Riding wet, riding cold but still riding....

So as I mentioned no racing for me until November now, with that in mind I have the end of my strength sets before we turn that into leg speed, as with anything commitment is needed to stick to a plan and last week in some ways summed up what you have to go through to try and achieve your goals.

It was a relatively simple week, only 2 days riding the 18 miles to work and back and then some hills and endurance rides with some strength thrown in for good measure, until you look at the weather forecast.... Tuesday brought the back end of a tropical storm, which meant heavy rain, which coincided with a ride to work day.  I don't mind riding in the rain, as long as you dress appropriately you only get wet once, so I consider it character building.

That said the worst thing is that where I work there are no drying rooms for the 200+ cyclists the ride in everyday, so when you come to go home your kit is still soaking wet, this is one of those "lovely" things about commuting in the rain, the joys of wet kit, it takes me back to the days of swimming and using not quite dry speedo's...oh the memories!

Friday was a seemingly more familiar foggy and cold morning, again the right kit means that this is not really a problem, and having the really good lights I am pretty comfortable that people can see me. My light setup below,

Friday afternoon commute was made more interesting by a very full rucksack, packed with presents for the little one and for me, luckily it was a simple endurance ride home so nothing too stressful, but the rucksack performed well and was still comfortable (see other posts for a review).

The present for me is something that I have been coveting for a while now, and thanks to York Cycleworks I now have the ability to ride to power, with Garmin Vector 2 Pedals.  I will be doing a full review on them in the next couple of weeks but I have been impressed so far with the easy of installation and setup, and the fact that I can swap them between bikes really easily which is one of the main reasons I bought them.

Riding to power means that the variables that HR can give are removed a watt is a watt, regardless of conditions.

Also really enjoying spending time with my little daughter, she is, however, growing really fast and you forget how small she was when we brought her home just 9 weeks ago, however she is really starting to engage and its clear that the smiles are proper smiles and not just wind which just melts the heart.

I am going to leave it there for now, not much to update on really, just plugging away at the training and being a dad.

Hard Training, Long Nights and More Cyclocross (YP 4 - Temple Newsome)

I want to start by thanking everyone who takes time to read all or even part of what I write, I am amazed that anyone reads it, even more so that it has a global reach!  I will keep going and hopefully they will get better over time!

Something more in relation to a number of queries I have been asked in relation to my training and why am I "still" putting in hard efforts... the below is my view.

One of the main questions was in relation to the timing of hill reps (that is the activity of finding a hill and riding up it hard taking some time to recover and then repeating).  There seems to be a view from certain quarters i the cycling world that Autumn is a time for "complete recovery", in essence putting a cover on the bikes, hanging up the bib shorts and hibernating from the roads.  This has always felt a bit odd to me, you are basically saying that for a month or two I will allow myself to lose some of my hard fought fitness to reset my body ready for training to start in November or December.

Why?  What is the benefit of doing this?  For me there should be continuity in the training throughout the year with specific targets around the type and intensity, so you take take time out but still ride the bike.  

For me this makes even more sense this year, I have a goal in mind for 2016, something that I will probably mention at some point, and to do that I need to improve my power to weight ratio, starting now Rob has me looking at leg strength and improving that hence the need for hill reps and some big gear efforts all of which have a specific goal in mind.

It is likely that I will move to a base period in early 2016 and focus on endurance and maintenance of strength.

Also worth noting that my racing season is likely to start in earnest in February / March time with some early season time trials so I don’t have time to lose a month’s worth of fitness, get it back and then improve on it.

Sometimes the early morning training is made more interesting by the weather, this was my view on the way to work most of last week, glad I have good lights front and rear!! 

Its also been a couple of weeks since the last Yorkshire Points Race, and after an easier week in terms of training I was happy to be going into it feeling fresher that normal.  

The race started as well as normal, I was on row 3 and after the whistle I went backwards, I take care to avoid being caught up in any crashes and that costs me off the line, but I am playing the long game and this is just a stepping stone into 2016.  

The course at Temple Newsome also suits me, fast, loose, rutted and rooty descents, long draggy flat fast sections and few slow corners, so after the bad start I began to make good, working my through the pack picking off one rider at a time.  Unfortunately, you never get back to where you might have been as you are only able to go as fast as the guys you should be racing and as such you never come back to you.

So after an hour of turning myself inside out I finished having only been passed by 4 of the leaders and more importantly, not falling off!  Final result was 39th Overall and 17th in age group,  which I am happy with given the start.  The most important thing is that I really enjoyed it!

It was on to be another good race for the York Cycleworks riders with Tony Mills, Andy Johnson and Craig Gath on for great results, they have all be flying this season and its great to see the kit up the front, Tony and Craig again put in stellar performances to come 16th Overall and 4th in age group and 30th overall and 10th in age group respectively, Andy was on for a top 10 when an innocuous crash left him with a sore knee that just kept getting worse, until he took the decision to withdraw, looking at the picture it was probably the right decision.

Photo from Andy Johnson 

Cyclocross is safe, but like all racing there is risk involved which is one of the reasons why we do it!!  

Having a young child in the house does mean that nights can, on occasion, be long and tiring, my wife does much of the work during the night and that allows me to be able to function in work, however I often wake up, as you would expect when you hear a baby cry, and more recently my mind has drifted to other things, namely work, that keeps me awake more than my daughter at times, these challenges are all part of what makes amateur racing in some ways harder than that of the pros, we have to fit everything in around our lives, staying committed can be a challenge in its own right when you have been up all night or have work stress to deal with as well, that said getting out on the bike clears my head and allows me to be the best dad I can be and do okay at work!!

Now I have 3 weeks of no racing, its time to start putting in the hard yards in training with autumn fast approaching.  It is a tough balance between working full time, training and being a dad, and also allowing time for my wife to get out and cycle as she returns to fitness after the birth of our daughter, but I love my life at the moment and feel very lucky for what I have.

I have some new toys on order and will be blogging about them in the coming weeks as well as some training updates and other random waffle to keep you all "interested"

Photo by Clare Crabtree