It's been great reading about the weekend group rides. All who have taken part win my undying admiration for their ability to cope with chill winds and icy roads. My focus on training for the upcoming season - and in particular my solitary numbers-based approach to it - means I do most of my pedalling alone; since this means I miss out on contributing to the "weekend round-up" threads I thought I'd do a quick run-through the past week. Newcomers, take it as a warning about how obsession can sneak up on you...
Last Saturday:- Well, the training plan says an endurance ride, but since it's around zero outside (and I don't fancy either a broken hip or an internal scouring by dry, freezing air) the turbo gets dragged out along with (appropriately) the "Hell on Wheels" DVD. Warm up, 20mins TT pace, brief recovery followed by two half-hours of same-cadence-but-up-a-gear-every-five-minutes. Throw in a bit of steady pace and warm-down and that's 2½hrs. Actually it's not too painful apart from having got so sweaty I've got friction burns somewhere where no female member of the club is ever going to get friction burns.
Sunday:- Work.
Monday:- Up early and down to the basement office for another hour's-worth on the turbo before work, doing 5x4's (the idea being that during each 4mins you're doing a steady pace which maximises the volume of oxygen you swallow and process - in short you're breathing through every orifice and suffering like a good 'un). Somehow each 4mins seems much longer than I remember 4mins being, but it goes okay and the numbers on the graph are a couple of Watts up on last time. A couple of Watts a week is fine...
Tuesday:- Work. More work. Evening work.
Wednesday:- Lunchtime is free, so back to the basement for 2x20's (TT pace, as steady-as-you-can-make-it). I've been used to doing these as 15's and the extra five minutes on each seems an eternity. I've just had a "rest week" and my body - so I'm starting to learn - seems to go completely to sleep and needs waking up again. Less power than the last set of 2x15's. Bums.
Thursday:- I'm off cooking duty so there's a slot before dinner; wooohoo, more 5x4's. Harder than the last lot, and by now I'm really sick of re-runs of last year's Vuelta on cycling.tv. Although to be fair I don't see much of it - during the intervals themselves I'm mainly either staring at the cadence read-out or "closing my eyes and saying a few words", as you could put it.
Friday:- B****y hell! I've got an afternoon with no desperate deadlines, and a vaguely warm sun is blasting out of the clearest of blue skies. I wobble out onto the road like a kid whose stabilisers have just been taken off. Out towards Wheldrake; warm up on the way out of town and then do an hour of sprint repeats (a regime from the veteran racer's mag, where you start by doing hundreds of sprints with short recovery and after a few weeks work towards fewer, harder sprints with longer recovery). This is a bit hair-raising as, blinded by the low sun, I keep sprinting into piles of slush on shady bits of road. Having survived that, it's two hours of steady but brisk turning of the pedals out past Selby. It's not the county's finest landscapes but it's still very rural and crisp in the sharp winter sun. Then the sun starts sinking and even two pairs of gloves become inadequate. Get home with extremities attached, just.
Today:- Process membership applications and renewals....
Cycling's a wonderful activity, in that you can go at it in so many different ways and get so many different things out of it. Even down in the basement. The winter's been a quest for more fitness, more power, so that this year's racing is more fun. The numbers are creeping up and although only time will tell, it's been a fascinating (if nerdy) business for an old bloke...
See you out there sometime (in May!)
Meanwhile, down in the basement...
Moderator: Moderators
No just 45 mins too much to be more precise. I have been partaking a few sessions myself lately - nothing too adventurous - just half an hour with a few sprints thrown in. It does compliment road riding but I wouldn't want to do it more than once or twice a week. I'm racing in a couple of weeks (well turning up at least!) so need to ride on the road to keep acclimatised. I don't have the luxury of a basement or even a shed with any useable space so have to do it in the kitchen - not the coolest of rooms! I reckon half an hour on the turbo is like 1.5 to 2 hrs on the road - just as well as I seem to spend that time faffing around setting it up and taking it down. however it does allow me to do something approaching training on a night when Caths out and Peters in bed without social services getting involved!
