As its already past my bed-time I'll look to keep this weeks round-up to a few key points, with some additional info for you to look out for.
This week has seen a return to form following last weeks "recovery" week.
A solid 10.5 hours riding, plus some active-recovery swim sets and some functional strength work has given me a total week of 14.5 hours.
The swimming is going well and I'm starting to see some form & technique returning. Tuesdays squad session saw me returning to 1.40/100m at an easy cruise pace - so this tells me that I can get to 1.35/100m at a solid cruise pace pretty soon. The medium term goal is 1.30/100m at cruise pace - but I need to get a few other goals accomplished first before swimming can take a higher priority.
The swimming is definitely proving beneficial to my overall conditioning and recovery as well as bringing the discipline of early starts. I've actually found I have more energy now that I am getting back to the 5.30-6am starts - as opposed to the 7am lie-ins.
This goes back to my whole 'quality of life' soap-box moments so I won't go there tonight as time is getting on.
Bike-wise, I've had a pleasing week. 10.5 hours riding with a solid 4.5 hour ride over the Malverns on Saturday. My climbing improved as the ride progressed with some nice long, controlled climbs giving me a lot of confidence. As my mate was really hurting, due to back spasms, I had to cruise up one long climb. This wouldn't have been possible at one point in time but I found I was able to "float" up the climb at a nice cadence for minimal effort (power & heart rate). Obviously the speed wasn't too onerous but that wasn't the point, the point was that I could climb a decent gradient (7%) for minimal effort.
Those who have been following these posts for a while will know that I ride with a power meter - which I highly recommend to anyone looking to develop their cycling abilities.
Looking back at the last 4 weeks numbers, I am seeing some really positive improvements in my power output across all of the measured time frames (1 min, 5 min, 20 min and 60 min).
This last week has seen me improve my power at all of these time points, so they are now at their best I've ever produced.
For those who like the data, the numbers are as follows:
Peak 1 min = 419w
Peak 5 min = 301w
Peak 20 min = 253w
Peak 60 min = 211w
When considering a haven't been time-trailing ala Ironman training, I am pleased to see the improvement across both the short & long time periods.
I'll do a new FTP test soon - so this will give some really interesting comparisons to judge me development on.
I'm confident that my FTP will / has increased from 238 watts - but will wait and see before changing any zones etc.
So on paper its looking good - but believe me - my legs are feeling the workload. The persistent dull ache is there and although the swims help I reallly do need to do more stretching and mobility work.
I got a few stretch bands last week - so really should get more disciplined at installing a daily stretching routine into the system.
Ok, conscious of time, so will wrap here.
One last really important point is that I've set up a new blog which I plan on using on a more frequent basis to share more timely posts, photos, links etc during the week.
I've used the cool tumblr platform - which brings together photos, quotes, audio, video, text etc - and will just allow me to have a consistent place to land all of the different sources, inputs and outputs I wish to share with my "tribe".
So if you're interested in keeping up to date on my daily thoughts, inspirations, readings etc then please take a look.
Viva Coppi, forza life!
Ciao
Posts
