Settling into a sigh of relief – Coast to Coast in a day has been done and done in a near-identical time to last time (which was three years ago and 10 kg less). So my fitness isn’t as under-trained as I’d thought it might be – the ride is 150 miles and 11,000ft climbing (not entirely evenly spread). That’s a lot more climbing than on any stage of LEL.
… still noodling & experimenting
As ever, work gets in the way – and I felt lousy through last weekend so decided that sanity dictated some rest. A pub ride this week dispelled some lingering paranoia that all fitness might have disappeared.
Skewers and the devil
Skewers have arrived. Wheels will be sorted … any day now. Just need some time.
Last weekend’s long ride was the London Ditchling Devil, at 204km with 8000ft of climbing (yes, yes, I should do that in metres … but the feet go by faster!). I finished about an hour earlier than I had anticipated, which I’m thrilled by – the overall elevation gain is approximately the same as the hardest stage of LEL, so that’s a reasonable test (and the hills are harder/steeper than on LEL).
Still amused by the number of other cyclists who find it amazing that I ride alone, and tend to say that they couldn’t … I find it difficult to ride with others, worrying that I slow them up! And I also don’t much like taking breaks (see the title of this blog …!), preferring to plod on.
Saddles and so on
A short ride today, trying out a new saddle: enough has hurt over the last week or so that I clearly need some sort of alternative point of contact on the bike for long rides. The Brooks Cambium I’ve been using has been fine for 100+ miles; it was a bit uncomfortable towards the end of the 200k ride a few weeks back, but that could have been the shorts. Somewhere around 300k into LWL, though, it was pretty clear that Things Were Not Fine.
Experiment now is with a Brooks Cambium Carved (C17 version); partly on the “well, it almost worked, see if a tweak changes anything” principle. On the face of 17 miles today (when still sore …) it may well do the job. The principal test will be next weekend, with back to back imperial centuries (more or less; the second day isn’t quite so far).
I’ve also reworked my audax schedule a bit; I don’t think I need to do another 400k – having checked/rechecked the LEL route against my time start and so on, I don’t need to do more than 200 miles a day (on the basis of sleeping at controls). Training to do a harder ride has some basis in sense but I think I would be better served with doing 300k rides instead, as that’s closer to what I will be riding, and to try to do a couple of back to back (I have a 600k – which is effectively that) already booked.
There aren’t any 300k rides within reasonable distance near here, at least not in the time frame I need, so I’m planning to do a permanent from Cambridge out to Norfolk etc (yes, flat – but the all-ways-round headwind usually makes up for it).
Bonus: that’ll qualify me for the Super Randonneur audax award (200, 300, 400 and 600k rides in one audax season).
Experiments continue
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.
Things learnt in a 200k ride
- Lucozade diluted 1:2 with water tastes like Portuguese Tang (the original orange version, not the updated sweetener version)
- The Wahoo Bolt probably does 14+ hours per charge (23% left after 12 hours, so that may be conservative) – but it chews through phone battery if you leave it talking to the phone (so, turn off bluetooth on the phone, or switch to flight mode)
- The settings on the Bolt can be adjusted directly, not just in the app – the power button, when tapped, allows (I should really RTFM one day)
- The Bolt also doesn’t plot the route more than 5k or so on advance – not great when trying to find your way back on a diversion, as the route doesn’t show on the map when you zoom out. However, it picks up the route just fine when you locate it again
- Turn by turn navigation isn’t great at staggered crossroads and other fast multiple turns – not sure if this is an issue with the Bolt, with ridewithgps, or whether it’s just a feature of turn-by-turn
- Even so, the turn-by-turn is relatively useful at reminding of changes: with a couple of caveats – the key word is “turn” and not “junction”. It doesn’t notify when the route is straight on over a junction. It also doesn’t notify when the route stays on the same road but turns off at a junction (e.g.: where following the A1000 south of Hatfield requires you to take a left hand turn to come off the road you’re riding on – if you stay straight on, the road immediately becomes the A1001. The navigation doesn’t recognise this as a turn …). With all those caveats in mind, I’m still going to keep using it as the beeping is a useful reminder to look at the map function.
- The Apidura food pod works – as in, I
‘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). - Food that works: ‘claws’ blackcurrant & beetroot fruit sweets; mini Babybel light; nakd bars.
- Drink that works: nuun lemon & lime (2 per bottle); Lucozade Sport Orange (diluted 1:2 with water)
Turbo is the way to go …
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.
Thunderbirds are go
… 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.
… still here …
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.
Strength training
In addition to starting commutes, I’ve started strength training properly as well (insofar as a single session can be called starting properly).
I skipped the pub ride from sheer fatigue – seems counterproductive to force myself out when I was too tired to see straight. That appears to have worked – I was much better yesterday and this morning.
So yesterday morning, to the gym. The training routine is from Friel’s Cyclist’s Training Bible (useful book generally); it develops through the training period. Current routine is:
- Squats
- Seated cable row
- Lat pull down
- Step ups
- Push-ups
- Knee extension (‘personal weakness’ bit – I’ve had some kneecap tracking issues in the past, which are fine at the moment but I’d like to keep it that way)
- Standing cable row
Two sets, twenty reps each (this is a muscle endurance building phase; in later phases, the reps reduce and the weight goes up)
I’ve also got the logbook to go with the Bible – this blog is useful for general thoughts & rumination and reflection, but a short & to the point analysis of how I’m feeling plus metrics such as resting HR etc all in one place feels also useful. We shall see.