NEVER change down!

Had a frustrating week where I missed a couple of work outs – but the rest went well.

Had a set of intervals mid week – which called for 1min efforts with a 3min recovery etc etc.  I told my coach that I found myself having to change down at the end of the min effort as my power was dropping off.  Got a classic response telling me to toughen up – and to NEVER change down for these efforts – just grunt it out.  And that feelings of nausea and vomiting are OK with this training and not uncommon.

Brilliant response that leaves me in know doubt about what I have to do

Raced again on Saturday – and picked up 5th place.  We had one guy that attacked and attacked in an impressive display.  But it’s a difficult course to get away on – and we managed to shut him down every time.  Made for some hard efforts though.  There was a crash in our group near the end where a few went down – but luckily I was in front of it.  I thought I was going to finish 3rd but got rolled just on the line to end up 5th.  Need to learn how to shake these little guys who enjoy getting in my wind shadow!

Not sure of the points for the series – but I think that’ll see me up near the top for the series – probably in around 3rd I think.   There’s 2 races left – so I have if I can pick up a couple of good placings – I could do well.  But the training at the moment is is the important thing – not really the results.  But I’ll do my best and see what happens.

Have a cold this week – so hopefully it doesn’t come to much.

Aim to give a bit of track riding a go in Levin on Thursday night – so looking forward to that.

The weeks are flying by…

Been at this for 7 weeks now – and still going strong.

Started the week with the Sunday ride being in some rough weather.  But a few turned up and we decided to head south to Plimmerton across to Pauatahanui and back over Paekakareiki Hill.  But It was in a good old fashioned Wellington Southerly Storm – so by the time we got back to Paraparaumu – I was absolutely freezing and decided it was a better option to get off the road.  So with only 62kms in the bank on day one – I was 50km’s down for the week.   I got hold of Terry to ask if I should try and make it up during the week – but he said no – just move onto the next thing.  (he said later in the year we might look at doing catch up stuff – but for now – just move on)

So the rest of the week went well…

5km repeats on Wednesday.   Was a step up from the 4km ones I’ve been doing – but it was all good.  Still happy to report that I’m way happier doing interval stuff than doing endurance on my own.  But you can’t do one without the other – damn!!

And Friday saw me doing some all out sprints for the first time.  Just a couple of 200m sprints – and only a 20km ride.  So sounds easy – and I enjoyed it – but it got the heart rate going!  Did it in the evening while Will was at Karate – as I couldn’t get it into my day at lunchtime.

So 2 big effort days with endurance rides in between – which meant only 1 rest day.

Raced again on Saturday.  Was feeling sore from the sprinting the previous night – but keyed up to have a good race.  The weather was better and the numbers in the group were higher – so it made for a very different race.  There were lots of surges with people trying to get away – but none succeeded.  I found myself in difficulty on one surge on a slightly uphill section where there was a cross wind – and was being ridden away from – but luckily it came back to me.

So it came down to a sprint finish with the bunch still largely intact.  I did try and have a dig down the inside – but the gap got shut down – so I finished at the back of the pack.  I’m keen to do better next week!

Was cool to have the family cheering me on this week.  Brigid tells me that even Ted picked me out of the bunch (I guess I’m not hard to spot!)  - but not bad for a 2 yr old.

Next week sees a slightly lower volume and a rest day on Friday.  And a few maximal efforts midweek to look forward too.

How hard can it be??…

It’s working!

Had another great week of training.  Bloody weather is still not playing the game – but it hasn’t stopped me getting out there and I managed to do everything on the schedule.

Highlight of the week was lining up for my first race since starting out on this quest.  I was in the B grade – which was a first for me in an open race.  I was nervous which was good – and also confident because I knew that I’d been doing way more work than I ever had on the bike.  I was also interested to see how I’d go – as I haven’t done any specific speed work – it’s been mainly endurance stuff with a few interval sessions thrown in.

It was supposed to be a 40km race – but ended up being a 50km one as there were only a few A graders and so they combined the A and B groups.  Turns out that the 3 A graders cleared out only a couple of kms into it – leaving the B graders in their wake and doing there own thing.

We’d had a big downpour just prior to the start – and a southerly storm was close by in the hills – so it was cold.  This meant that a lot of people on the start hadn’t warmed up properly.  And so the first leg of the race – which is a slightly uphill false flat – was tough on quite a few.  I also struggled – but I knew if I could hang onto a wheel to the top mark – I’d get a bit of a rest on the return.  When we turned I was surprised to see how many we had dropped as we headed back the way we’d come.  I was also pleasantly surprised to see that we’d dropped quite a few people who would normally beat me.  The course turned back on itself a few times so we got plenty of chances to see who was gone from the group.  And that’s how it played out – just a constant attrition rate until – with 10kms to go – there were only 5 of us left.  Just as we dropped the 5th guy – someone attacked – and got a good jump – and the remaining 3 of us – instead of working together to reel him back in – tried individually to get across the gap.  One finally succeeded and that left those 2 taking the last turnaround 100ms ahead of me and another guy.  After the turn I upped the pace as much as I could and dropped they guy I was with – and was slowly catching the 2 ahead – but they were a bridge too far.  So I finished 3rd – 30secs behind the 2 winners and 30secs ahead of 4th.  Not too shabby!!!

Check out the details here.

Lessons learned:

• Need to warm up better – as I struggled early on.
• Need to lose weight!  The decisive move came on a slightly uphill section – where I struggled with the acceleration.  (Not too worried about this yet – and it’s good to know I’ve got this potential speed increase up my sleeve)
• Need to keep concentrating on getting better at spinning.  Steve Chapman (who was the guy who made the break and came 2nd) was constantly reminding me to get in a lower gear (thanks Steve).  This would help with handling accelerations.
• Hard work and persistence means progress.  Was excellent to finish well ahead of guys that always beat me in the past – and that’s down to doing the work.
• I knew it already – but this proves it – my coach knows what he’s doing!!  (Thanks Terry)

Was great to meet Megan Blatchford-Peck who came down from Palmerston North for the race.  I first heard of Megan from Lennard Zinn who made my custom bike in Colorado – he knew Megan from when she was racing in The States and he asked me if I knew her.  I didn’t – but it prompted me to have a look at her website (http://www.mindcoach.co.nz/) and then get in touch with her as I was interested in exploring some training.  She in turn put me in touch with her coach Terry Gyde in Christchurch – who I’m now working with.  So a crazy path that finally ended up in us meeting at a freezing cold race in Te Horo.

Megan and I after the race.

So – this coming week will be the biggest week yet on my schedule.  Only 1 rest day, more intervals, and for the first time I’ll be having a crack at some speed work with a few max effort sprints.  Be interesting to see if I can put in as good a performance at next weeks race – after the big week ahead.

Looking forward to it…

Upping the ante…

Got the next 4 weeks of the plan at the start of the week.   I suspected that my coach may have just been testing me in the first 4 weeks to see how I would handle what he gave me – before upping the ante a bit.  Seems that may have been right.

250km weeks are now easy weeks!

While the first 4 weeks was all pretty similar – I can now see that I’m building up to a definite peak in a couple of weeks before a easing in the final week of the 4 week cycle.  And thrown into the mix  in this cycle is the beginning of the 5 week Winter Series of races in Te Horo.  So a few big weeks coming up.

This weather still isn’t entirely friendly – but I managed to get outside on all but one ride.  The Sunday group rides that I lead have had atrocious weather for the last few weeks – and numbers were down – but are growing again as people realise that there’s a few of us crazies out there who will keep on showing up in all conditions.  And we’re getting good rides in.

This week saw a couple of interval sessions.  4km repeats I did on Thursday night and managed to keep pace with a bus for one of the repeats which was cool.  And Saturday morning saw my first hill session.  Ended up not being the best day out – with tire problems continuing to plague me.  After my tire problems of last week I bought a new tire – a wider one – but with only a small clearance between the tire and the rear brake bridge.  And that caused a problem.  Got a stone caught between the wheel and the tire on my first descent and by the time I’d got stopped I’d scrapped quite a bit of tyre off.  And this made the tire hot and sticky and as the climb I was working on was newly sealed – it meant I was picking up seemingly 100′s of stones and a lot were getting caught.  To the point where I had to stop a few times on the next climb.  By this time I was fuming – so I gave the hill away for a few extra intervals on the flat.  (when I got home I changed the tire for one that fit better – lesson learned!)

This week is much the same – but a little longer and with a race to end it.  Put my name down for the B grade.   This’ll be my first attempt at a B grade race.  I’ve ridden in the Break group at my club – but I’m new to this level – with my first time in that grade just before xmas.  So I’m a tad nervous about my first B grade race – especially since it’ll be the first time I’ve gone up against riders in that grade from other clubs.  But nervous is good!

Looking forward to it.

Brrrrr….

Wow – I thought last week was cold!

This week saw temperatures drop and rain for most of it.  That coupled with 4 punctures and thunderstorms – didn’t make for my greatest week.

Got all my longer weekend rides in – and a couple of sessions on the spin bike – but missed one session and one other was cut short.  Not too bad I guess – but frustrating none the less.

My spin bike is set up in our unlined garage – so it’s freezing.  Our new house – which they have just started working on with it’s lined garage and double glazing – will be a welcome change.

On the plus side – I’m finding the quicker cadence is coming more naturally.  Rode with the small group today – comfortably in the small chainring – which I would never have done before.

Should receive my next months training plan tomorrow – so I’m looking forward to that.  Be nice if it involved a month somewhere warm.  I’m sure this cold weather work is all character building though!

Got a new phone this week – so once the rain stops – I’ll try and get a few shots out on the bike.

Ciao

The power of having a goal.

Well…

It’s been a pretty bad week weather wise.  Cold and raining for most of it.  But I still managed to get my prescribed training in – so feeling really good about that.

Had to rearrange things midweek when my Wednesday ride couldn’t happen despite best efforts to try and fit it in.  Wednesday was to be my first session of interval training which I was really looking forward to.  So a quick consultation with my coach saw my moving the interval training to Friday’s rest day.

When I was playing rugby – I used to really enjoy interval training – and I was happy to find that that still holds true.  (Not sure what the cycling equivilent to a Hennie Muller is? And if I’m honest  - can’t claim that I enjoyed doing Hennie Mullers but I was good at it at least:))  In those days too – my body really seemed to respond well to this sort of training – so hopefully that’s still true also.

Did 4km repeats – and it went really well apart from a couple of frustrations with traffic.

Saturday and Sundays rides were atrocious weather – but got 2 rides in.  Saturday got all rugged up but was thwarted 5kms into it with a puncture from big gash in a my tyre – fixed it and headed home and finished up on the trainer.   Then on Sunday – turned up for the usual group ride but was the only one there – was about to leave and do my own thing when one other guy turned up and we worked together for a while – but I ended up doing most of it on my own.

So I’d say the power of having a goal and a coach shone through this week.  If I didn’t have either of those things – I don’t know that I would have been so diligent with my training.  And I guess this blog has to take some credit too – wouldn’t be a good look to say – “Oh the weather was bad so I wimped out”.  So external motivation I guess – but I’ll take whatever works.

And the thing I learned – is that there is a perverse pleasure to by had by training through a week when most people flag it away.  There’s a feeling of making progress when you know that a lot of others aren’t.  And that it’s not actually that bad if you dress for the conditions.

I also learned that extra kms equals extra hunger and that If I’m not organised – I will eat whatever is close at hand – which isn’t always good.  Still I guess the extra bodyweight will help with the winter training

Was a good week…

There’s always something to work on…

Another week down.

Like the previous week – last weeks focus was on endurance building at a certain heartrate.  I’d talked with my coach at the end of week 1 and he asked questions about my speed at a certain heartrate and what gear I was in.  He told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to get into a lower gear and spin faster.  I tried to tell him it was the difference in the long cranks causing me to be in a higher gear – but he was having none of it .

So this week I was focused on spinning faster.  Was an interesting excercise as it meant I really had to concentrate to keep my heartrate up.  If I let my mind wander too much – I found my cadence would drop and the alarm on my heartrate monitor would beep telling me to snap out of it and get the cadence back up again.  Terry (coach) tells me that in time it’ll become 2nd nature and that will make me become more efficient.   Looks like my mashing days are numbered – but increased efficiency sounds like a good outcome to me – so I’m into that.

It’s been a cold week and looks like this coming week will be no different.  And there’s been times I’ve thought longingly about riding on the trainer.  But I’m always pleasantly surprised after getting out – even in the crap weather.  As long as I’m wrapped up warm – it’s not so bad.  Today is officially the first day of winter so I suspect it’ll only get colder from here on in and that they will be days where I’m forced inside to train.  But I want to make sure that’s the exception and not the rule.

Was nice to get out early on Saturday and to be home early in time for breakfast.  But a bit annoying to discover that I had done 10km  short.  Was supposed to do 60km and I’d only done 50.  I made up for it the next day on the Sunday group ride by doing 10km extra.  It’s a bit of a squeeze of a day on Sundays - I ride with the 9am Kapiti bunch and when I get home it’s a rush to get showered and have a bite to eat before piling in the car with the family and heading off to Sign Language lessons.  No lessons this week – so will be nice to be able to have a nice long shower for once!

This week sees my doing some interval work on Wednesday.  And it also sees my endurance rides varying in length over the week as opposed to being  fairly constant like they’ve been up till now.

Looking forward to the week.

Happily through week one.

Had a great first week on my new program!

Even managed to accomplish more than prescribed!  The first thing I tackled was our regular group ride so no drama there - but it was the first time I’d tried it wearing a heart rate monitior.  I quickly realised that group rides aren’t great if you are trying to ride to a specific heart rate.  But I’ll take the company while it’s there.

Rode 3 extended lunchtime rides during the week (tues, wed, thurs).  40km at a heart rate 10 beats a min lower than my threshold rate.  These were trickier than I thought.  Had to constantly regulate effort levels to keep to the prescribed range.  And when it’s windy – you have to really be vigilant.  But overall these rides fitted into my week OK.  I’m lucky to have a great employer that’s flexible enough so that I can start work an hour earlier and take a couple of hours for lunch.  That way the riding I’m doing doesn’t have to be stolen from the family time – which is vitally important.

The plan called for a 50km ride on Saturday – but I had a charity fundraiser ride on.  Was a 4 hour spin bike ride in the local shopping mall to raise money for a Kapiti Room at Ronald McDonald house - which has been set up close to Wellington Hospital for families of sick children to use.  Those that know me will know that this something close to me as my family’s been on the recieving end of the help Ronald McDonald House offers – and so 4 hours on a spin bike in support of them is the very very least I could do to help them out.     I ended up doing 3hrs 45min on the bike – and I roughly figured that equates to about 100km on the road.

This meant a week of 332km.  Big jump over what I’ve been doing up till now.

Finished the week with another group ride on the Sunday.  Felt surprisingly good after a big week and the spin bike session the day before. 

Today (Monday) is a rest day and I’m grateful for it!  But in saying that I’m looking forward to the challenge of the week ahead.

Onwards…

All set to go.

The first day of training in earnest towards my goal starts tomorrow.  It’s just the regular Sunday bunch ride – but it’s the first day of my first month of training as prescribed by my coach.

A couple of weeks ago I had a lactate threshold test done at Massey University in Wellington – and those results were looked over by my coach – and he’s used them to formulate a plan.  It’s the first time I’ve ever worked one on one with a coach.  Had plenty of different coaches when I was playing rugby – and plenty of team trainers setting fitness plans – but never worked this closely with someone – whose solely focused on helping me to achieve my goals.  Going from dealings so far – it’s going to be a great experience.

So far we’ve been through setting some goals and determining how much time I’ve got to put into it.  And from those discussions we’ve determined 3 events that I want to peak for (the last one being the TT at the club nationals) – and he’s given my the first months plan for going along that road.

So apart from that – this week I’ve been buying some toys for my bike that I’ll need.  Bought a heart rate monitor and also a speedo.  Since I got my new bike in November – I haven’t been riding with a speedo – which has been quite liberating if I’m honest.  But I will need one now with the training I’ve got.

We’ve got a year of working together – and as he tells me – ‘it’s a bricks and mortar” beginning.  So he’s got me building endurance to start with – and this week getting used to working at a particular heat rate.

As I said in the last post – It’s exciting.

Looking forward to the first week.

Here we go…

My first blog!

Where do I start?  Well I guess I’m starting this blog with what I feel is a new adventure.   That being – employing a cycling coach for a year and getting serious about training – with the goal of riding in the club road nationals in May 2011.   Specifically in the 25km Masters 2 Time Trial.

I’ve been into road cycling for a few years now – but never really have I trained hard or gone about it in a structured fashion OR (big or) tried hard to drop the weight that I need to, to be more competitive.  So that’s what this year is about – pushing the boundaries to see what I can do.

It’s exciting and I’m really looking forward to it!

I’m aiming to update this blog weekly with my musings on how things have gone.  And I’m an avid twitterer – so you can either follow me there (http://twitter.com/AdrianMcK) or check out my latest tweets on the right.  I usually tweet daily with what sort of training I’m up to.