Lockdown life

First time to Ditchling, in a loooong time!

Everything and everyone, is in this strange limbo hinterland; not quite work; not quite holiday; not quite quarantine. I should be slap-bang in the middle of Ironman training and climbing the periodisation hill towards glory in Copenhagen. But I’m not and while I’m well and truly over the disappointment of not going to Copenhagen, trying to remain focussed with any type of training has been hard, as one by one, the likelihood of any events happening this season becomes evermore remote. My hope was that I might be able to get in a 50 mile, 100 mile or 12 hour time trial in before the end of the season as tting seemed the most likely type of event that could be socially distanced, but even that now seems unlikely, as bit by bit, events get pushed back.  


So, we’re all base training for next year. I have a feeling that a lot of amateur athletes are going to be breaking all sorts of PB’s next year, with an 18 month base phase laid down. Slowly and surely, MAMILs and MAWILs all over the globe are developing enormous engines ready to race. Hopefully, I will be one of them.


I have gone back to focussing solely on TrainerRoad. While Zwift was fun and engaging for a month or so, I was caught between two stools, where my volume had gone up but I wasn’t able to make the quality sessions count. As a result, my last FTP test saw me drop a few watts, which indicated that I was overreaching. So, back to 4 rides a week, three on the turbo following the TR Sweetspot base plan and a long ride at the weekend for a bit of aerobic base and catching up with friends. That has been the best thing over the last few weeks. I’d been a few medium-long rides solo, but with the government allowing small groups to meet up, I was able to ride with Simon and Dale again, for a long Sunday ride.

This was a great tonic and my work over the last few months was evident; for once, towing Simon around a long ride to Ditchling and then hanging onto Dale’s wheel for 50 odd miles, last Sunday, with him pumping out silly big watts while I hunkered down and hung on tight. Just getting some proper, long miles in the bank, while the sun was shining, and catching up with mates, made a massive difference to my mood. There’s only so many Zoom quizzes that you can do with friends and family, before the novelty starts to wear off.

Living in the Borough of Kingston, which is one of the mini-Holland areas, we’ve seen a very big bump in bicycle use during the lockdown. We managed to get a second  hand bike for Mrs W, and spent a lovely couple of hours, heading towards Bushy Park, now closed to traffic and hitting a few other cycle paths. In really big news, Mrs W cycled to the shops for the first time today, which is pretty cool. Maybe, some things are changing for the better.

The hard stuff's done.

I didn't get the volume of training in this week that I had planned as more important family and work stuff took priority but I was able to get the most important sessions done this week. A couple of swims and yesterday's at Heron Lake saw me complete 4km and emerge from the water pretty fresh which was a massive confidence boost. Also managed to get my sighting sorted, (except for the bit where I swam into a buoy)Open water swimming, enjoyable? Who'd of thunk it? 

Not as much cycling done as I wanted but Simon and I paired up for a 2up TT on Wednesday. The weather was atrocious with the heavens opening literally as we pushed off. I was really heavy legged at the start again but we managed a long 25, which in the circumstances was pretty good. The only other rides of mote was my 2 long Sunday rides last week and today.  4 of us went out last week and the plan was for me to have a recovery ride of around 50-60 miles. It became, unintentionally,  a 70 mile fartlek ride. Simon had had a long run the day before so he was suffering for most of it, but I felt really good. Another member of the group, John, was a very strong rider but it was really good for me to be pulled along by him and to also take some extended turns on the front and sprint hard up hills. Lots. Of. Fun. Today was my last long ride before the race and we headed off the Ditchling Beacon again. We left early to try to beat the weather and for the first hour it was lovely, but once again, the clouds gathered, the temperature dropped and the light drizzle started. I am feeling really good about the bike at the moment. It's always been my particularly weak discipline but I think that in these long rides I have managed to learn to pace them really well. Once again today, my 92nd mile was as strong as my first and as long as I can do that on race day then I'll be pleased with that.

The worrying thing is my running, my supposedly strongest discipline. Lack of volume has meant that when I have run long, like I did on Monday it was very uncomfortable. I did 1.45 before I had to stop and walk. Once again, my foot began to ache and became painful, forcing me to stop and walk / run the rest of the way home. Having said that, that's what I'm going to do on race day and I can't do much about it now anyway. Which ever way you dice it, it's going to hurt.

Two weeks to go. Time to taper and not eat too much.

Another long one in the bank.

I am really pleased with how last week went and I currently have that achy tiredness you get from a sustained period of training. For me, last week included some pretty big numbers, mainly in the saddle. In fact I cycled every day and on four days, twice in a day. It's rather shocked my body but I have to say I already feel fitter, stronger and more comfortable on the bike, which bearing in mind I am going to be spending a lot of time on it during the Forestman, is a good thing. It culminated in two weekend bike sessions, the first being a one hour turbo in the garage followed by a long bike on Sunday. The turbo session was conducted while it was a balmy 22 degrees outside, light winds and broken cloud; the long bike, unfortunately was not.

I was up at 4.30am to get some breakfast in me (big bowl of cereal / banana / tea) and on the road by 5. I was dressed lightly for a sunny ride but within minutes of me stepping outside the door the grey clouds dumped on me and I stopped while I pondered whether to turn round and put more layers on. I decided against it hoping that it would perk up and also assumed that I wouldn't race with a waterproof on, so why train in one? Hmmm....

I took the long way round to Simon's house to meet him and had 40 minutes or so on the clock by the time I got there and then we set out on the A24 to Ditchling Beacon and back. It was pretty grim at first and I was cold and wet, in particular my feet were blocks of ice and I was having trouble shifting the gear levers because my fingers had started to numb up. Oh well, no one said it would be easy. Towards West Grinstead the sun started to make an appearance and my top half began to warm up but my legs felt like wood; I just couldn't get them warmed up, mainly because of my sodden feet and once again, on every slight incline I'd find it hard to maintain my cadence and have to downshift, trying to get my legs to revolve. It seemed that I was going to have a pretty grim day ahead of me. It was however, really good to be cycling on new roads and in new countryside and once we were off the A24 everything became very pretty and it helped to take my mind off how I was feeling. We approached Ditchling and as soon as we hit the bottom, Simon was off and before I knew it I was in the granny gear, pulling myself up. I normally like to sit in the saddle when climbing but I really needed to get out and stretch my legs and I was changing my position constantly; a sure sign that I was not very happy. Simon was waiting for me at the top and we had some food (Elevenses bar; food of Champions;-) and some PSP before turning around and heading back.

Although there was a stiff wind, I felt much better almost straight away. I had been feeding properly on the outward leg but I was just much warmer now and the short rest combined with now dry feet and warmer muscles meant that I was able to maintain my cadence much better. As we made our way home I was really enjoying the fact that I was not now feeling particularly fatigued and even had that nice feeling a couple of times on a rolling road where even though the road is going up it doesn't halt your cadence or speed and there's no need to change down gear. It doesn't happen often, but it's nice when it does.  :-)

Simon and I swapped being at the front as we time trialled back home (no drafting btw) and by the time I got back home I had exactly 100 miles on the clock in 5.47.xx including a couple of stops. Not earth shattering, but not too bad either.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been getting to grips with Training Peaks and the really useful that I have found with it is how it can tell you quickly the ratios of how much you're doing in the different disciplines. I have had a big bike focus over the last 3 weeks that has begun to pay dividends but I need to put some more time into some swim sessions in order that I can arrive at T1 not feeling completely wiped out.