Final warm up!

Week 25

27/06/09 - 190km (115Miles) in 9hours. Feeling a bit more confident now as that was further than the Etape, just not as hilly. Went from Nottingham to Macclesfield and back, including going over Snake Pass twice. We had a good lunch stop in Buxton on the return leg and a few quick breaks to loosen up a bit, especially on the way back. My legs started to go with about 50km left, but still made it up the final short sharp climbs. The weather was pretty warm (20+) and very humid (98%).

Two weeks of training left before the rest week, I'm going to concentrate on some longish low intensity stuff to inrease the stamina.

Turbo training

Week 25

23/06/09 - Turbo 90mins in Endurance HR.

115 Mile warm up on Saturday, so I'm resting until then!

London 2 Brighton

Week 24
21/06/09 - London to Brighton 54miles (86km). I was the first finisher out of our group, in 3hrs 26min. The start is so slow, you can't get anywhere until you get out of London and even then when you hit the first two little hills on narrow lanes, there are loads of people pushing and you can't get past, it's a bit like driving on the motorway in rush hour. You also have to be so careful of people just pulling across the road or stopping for no apparent reason right in front of you. It's quite slow when you get back into Brighton again as well as there are loads of traffic lights and you're sharing the roads with the cars again. So the ride was slow for an hour, I nailed it for the next 2 hours and a bit with a good climb up Ditching Beacon 900+ft at the 50mile point and then took it steady into Brighton for the last few mins. I then spent 5 hours on the beach waiting for all of our riders to come in......there was a BBQ and beer, so it wasn't too bad. Had a swim in the sea to cool off as well, not quite an ice bath.

Training update

Week 24

18/06/09 - Turbo 90mins in Endurance HR. It was a late one again, but it went OK, only got tired during the last 15 mins. London to Brighton on Sunday!

Training update

Week 23
• 13/06/09 -Turbo 60mins in Endurance HR zone. Felt good.

Week 24
• 16/06/09 - Turbo 85mins in Endurance HR Zone + 5 minutes at the end in the Threshold zone. It was late and I was tired but it went OK.

Training - Turbo

Week 23

10/06/09 -Turbo 60mins in Endurance HR zone. Felt good.

Training update - HR levels all wrong.

Week 23
09/06/09 -Turbo 90mins in Endurance HR zone. Did the last 30 minutes with the front wheel on a small chair! I think I’ve been training at too high a heart rate. As my HR never went much past 165 on the climb up Holme Moss, I figure my maximum must be around that, not 189 as I had estimated before. This probably explains why I’m so fast on the flat and why I die on the climbs. Need to concentrate on the (proper) endurance zone now for the next few weeks.

Training Ride - Holme Moss

Week 22

07/06/09 - 84.6km ride in 3 hr 38 min ride time 3 hr 55min including pee stop, banana and Gel stop and a few minutes sheltering from the rain! From Barnsley over millions of hills including the climb over Holme Moss. It was a very windy ride over the moors especially after we had dropped down from Holme Moss. Route

Training Ride

Week 22
02/06/09 – 38.5km ride in 1hr 24 mins through Stapleford and Ockbrock. Very pleasant ride and weather has been great recently. Route

Training ride

Week 21
31/05/09 - 34.5km ride in 1hr 7 mins to Hucknall and back (exciting, but it is a gradual up hill all the way there!).

Current Turbo session

At the moment on the Turbo trainer I'm mostly doing this:

Warm up, however long it takes to get the HR above 140

20 minutes with HR between 141-151 (usually around 146)

a.60 seconds flat out (usually 3 gears up from where I was)

b.4 minutes recovery (HR between 141-151)

c.30 seconds flat out (usually 3 gears up from where I was)

d.4.5 minutes recovery(HR between 141-151)

repeat a to d 4 times which should be a total workout of 60 mins.

die

5 mins cool down.

My turbo doesn't have any resistance settings, it just gets harder the faster you go, I aim to keep the revs around 90, but end up averaging about 86. I use Big ring front and I think it is the 3rd biggest sprocket on the cassette, but basically whatever keeps the HR in the zone at around 90rpm.