Updated 2010 calendar

I've added a couple of new events to my 2010 calendar. They are post Etape but I want to add them here so I can include them in my training log.

I can only really explain booking these new events today by the sudden fear that I would do the Etape and then slump into some kind of low or malaise after all the build up and training. I don't know if any former Etappers can identify with this but there is the danger this is a peculiarity that is unique to me :-)

So September 12th is the London Duathlon. Yep, I flirted with the idea and I've gone for it. I managed to convince my long suffering wife to do it too, one month after her first triathlon, and she agreed on the proviso that I do a half-marathon with her. So on September 26th I will do a half in London. What she doesn't know (unless she reads this blog) is that I've entered myself in the ultra distance duathlon which is a 20/80/10 event.

The priority this year is the Etape but as that is in July, and I like to include a little bit of running in my training anyway, I figure that I will be able to prepare for these new events without too much impact on my cycling.

Sunday weights

Hid away from the rain today and just did an easy full-body weights workout. Bodyweight steady at 86.5kg so not heading where I want it to be but not getting any worse. This is good considering I am not sticking to any particular diet.

Why all the aggression?

I have been following Dallaglio's Cycle Slam as they ride their way round all the Six Nations stadiums. I noticed on one of the latest blog entries that they had cycled close to where I live, coming through a place I regularly ride through at Biggin Hill (glad they commented on that climb) and heading through Dulwich into the delights of South London. I wish I had known as I would have like to have cheered them on and maybe ride along for a bit.

Anyway, in the same blog, the author Andrew Coker writes about how he had a run-in with a car driver in London and, "Why are english drivers so aggressive, we have had it all day?". His story has an amusing side because I can imagine the car driver quietening down once he saw LD (who must look massive on a bike) and many others suddenly turning up. However it's not always so funny and I wonder if this is just my area, a southern thing or it is just the same everywhere.

Out on the ride yesterday in a quiet narrow lane there was an unexpected traffic jam. Cars were queuing to enter some event in a field and we waited patiently until a lady directing the traffic stopped the cars and said, "let this group of cyclists come through". The guy next to me said he couldn't believe his ears as this was so unusual and I would have to agree. Why? Why when I was riding home on my own yesterday did a car driver get so annoyed with me? I came up to some lights with a queue of traffic and I slowly cycled up the inside to get to the front. As I went past one car he blew his horn but I didn't know that was directed at me. As we pulled away from the lights the same car skimmed close by me and as he passed directed a few hand signals at me that I will leave to your imagination. What had wound him up so much? Maybe going up the inside of his stationary car was wrong. I just don't know.

The nastiest incident I had was riding to work in the dark just before Christmas. On a 2 lane road I could hear a car coming fast behind me so I looked back and a car that was in the outside lane came at speed into the inside lane straight for me with just inches to spare and then swerved back out into the outside lane. At the traffic lights not much further on I caught him and asked him (not so politely I have to confess) what he was doing. He told me the next time he would kill me. I don't know who that person was and what his problem was but it is totally baffling why someone would behave like that. I'm still here and I've repeatedly ridden my quite distinctive bike at the same time on the same road so I can only assume he had been watching too much Eastenders.

So what's it like in your part of the world?

First club run...get in!

Another milestone reached in project Etape 2010. I am now a fully paid up member of Dulwich Paragon CC and went out on the first club run this morning. I was a bit nervous just turning up unannounced but when I asked the first person who looked at me if it was okay to tag along and they replied shrugging, "I suppose so, I'm new too" I relaxed.

Just as I arrived a group was leaving and I heard someone say they were a fast group and were doing a longer ride. I was tempted for a moment to jump on the back of the group rather than hang around but I am very glad I did not. Those that were left were just milling around, some sitting on the terrace of the cafe looking very relaxed and over the next 15 minutes quite a few more riders turned up. The guy who seemed to be in charge suddenly announced we were off and there was a great moment as we all weaved our way off the top of the hill in Crystal Palace and hit some good speeds on the descent. We soon stopped again to split up into smaller groups as there was probably around 60 of us. I found myself in the 2nd group just because of where I had stopped and as we started our run I felt quite comfortable and had no problem keeping up.

However, it wasn't long before there was quite a gap between a group of 3 I found myself in and the main group. I sat on the wheel of someone for 10 minutes or so and then not really knowing what the etiquette was I overtook thinking I might be able to give him a breather. The main group stopped and waited and when I got to them I looked round and the 2 I was with weren't anywhere to be seen. The group leader asked if the pace was quick enough for everyone and although I kept silent the others wanted to go a bit quicker. On the first climb I got dropped almost immediately and at the bottom of a hair-raising descent the main group was waiting for me again which was kind. It seems the other 2 had gone back to join a slower group which is maybe what I should have done because again as we headed off I was dropped on the longest climb of the day. This was without doubt the longest continuous climb I have done so far. It wasn't really steep but seemed to go on forever and I was so glad when it was over. I was very tired now. I caught up with the group again because they had stopped for the loo and some were having a quick bite to eat and I really needed this rest albeit just 2-3 minutes. From then on 2 riders chaperoned me back to Crystal Palace and I really appreciated this gesture. We kept up a good pace but the main group were gone, never to be seen again.

I felt a bit better about being the slowest in the group when they told me that had been an unusually fast pace for a Saturday run. On the club website the Saturday ride is described as an "easy spin" and "fairly gentle" but that group 2 was out of my league. Something to aim for though.

I have learnt so much from this experience. OK, in total I got in 3 hours 15 minutes of riding including 740m of climbing but it was worth more than that. Learning to ride in a group; seeing how extraordinarily quick some people are on a bike; knowing I have a long way to go on this learning curve; knowing I need to get fitter and faster; learning not to judge a cyclist by the bike they are riding or the shape of their body...

For any other newbies out there like me who are thinking of doing the Etape or any other tough event I would urge you to join a cycling club. Fine if you just want to finish - all things considered you could probably train on your own and do enough to get round. But, if you want to get the best out of yourself, if you want to push yourself hard, then get out with some experienced riders. I'm totally cream-crackered now and all I am going to do for the rest of the day is drink coffee and watch the Six Nations on the box!

Bad training week

To end it with today's gym effort:

• Row and bike sprints. Descending ladder 2km row then 2km bike... 1.5km, 1.0km, 0.5km no rest bar stepping from one to the other
• Bench press. 5x5
• Core. 15 minutes

Will start a new week tomorrow and hope to do more.

Sob story or world peace?

I have to complete a questionnaire for the Etape organisers that will help them decide what bib number they will give me. I am assuming this will go out to all entrants so if you get one too please let me know (I've seen Rob got the same message but we are with the same tour company).

So they basically want to know my cycling background. Assuming the lower numbers start first then I will lose points (get a bigger bib number) for:

• Being a first timer
• Not competing in the Marmotte
• Not yet belonging to a cycling club (although I intend to rectify that soon)

But can gain points for:

• Putting an honest good weekly mileage in
• Doing some tough sportives pre Etape
• Putting in an ambitious finishing time - shall I say 7 hours ;-)
• Writing a strong justification statement

On the last one, I'm thinking that a good sob story would go down well here? Some kind of tragedy and the Etape is my way to fight back? No, I'm keen, but not going to stoop that low. Maybe like a Miss World contestant I could have a grand(iose) mission: World peace, save the children, save the planet (eco themes are hot these days), save Cashley & Cheryl's marriage...nothing too trivial. You never know, instead of getting bib #9000 I might get #8999.

I'm looking forward to the Etape but I find all this a bit OTT. A bit Kafkaesque. Getting a place wasn't easy, then the medical certificate, then all the fears about bonking or breaking down. I mean, it's just riding a bicycle up a hill isn't it? Years ago they would do twice the distance and be on a fixed gear. The broom wagon is now entering my dreams; I've punctured and as I'm crap at fixing them I'm panicking and can't inflate the tube and I can see the broom wagon coming over the hill and it's going to sweep me up...

I'd say I felt like Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner being followed by that balloon thing but he was #6 and that ain't going to be my number I know that much.

Lance in London

He's here. I don't know exactly where but he's in London and I can feel the power. I was praying for a Twitter ride but the weather is foul as usual and he's off to the Vuelta Murcia today so probably no time and who could blame him for wanting to head off to the sun pronto. I twittered him (tweeted?) in the the vain hope that he might say, "Yeah let's do it - Hey London, anyone fancy a ride?". But alas it won't be.

Run, Row, Ride

My gym has set another challenge: 5km run (treadmill), 5km row, 5km bike. Clock starts when you press Start on the treadmill and stops when you press Stop on the bike. The PTs thought the benchmark for men was 55:55 and one of them put in a 54:50. My time was 56:17 which I am quite pleased with but annoyed that I missed out on the benchmark by just 22 secs. Had I not faffed around setting up the rower in transition (see HR chart for obvious dip!) I would have made it I think (just).

Women were given an extra 10 minutes which I thought was quite generous. I moaned (as I am prone to doing) that they should consider old people like me. I mean, should I be 10 minutes faster than a fit 25 year old woman? They offered to put me in the same category as the ladeez but I declined. Next time I will nail the time no probs but it's not easy at all (Avg HR 165, Max HR 180).

Promise broken

I promised myself I wouldn't do weight training unless it was a full body workout but today I slipped. I actually wanted to rest my legs but couldn't tolerate resting completely so I ended up doing some upper body weights. It turned out to be a really good workout, well over an hour, but I have to be careful as I 'bulk' way too easily. I should imagine the cardio workouts cancel that out though so I'm probably fretting over nothing.

• 20-25 mins heavy punch bag
• Weights: Upright rows, Push-ups with feet elevated at about 4ft, Bench press, Lat raises, Db shoulder press, Clean & press, Close-grip bench press, Lat pulldowns, Woodchoppers, 10 mins core exercises
  

Duathlon?

I quite enjoyed the running and cycling combo last week and I did it again today. Maybe after the Etape I might give a duathlon a go. Perhaps in the future I will have a bash at a triathlon but I will need to advance my swimming beyond a rather pathetic breast stroke which is all I can do at the moment.

So out early this morning in the cold and rain. Sorry for whining like the soft, southern, shandy drinking, s**te that I am but I am totally sick of this weather. Drenched again this morning and it isn't much fun.

• Run: 5.2 miles (8.4km). Some nasty hills which are tougher running than on the bike
• Cycle: 45 minutes of hilly intervals on the fixed gear. Great to get out on it again.

Now I am going to have a very naughty fry-up and put my feet up for the rest of the day.

Short Saturday ride

Just 90 mins/36km out on the road today. I have been suffering with a cold all week and decided that the cold weather and sleet was going to jeopardise my recovery so I cut the ride short.

Friday gym

Fairly light today, too busy for much else:

• 35 minutes on spin bike at a fairly tough pace
• 20 minutes upper body pull work on the cable machine, various exercises all high rep sets, zero rest
  

Legs & core

I wrote the title and, showing my age, Legs & Co from TOTP jumped into my head. Get out, get out. Absolutely nothing to do with me training Legs (front squats, leg press, deadlifts, lunges) and Core (various exercises) for a full hour today.

Here's Legs & Co:

Member of the month

Yeah go on laugh, everyone in the office did. I guess they do call me knobhead anyway. I tell you Gwyneth Paltrow had nothing on me when I received this medal from my gym today. All that rowing paid off you see. I got the medal and a goodie bag for my efforts during January - as voted for by the PTs. I'd just like to thank....

All in a spin

50+ mins on the spin bike today. Not feeling 100% (again!) so not a bad effort really.

Avg HR: 148 bpm

Max HR: 176bpm

Greasing the groove

Dreich. No better word to describe the weather today (thanks Rich). Me? Heavy cold, fever overnight, jelly-legged and working from home feeling miserable. About 3.30 my concentration started to wane and I got the gym addict's guilt from not training since Sunday. So I picked 3 exercises and every now and then I just did a few reps across the late afternoon and early evening. Not sure it will aid the cycling in any way but it is all calorie burning I suppose.

Here's the totals:

• Push-ups 637
• Pull-ups 135
• KB single arm press 290

Sunday Muddy Sunday

Today I had planned to do 2 things: Go to the Triathlon, Cycling & Running show over at Sandown Park and while I was there do the Ride It! sportive for which I had a free entry. Last night I realised that I couldn't do both as it would mean my family hanging around for me while I did the ride and then spending who knows how many hours looking around the show. Not fair on the them so I opted to forego the sportive.

This morning I got up and had guilt because I wouldn't be able to do any training. So I convinced my wife that we could go out for a quick run and still have time to drive over to the TCR show. The weather was absolutely dreadful: raining heavily and quite cold and to make things worse I got us a bit lost resulting in running along a boggy muddy trail, slowing us down and adding distance we didn't want to do. So by the time we got back I wasn't Mr Popular and time had run out.

Despite all this I changed into my cycling gear, downed a protein shake and a banana and within 10 minutes I was on the bike. The rain had more or less stopped but conditions were filthy and by the time I got back I (and bike) looked like I'd been doing cyclo-cross. All in all though a good days training but I am disappointed about missing the show:

• Run: 7 miles (11.4 km to be exact)
• Cycle: 51 km (HR avg 151bpm max 170bpm; elevation 538m with one section between 8% and 20% gradient)

Had a problem with the gears. The chain was slipping in 2 cogs making them unusable which was a real pain. I'm not sure how easy that is to fix but I would like to avoid being without the bike right now.

Feed the Warrior

Lol - kill the coward within...

Happy about The Fred

I was part delighted / part terrified when I found out I had won a place in the Fred Whitton. Two things happened this week though:

1) Colleagues at work who know The Lakes well and were very impressed when I showed them the route. I don't need their approval it's just good to know this is a tough challenge in a beautiful location
2) Commuting home tonight I read in this week's Cycling Weekly that the Fred Whitton is one of their highlighted sportives. When they described how difficult it was to get a place I felt quite privileged.

To add to this I've had to tell the FW team that I've changed address/email and in typically efficient fashion they responded promptly which was appreciated.

Roll on May 9th!

Friday gym workout

Not often I come out of the gym feeling satisfied but today was close.

• 25 mins heavy punch bag
• 15 mins weight training shoulders (felt stiff around neck and shoulders so wanted to work this area to loosen up a little)
• 35 mins spin bike - just over half of Downward Spiral. I actually found this tougher than Fight Club but maybe I was just working harder
  

Training @ home

As much as I could in 45 mins, trying to keep rest to a minimum:

• KB swings 3x20
  
• Push-ups 10/10/10/15/15
• Hanging leg raises 5x5
• Pull-ups 5/5/4/4/5
• Push-ups feet raised 10/10/10/12/15
• KB snatches 5x20
• Chin-ups 5x5
• Hammer curls 5x20
  

Joe Blow's low blow

Serves me right. I broke a valve on my wife's single-speed at the weekend. I've done this before on my own bike; too forceful with the mini-pump, grrrr.

Me: If you are out shopping today would you mind buying me a nice big pump for the bikes? Those mini-pumps are bad news.

Wife: Sure my handsome, superfit, non-whinging, demi-god....(or something along these lines anyway).

Later that day...

Wife: Look, I got your pump.

Me: Wow! That's a beauty. How much was it?

Wife: 50 pounds.

Me: WTF! (falls to the floor clutching chest/groin).

How does a bike pump cost 50 quid? Well it does in Halfords. Wiggle does the same for about £30. Anyway, here it is - The Joe Blow Sport. 50 quid, 50 quid *sobs*

Inspirational people #3 Chrissie Wellington

I read this article in London's Evening Standard last night. A truly outstanding athlete. I just looked at her Ironman splits for last year. 112 bike ride in under 5 hours and that's after the 2.4 mile swim. And then to finish she runs a marathon in 3 hours! Incredible.

I know the Ironman is on Lance's to-do list and it will be interesting to see if he could get anywhere near Chrissie Wellington's times.

Wednesday sufferfest

With a small s. Want to make me really suffer? Just stop me training and interfere with my diet.

Out of bed, shower, dress, 2 mouthfuls of all-bran with Chris Hoy looking annoyingly fit and healthy grinning at me from the cereal box. Train into London delayed. Tube packed. Just make train to Manchester and eat cheese and pickle sandwich while working away on laptop. Go down to tram and wait for 30 minutes in cold; decide to get taxi but taxi rank busy so go back to tram. Tram packed and slow due to technical problem. Now late for meeting. Get to meeting, just time to grab black coffee. 3 hour meeting. Back on tram. Slow - emergency brakes keep coming on due to technical problem. Just make train back to Euston. Buy huge Snickers bar (500 calories) and eat it whilst gawping out of the window due to laptop battery flat and forgot power cable. See 'Etap Hotel' in Manchester from window - makes me smile at last. Back in London. Tube so packed solid I can barely breathe. Miss train so wait around for next one. Get to home station and then walk home in heavy snow shower. Get home feeling depressed and eat huge meal with wine and a very fattening pudding. Eat crisps and Jaffa Cakes. Go to bed.

And I'm going to cycle a stage of the TdF? I'll have to do better than this.

Tuesday Sufferfest

At the risk of repeating myself the Sufferfest videos are just superb. I completed Fight Club today on the spin bike and it really was an excellent workout. I should apologise to my fellow gym members for the dripping mess that I was towards the end but it was hard work you know!

Monday workout

Full body weights. Loads of squats, lunges, pull-ups, etc. 1 hour total.

First 100km ride

Yeah, go me. Garmin said 99.44km and the Mavic Wintech said 101.2km. Anyway, total ride time was 4:01:52. Chilly and damp but it felt good to be out.

The hills are alive...

...with the sound of traffic. I wish it was music but no, one of the penalties of living in Sarf London / North Kent is the volume of cars and lorries etc. The new home is on a busy road with traffic whizzing by pretty much 24x7 but one thing the area does have though is lots of nice little steepish hills. I only had an hour to spare this morning so I just went out to ride as many of these hills as I could fit in.

Quite a good little workout in the end but I give thanks in the main for the fact that I'm still alive because people drive like crazy and I had a couple of nasty incidents. So I knocked off just under 22km in the hour - all of the hills being under 1km in length but quickly kicking up to 7% and in some cases 13% in that distance. I'm aching to get out and ride longer and maybe that opportunity will come tomorrow but life's a bit hectic at the moment.

Moving house workout

This is a toughie and a real back breaker. It combines cardio with weight lifting and is usually completed in a 6 hour session on an empty stomach. You even get to ride a bike that is too small for you and has semi flat tyres up a steep hill.

So what's in a heartbeat

Training has taken a rare back-seat this week due to our house move unfortunately coinciding with me at vendor meetings away from my office and gym for 2 days. So apart from the weights/kettlebell routine on Monday and a 2 mile ride tonight, transferring my bike from one house to the other, all I have done is the TCTP field test on Tuesday.

Apologies to the 'Time Crunched' authors and any purists out there but for practical reasons I did this on the spin bike. I didn't think I could find a road between home and central London on which to do 1, let alone 2, eyeballs out 8 minute intervals. So I have no readings on power or cadence and for now have to rely on heart rate. Not best but it's a start.

So what do you make of my heart rate chart? I'm curious. I felt pretty good and hand on heart(!) don't think I could have pedalled harder. My cadence was good, the resistance (gear) was not too easy/not too hard but I could not get my heart rate up any higher. The chart doesn't show for some odd reason that my HR did actually peak at 173bpm. Out on the road climbing, I can get to just above 180 but during this test 173 was the tops.

Now what can I expect to happen as my fitness improves? I am confused by this. Instinct says that as I get fitter I would need the heart to beat less frequently to do an equal amount of work i.e. I could do the same work as in this field test but my heart rate would be lower. Is this right? Equally as I get fitter I should be able to do more work so therefore I should be able to push my heart rate higher (without collapsing!).

As always I'd be grateful for any comments. I will try to do the field test out on the road soon and I will do it again maybe on the spin bike at some point in the future to see how it compares. Hopefully I will be able to get out for a ride at the weekend but for now it is unpacking boxes and reorganising home life that takes priority I guess.

Reasons to be cheerful

1) The man-flu has been defeated!

2) I've made some progress today with the house move which is happening this week. All very stressful but a couple of steps forward today.

3) My new book arrived, 'Tour de France - The History, The Legend, The Riders' by Graeme Fife. Thanks to Rich for the recommendation and also for what I've just seen on his blog re the Cervelo Test Team film. I'm looking forward to watching that later.

4) I managed at last to buy the March Cycling Plus with the SIS DVD recommended by Karen. I even managed to watch it this afternoon while I was training and it is brilliant. I know it is a plug for SIS products but there's a great insight into the Etape, some good advice and it's just useful to see amateurs taking on the same route as we will. Really really enjoyed this one. Check out Chris Hoy doing squats! He's a strong guy.

5) After yesterday's ride I feel that I need to structure my training better. So I've returned to The Time Crunched Cyclist and I'm thinking I will try to follow it from now on. I feel the structure of it will help me focus and I've decided that from now on I will only train with weights/kettlebells twice, max three times a week. Always full body and the rest of the time dedicated to the cycling with a bit of running thrown in. As the purpose of this blog was to log my training progress I will come back to this subject but for today I did 1 hour of kettlebells, pull-ups, chin-ups, squats and push-ups. Going forward my 'coaching team' will be messrs Carmichael, Rutberg and for core/flexibility Tara Stiles. What more do I need?

Camp Life

Oooer. Found this on Cyclefilm's site. I'd really like to do one of these but I'm not going to fit it in this year. Maybe next year and in my beloved España like this one...