40 Goals

I've got the Power! Just ordered a Powertap SL 2.4 on a Mavic Open pro from Cyclepowermeters.com . Rental for 12 weeks should see me good through to July'ish. Much cheaper than buying one and then flogging it on eBay!

1 week no sugar, no flour OK so this week I'm trying an experiment with my diet. In an attempt to sort out my blood sugar fluctuations with associated cravings and binging I'm cutting out all sugar and all flour based products from my diet. The only exception is natural sugar found in fruit whilst sweeteners can be used in a hot drink once a day. Wholegrain products are allowed very sparingly but no noodles, bread or crackers etc. Mostly I'm looking at pulses, rice, fruit and veg, meat and dairy. Should be a snap. Here's my food & exercise diary in all gory detail - you can only criticise me if you share your diary too ;-) Monday 05:45 Wake up - oh god is it Monday already. 06:00 Baseline Weight Measurment - no change from yesterday - 77.9kg. 07:30 2 x Water, Glass OJ. Sliced Apple. Blackberry yoghurt. (on 06:51 train to Birmingham, managed to resist the bacon panini ...) 10:00 Small Starbucks Americano with hot milk and a sweetener. 12:45 Philpotts Tomato & Par

Sunday Weigh-In Weight: 77.9kg Body Fat: 16.3% LBM: 65.2 Calories: Could do better Riding: Could do better A difficult week this week with a lot of travel and opportunities to commute to the office spoilt by bad weather. In truth I could have worked harder this week but still managed to put in almost 200k so its not disastrous. Did my first 2x20 on a gym bike and will be doing this twice a week as its such a good workout for improving FTP. On the calorie front I had a total blow out on Tuesday and paid the price when I stood on the scales this morning. I'm running out of time with only 3 months to go so check back next week for a siginifant improvement. I guarantee it.

Legs of Steel Ride Happy with my performance today, covering the 81km route in 3:11:05. Obviously such a short (albeit hilly) course wasn't going to test my endurance but I put in some intense efforts on the climbs. The Start ... I'm not quite sure how I managed to screw up the collection of polar data but the transponder system that they used gave me splits of 62:17, 80:41 and 48:07 - of course it would be useful to see the distances these relate to - but never mind. Looking gormless at the top of Holmbury Hill As I finished I was 22nd out of 79 riders with many still out on the course. As it was a rolling start between 8am and 9am I could drift down the field quite a bit, but hopefully not too much. The first place rider covered the course in 2:38:14 which is no mean feat! I'll be looking at the ful-on-tri website for results, having come in the bottom 10% for the ToSH last August it means a lot to me to place well in a 'competitive' ride and demonstrate how I'

Monthly RAMP test In order to track progress in power output and efficiency I am going to perform a monthly ramp test. This will take place every 4th week on the Saturday before the Tour of the Surrey Hills on Sunday. Just to be awkward I have reversed this week to avoid the bad weather. Protocol Pump up turbo tire to 100psi and pedal comfortably for 15 minutes, to allow me to warm up but more importantly the turbo to warm up. Then calibrate the turbo to 0. Warm up for another couple of minutes in case the calibration takes a while. The test proper can then begin, maintaining a comfortable cadence gradually increase the power output by moving through the gears. Target power output for 3 minute intervals are: 180, 210, 240, 260, 280, 300, 320. Finally, drop back to easy pedalling at 180w and wait for heartrate to return to level seen at the beginning of the test. Results Startlingly different from a 20minute 250w test yesterday that set my HR at 147 for the entire 20 minutes. 3 min 180

Saturday Weigh-In Weight: 77.3kg Body Fat: 16.9% LBM: 64.2kg Calories: OK Riding: 400km A good week this week, spring is here and spent a few days in the office so got to do the commute a couple of times. I think its time to start introducing some strength and power sessions and enter the build phase. Just over 3 months till the Alpe and 4 months till Etape. I'm not sure which event is occupying my mind more - a TT or a stage race? Either way I'm off for an hour of hill repeats up and down Pitch Hill ...

The amazing mirror commute I've been doing a commute to my office in Egham which is almost 50km to the meter away. Over the last few weeks I've been taking 1.45 to get there and 2:00 to get back - mostly due to wind conditions and the fact that the journey home is more uphill and the journey there is mostly downhill (if you ignore the big lump of the North Downs I climb over from my front door). But today it took 1:47 to get there and 1:47 to get home again!! Weird. Nice average speed and cadence but then not a lot of climbing involved. Out ... And back again ...

Extended Tour of The Surrey Hills Spring is here at last! What a beautiful day - after 3 weeks of snow, rain and bloody misery we finally get some sun on a Sunday. My compact cranks are bust and waiting for replacements to arrive so the cadence is lower than I'd like. But you try tapping up White downs and Horseblock in a 39/27. Was tempted to bail out at 100km but kept it together through to 123km and 2280m of climbing in a touch over 5 hours. Cool!