40 Goals

Weight: 89.0kg (no change) Body Fat: 19.0% (no change) Weekly Distance: 180km (-30km) FTP: 210w (minimum value, +5w) CTL; 42.1 (+6.3) Highlight of this week: Friday Ride hit bests for every interval from 1s to 1h (!) Goal for next week: back to work, eat well - keep riding Well, I'm still bitterly disappointed with my numbers. I hit an AP of 210 for an hour on a hearty ride, so 210 is a bare minimum, but even so it is crap. In 2008 after no riding I was happily sitting on 240w. On the bright side my 20min power (which is a good gauge since I tend to do a 20min effort at some point during every tempo or SST ride) is increasing very quickly up from 172w to 235w over the last 3 weeks. Back to work tomorrow after 2 rain-soaked weeks and overload. On the bright side both of the full-time roles I'll be performing in my 4-day week are based at offices 30 minutes away from Hillingdon Cycle Circuit. So, I will be dropping down there to get some workouts done after work. With t...

I have been deliberately working on my posture recently. And after a few rides on the drops I'm starting to find it just as comfortable as on the hoods or upright. Will try and get some pics together, but for now try and imagine me in a similar position to the the big GO below... It certainly has made me faster! I went out for a windy 40k rolling ride today and set a time that was a full 5 minutes faster than when I started back up in 2008, over the same course and similar conditions (i.e. windy) and my power today was slightly lower than in 08. Did 1:22 against 1:27 two years ago. I have also found, as a happy by-product, that my cornering is far more controlled and I'm leaning with a lot more confidence too.

Weight: 89.0kg (-0.2kg) Body Fat: 19.0% Weekly Distance: 210km (+35km) FTP: 205w (estimate +10w) CTL; 33.8 (+14.7) Highlight of this week: Plenty of lactate burn, riding more on the drops Goal for next week: Keep the faith in the miserable weather (forecasted) Got out almost every day this week. Hilly ride on Saturday was probably a ride too-far though, legs were wiped out and had a rest day Sunday but still fatigued today. Its all good. Weight loss looks like it has stalled but in reality I'm coming off a rest day, body shape is definitely changing and the trend is in the right direction anyway. I got the withings wifi scales integrated into Golden Cheetah, so the PMC below also shows the daily body fat measurments (watch the trend no the fluctuations). It was quite tricky to get this working but means I can now start mucking about with athlete metrics like Weight, RHR, BMI etc and chart them alongside performance metrics extracted from ride data. Later.

Weight: 89.2kg (-1.5kg) Weekly Distance: 175km (+119km) FTP: 195w (estimate +10w) CTL; 19.1 (+11.6) Highlight of this week: Regular riding and CV improvement Goal for next week: Cut out those damned biscuits. Climb some hills. It has been a pretty good week. Got out a few times to ride this week and enjoyed it too. My HR is more stable, recovers a little faster and most importantly less oxygen debt means I can work my legs and get that lactate burn. Managed better on the food front but still succumbed to the mighty biscuit in a blip on Saturday. Hey, you can't do everything at once ;-)

Ok, so I got my withings wifi scales today and got all interneted up. Really cool gadget. They're pretty accurate too, I tested with me holding various weights to see if it calibrated correctly and it was spot on. But as accurate and cool as they might be, my numbers are all off the scales ... and not in a good weigh (hehe) ! Ride more, code less. :-)

Weight: 90.7kg Weekly Distance: 56km FTP: 185w (estimate) CTL; +7.5 Highlight of this week: Gave up smoking. (I know, I know...) Goal for next week: Cut out butter, cheese, biscuits. Drink more water. Well the only way is up from here. I reckon my FTP is probably in that ballpark, and frankly it doesn't really matter at this point. I'll probably do a test once I'm riding more regularly.  Chuffed to have got rid of the evil weed, but stunned to see my weight has gone up by a kilo in one week. So these very public weekly updates are back. Sorry to bore.

Wow. 12 months go by I get fat and my bike is covered in dust. Started riding again, just in time for winter and my blasted Computrainer. Of course,  its all good. Getting the motivation to ride back is fantastic. So I'm taking it relatively easy. Riding when I fancy it and it is convenient. Which means I have only ridden 3 times in the last 2 weeks. But you know what, its fine. First ride was awful, I went out at a relatively middling pace of 180w, keeping it steady coz I didn't want to blow up. Of course, my FTP of old is loooooong gone and I reckon is hovering around 200w right now (honestly!). I am utterly de-trained and out of shape. The last two times that I've trained up for July events (Etape/Marmotte) I started by kicking off my training in August and then peaking in April or May only to fall away by the event in July. Either burned out or just bad timing. So I'm in no hurry to 'get a plan'. Lets say, by Christmas I should be ready to start thi...