Double whammy

If you regularly use a turbo, you’ll understand. 

It’s been a quiet week. Only 4.30hrs of anything that would constitute training. I have not run all week, with my foot gradually getting better as the week has gone on.  Unfortunately as the week went on I was also feeling more and more ropey until a full on cold developed yesterday. To be honest, I’m not surprised as work has been mental and my sleep has been really poor. Luckily I only have another week to get through until a two week break, so while this week has been very quiet and next week will probably be similar, as it’s my first cold in a very long time I’m not too down about it. I might as well get my autumn injury and illness out of the way in one hit.

So what did I accomplish? I’m starting to get back into the groove on the turbo. The TrainerRoad sessions are usually hard and take a lot of mental strength to get through, and often, even to start. It’s about getting the right mindset to walk into the wattage cottage when my bed is often a much more attractive option. As I’ve felt ropey, the three sessions this week have been gentle, aerobic ones at 65% ftp, but staying on the tt bars, catching up on a few podcasts. Depending on how this cold develops, next week will probably be much the same. Full on VO2 max sets or threshold work would be counterproductive and will have to wait for another week. There’s no rush.

I swam on Tuesday night and it felt like I was swimming in jam. I guess this was the first indication that I was not feeling right but at the time it just felt really hard going even though I was only doing short 50m and 100m drills. Hopefully I can get another 2 swims in this week, but only if I have a miraculous recovery, which with my past history of colds is highly unlikely. In the meantime I have had to make do with watching the coverage from Kona over the weekend. It’s helped to keep my mojo up while real life has got in the way.

40 weeks to go.

Frustrating fortnight.

A really frustrating fortnight with last week being a very busy work week; early mornings and late nights leaving very little time to do anything meaningful. I managed to get my 25th park run under my belt and bulked it out to 10 miles with a warm up and down, so my longest run of the year but that was it. Almost immediately on Saturday afternoon I came down with manflu which has put paid to all of this week too. But I am long enough in the tooth these days to not worry about it. Training starts again tomorrow evening with a gentle run before getting back on the turbo. There's still the best part of 7 months until the Outlaw so still plenty of time.

A slight change of fortune

After a few weeks of very little training I was going to get firmly back on the horse last week only for me to pick up a sore throat and ear ache. Nothing major, I think mainly due to feeling run down and stressed out at work, so I took the decision to kick back and let itself sort itself out before doing anything major. Thankfully I was over the worst of it by the time Sunday came around as we had a long ride to Worthing and back scheduled. This was going to be my first long ride of the year (over 50 miles at any rate) and with my dire performances in the time trials so far this season I was a little apprehensive about how it would go. The idea was that Kingston Phoenix would have 2 groups setting off, one 15 minutes before the other, with the faster group starting second and then hopefully catching the slow group en route. There was a healthy number set out in the slow group but the fast group consisted of only Simon and I, so situation normal. It was a shame that there were not more with us but it gave us the opportunity to work hard. I ensured that I was really fuelled up and ate loads of carbs the night before and had an enormous bowl of porridge in the morning. I didn't want to bonk again like I had a few weeks before.

The weather was grim; cold rain for nearly the whole ride and a stiff headwind all the way out. So it was a simple task of working at a good tempo effort for as long as possible, sharing the work with Simon and getting some good quality dual carriageway miles in the bank. I was fully expecting my legs to go pop quite soon but after the last few weeks I was in a fairly belligerent mood and just thought, 'stuff it'. No point sitting up taking it easy when I've got a full tt season to do and the Alpe d' Huez to climb. Do your worst A24.

I loved every minute of it. It was one of those rides where everything just clicked and even the hard bits felt good.  We caught the other group at Dorking after they had stopped to pick up a few more riders and then pushed on by ourselves. Simon is in great form and where I was able to be glued behind his wheel coming home with a healthy tailwind and clipping along at an effortless 27-28 miles per hour was a real blast. I took my turns on the front and they were tough but being hunkered down on the drops trying to make myself as aero as possible, forcing myself to push a bigger gear was what I needed.

Maybe it was being back on my road bike? Maybe I just expected so little from the ride and any form of improvement would be a blessing? Maybe it was just a change of attitude? I don't know, but I enjoyed every hour of it (especially the coffee and chicken sandwich on the way home) and it has been a massive confidence boost. I did tire quite a bit in the last 10 miles and Simon skipped effortlessly away from me as we climbed up and over the hill outside Dorking, but with 70 miles done already and the first signs of real fatigue in my legs I was a happy chappy. 80 miles in total in just over 4 hours were numbers that at this stage I am very happy with. Onwards.

Wheezy by name....

wheezy by nature :-(

The last two weeks have been very frustrating. I have been itching to get on with some training and preparation but my weak lungs have not been letting me. Last week was completely written off; headaches, snot, coughing, high temperature, more snot and more coughing. I really had the full works. But trying to adpot a positive attitude I thought about doing the right things to bring it to an end as quickly as possible, so I ate as healthily as I could, took out shares in Beechams and consumed vats of day nurse and night nurse and most importantly, slept. I have now entered the dry, hacking cough stage this week and I am caught between really wanting to be doing something and knowing that do anything too strenuous will probably end up with me being worse off. Grrr.... Monday, Adam and I were due to paddle but the river was up on yellow boards and so we decided to scrub and go for a run instead. I did a very easy 20 minutes with Ad and felt ok, pleased to be doing my first training of 2011, but an hour later I was feeling hot and dizzy. Not a good sign. We were due to paddle again last night but I just knew it would be foolhardy, I am just not over my cold enough yet, so once again, my 'training' consisted of being in bed by 9 o' clock.

Adam, on the other hand, has been going great guns. He did 4 paddles last week and on sunday ran 8 miles; his longest ever run. At least he is getting somewhere. Hopefully, I'll be back on the river and back on my bike tomorrow, but this was not the consistent training approach I was looking for.