I planned to do the Club 10mile TT championship last Sunday. Unfortunately due to family illness I decided not to compete but just do the club ride instead.
I am glad to say that my Mother is now home and my training seems to be back on track. I have still not made a decision about going ahead for lejog at present.
I tried and failed to kick start my diet on Monday so will start it again on Easter Tuesday.
I have had a troubled last few weeks. Although I had a great time in Malta (although no training) I was given some bad news about a member of my family becoming sick.
As such I have temporally put my plans on hold, by not booking any travel or accommodation, until I am more sure about whether its sensible to go ahead.
This has put a real dampener on my diet and in fact my weight has crept back up due to comfort eating (the bane of my life) and a lack of willpower. My mood is low and although I am still training its not as organised as prior to the news.
I plan to kick start my diet and training program next week but we will see what becomes of this week.
So please think about my family in your prayers.
This tip I got from DCrainmaker. It enables you to put a message on the bootup screen of the Garmin.
To do this connect the Garmin to your computer.
Open the Garmin directory then find the “startup.txt” file.
Open this in a text editor and follow the instructions in the file.
Save this eject your Garmin and reboot it.
Job done.
I have had a busy weekend on the bike. On Saturday 13th Feb I did the Worthing Winter Warmer a 104km Audax organised by the club.
The weather was cold and very wet. Despite this 81 people started the event and 72 finished. I started the ride with Rome as I had programmed the route into my Garmin we were soon joined by some other members of the club. At the first checkpoint on the top of Alderbrook near Cranleigh it was snowing and with freezing hands and feet we gratefully topped up on supplies and hot drinks. The decent was very hairy with the back wheel slipping occasionally on heavy breaking particularly at the point when a car did an emergency stop. Through the rest of the ride it slowly warmed up although often I was unable to feel my feet. We were grateful to finish within a reasonable time. Cakes soup and hot drinks were provided allowing us to defrost hands and feet.
Unfortunately whilst loading the car I dropped my Garmin in the car park. Someone found it and thanks to a little trick I learned on powering up the device my name and number were on the start up screen.
Sundays ride was a different type of test. The weather was dryer although not any warmer. and my legs felt empty on the climbs.
My ride details can be found on Strava
Over the next few weeks I will be increasing my training intensity by doing more long rides on consecutive days. This weekend I will be doing the Worthing Winter Warmer followed by the Sunday club ride and the following week the Club trip to Eastbourne and back. Both of these weekends should be about 200km each.
To try and keep my body as well as possible I had a great sports massage and plan to do this every fortnight until the ride. Nicky has pointed out that my gluteal muscles are comparatively weak and that I need to focus on them.
My weight seems to be static this week although my %body fat has gone down (Althought this is notorously inacurate).
The most important thing I can do before the trip excluding training is to loose weight.
I started this year at 118.5kg which gave me a BMI of 33.3. I have reduced this to 111.8kg by using mynetdiary to calorie count. This ties in with my fitbit app allowing me to eat the required food to loose weight in a controlled manner. The app helps reduce my temptation to snack which historically been by biggest downfall.
Sophie is fantastic, menu planning to give a well rounded diet of fantastic food for lunch and dinner but keeping the calories in check.
Hopefully I will get to about 100kg by the time of the ride which will save me huge amounts of effort on the climbs.
Looking at watts/kg at 20min peak power
At start of year it was: 1.96
On 24th Jan : 2.11
If I get to 100kg with same power it would be: 2.44
This would give me a 20% increase in performance on hills.
Obviously with my training I hope to increase the raw power output as well.
I have just started the route plan, but struggling because there is too much choice. Apart from the start & end point the only stop I know is Edinburgh where I can stay with family.
The CTC End to End guide I received by emailing them has been useful to a point. The problem is the route stops are too frequent for my schedule. Other routes I have found go up the west of Scotland.
I am using Garmin’s road trip application on the Mac which I used when I cycled to Lourdes. But it takes a little while to refamilarise myself with it .
I still haven’t budgeted for the trip but I know my costs will include:
Travel to Cornwall (family driving me down)
Accommodation for the trip
Food and drink
Transport back from John o’Groats for me and the bike.
The start to the year has been wet and windy, however it has been unseasonably warm leading to a serious dilemma, what to wear?
Normally about this time its:
Long sleeve base layer
bib tights
thick socks
overshoes
long sleeve jersey
softshell jacket
windproof gloves
buff and hat
As you can see its rather a lot, the problem is in the crisp cold this is perfect. My gore windstopper jacket is amazing and keeps me toasty even when its raining heavily. The issueI am currently getting is very damp sleeves from sweat. I have tried wearing short sleeve base layers, short sleeve jerseys and any and every combination without success. .
I have done a reasonable amount of riding consistent with my training plan however still need to psych myself up to doing a ftp test. My plan is currently to do this on Sunday evening.
Planning my trip has not really started yet, I keep putting it off although I know I will enjoy it when I start. All I know is I plan to do 100 miles a day which should take 10 days. I am going to stay in budget hotels or hostels and do do it unsupported.
Looking at websites such as ultralight cycling my plan will be to use my carbon road bike with a bar bag and large saddle bag. This should be easier than my touring bike as it will force me to be very selective about my luggage.
Any suggestions would be helpful.
It is 6 years since I last posted in this Blog,I thought as I was approaching 40 this year I would set myself a new challenge.
So this year I am going to cycle Land’s End to John O’Groats. I plan to do this in the last two weeks of May.
The blog is to help motivate myself. If others read it and enjoy that’s great and any support is greatly appreciated.
I may also post about other interests I have as the weeks go by.
Thank you, I have now raised over £3200. Thanks to those who have raised money on my behalf. Nick and Stan in particular.