Kingston Wheelers

I've finally had enough of training on my own and have joined a local club called the Kingston Wheelers. They have a club ride every Sunday that usually has 3 different ride choices, a fast training ride, something a bit longer (but not as quick) and a much shorter "easy" ride. I liked the sound of this as it should make it easier to work into my plans (i.e. turn up and choose which ride matches my plans the most).

My first ride was a couple of weeks ago now and I've got to say it was a hell of a shock! It was the end of 3 very hard training weeks out of 4. That week my coach had given me my first ever block of 3 anaerobic sessions on consecutive days. I knew that was going to be tough and it was, so come Sunday I was OK but definitely feeling the effects. My plan basically said "ride as you feel" with no HR restrictions, so I went along to the club meeting point.

After introducing myself I was pointed to the guy running the "training ride" which is the quick group. He explained the route (which I know well due to Simon liberating it from the club website well over a year ago) and said it would take about 3 hours. That's fine I thought as I can do it in 3 hours from my place, let alone starting 6 miles into the route. From then on things went downhill, although not literally.

For reasons I still don't fully understand the pace was quick and (as described by one guy several times) "its not usually this quick". One member quickly bailed on the ride due to the speed. I was left for dead on the climbs and struggled to keep up. Once at the top of Box Hill we stopped. A couple of young guys peeled off soon after that and the pace become, lets say manageable. But to put it in perspective on a nice smooth, wide, every so slightly downhill road coming home where I would expect to be doing between 24-27 on a good day, feeling great with a smug grin, here I was doing 34 (mph) just to stay on the back. I'm not sure of the exact numbers but we did something like 45 miles in 2hr 15mins, so a 20mph average

As I said I was tired and the legs were pretty empty, but to be honest I really don't think I would have kept up even in top shape, certainly not up the hills.

Still it was an enjoyable experience even if I did go home and have to sleep for most of the afternoon!!

I went along the following Sunday and went out with the next group down as I wanted something longer and easier (it was not in the plan to beast myself 2 weeks before the Marmotte). This was huge, huge fun. Again I was exhausted and was so close to not getting up. But soon after setting off I ended up next to a good bloke called Kevin who did the Marmotte last year, is doing it this year, has a lovely bike and also watched all the recent pro races. So I just geeked out on cycling for a few hours, had some silly yet highly enjoyable moments of male bravado racing up hills. It was a great tonic to just get out and enjoy riding again. Stopped for a cup of tea, waited for the group, loved it. I have spoken with my coach and I will be working these rides in every week now.

I'm not buying the club kit though unless I start racing (and have no plans to do that) as it doesn't match the bike :-)

Sticking to the plan (Motvation)

Thanks to Red Bike for your comment about sticking to the plan. This has prompted me to bring forward a post I was going to do about my own motivations. I am certainly not claiming to be some guru or master of this, its just my own thoughts based on my experience of what does (and lets be honest here, what doesn't) work for me. If someone else can learn something from my cock ups, then that's great.

I created my training plan for 2009 by listing every weekend in the year up to the etape, putting in some other goals along the way (Fred Whitton / Dave Lloyd Mega) and simply working backwards from where I had to end up, allowing a gradual build up. I didn't take this from a magazine or anything like that, in truth I just made it up and it looked good. In addition to the "plan" I kept a track of my actual weekly progress against it.

Taking May as an example (and I just checked the numbers to be sure) I rode 539 road miles (including a successful Fred Whitton) and did 21 spin classes (or 15.75 hours). Not a bad month hey? Problem was that it was (for whatever reason) 5.5 miles less than the "plan" target for that month. So it went down as a big red cell, a failure. And so many of the following weeks followed the same pattern, although I was cycling a hell of a lot and improving all the time, some small differences in miles meant those weeks were "failures". I found the whole thing was actually have a very strong de-motivating effect. After all here I was busting my gut (literally, hurrah), doing things most of my friends thought was madness but here was my own plan telling me I was failing. Hmmm, that's just too harsh, too black and white (even for me). This is based on a plan that I made up after all.

So, while 2010 certainly has a plan, the goals are much less specific. As I put in my Training post earlier my main targets are distances for rides by the end of each month, increasing as they go. Now if I don't match that number but I'm very close, then I'm following the main idea behind the plan and I'm going to be happy and count that as a success. Don't get me wrong though its not an excuse to start slacking, if I'm way off the planned distance then something will need to be done. Slacking off won't get me up Alpe d'Huez after 100 miles of mountains.

Like I said, this is just my view on what works for me. But I do find it an interesting subject (I admit I over analyse the sh*t out of everything) and hence this post.