Fair enjoyed that, respect to the chap who finished with what looked like a broken left collar bone

+1. Nice night for the race for once too!

I have over trained, maybe about 4/5 years ago. I was training twice a day and working full time in a very stressful job. I’ve now totally changed the way i look at my training, less is more and all that. I’m now very strict on recovery/rest days, use resting hr to see whether i can exercise or not etc etc. I had found a level which suited me and meant i could train hard and rest/recover well but that’s all been thrown up in the air with my new training plan which has lots more in it that i’d ideally like.

I think its more of a case of under resting really…its hard to rest properly, ie feet up, no stress whatsoever, go for an afternoon nap etc when you have to work full time/do the shopping/chores/lifestuff etc on top of training.

I’m leaving work very early for a ride and get in some sneaky training so i can beat your ass in our TT showdown 😛

Glad to know its not just me! 🙂 An excuse for new wheels now…

Cruising at over 30mph with the tailwind

I bailed on my ride yesterday due to struggling into the wind at about 16kph, and on occasion, blown to a halt. Turned round and freewheeled at 40kph+ which was a bit unsettling!

I usually ask for tea, it’s a safer bet.

+1. Instant coffee is vile. Am so fussy when it comes to coffee. Thankfully our coffee machine produces a good espresso 8)

I tend to juggle sessions more now. I won’t do hard intervals, say, if my HRV is down and the thing is giving me an amber, but the flipside is that if my HRV is high, I feel confident that I’m recovered enough for a more intense session.

+1. Now i know roughly what sort of impact training has, its easier to move the sessions around to ensure i get the best out of each one and don’t end up in the red.

MM, it needs a week or so to establish your baseline. It might be worth waiting until you feel ‘normal’ again otherwise your baseline could be much lower if you have a virus/overtrained, and then when it jumps, you’ll get warnings instead of it being the norm if that makes sense?

My hrv reading this morning is a bit poor because i ended up looking after my bf in hospital for hours immediately after a race without any proper food/hydration. My hr is normal but i feel far from normal/good which is reflected in the hrv reading…so its also interesting to see what difference proper food/drink/recovery makes and the impact stress has on your reading.

How are you getting on with your coach – seeing results?

Yes he is aware of it and says its more sophisticated than the RHR rule of train or don’t train. I just tell him both hr and hrv readings and what it means (ie rest, train lightly or normally). He is more than happy for me to keep using it, and i give him daily feedback on pretty much everything anyway so its just one more factor to include. I’m only on week 2 of my training plan, and beginning to race / train harder this year so i’m also needing to learn how i cope with more riding (around 11hours atm) than i’ve previously been doing and the ap is a very good way to do that.

Before i started being coached, it was my only way of knowing how much rest i needed/how my body responded to training – for example, after 1 hour of weights in the gym, my hr is lower and hrv is higher than next morning than a day of complete rest. I also feel better for it. Its also been interesting because sometimes i’d feel tired after a day in work, but the ap says fine to train as normal – so i’d go out and find i was much stronger on the bike than i thought i would be. On days where it said train lightly, if i ignored it and did say hard intervals, it’d show up red the next day.

AFAIK you can spot when you had the onset of a virus (before you have symptoms) as your hrv will drop dramatically so its good from that point of view too.

I don’t regret spending the money on it and get so much out of it, that i recently bought the other HRV ap for using during exercise.

I’ve had mine for quite a while now. They have just upgraded the ap (free) and i log my sleep and training on it too. The upgrade means you can monitor your recovery after training too as you can log multiple readings.

I’ve learnt a lot from using it about how my body adapts and responds to training. FWIW i’m continuing to use this even though i’m working with a coach now rather than just doing what i like/want and so (in theory) less likely to overtrain anyway.

No don’t think so; however it could have been worse if he’d broken his new carbon wheels! That’s the 2nd saddle and shifter he’s broken in 3 weeks!

Yeh was the 2up one. My partner had on tri bars and it made a huge difference to her speed compared to mine on the drops. She really hurt me coming through faster and my legs just weren’t feeling it. Felt great the next day during race number 2 though.

Is this where we are all hanging out today?! I’d been looking forward to a few quieter weeks but my training plan has had more hours added to it when i wasn’t looking, up to 11 hours or so now! 😯 Mustard is hobbling around after the crash and will probably have sold a kidney by the time i get home to replace all the broken bits on his bike. 😕

65mins for my 38km TT on Sunday, poor effort, i felt rubbish whenever i tried to go faster…does anyone really enjoy TTs?!

I use the same ap as badlywireddog. I think it’s great, I follow it 100% and have yet to overtrain whilst using it.

I shall ask mustard for you since he’s a water expert. I’d steer clear if i was you.

This weekend I have my first ever 2upTT and a road race the next day. If i survive both, I will enter Ireland’s stage race to end my racing season in style. Eeeeekkk!

is it the Rás na mBan, down in kerry

Yup thats the one. Just trying to work out if its a completely stoopid thing to do, or a good one to train for!

I’m considering doing the women’s stage race over there in September.

I spent xmas in Northern Ireland but didn’t see much of it.

Read the books first and enjoyed them. Film was guff though, won’t be going to see the next one.

I’ll adapt you in a minute. To fit in a duffel bag.

😆

So what has everyone got planend for this week?

This is my first proper week of coaching and its taking a bit to get my head round following a proper plan, instead of doing what i like!

I am having a complete confidence crisis about my riding ability/fitness though, not helped by the fact that there’s a fairly big race in 2 weekends time that i’d like to do well in and its my first time racing as part of the team. Everyone in the team has been on their training plans since October so i’m starting my plan 6 months later than everyone and feeling like i’m playing catch up. Please help my confidence come back

Molly, mustard and i might be down in wales in july. 10m tt challenge in July?! Actually TSY this is for you too as we will probably come visit on the way there/back and go for a ride with you 😀

12-20 hours I’d guess.

In comparsion, i’m going to be doing around 10 hours on the training plan i have been set, 8hrs on the bike and 2hrs in the gym of weights. I can then do anything else i want over and above the sessions he has set me, but suspect i won’t want to. I guess currently i do around 12hrs usually but that’s all about to change!
mon – weights 1 hr
tues – 2hr chaingang
weds weights 1hr
thurs – 2 hr chaingang or rest
fri rest
sat 2.3hr chaingang
sun – social ride of around 4hrs.

I’d not class what you do as excessive but a sprint tri before work might be 😛

TSY.
Imo, your approach to understanding this topic is fundamentally flawed.
I ask you again, how can you observe any diet related effects to your body weight, when you exercise execcssively.

TSY, how many hours a week do you exercise?

DD, woohoo!

And wtf does my laptop not load training peaks properly but displays images like ^^ Gggrrr!

Do you still get cravings for sugary post milk in your tea

I don’t drink tea. 😕

philly, IME diet (sugar) is main cause of midrift flab – i switched from skinny lattes to espresso and ditched all choc/biscuits from my diet. Got down to 17% body fat with no other diet changes and my abs were showing. Started eating choc/biscuits again, body fat has gone up a bit and abs no longer showing as clearly. 😥 Cut out the milk and sugar in your coffee for starters.

TRX and KBs work core the best IME – my core is now far stronger than it was before i started using them and more defined too.

What is your source for finding what in or out, wrt to seasonality

Research on the internet/books probably… some fruit/veg i know off the top of my head but have become so used to being able to buy things all year round that the rest i have no idea when its in season.

Oh, and i have decided i’m going to make an extra effort to only eat fruit/veg that’s in season.

Due to the rain and how freezing it was last night, i opted out of the chaingang and did 1hr 10mins of intervals on the turbo. The intervals were at TT effort. My legs were most unhappy with me after it. 👿

Today i should get my training plan *excited and apprehensive*

Just finished the second series. Thought it was great 🙂

you need a road themed tattoo on the other arm.

Heh, its not actually a mtb themed one – the flower is a lotus flower, linked to yoga and some other personal stuff. I want a second one but have no inspiration for designs, been toying with using the flower and swirls for one but i can’t fit in getting inked until post racing season!

I think i might try your bars TSY…do they taste nice? Not planning on eating them during rides but pre gym / ride might be good.

My training has gone out of the window this week after 2 nights of hardly any sleep due to stressing about things 🙁

TSY, yes like a clam but with straight leg. Simple but effective.

Solo, the photo of me racing in this thread?

Its for my piriformis muscle…basically lie down on your side, with the leg on the floor slightly bent. Lift the other leg up (heel first) activating only the muscle in your bum – its the only place you should feel any pain when you hold your leg there. After 10 reps, holding for a count of 10-15, its hurts big time…not as much as it did the first time i did them mind you! Holding the bridge for 20 secs and lowering as slowly as i can i.e for 40secs also hurts my glutes (the lowering as slowly as i can bit).

Too tired to get any training in tonight before meeting with my coach so i hope Molgrips isn’t going to get in any sneaky training tonight 😀

DG, have you a tattoo on your right forearm

I do yes from wrist to elbow. How come?
This is it

Solo, like this but with two feet

I have a new hamstring and glute exercise for you to try…

Do tell! The glute exercises my physio gave me still kill my glutes. I want to do KB snatches but when my PT was explaining how to do the last bit (ie above weight height to overhead) i couldn’t get the hang of moving the KB/my arm to the right position. 🙄

Why the almond flour TSY?

Solo, i get the KB deadlifts using two, its what i would do if i did them (but not that weight or reps!) 🙂

Edit, after Majorca and no weights for 10days, the first thing that i noticed when i went back to the gym was how much weaker my hamstrings were! Looks like the reading you were doing was right!

I think the swings/squats were done as a one arm swing, then taking a step out to the right/left to go into a sumo squat as the KB came down, and then as it came up again, moving legs into usual position for KB swing. But i didn’t want to watch to closely and i’m not getting any more PT sessions til the off season so i was going to read up on it, but need to know what its called before i can find it!

There’s a lot of people out there with poor bike handling skills in a bunch so it pays to know how to react if you get bumped into or similar – otherwise you’d be down. Suspect if i was in an argy bargy bunch i’d be in the bushes though as it was ok when it was a girl of similar height/weight to me, but with a bigger bloke who is stronger… I nearly went down on Saturdays chaingang when the bloke in front of me stopped without warning, i clipped his wheel big time, thankfully i managed to swing off to the side and unclip rather than coming off. Nearly set a new max hr though! 😯

Lol Mol 😆 You’d take the bunch down if you shoved them back which isn’t the idea! Was pretty scary and cool in equal measures riding with bars touching and leaning on each other, going to practise that one a lot.

IME it makes the cold last longer and is silly.

My PT was training a client last night in KBs, she was doing a one handed KB swing and stepping sideways into a squat. Any idea what its called?

Edit, the closest i got was about 5cms away from reaching the bottle. Didn’t enjoy that as much as the contact drills though.

Yes, but you have to explain the ‘how’ bit in ‘how to react’…

Yup, lean into them. Picking up a bottle from the ground defeated me though! 😡

but then woke up this morning feeling worse.

You shouldn’t exercise with a cold, you’ll feel worse after it/will make the cold last longer. 🙄

Are we allowed to talk bike skills on this thread? Last night the race squad got some coaching, and we learned how to react if we got elbow/shoulder barged and rode with bars touching. Was lots of fun! 😀

Before the skills stuff, i did 1 hour of weights, just to keep the thread training related!

I have snacked on porridge in the past – brought in milk/oats and heated it up in the microwave 🙂 BTW Tricky, i’ve started taking vitamin d after not getting as much sun in Majorca as hoped. How long did you take it for before you noticed the difference? I’m not taking it in the same dose as (iirc) you did.

I snack on cherry toms, red/yellow/orange peppers, carrots, yoghurt, espresso, apples, bananas, brazil nuts/almonds, and the odd choc bar when i’m feeling weak or have sugar cravings.

Surely it also needs to be put into context though – i could do say 6 intervals of 3mins of sprinting but the 3mins of recovery spinning in between would bring the total speed right down?

All the hilly slow miles i did in Majorca have meant i’ve lost speed and power in my legs…couldn’t hold onto the chaingang when it went above 35kph on Saturday 😥 😡

Is that all TSY? You are getting lazy! 😛