wayne0308's log

wayne0308

Hello everybody,

I've recently gotten back on my bike for the first time in months but I have never really cycled any great distance in one spin. My general fitness isn't great at the moment. I do a lot of walking but have pretty much neglected all other forms of exercise for the past few months. Reasons for this are partly due to pressures from work, partly due to an annoying knee injury and probably a lot to do with laziness and making excuses for myself So I'm hoping that this log will provide some motivation for me to get out there and get cycling. I'm also going to be running occasionally when the weather is too bad for cycling.

Goals:
- To vastly improve my general fitness.
- To do my first 100km spin this year.
- To take part in my first sportive. I'm planning on doing the Sean Kelly tour 50km route, but if it turns out that I might actually manage to do the 100km route by the time I put in my entry, I'll go for it.
- To get myself to a level where I can join the local cycling club and keep up with the group.

The plan:
I want to aim for 3 spins a week but will do at least 2 spins a week aiming to go when I finish work for the day. One of these spins each week will be a long one (by my standards), which I will try to increase week on week.

My first spin (kinda):
Time in saddle: 1:16:37
Distance: 27.5km
Avg. speed: 21.5km/h
Max speed: 38.8km/h
Total climb: 77m
http://app.strava.com/rides/11006650

When I started the cycle I was flying along at 30-odd km/h thinking I was great. I didn't realise I had a fairly strong tail wind and it was only when I changed direction a few minutes later that I realised just how strong it actually was, so I ended up suffering pretty badly on the way back. I went for a cycle a couple of weeks ago and managed a little over 24km over similar terrain and wanted to go a bit further this time out. It was a bad start to getting back up on the bike as it was over a week before I got in a 2nd cycle due to two funerals in the family. So I consider the Saturday spin to be my starting point. Anyway, when I was nearing my house I was a little bit short of 24km so decided to do an extra bit to make sure I went bit further this time and ended up doing 27.5km altogether. Small improvement I suppose. Felt pretty good after it though.


Hoping to get out in the next 30 minutes or so for an approx. 30km ride taking in a nearby hill. Will post back once I get back.

wayne0308

I'm not long back from my first spin of the week. Really happy with how it went. When I arrived back at the house I looked at the computer and it turned out I did 35km. Very surprised by that!

The first 30mins were really hard. The hill I decided to include was a bad horrible b*st*rd of a climb . It was really tough. I was in my lowest gear for most of it and hit a heart rate of 188bpm. I've never hit that before on the bike. My max when running is 193bpm. I really just wanted to get off and walk. The view of Dungarvan from up there was really nice. Got 6th place on the strava leaderboard for the climb, that's 6th out of 7 but still delighted with it.

The rest of the spin was taken at a handy pace. I decided to head for the coast road between Stradbally and Dungarvan and head home that way. Weather was lovely and the views were great. Met a lot of cyclists out and about and gave a wave to everyone I saw, couldn't see anyone waving back though, hope they didn't think I was crazy or something

My arse is a bit sore after that long sitting on the saddle but I suppose that will all toughen up with time. The muscles at the back of my neck were starting to get sore aswell, hope this is normal and will go away with time too as it makes it a little hard to look around.

I'm going to try and get out twice more during the week for shorter easier rides and then maybe try and go a bit further at the weekend.

Data:
Time in saddle: 1:34:48
Distance: 35.24km
Avg. speed: 22.3km/h
Max speed: 46.3km/h
Total climb: 261m (strava corrected)
http://app.strava.com/rides/11214829

wayne0308

So I got out for two more spins this week. The first was a fairly short spin of 22km out to Clonea and back home by a different route. I managed to keep my average speed up reasonably high compared to my previous spins.

I'm not long back from the 2nd spin where I ended up doing 54.8km, absolutely delighted with this spin though I didn't intend going nearly so far. I was aiming for more like 40km. The spin started out great heading for Youghal from Dungarvan, with a climb in the 1st 10km. Felt like I had loads of energy at the top of the climb, although I did stop up for a few secs to take a pic of the view at the top. I didn't really pay any attention to the gps from that point on and I ended up making it to just outside Youghal and stopped and turned around at the point the road narrows knew I had a hefty journey back home. It got progressively tougher on the way back and I ended up crawling for the last bit and I felt like I couldn't go much further. I didn't bring any food with me so that probably would have made a bit of difference.

The great news is that this spin confirms that I'll be able to handle the 50km route in the Sean Kelly tour in August. So I'm going to target the 100km route from now on. Really looking forward to it now


21/06/12-Thu:
Time in saddle: 0:54:15
Distance: 22.8km
Avg. speed: 25.2km/h
Max speed: 42.7km/h
Total climb: 62m
http://app.strava.com/rides/11395098

24/06/12-Sun (A whopper :eek:):
Time in saddle: 2:22:37
Distance: 54.8km
Avg. speed: 23.0km/h
Max speed: 54.8km/h
Total climb: 485m
http://app.strava.com/rides/11621558

wayne0308

I had a wicked bad start to the week. Ended up with a pretty bad cold Sunday night, or at least I'm told it was a cold, felt much worse than a cold though. Anyway, as a consequence I didn't get out on the bike until yesterday . I decided to take it easy on Thursday and explore some of the back roads around here. A fairly eventful spin! I managed to get stung by nettles, and got chased by two dogs, although one of them actually turned out to be a friendly fellah . I did a handy short spin today as well but by a different shorter route.

Overall I felt okay during these two spins. I'm going to try for a longer spin tomorrow before the TDF prologue starts.

28/06/12-Thu:
Time in saddle: 1:04:42
Distance: 22.9km
Avg. speed: 21.3km/h
Max speed: 42.6km/h
Total climb: 63m
http://app.strava.com/rides/12040737

29/06/12-Fri:
Time in saddle: 0:45:31
Distance: 15.7km
Avg. speed: 20.7km/h
Max speed: 39.8km/h
Total climb: 218m
http://app.strava.com/rides/12040733

wayne0308

The weather has been pretty bad all week up to now so I haven't been out. I'm starting to realise that if I only go out when it's not raining I'm just not going to get enough time on the bike. I don't mind rain myself but I'd be a bit worried about rust etc. developing on the bike. I did make some use of the turbo trainer on Sunday and Tuesday for roughly 50mins each but I still feel like I've lost some ground on where I was. I did just under 40km today and feel fairly tired. I'm going to go for another spin on Saturday morning, rain or shine.

On the plus side, I'm at it now regularly (for the most part) for 3 weeks and I do actually notice a difference over that short time. I feel stronger on the bike even though it's not very evident in the gps results. One example I did find was where I did a short 3km climb nearby almost 2 weeks ago in 15:10 and I managed the same climb today in 10:37 . Very happy with that!

05/07/12-Thu:
Time in saddle: 1:38:01
Distance: 39.1km
Avg. speed: 23.9km/h
Max speed: 48.2km/h
Total climb: 383m
http://app.strava.com/rides/12572729

wayne0308

I was about to start a training log when I realised that I still had this one from last year. In the end I failed all last years goals I'm ashamed to admit However, my overall fitness certainly improved greatly so maybe I can claim that one as a success. In the end, I had to let college take priority as I absolutely had to finish last year and write my thesis up by the start of January and immediately start preparing for my thesis defence. Once that was done, and I became unemployed, I began training seriously again and have managed to regain any cycling fitness I lost and have improved upon last year dramatically.

New goals for 2013:

- Do the Ring of Kerry this year on July 8th. I am signed up and I've made some good progress in training so far I think and should be on track for this.

- Do the Sean Kelly 160km on 25th August. I had planned on doing the 100km course last year, this was one of my (failed) goals. Tackling the 160km course this year will hopefully make up for it.

The most recent spin I've gone on is also the longest solo ride I've managed this year and here are the details.

11/05/2013
Time in saddle: 4:07:22
Distance: 88.3km
Avg. speed: 21.4km/h
Max speed: 43.9km/h
Total climb: 695m
http://app.strava.com/activities/53676649
Comments: The planned route was to head to the Kilmeadan roundabout and back on the N25 so as to cover 80km. The spin over was easy due to a very strong tail wind. I knew this would kill me on the way home... and it did! I took a detour on the way home hoping to make it to the coast road where there would be more shelter, but I got lost and found myself back on the N25 I eventually got off the N25 and struggled home. It was easily the toughest spin I've ever done and hopefully good training.


From looking at the training plan on the ROK website I should really now be doing shorter spins, but more frequently. Up until now I have been getting out twice a week with a long and short spin. I'm going to aim to get a number of 30/40/50km spins in during the next 2 weeks before trying to increase my maximum distance again, aiming for 100km next time (which will be my first metric century ever).