… after 400k comes a week in Majorca, in which I do rather less cycling than anticipated (one 110k ride, and a couple of short spins) plus some swimming. The post-ride soreness continued with something of a vengeance, although the 110k ride wasn’t too bad.
I suspect that a week of recovery to let the training effect kick in isn’t too nuts, anyway.
One milestone down: a 400k ride, to test kit and legs and strategies. It’s further than I plan to ride on LEL on any given day (although that is still being worked out as well).
The ride was the London-Wales-London audax (used to called Severn Across) from Chalfont St Peter to Chepstow and back again (in a loop, not an out and back), with around 14k ft of climbing in the 407k of riding.
Points noted on the ride:
A useful and tasty mixture:
Add all to a bowl and eat (swirl together or leave separate as you choose …) It’s a decent slug of protein and vitamins (and gets in a colored veg!)
85 miles yesterday – all fine, other than saddle angle. Rookie error, I should have checked earlier (new bike, I didn’t install the saddle). Nothing too painful, just mildly annoying mid-ride.
‘m feeling a lot more chipper than I was after an 80 mile ride recently. Some of that is additional training but I think a fair bit was also that I ate/drank more steadily this time – liquid every 5k (or more often if thirsty), food every 5k or 10k, depending on how I was feeling (but every 10k even if I didn’t want to).Still on the turbo during the week (only practical way to do intervals around here) but cycling outdoors is back under way.
78 miles last weekend, not flat (not really hilly either) and it felt fine – the turbo clears pays off. I was tired in the evening, but no DOMS/exhaustion the next day, which bodes well.
Still having hip/back issues off the bike – off for another MRI soon – but it doesn’t affect the cycling much, and the doc (surgeon) has continued with an all-clear to ride. During the 78 miler there were a couple of times that my thigh in particular twinged, with some glute pulling, but it was manageable and passed with a few miles each time.
Still here, still riding – on the turbo, still, as the sessions need to count. I’m a bit time-crunched for the moment, and I want to built power and speed – so I’m following a TrainerRoad training plan, whilst hooked into Zwift for visuals. Although, of course, I then end up spending quite a bit of time just reading on the iPad as I ride.
The TrainerRoad plans seem better structured than the Zwift ones (more in the way of under/overs and similar), and offer better choices for long distance training, which is why I’m mixing them that way. Sufferfest seems more fast-road oriented, for example – I know it has a couple of endurance rides, but that’s maintenance and not training as such. At least, to my mind.
… or something like that. 56 miles yesterday, not particularly flat (not massively hilly either). Tiring, unsurprisingly – it was always going to be something of a stretch to go from a few turbo sessions to 90 km or so. Plodded up the hills mostly – ran out of energy when I ran out of momentum on one particular hill, but so be it.
Part of that is, I think, that I need to practice eating while I ride: I ran out of easy-access energy. Plan for the next few rides is to chop up nakd bars into bites & set a timer to eat and drink every 20 minutes. Also plan to be a bit less ambitious on distance, but ride twice each weekend.
In the plus side, some of the worst of the hip issue seems to have been subdued. Possibly just from being worked … who knows. No particular issues riding, although quads & hamstrings had unsurprising moments of unhappiness.
Lack of posts basically due to back/hip issues which have been restricting me to the turbo (am disinclined to go out when my back randomly seizes up and then takes a while to sort itself out). Posts about Strava … yeah, not so interesting.
That said, yesterday’s SST session was useful – and somewhat tiring (duh). Will put that on the rinse & repeat cycle.
Signed up for Sufferfest’s app also, partly for variety but also to access the yoga sessions as that may help with back etc.
And … have signed up for LEL. It’s all official. So I’ve also signed up for a series of audaxes to add to the indoor training.
Still cycling, just haven’t generally done anything interesting enough to prod me to post about it.
I did do a ramp test with the coach – max’d out at 300W (ie: couldn’t sustain 310W), partly because I was thirsty and hot.
Cycling today on a baking September morning was fun – noodling out with a couple of red group riders, via a few hills. This bike will head for the turbo soon; I may even switch it over tomorrow. I need to change the pedals and switch the Condor to winter wheels etc … all a bit time consuming, but I have a 170k ride on Saturday and I think I want to do it on the Condor.
Slowly acquiring LEL-type bike bags – presents etc – so plan to test those out on Saturday as well