What are you training for?

1 outdoor ride in a month

My daily exercise has consisted of a family walk and a visit to the #palaceofpower, for a Trainerroad or Zwift session. I’ve quite a few club mates and friends who are out doing 50 odd miles on the bike, but that’s just not for me. Some of them don’t have a turbo and are living on their own, so I fully understand getting out for a ride for their own sanity and well being, but I’ve got a turbo and I don’t need to be outside on a bike, so I’m happy to do all my riding on a turbo. The one exception was a gentle 40 minute spin with little wheezy, her first ride on a road bike. I think we saw a handful of cars, the whole ride. It was actually quite lovely.

But knowing that I’m going to be spending a lot more time on the turbo, I’ve had a massive clear up and clear out and tried to make my setup much more user friendly. The palace is in fact, our garden shed, admittedly, a relatively spacious one, but a shed, nonetheless. It’s very damp and cold in the winter and very hot and airless in the summer, and with the weather turning as we hit this Easter weekend, I needed to set about making it as comfortable and ergonomic as possible.

So, after clearing a lot of space, I’ve now set things up so that my iPad is easier to see.  I bought a fan from Amazon, which has a remote control so I can set it just so, depending on how much power I’m kicking out. The low setting is fine for when I’m noodling along,  high for the VO2 max interval efforts. My head is pretty close so I’ve got a really good airflow over my body, and as I’ve now placed my turbo by the windows, I can have them open too, so that I have a good airflow going through the space.  I’ve screwed a bottle cage to the wall, so that I can get my fluids a lot more easily and bought a 4 way extension lead which also has 4 USB ports, so I can keep my iPad and phone charged up as well as charging Garmins and lights too. I even bought myself a proper riser block for the front wheel, having finally got rid of the 2015 edition Next catalogue, high over the years has got lower and lower as pages got torn off.

It’s sooooo much better with this setup and just means I’m hopping onto my bike and not having to set things up to get going. It goes without saying that within 30 minutes of me completing this, on my next ride, my turbo broke and got a puncture! The knob that pushes the roller against the tyre sheared off in my hand; I’ve ordered a new one and I can just about get it to work until it arrives next week. Vexing though!
As of writing, I’ve ridden over 200 miles on the turbo, this week.  Most of that has been while chatting to club mates, but I did give my first Zwift race a go. I started at the back and decided to hop my way through the field and see how far up I could get. I ended up 27/125, so pretty chuffed and ended up pushing some quite large watts for almost an hour. I’m really noticing the effect of having a fan, as my rpe is so much lower for the given watts.

A couple of weeks ago, I ended up deleting all of my planned races from my Training Peaks account. The homepage then went from telling me that Ironman Copenhagen would be in 16 weeks to ‘What are you training for?’ That question can be answered in two different ways, so now I’ve had some thinking time, I can now answer them.

What are you training for?
I’m training to stay fit; keep my weight in check; catch up with friends through Zwift and Strava; build my ftp; keep my immune system strong. For the foreseeable future, this is the most important ‘What am I training for?’ Just keeping a sense of balance and purpose while we go through these crazy times.

What are you training for?
Next year is the London-Edinburgh-London audax and I’ve wanted to do this for a while. It’s every 4 years, so it doesn’t come around too often. It’s next July, so will fit in with the school holidays and work. Being a member of Audax Uk, I should get a guaranteed entry, but if for some reason, I can’t , then there is also the London-Lands End-London audax, which would be a great substitute.
As this will mean preparing for going long, I’m also going to focus on 100 mile time trials, and see if I can go under 4 hours. Tbh, this is a massive stretch target. My 50m pb (1hr57), set a few years ago would suggest that it’s possible, but possible and probable are two very different things. I just don’t think I’m going to have the time or space to do a long course triathlon next year; I think I would just be spreading myself too thin, and with the 100m TT target, there will be a number of opportunities in the course of the season to have a go, so I won’t be putting all my eggs in one basket.

2020, from a racing point of view, now seems a complete write-off, but I can use this time wisely to have a stonking 2021.