Lost With Life

I finally made it out to do my first set of intensity work on a local climb near the house today and it turned out to be not as bad as I thought even though it was maybe a little slow. It started raining from the moment I left the house and stopped raining on the way home from doing my repeats, I had planned to do four but I got very cold and my watch was playing up so I stopped after three. The route is 3.22km and climbs about 200m with a little down hill half way through but takes about 12-13 mins to ride at my pace.

1. 12.26 mins – Avg Hr. 166 – Max Hr. 176
2. 12.31 mins – Avg Hr. 168 – Max Hr. 180
3. 12.38 mins – Avg Hr. 169 – Max Hr. 178

My speeds were fairly consistent which I was happy with which means I can keep the power consistent throughout my climb but I was struggling to push harder on the legs even though aerobically I felt I could. I guess its just a matter of keeping at the intensity work and the power will come over time.

Other suggestions welcome?

Back to training last night with a road spin in Wicklow with Morgan the almighty powerful leader of MAD mountain biking club. He is a fair bit faster than me so had to push to keep up nearly all the way around but proved to be a good workout and the legs were not suffering to much at the end. Half way through my Garmin died as I forgot to charge it which is a bit of a pain as I would like to have seen if my average speed was a bit faster but that’s life.

In a dilemma at the moment as I cant decide if I can really afford to go to SITS, there is a place on a team with the lads from MAD and they are a person short but this thing called money always gets in the way.

Managed to go out on Thursday on the full sus and enjoyed bashing around the trails at a bit more speed than I would do on the SS but got to the end and still wanted to get back on the SS and do some more riding. So today I did a bit of trans wales distance type training and headed out on the good old trusty Wicklow way. The Wicklow way can at times get a bit boring as I rode it to death last year but had not been out and ridden to Maulin / Djouce all winter so decided that was the aim today.

Of course it was also an excuse to ride the SS instead of gears so I headed up the usual Three Rock, Ferry Castle, Prince Willies and Cruagh I then took a diversion off the Wicklow way and went up and did the climb / push to the top of Maulin and across the side on some really nice single track. By now I realised it was going to be one of those days that every one has decided to stay at home as I had only seen about three or four walkers at this point, so I descended down to the Dargle and then up and down onto the road and over to Ballinstowe trail centre. From the trail centre far end I headed up onto the board walks across to Djouce and my eye’s lit up with joy as I rode the board walks and Down Djouce with only meeting two walkers. from there I dropped into Djouce and then onto the road home which was a bit slow and tedious on the single speed but still grand.

All in all nearly 68km of single speeding which is my longest ride by far with nearly 3300m of climbing which is a good example of a hard day on the trans wales. Admittedly as I write this I am tired and would not want to go out on the SS again tomorrow and do the same but with some more training I think some fantastic single speed epics are on the table.

Stats:- http://connect.garmin.com/activity/9094175

Cloud dodge it should be a new game, go out in the rainy weather and attempt to avoid as many rain clouds without getting wet. That was the game we seemed to play today, I was going to do hill repeats but yet again managed to do a spin with a friend instead.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/8854185

The pace was a bit slower than usual but a nice bumble with a few steep hills to push the legs. The good thing was we managed to miss every rain cloud that was throwing down around us and ended up being quite a sunny warm spin. I managed to hit one of my fastest speeds of 59.3kmph down a hill which is better than I usual do, though I am still a big wimp at descending.

Must stop making excuses and go out and do some intensity work…

Got back from holiday on Sunday night and have been rained on for the last two days commuting to work which severely curtails the enthusiasm for going back out on the bike when I get home. Some of the lads from MAD were heading out for a road spin so I put the race blades on the road bike and donned some over shoes expecting the worse.

The rain held off for most of the spin with only one downpour but after that the sun came out a bit and made for an enjoyable spin. We took a road I have never done before which has a set of bends called devils elbow which turned out to be very steep but I will definitely ride them a bit more as it really pushes the legs.

No idea how far I got in the end as the Garmin was out of battery but felt like about 35km which would be usual for a evening road spin. Needed to get out as it has given me that enthusiasm again, and kicked a bit of the holiday blues…

Now just need to get the will power to go and start doing some interval sessions.

Been busy all week biking and sorting out stuff out with life which seems to generally get in the way of biking so not had time to update my blog

Wednesday – Tried an intensity session of 40km pushing my self all the way round and took 7 minuites of my previous record for this course so was very happy (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/7852696)

Thursday & Friday - Rest day

Saturday – Was not feeling so good so had a bumble around three rock with some friends  (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/7983852)

Sunday – Did the 160km  route on the Tour of Meath which ended up being 5 1/2 hours of pushing my self, I was very happy with how I cycled and learnt a lot about cycling in a group (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/7983847)

Monday – My legs were very tired but pushed my self around a 90km hilly cylce of wicklow and felt ok after it apart from the legs complaining at me (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/8036004)

Off on holiday from Wednesday until Sunday which will be 5 days of relaxing but a good core work out every day but more of that once I get back from holiday. Sorry for the crap post but busy packing for holiday and general life getting in the way.

As I said in my last post I came to the decision a few days ago it was time to move from a 32×20 to a 32×19 which to most is not a big change but for me is still a good progression in my single speeding. I did a good old high intensity spin with some of the lads from MAD yesterday and we took in most of the trails in the three rock NPS course and a few old classics plus a horrendous climb which I have not cleaned on my single speed yet and had to push about half of it.

I did notice the climbs were harder but not to bad so will ride 32×19 for a few months like I did 32×20 and then move to 32×18. The hope is by next summer I will have moved to a gear that makes single speeding possible but also competitive at a level I want to be.

Second pushy spin of the week and the legs were feeling tired and so was I but I headed out today on a road spin today but more about that tomorrow once I have downloaded my stats at work.

Stats:- http://connect.garmin.com/activity/7815226

Some people hate him, some people love him, every one will always have an opinion but one thing is for sure and that’s the fact he is helping people fight cancer. I have always like the adverts Nike have done with him and this one is just as good I think.

http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nike/en_US/

I had a plan today to head out on a nice recovery session with a friend up onto the local trails in three rock as my legs were still a little tired from yesterday but I was cancelled on at the lost moment. I was in two minds weather to bother but after putting some new tyres on the SS, in the end I decided I might as well start some sort of training so tried to do a intensity session, it works quite well as the first half is up hill and then the trails are a mix of hard climbs and technical cross country with not an amazing amount of down so really works you. I did not think I was going to enjoy it very much as I don’t like pushing my self hard but it actually turned out to be great fun on the single speed but I am going to move to a 19 tooth cog for the extra power and speed.

Stats:- http://connect.garmin.com/activity/7723891

Quite happy with my average speed of 12.2 as there is a fair amount of climbing and my heart rate was a lot lower that is used to be on a comparable spin when I was training for the trans wales last year so all is good.

I always have this strange love with my road bike and quite enjoy flat spins where you can drop your bike into the  largest ring on the front and the smallest on the back and just power along at 30-40kmph and watch the world go by. Today was one of those days as we headed up to Dundalk to do the Tour of Louth which was a primarily flat 100km sportive, I headed up with some lads from the boards.ie cycle group who I used do a fair amount of my cycling with before I got injured so it was good to meet up with people and say hello again.

We set out and the first 50km was fairly fast with an average of 34.2kmph and I even managed to lead the front pack for a while before getting spat back into the main group but was a great experience of cycling in a big group of about 30-40 riders. The second half had a very short, but steep hill in and I could just not keep pace with the other guys who were at some points hitting 50kmph on the flat by all reports which is a bit over the top for my abilities at the moment. My average for the last half was a bit slower because of the hill at 32.8kmph but I was still happy with because there was a group of four riders I was with who were taking it in turns to pull the group along.

My average for the whole thing was 33.4kmph and it took just over 3 hours to do the 101km of the course which I was very happy with and I even got a gold medal for completing it under the 3 hour 20 which was the cut off before a silver medal. Happy with my time and would definitely go back and do it again as it was only 10 euro to enter, and feeling fairly confident about the ring of kerry cycle next weekend which should be just as good as a lot of the boards.ie people are going down.

Stats:- http://connect.garmin.com/activity/7667859