomorrow - but as I'm off this week, I want to try and get as much done as possible - preferably on real roads - to feel like I've really got into the swing of things. All the books and forums I've read tell you how important it is to have a target for each week - so I guess I should start here.

My target for this weeks is to do eight hours training, with at least two 2+ hour rides. Here's hoping the weather plays ball.