So far so good!!

Saturday, a recovery day

Getting out of bed this morning, after a late(ish) night, wasn't very easy. The brightness of a sunny morning outside the windows wasn't enough but an early rise of the temperature in the room did the job of getting me up at around 9(ish also).

The plan was to go to Nundah, watch a couple of races, say Hi! to a few friends and attend a club meeting... but chose to stay home and have a nice breakfast with Sandra. So much more civilised some might say... It was nice, specially these days when my erratic working hours added to Sandra's very early training sessions (in preparation for the Tour of Bright) give us sporadic mornings together.

As my training is restricted to the indoor trainer now, I haven't been getting up early either. I can start my training mid morning when working in the afternoons or late in the afternoon when working the morning shifts. Handy, I must say.

To make it a really civilised day, Sandra and I went for a drive, bought a couple of nice things for a light lunch, visited a couple of bike shops (we are hopeless...) and went to visit David and Donna. It was a hot afternoon, perfect to open and share with friends the Chilean sauvignon blanc I had found earlier in the week.


The training week

It was a more than a training week, they were nine consecutive days on the trainer. Yes, under the house! Now, that's something I didn't think I was capable of. OK, nothing much for our friends who live in Europe and North America, where the winter keeps them off the road but in Australia, in Spring... It must be unheard of.

The training sessions

At this stage, I am doing sessions of 1 to 1.5 hours and three different types of exercises. They are meant to work on strength, leg speed and Lactate Threshold. With those exercises, I am hoping to be able to increase power and improve my level of fitness. I am confident that if I keep up with these sessions, I will be able to get back on the road and start racing the crits in good form, and with fresh legs, half way through the season.

I start all the sessions with a 30" warm up and finish with a 15-30" warm down, where I include short one-leg spins to help with pedalling technique. Some shoulder exercises follow and 15-30' of stretching.

1) High Cadence Exercise - 6 x 3' w/ 3' recovery

- trainer on medium resistance (3/5); gears: 39-17; 130-150 rpm

time: 1:30
dist: 34.1 km
avHR: 115 bpm
MaxHR: 162 bpm

2) Strength Exercise - 6 x 2'30" w/ 2'30" recovery

- trainer on high resistance (5/5); 53-11; 60-65 rpm

time: 1:17
dist: 24.9 km
avHR: 108 bpm
MaxHR: 162 bpm




3) All out efforts - various duration and recovery times

- trainer on medium resistance (3/5); gears: 39-17; high rpm

time: 1:00
dist: 23.1
avHR: 101 bpm
MaxHR: 160 bpm




4) Recovery - light spin

- trainer on low resistance (1/5); gears: 39-21; low rpm

time: 1:00
dist: 22.2 km
avHR: 84 bpm
MaxHR: 105 bpm




This is the first set of "data" from the training (didn't want to put all the nine sessions in). As this is all done on the trainer, in my lab, analysing the changes over the weeks will be a lot easier and the results more accurate I would say. I am certainly looking forward to those changes...

All good fun, also!