Beasty's 2011 assault on the vets

I've done it! - moved the spare road bike over to the holiday home in Cornwall that is. That means it's become even more imperative to get a new road bike for Ireland;)

On my trip over I spent a couple of days in Manchester - brought the track bike over and got a couple of sessions on the velodrome. For the first time I hired a transponder to record my laps - yesterday's session is recorded here. It looks like the battery may have been on the blink as it's clear that 16 lap counters were not triggered. Hence I actually did 145 laps plus another couple warming up and cooling down. A lot of the time I was on the blue line which is a lap of around 265m rather than the shorter black line at 250m, and hence my speed was probably getting on for 5% faster than shown. Although I did most of the session on my own I also did some line lapping with some of the regulars - still I managed to average something around 39kph

I was back on the track this morning. Here's the record. I probably spent more time on the blue line today, line lapping again with some of the regulars, but this time I took a few laps on the main field, which can be seen where the speed spikes. It felt harder today, although again I was hitting about 39kph. I think yesterday's session and the greater fluctuation in speed/effort took more of a toll today.

Oh, and I've now hired a storage space for the track bike at the velodrome - so with that bike also having emigrated perhaps I need to think about getting a new one for Sundrive;)

Shook off the head cold and went out on one of the nocturnal Swords training spins on Tuesday evening. I managed an ascent up Ardgillan only 20s outside my best, which given I didn't feel anywhere near flat out was pretty pleasing.

Unfortunately I had a tumble on a dodgy bit of road towards the end of the session - the bad news is my knee took a bit of a knock, but the good news is my sciatica has eased significantly since the fall!

I was back out on Thursday evening, and added a couple of commutes on Wednesday and Friday to give me a total of 162km for the week, bringing the YTD to 7,295km at 29.8kph

I'm aiming to get 3 commutes in next week together with another evening session. The winds were definitely against over the last few days, and I'm hoping to pick up speed again next week, although it's a bit more of a challenge cycling in the dark all the time

I suspect the knee pain masked the sciatica, and the sciatica dulled the knee pain;). Forunately the body repairs itself, unlike the some ruined 3/4 Assos bibs, a hole in the elbow of of the rain jacket and a stiff (now replaced) pedal - probably over €300 damage in total.

So after last year's failed attempt at cycling 40km in the hour, I was back at Manchester velodrome this week with hour-long sessions on Wednesday and Thursday. My track bike is now permanently based over there, and I've got to say it's a lot better being able to ride it rather than one of the hire bikes.

I have my Garmin 500 set up on the bike (another benefit of using my own bike) - the GPS does not work indoors, but I can track distance based on the wheel circumference. In addition you can hire a transponder that counts the laps (not distance though as I spend most of these sessions on the blue line which is nearer 265m in length rather than the "official" 250m

Team GB are taking priority on the track in the build-up to the Olympics, which means the normal Tuesday "taster" sessions have been cancelled, and the vets that tend to frequent those sessions have decamped to Wednesday lunchtime, when I had my first session.

I stayed on for the full hour, pushing it hard most of the way, and joining in line-lapping with the faster of the other guys, taking a lap on them every few minutes. The total distance for the hour on the Garmin was 38.6km, less than 4 laps short of 40km. I did 150 laps in total, the details of which can be seen here.

I was back on the track at 8am on Thursday morning. I wasn't expecting anything special - more a recovery ride after Wednesday's exertions. I therefore started off relatively easily, but was quickly joined by some other riders on the blue line and some line-lapping began. We picked up the pace with 5 or 6 riders in the line for a lot of the time. My average speed gradually increased. Only a couple of is stayed on the track for the full hour and we had a lot of "traffic" to navigate round. For a lot of the timke we were doing well in excess of 40kph, and with a few minutes to go my average was up to 40.4kph. However we rarerly get the full hour on the track, and Team GB were warming up ready to follow us on. We were called in with about a minute of the hour to go, which was taken up with a couple of slowing down laps

I managed to keep going for the full hour - Garmin summary on Strava here - I subsequently found out the transponders were not activated for the day! But I'd managed it - 40.23km - not only exceeding 40km, but also hitting the 25 mile mark, which was particularly pleasing given the time taken to warm up and slow down

Now it's clearly not a "proper" hour attempt (where you don't get any drafting), but I had no skinsuit, aero helmet or aero bars and I spent a lot of the time with my hands in the hoods position, so I'm delighted to have actually hit 40km in the hour for the first time:D

2 commutes, 2 track sessions and half an hour on the turbo amounted to 186km at 33.1kph last week, bringing YTD to 7,685km at 29.9kph

Next week I've another couple of track sessions booked, and hope to do 2 commutes and some nocturnal training on Tuesday. If I can get somewhere approaching the same distance on the track as last week I should be able to cut the gap on the 30kph average speed target for the year. They will be my final track sessions for the year and I'll probably need more turbo time to close the gap further.

Beasty wrote: »

Then Sunday sees the IVCA awards dinner;)

... and here is what I picked up, together with my track league medal from earlier in the year:



My first ever silver(and gold!)ware

In addition to the 2 track sessions I managed a commute on Monday and the Swords training spin on Tuesday. The plan had been to do another commute on Friday, but I chose to scrape the ice of the car windscreen (rather than risk having to scrape myself off the ice). That meant I managed 3 turbo sessions over the weekend - although not as fast as the track sessions, the turbo sessions are normally faster than the commutes, and hence I was able further narrow the gap to my 30kph average speed target.

Total distance for teh week was 225km and YTD now stands at 7,910km at 29.96kph, effectively 10km behind the 30kph target.

Next week should hopefully see another commutes, probably a couple of the Swords training spins, then hopefully the Obelisk Wheelers Christmas race on Sunday

Well today really was the last race of the year - bringing my career (and YTD) winnings to €225 plus some BBB overshoes:D.

In addition I managed a commute on Wednesday and a couple of evening training spins, the Thursday one being curtailed by a puncture. I also had a short session on the Wattbike on Friday, improving my "500m TT" best by over a second to 33.23s, and hitting a new Wattbike peak of 1065w

Total distance for the week was 173km at 29.5kph, bringing the YTD total over 8,000m, now standing at 8,083km at 29.953kph, effectively 13km adrift of 30kph for the year

Plans for next week will be to get out on training spins on Tuesday and Thursday again together with a commute on Wednesday - the forecast strong winds will probably slow me down quite a bit, so I'll be relying on the Wattbike to try and claw back some overall speed.

Now need to work on a new training log and objectives for 2012

Managed 2 commutes, an evening training spin and 2 KOMs last week. I improved on one of those KOMs on Friday, only to discover both my times had been obliterated by a club mate earlier in the day - I need to try the segment in daylight with a strong tailwind I guess;). I also moved up the leaderboard on a short sprint into Skerries - then Felix English uploaded his Ras file, putting me 11kph behind him - still I'm in 5th though with only 1 non-Ras ride ahead of me

Then I had an hour on the Wattbike tonight. In preparation for the track pursuit next season I'm hoping to do one 2km or 3 minute TT every week. Tonight it was my first go at 3 minutes, and I managed to do 2,289m

Total distance for the week was 205km, bringing the YTD total to 8,473km at 30.05kph

Next week I'll be away for a couple of days, and will be restrited to perhaps a couple of nocturnal training spins and a couple of Wattbike sessions, but at least should get past the 8,500km mark for the year