26 and 27 Movember.

Some short hill intervals within our 45 k ride on Tuesday and more (longer) intervals today.

We saw some dolphins in the river very close to the shore yesterday which would have made for a nice photo (and a bit of a break from pictures of my Garmin ) but by the time I grabbed my iPhone - 

 they had ducked under again. 

Took my Tarmac in to get serviced yesterday at the shop where Brend gets his done. These guys are seriously knowledgeable and just seem to genuinely love bikes. 

If it's possible for a bike to glow with good health that's what it's doing . I'm not sure if it's more in danger of being stolen or shagged.

Big days work today, then late today disassemble and pack the bike - then out the door v early tomorrow. 

Joey is so distraught that I'm heading off for a few days that she's off to Rockpool today for lunch, a trailer load of pop and a knees up. Good times. Doesn't even need to wait til I'm gone to miss me. Touching.

Right, back to the coal face...

Sunday 24 Nov. 100klms

On the road a little before 5.30 this morning. Little mosquito Brend and I did the first few k with Dave@58 who was out for a 110k ride followed by a 5 k run of the bike. Only a couple of weeks til his first ironman in busselton and he's looking the business. 

I'm going to shoot down there and heckle/support him.

Put the poor hydration choice from Friday night behind me and Brend and I did 2 sets of 10 minutes of 15 seconds on and off within our 40k ride. Out and back - averaged 34kph out and 37 kph back - for a blended 35.5

After the 40 k  and with his weekends riding almost done (after nearly 5 hours up in the hills yesterday ) Brend dropped me back at the bike shop in South Perth @ 7.00am and I went with the Sunday 7.00 am group from there. 

There were only 5 in the group. We averaged 30.2kph for that 60k

That's the last of the bit if the program I've been following. 

There's a couple of rides left but nothing too taxing. Brends posting numbers he hasn't seen for a while so he's fizzing. Thank Christ we are traveling separately. My brothers also going to smash the ride leaving the old third wheel here to get the beers in afterwards. 

Whilst I'm undoubtedly riding better now than at any time previously I'm not sure how much that improvement will translate  on a 160k hilly course at 103 or 104 kegs. I'm pretty relaxed about this ride which isn't always the case and already looking fowward to getting back and starting the next block of the program.

I'm thinking doing a 40k time trial program would be quite cool. Lose a few kilos and try and smash the living day lights out of it.

Joey , Harry and I popped out for a bit of brunch with Jo's Mum this morning at Fez in Mt Lawley. Two hot weak flat whites - life's good. 

My bikes getting serviced on Tuesday. Before I realized my back was rooted immediately after the ironman I saw a Specialized Triathlon bike that I thought Joey would want me to buy. It wasn't cheap. Given I had two bikes I asked the guy at the bike shop to order it , I'd pay it off and take it home when the time was right. Joeys just under average size but

quite  often punches above her weight when it comes to making sense. Long story short I eventually paid the bike off but there was never a right time to get the bike home. I sold it at a loss rather than trying to make sense of that purchase. 

Sometimes you just have to take one for the family.

The little man (Harry) cranked out another 3ks mid Sunday afternoon. 

Saturday 23 November.

Went to the Jarman Mckenna 10 th birthday and Xmas combined show last night at the Town Hall. Knew I had a big ride scheduled for this morning so I took it very easy on the pop....until I didn't.

Stopped making sense around. 8.30 by my reckoning. 

Met my neighbour Dave@58 who's doing the Busso ironman for a coffee at lunchtime today then ladled out a modest 50 k just really seeking to avoid a heart attack.

Averaged a little under 30kph.

Here's a picture of my neighbours chickens

There's just something a little warming about chickens less than 2 k from the CBD as the crow flies 

Talk tomorrow

Friday 22 November

Recovery week this week.Easy 30k Tuesday and snap for Thursday.

Bit harder this morning. Up to Kings Park and 8 x 90 second hill intervals. That type of session is never easy,particularly when you are a reasonably substantial sort of a rooster.

Speaking of which Brend now officially has an eating disorder ( bulimia) having now ducked under the 90 kilo mark . He's almost 1.9m so that a very sorry state of affairs indeed. He's gone from big Brend and big horse, Spartacus type of carry on back through medium Brend and Slimmy etc and back further still now to baby sparrow infant chicken wing Brend. 

I'm en route to his place now taking a food parcel around as he has a hard blokes 4.5 hour slugfest tomorrow and I'm a little worried about him. 

I have the same ride tomorrow and are heading out to a Xmas show (after I drop Brends food parcel off) so I'm actually a little conflicted myself. Hope for the best I guess.

Woo hoo

Weekend rides 16 and 17 November.

Group ride Saturday morning. Historically I've been riding with the 3's/ 4's. Yesterday I went with the 2's but there were some of the guys from the 1's in there as well. It went pretty quick and I wound up getting dropped after 30 or 35k. I'm hopeful that if it's "just" the 2's I'll go closer to staying with them for the whole ride. The average speed was still over 36 kph if not 37 kph by the time I was spat out 

Took 15 to 20 minutes to "recover" enough to start riding at a reasonable pace again. Was a good lesson in riding within yourself ( I didn't) and was virtually powerless during that 15 to 20 mins.

Scheduled for 4 hours but only did 3. 

Sunday Brend and I did 4 x 10 minute intervals up Welshpool road hill as part of a 3 hour ride. Again scheduled for 4 but we were both toast for different reasons. It's a steady climb and known to anyone who cycles in Perth. Up past the BP station is just on 2.5 k. Not fast but steady. I could see from strava a lot of people go up there a lot faster than me so might look at trying to improve up there on an "all in" one off climb after we get back from Taupo.

In the most exciting bit of cycling news in our house this weekend Harry did a 3 k unassisted ride. He hasn't been super keen on riding and is a little more The IT Crowd than Fox Sports 

We had to incentivize ( bribe) him ...but hey...

Thursday 14 November 2013.

Lots of fun this morning.

We smashed it.

Total ride a little over 50 k

Warm up, 5 sets of 10 minutes followed by 5 minutes recovery.

In the 10 minutes you do 20 x 15 seconds on and 15 seconds off. I was in the high 30's for most and really struggled getting many over 40kph.Don't get me wrong its vicious - but not life threatening - more a 1m reef shark than a white pointer. 

The Garmin below shows the last two 10 minute sets - out and back - in to the very light winds. 

I stopped the clock for the five minute recovery break between last two sets. 

Brend and I bigged ourselves up plenty on the ride home but both of our tunes changed during the day. I've been toast since about 1.00 pm.

and in exiting today's post... coffee = life

That's Joeys average sized fingers about to latch on to her weak, skinny cappuccino. 

Projected through,

Five burning hoops

To wild and shocked applause.

To wild and shocked applause.

Ophelia

Natalie Merchant

How do people come up with these lyrics. ? I think if we were to expand our business that's the direction we 'd go. Commercial Claims Preparers/ Songwriters. 

Wednesday Nov 13

A little under 40 k this morgan. The ride was centered around a 30 minute set after a bit of a warm up. It's 90% of threshold (th) for 90 seconds ( what you can sustain/ride at without blowing up) then 120% of th for the last 30 seconds - so 15 x 2 minute intervals to bring up the 30 mins.

So you are doing 15 x 30 second all out sprints but you don't get to really recover as such, you get to go at 90% of th for 90 seconds as your recovery.

Half of the battle is deciphering exactly what the program is asking you to do and at what intensity.

We do a lot of our intervals around Shelley where there is very little traffic and a flat 6k or so . It's next to the water and a lovely place to ride your bike. 

It was out , back and out again to chew up the 30 mins which meant heading into the southerly twice. Because it wasn't hard enough already!

Averaged 33.1k which was ok as I probably wouldn't have gone over 30k doing that sort of intervals ride even six weeks ago.

Yesterday was pretty tough and today was pretty tough. Tomorrow is borderline ridiculous. We are doing 100 x 15 second intervals ( 15 seconds on 15 off ) x 20 then 5 mins rest x 5 sets where u try and get your bike up over 40 kph or so for each "on" 15 seconds and hold it - with Brend a bit quicker. We did 60 last Thursday and that nearly finished us off. 

It will be interesting ( to us at least) to see how we fare tomorrow. To make matters worse Brend sailed thru this morning with significant pbs so he's going to be in an absolute feeding frenzy tomorrow. 

I on the other hand are going to go to bed at about 4.30 pm this afternoon to give myself a chance to just get through it. 

At what stage does a habit become an addiction? Second biggest commodity in the world behind oil.

Talk soon

Nov 12th. Hill repeats ( and Sarah's birthday)

In amongst this mornings ride were 9 x 90 second sprints up the hill in Kings Park. Me , Brend and Rich.

The hill kicks up a few percent at the 60 to 70 second mark.

We went at 5.30am , it's 3.45 now and I still feel a bit sick. The program calls for you to stand up for the last 15 seconds... sure...will do. I couldn't have sat back down any quicker if someone had shot me.

I think you almost need to do that session once just to learn how to do it. I felt quite out of sorts trying to get the pacing right and was just dying in the last 20 to 25 seconds. 

I've bartered Joeys breakfast time walking slot for tomorrow morning so me and Brend can get out again tomorrow morning. It all starts to ease up a little next week with the ride the week after. 

Speaking of nutrition.,.

That's from Halo. End of my street for any regular readers. The shorthand on the cap stands for very hot weak flat white. In a lot of places you'd have more chance of stumbling across the Colonels eleven secret herbs and spices recipe than getting a drinkable vhwfw.

Work to do...

Nov 10. Twenty minute time trial.

We did a little over 50k this morning.

It included a five minute time trial  followed by  fifteen minutes at endurance pace, then a twenty minute time trial by yourself - as fast as you can go. 

Easterly cross wind , not hindering but not helping much either.

The longest interval we've done previously was ten minutes so I wasn't sure exactly what to expect or exactly how hard to go out. The ten minute ones are hard enough themselves.

This one , you crank it up and you are already looking at your clock after 3 minutes, starting to panic!.

The problem is once you are at 10 minutes on whatever speed you are averaging you don't want to lose any of that average speed you've worked so hard to achieve so you have no choice but to smash yourself for the second ten minutes after u r already in some discomfort.

It's mucus across your face hard.

I averaged 37.8kph. Brends gone a fair bit quicker but he's working from a powermeter for average power versus avg speed so not sure of his exact number.

 The rule of thumb is that whatever you can do by yourself for twenty minutes is what you can theoretically hold (or close too) for an hour in a race. Time will tell how accurate that is.

That's at least one of the base rides in the bank to get a gauge on where we currently are.

Tomorrow's a rest day  for riding so I'll do the last uk post . 

Joeys mentioned today that she nodded off reading yesterday's post with the inference I guess that the training posts are only going to be of limited interest to anyone who is willing to read absolutely anything about sport. 

I think she's suggesting that if cycling or sport isn't your thing you might want to unsubscribe  for the next few weeks at least and just visit manually if and when the subject matter offers a little more.

On a related but unrelated topic how do France manage to cause the mighty All Blacks so much trouble. They had won two games this year before last night and  I think they lost to Italy and /or Scotland yet got within a try of a draw with the black machine. They're taking years off my life. 

Later.

.

November 9 Group ride.

 We did about 85k this morning. Brend Rich and I did 20k or so before I turned on the Garmin ( below ) at the start of the Group ride. 

The program we are following called for 1.5 hours including a 10 minute interval. 

Rich is doing a 150k event next weekend so is on his own program.

Brend stuck to the plan. 

Rich and I just followed the group like sheep. 

We averaged 33.5 kph for the first 60 k or so (to the end of Shelley ) before winding down to Hoopla cafe. Average had bled away a little to 32.8 by time I turned off clock at cafe.

Joey,the H man and I just had a recovery coffee and spinach and egg on toast @ Halo at the end of our street but I'm still a little cooked myself from the ride.

Brend and I have a 20 minute threshold "test" as part of our ride tomorrow. It's effectively a time trial but it establishes your base. 

Next week is the most intensive in the program, intervals Tues Wed and Thurs followed by two four houries on Sat and Sun with the last hour of both those weekend rides "all in". 

Right, couple of tasks to attend to....

The UK wash up - kind of.

In my last post I mentioned there were a few trip photos left over. I'm going to insert them in the final trip blog, attach a couple of words and that's the UK in the rear view mirror.

Before i get to that however, on the 30th of  November I'm doing a ride in Taupo in NZ. It's almost 160 k and quite hilly.Tailor made for big blokes .

Big Brend from WA is heading over with yours truly. Nearly 10% of big Brend has disappeared . He was nigh on  a hungy when we started and is currently a svelte 91. Reasonably pleased with himself it has to be said.

My brother Mike (who still lives in NZ) is also doing it with a couple of his mates

The weekend just gone Mickey boy just annihalated K2 - a hilly 200k ride - advertised as the toughest ride in the Southern Hemisphere!

Excellent , him and Brend peaking and me milling about out the back - where glory is in very short supply .

Which brings me neatly to my point. 

Whilst it's far too late to have a real run at this particular ride I'm going to follow a program for the final couple of weeks and blog about it. The thrust is really just a very average cyclist trying to get a little better. 

If I look on strava ( like Facebook for cyclists) it doesn't make for pretty reading. Since 2009 when I first started riding until a month or so ago I've never really got above around 600th to 700th  (and quite often worse)  of the 1800 odd who are on strava and do most of the cycle segments around Perth.

If I'm honest I'm probably not entirely happy there.  My thought is that I might chart exactly where I sit, set a goal or two and "nike" it. 

Brend's big on intervals. Up until a matter of weeks ago I'd done zero intervals on my bike. Ironman training through 2011 without a program or a coach was just cranking out lots of ks and trying to average 30kph or a smidge over. I have just discovered cycling intervals through Brend and have found out that intervals can change your life. I've gone up a few hundred spots on strava and are hopeful of picking off a couple more stragglers.

It makes sense in hindsight but when you train at 30kph as soon as someone puts it up to 35 or 36 during a group ride you are uncomfortable within seconds never mind minutes.

Anyway, I followed some average cyclists blog for a little while in 2009 and quite enjoyed it. 

I can't promise anything new, insightful or particularly revealing but i am going to blog about the next two or three weeks until we've done the Taupo ride , see if it's fun to do - or a bit of a chore - seek to make it mildly interesting ( I need to give some thought to photos as they are fun to work from in a blog but there are only so many training and sunrise photos people can cope with) and we can go from there.