A Whole New Playground!

I got into mountain biking as a way of exploring the hills around Upper Hutt and thought I knew most of the tracks.  The weather on Monday didn't inspire me to ride on the road so I thought I would try a track I had heard about even though it is just around the corner.  It's the section of the river trail from Twin Bridges to Te Marua bridge that goes through a nice section of bush, some farm land (sheep grazing if you are lucky), through some more beautiful bush, then it pops out next to SH 2.  It must be one of Upper Hutt's best kept secrets.  What makes this piece of track really exciting is that I can now ride from Upper Hutt to the top of the Rimatakas mostly off road, perfect for the cyclocross bike!

Oh, as luck would have it, it is perfect terrain for me to run on which will see me doing some great adventure runs, maybe to the top of the incline, Mt Climie or even over to Kaitoke Regional Park via the Ridge track.

Pretty average week for training, Saturday saw me get smashed again in Break two. It was a real eye opener, I couldn't keep up with my bunch on the flat which obviously means I don't have any speed and rightly so because I have been concentrating on Long Slow Distance.  The silver lining was I banked a 150km/5hour ride and I felt fine when I got home.  The large bottle of coke Luke bought and shared may have influenced my state of mind though.

Below is my Sunday run along the track I mentioned earlier, the two dark shapes are the Twin Lakes.

Someone forgot to read the script!!!

Someone forgot to read the script and when I say someone, I mean EVERYONE else!!!!-:)

I have parcipated in this race for the last couple of years with the same script. We cruised to the bottom of Wainui Hill, the odd Pantani attcked the bunch going up while the rest of us groveled to the summit.  As it is  a slight downhill to the coast,  those that got dropped would work together, catch the riders out in front and then we all worked together back up the valley into the head wind.  Once we got to the rubbish tip enterance the odd attack would start but the real contenders wouldn't start sprinting until leaving the dip with 100-200 metres to the finish line.  Sounds like quite a pleasent race, doesn't it?

(In the Balfour Pennington Series, the bunches are handicapped with Scratch being the fastest and Break four being the slowest.  The powers to be put me in Break two).

This year 'that script' was thrown out the window on the start line! All it took was for one person to jump on the "Go" and the bunch was all fired up, dropping people before the start of the hill.  For me, I was able to hang on along the flat and limit the damage going up Wainui Hill. A gap of 50m opened up quickly which slowly became 100m.  Any hope I had of rejoining the front bunch before the top was dashed about 3/4 of the way up on one of the steeper corners.  I tried to bridge the gap but my legs had nothing in them, leaving me to look around and join forces with three others.  We worked well together down Coast Rd closing in on a few riders just ahead of us.  WOOOSH, about half way down, Break 1 caught us, we worked  with them, caught Break 3 just before the turn around.  A few kiometers later we caught Break 4.  I never saw what happened at the front as I was tucked in neatly near the back of about 40-60 riders.  The pace suggested that we were riding into a very strong head wind.

It was a good day out, my first raod race in about 8 weeks, didn't crack or crash and I was able to bank a 4 hour ride.

I'm cooked*.....and I've got 26 more weeks of this!!!!!

I've now completed three weeks of my training with 26 left and I'm done like an over cooked Sunday roast. 

I had this great idea, I would forget about my training programme for swimming and biking which are currently low miles and train for the whole time available.  Since I am in the 'Endurance' phase (low slow distance - LSD) I thought it would be easy but unfortunately it's not!  I am feeling like I have been hit by a large dump truck several times over, my shoulders feel like they could fall off at anytime, legs are so full of lactic acid it hurts to walk up 4 stairs in to my house and I can't stop eating.

I will stick with this new plan/idea for a few more weeks, hoping body adjusts quickly and I don't pick up any major injuries.  If I can't handle it, I will go back to my original plan.

This Saturday should see me racing my first club road race in 8 weeks.  If there is one course that doesn't suit me, THIS IS IT!  The race starts in Eastbourne, goes over Wainui Hill,out to the coast and back.  AHHHH,I can hear the dump truck picking up speed already. 

*After a quick search on Wikipedia to see how overseas readers would interpret "buggered" I decided to use the term 'cooked' meaning 'stuffed.'  In New Zealand "bugger/ed" is a common word and made famous in this great add.

Cross Training

They say the best way to keep motivated during the "off season" is to cross train. The last two days have been fantastic due to a once in a lifetime snow storm.  To top it off school was closed today and will be tomorrow so I plan to get as much "cross training" in as possible :)

Monday afternoon Greg and I took our downhill bikes up Tunnel Gully to play in the snow.

Tuesday morning Greg and I took the quads up Mt Climie.  We got about 3/4 of the way up when the snow became too deep and we were just wheel spinning on the steeper sections.  Fantastic time and it'll be recorded as a core workout :)

 

Tuesday afternoon with the snow coming down thick and fast I felt compelled to go up Canon Point.  The cyclocross bike was the first option but taking into consideration the amount of snow that would be up there I pulled out the cross country bike (tomorrow will see the downhill bike have a turn).  To be biking up Canon Point in powder snow up to my hubs and not a soul in sight was very surreal.  

  

Tuesday night was finished off with a cold can of Coke and a deliciouls meal of fish and chips from Brown Owl, the best inUpper Hutt!

Wednesday brought the rain so it was another quick trip up Cannon Point to enjoy one last downhill run.  I was surprised to see that the logging trucks were working so I decided to come down the Zig Zag.  Slow going but a lot of fun!!!!

Click to see a video of Cannon point Zig Zag being ridden in the snow

Thursday was back to work to share our snow stories.  After work I also visited the surgeon for the last time, he gave me the green light to start walking/running.  My physio would like me to start next week so I will follow his advice as an extra week won't make much difference.

Friday jumped on the indoor trainer for an hour                                               

Saturday gentle road ride with Greg around the valley, nice to feel the warmth of the sun.                          

Sunday quick swim then in the afternoon dusted off my cyclocross bike and took it for a spin up the logging track, video recorded my run down and it came out much better than the Zig Zag.  Hope to post it on YouTube soon.

 

29 weeks to go! Training books reviewed.

This week I looked at some different training programmes available.  It's brief because most people already have their own thoughts on how to train.  I don't do much/any interval training, where I know friends who focus on intervals, yet we achieve similar fitness.  It makes we wonder if "just training" is the secret and not to get caught up in all the hype of trying to train like pros (complicated workouts).
I found 'Going Long' very informative, easy to understand and the workouts well explained.

My training programme has started without me

I am now at the end of week 30 and I haven't started training! My self designed training programme was calculated to start 30 weeks out to allow for an adequate build up. It's very basic. I just worked out when I am the busiest(Tuesdays and or Wednesdays) so they will be my rest days and made my high miles days when I have the most free time (the weekends). I then wrote down, all going well, what I could do in a 'max miles' week. From there, making sure every fourth week is a rest week, I worked back decreasing the training percentage from my 'max miles' (100%) by 5%. Week 30, sees me training at 35% of my max miles. In week 29 I need do be doing 40%.
Current situation:
Swim - N/A due to risk of infection
Bike - up to 1 hr on the indoor trainer lightly spinning (4 1/2hrs in week 30)
Run - just walking without crutches.
My video diary below

Cyclocross race right in my own backyard

Okay, so it wasn't in my backyard but my house backs on to the park where the 5th cyclocross race in the series was held.  Unfortunately, I was unable to race as I am just managing to walk around without crutches.  I knew quite a few people and wanted to try out my new video sunglasses which worked really well.  Hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to record some mountain bike downhill runs.

I really like the photo below of Ken Feist, I think he was in 1st or 2nd at the time with the main bunch 50 - 100 metres behind in the background.

In the photo below Jeff Lyall is on what could be the ultimate bike and he has written plenty about it on his blog

http://jeffsbike.blogspot.com/