TNT #8

Round 8 of Hinckley CRC's Tuesday Night 10 (10 mile time trial)

I wasn't looking forward to tonights race. After a lackluster effort on the turbo last night and a dull day at work I just wasn't up-for-it. Jo pushed me out of the door and off I went to Wolvey, trying to think up excuses for not riding. In the back of last week's performance I should have been eager to go again, but no, not interested. I joined the back of the long queue at about 6:30 and picked up number 44. Back of the field again, but I like being back there. Road is quieter and wind usually drops for the later starters.

Weather was a bit better this week. Sky was brighter with lots of blue and a few clouds skidding across. Wind was a bit of a pain. Had been quite strong during the day, but as the evening came it was calming down. Helping on the way out (the longer leg) is usually good for me. And slightly from the right(West) gives you a little shelter from the trees on the way back.

A short warm up and off to the start for 7:44

Was horribly distracted by my heart rate monitor and speedo today.
HR sensor seemed to drop out a lot during my warm up and I wasn't comfortable with it during the race. Should really have been concentrating on riding the bike, rather than pressing buttons on the phone. Heart rate up at 155 was ok and speed was good down to the turn. Tried to push a bit harder on the way home, but didn't quite have it in me.

Crossed the line with another PB of 25:10

It would be nice to catch my 2up partner Richard Gamble one day. Think I've got him worried.

Another Good Day.

New Blog Colour

Oh look, I've found the colour templates for the Blog. Got a bit bored with black, so here is a new, easy to read, ligher coloured version.

( really should be working, but...... )

JFDI !

I know I have a "motivation problem".
Today was a prime example. Had a dull day at work and really didn't get much done. Dragged my lazy arse out to the garage for a turbo session in the evening  with Zero enthusiasm. Faffed about for a while fiddling with the bike and anything else that came into view in the garage. Pedalled for about 30 minutes with a short sprint in the middle then gave up. Not going to happen tonight.

With hindsight I hate myself for this. I need to get the training done, but some days I just don't want to do it.

Burbage to Bardon to Beacon and back

I have to face the fact that I need to get some vertical metres as well has horizontal miles in the training. So the Saturday morning route took in Leicestershire's highest point : a not very high Beacon Hill at 220m. A steady climb 6%- 10% from Quorn up to the top:

Just for a quick reality check, this is what it looks like on the Etape profile scale :

I think I'm in trouble!

May try to get out and about a bit more over the next month. I'll ask around and see where I can go. Probably just stick the bike in the car and drive to the bottom of some thing hilly, do an evening of hill repeats and drive home again.

I quite like the simplicity of a training ride that has the same metres climbed as the etape. Obviously not on a single climb, but 10 repeats of Beacon hill would be a start. 10 x 15 minutes (up) + 8 min (down) = about 4 hours of the same bit of road. Not much fun. Total climbing in the Etape is 3600m.


One of the other thoughts to come out of this ride was that I need to think more about my fueling. Felt pretty rubbish after an hour and really struggled at 2 hours. I think I need to try to eat more real food (bananas, fig rolls, flapjack for a start) rather than just Go Bars and PSP drink. ( Not having a nice bottle of Red wine the night before may also help ;o)

Now only 50 days to go.

Tim.

Power to Weight Ratio

One of the many essential measures of a riders ability is their power to weight ratio. (Actually a lot of this sort of stuff is meaningless, but I like it !?!)

In the kit car world people like to aim for 400 BHP per metric tonne. My Westfield is probably about 320 to 340.

In the bike world, a good figure is 4 Watts per kg.  This is what I am aiming for.
A riders power output is a very variable thing. I can peak at over 600watts, just for a very short time, but 350ish for a couple of minutes and can only hold 270ish for an hour (my Functional Threshold Power).
Generally people quote their 5min wattage for the power to weight ratio figures. These figures are all a bit vague and I'm can't really claim that I've given it an all-out effort to measure them at any point. They are just taken from various turbo sessions.

On the other side of the equation, my weight is falling. From the rugby friendly 92kg last November to 83kg now. This gives my current power to weight ratio as about 3.8 watts/Kg

Pretty happy with that, but I'm going to continue with the salads and hope to hit 80kg and 350+ watts. by Etape time.

Donations

Started advertising the event today. Nothing too agressive, but a well worded note on our email news boards. Started seeing a few £s coming in. All good.

Some people are very generous. I'm very grateful.

Etape Medical Certificate

Another job ticked off the list today: got my Etape Medical Certificate signed and stamped.

After a bit of a to-ing and fro-ing with the GP, and talk of £20 and then £100 fees. I'm now sorted. For free, thanks to a kind benefactor, so that's a bit more I can put to the charity.

Also good to know that the blood pressure, heart, etc are looking OK.