April - a stuttering start

 

The plan was simple, six weeks of hard racing, followed by a week of overload, followed by an easy couple of weeks to let the form kick in. But as is the way with cycling, it didn't pan out that way.

 

After a couple of promising performances the weather deteriorated into the coldest March for a million years. I've always been up for a bit of good Yorkshire weather, but this was something else. The traditional aproach is to say 'there's no such thing as unsuitable weather to train, just unsuitable clothing.' That's rubish, The physical effects of training in near zero degrees celcius makes it impossible to breathe correctly. It also means that any intensive effort leaves you wet through and milesfrom home, in wet clothes. In particular, it also means that descents have to be ridden slowly and thus high workloads cannot be sustainedSo after the shambles of three abandoned events, it was with some releif that I was able to benefit from ten days in Majorca training. Eight dry days and about 750miles later, I returned to the UK thoroughly knackered but with some quality work behind me. Particular highlights been a superb 50mins at around 360w sustained climbing Pug Major and some seriously taxing through and off at the end of a 100mile day.  

Not 24hrs after returning, I was starting the Circuit of the Dales 51mile timetrial in 2degrees C. I knew to expect some fatigue, and fatigued I was. But it didn't matter. I rode round at 147HR with 290w average. I knew I'd be going well once rested.

 

After a dead easy week, I rode the VTTA 10 on Hull. 20:10 won me the event by about half a minute and the experience was fantastic. It almost felt as if the chain had come off the legs were so good on a hard, blowy day. Power was superb. On One!

 

After resuming normal training volume, I followed up with another 10, this time on the superbly rolling Brotherton course. Second to Julian Ramsbottom and resonably happy.

 

Last night, I rode an evening event for training. I say training, the pressure was unbelieveable especially with 50 riders there. Every pedal rev hurt, but I remained focussed on myself, not others and drove the pedals round like my life depended on it for the hard parts of the course.

 

So so far so good - my secret goal remains, I just need to keep that rich veign of form flowing and build on it.