40 Goals

Lest there be any doubt ... I need to lose between 8 and 10 kilos before July and continue to build sustainable power. Perhaps in future I'll keep my shirt on, especially now I've got a fan to keep me cool (but alas no stand, but its amazing what you can do with junk from the kids play room)! Watching the Colts squeak the Broncos 34-31 at Mile High.

L'Etape 2007 Booked Well, if I'm going to all that trouble to get uber-fit and strong for July I might as well carry it through to L'Etape . So I booked a place on the Sports Tours Winter Training Camp in Lanzarote in January which guarantees me a place on July 18th - so much for transition and recovery after my personal Alpe D'Huez time trial on the 3rd. Gives me even greater focus ... not that I really needed it. The consensus seems to be that this year's Etape is the hardest yet. I went to last year's supporting a friend and if this years is harder than that I really have bitten off a challenge. Looking at this recon ride I think two hours a day on the turbo is a minimum to prepare. I also need to be under 77kg. So - no cakes, refined sugars or chocolate till July 19th.

Weigh-In Saturday Weight: 83.7kg. Body fat: 20.7%. Been fairly idle this week, only 6hrs on the turbo. Lets chalk this down as a recovery and adaptation week. Next week is a medium intensity week, so I'm doing some hill intervals at Pitch Hill this afternoon and probably won't lose a lot of fat for the week.

Up and running, just 36 weeks of staring at a blank wall

Weigh-In Saturday Weight: 84.4kg Body Fat: 20.4%. Wow, all those hours in the gym at 126 bpm are paying off.

They say a bad workman always blames his tools. Which is why I decided to tool up for my 36 week training plan. I've long had a home gym with rower, treadmill and weights... Tacx Flow Trainer I decided to go with the Tacx Flow primarily because it is reasonably priced at roughly £260 and has watts, heartrate, cadence and speed. But should I find I use it a considerable amount I can always update with the i-Magic and Catalyst software via my PC and use some of the tools over at ownsports.net to replay my favourite rides. Having got the thing home after a mercy dash to Evans cycles in Woking to pick it up I find the frame is missing. I ring the sales droid to discover it was the display model. All plans of Friday night assembly and 2 hour burn in ride are blow. Need to go back tomorrow and pick up the part that was sitting in the window and spend Saturday afternoon building and burning. Hey ho. Heart Zones Cycling Training Methodology I guess I can spend the evening working out my ...

On a scale of one to ten where ten is Lance and two is a couch potato, I scored 4. So last week I had a fitness test with Cyclefit and the results were relatively encouraging, for a 39 yr old, 6' 1" male ... Weight: 85.5kg, 21.4% body fat. Well actually this is from my dodgy tanita scales. 85.5kg is pretty reliable, the 21.4% seems a little flattering. I enjoy Marks and Spencers wine gums, Dunking biscuits and Crunchy Crisps Selection a little too much - they are gonna have to go. Heart Rate Min: 47 Max: 181. I was most disappointed with the max heart rate, having taken all that time and effort during the test to get an accurate measurement (ie. terrible nausea with screaming lactate pain) it was most disappointing to find out my maximum is exactly 220-my age!!!!! Maximum Power Output: 4w/kg. I also found my max power output is woefully low at 343 watts, my watts per kg is 4.0. I need to seriously work on this. We reckoned anything above 5 would be good. Fortunately, I can im...

Get to know the route they say, well this is what it looks like.... And this is how to do it....

On my 40th Birthday I will climb the infamous Alpe D'Huez in under one hour. Well, thats the mission statement out of the way... just a small matter of developing my fitness levels, getting the trip sorted out and then completing the task. Perhaps its the mid-life crisis, or perhaps a throwback from giving up smoking 4 years ago and wanting to do something outstanding. Perhaps I need a goal to stop me from going insane. Whatever the underlying motivation I am determined to complete this mission. Since I only took up cycling in 2003 I'm not in the greatest of shape. For sure, I skiffed down the River Thames with a close buddy in 2002 and have run quite a few 10ks (Goring, Christs Hospital, Woking 1010 ...) I've even cycled an Audax event (Tour of the Surrey Hills). I am in relatively good shape. But I'm no Marco Pantani and certainly come July 3rd 2007 if I am able to take less than an hour to traverse the 21 switchbacks along the D211 north of Bourg d'Oisans, past ...