Pinky and the Brain Brain Brain Brain Brain

Have I used that before? Whatever. Just a quick recap of traininginging over the Christmassy bit. Did a little bit of spin, and got to the gym twice. Squat continues slowly up, and I'm working hard on my form as it gets heavier to try to keep errors at bay. Press up at 60kg, unfortunately on the 4th rep of the first set I got in the wrong position and bent my wrist under the bar. Nothing dramatic, but it was too sore/weak to get even one rep up on the second set, though I tried twice, so abandoned that. Disappointed, as I'm sure I would have gotten it, but no big deal. Did 160kg on the deadlift afterwards. Got them up 5 times, but wasn't sufficiently happy with the form, so I may do 160kg again next time. Perhaps not, but it will depend upon how I'm feeling. Bench at 77.5 and I almost got it - only got to 3 in the last set though. The bench at the powerhaus is narrower, and the gap is in an awkward position whichever way around I put it, so that didn't help. Powercleans at 80kg, 3x4, and I kinda got them - only 3 in the first set, but all 4 in the next two. Looking at the video though I was breaking my arms too early and pulling rather than shrugging - I could feel it at the time, but video confirmation is handy. So though I could possibly quibble that I should be 'allowed' to take it up again next time, I'll repeat and make sure to get that shrug. Jumping chins are getting quite slow and controlled on the negative, so I reckon I might be pretty close to giving a real chinup a go soon. And that's about all for now. Will be good to get back on the track!

Beethoven's 9th

And herein begins the Ode to Joy...

Well, not really, but things are still progressing in the gym, which is satisfying. I missed training at DISC on Sunday due to lack of time/funds, so I needed a good session today to make me not feel fat and slow. Okay, 105kgs on the squat, not very exciting, and today it didn't feel all that smooth, either - felt like I was still shuffling around a little, trying to find the right groove. But they went up.

Bench up to 75kg now, and though it was a bit more of a strain than last week, only the very last rep required genuine teeth-gritted pushing up - I may have even closed my eyes. Otherwise they went up okay, though the bar path wasn't as well controlled as it has been.

Powercleans at 77.5, and frankly they weren't that pretty either. The weight itself didn't feel too heavy though, which was nice. Strength continues to grow, form was just off today for everything. These days happen, and today it happened without a miss on anything. Hoping to get a spin in on Thursday and then back to the gym over the weekend.

1812 Overture

Squats: 102.5kg. Oh yeah baby! Anyway. Focussed strongly on pushing the knees out, ignored the back, and it felt... well, different, anyway. Better. I'll take the camera next time to have a look.

Press: 57.5kg, like a dream. Maybe 3 out of the 15 were slow, including one that I let get out the front of me, but the rest went up strongly and nowhere near as exhaustingly as on my last attempt. So a new 3x5RM. Excellent!

Deadlift: Went for a 3x60kg, 2x100kg and 1x140kg warmup, and that felt pretty right. Waited a bit over 10 minutes, chalked up, and gripped the bar for 157.5kg. Set up strong, hips a bit higher, back tight, and took it up 5 times. Slight hitch on the 4th rep, but otherwise pretty smooth. Damnably heavy, of course, but went up. Another PR for the day! Okay, so it's still LP, every day should be PR day, but it's starting to get decently heavy - not exactly weightlifter heavy, but at 350 pounds, still a good lift. (Not) To mention that for a while I haven't been P-ing at all, L-ly or otherwise!

Sprint-ish

So figured I'd do a few more road sprints today, but it didn't quite work out as planned. To start with, heading up Hendersons I decided to give it a crack in 53x12 - and I broke something. I haven't been able to find out where it was from, but it looks like this:

Which kinda put a crimp in my plans. I still managed most of the sprints I'd set out to do, but they were a little 3/4-hearted out of nervousness. Hopefully I'll manage to work out what the hell it is!

Teh Band

Hopefully Teh Band don't exist. If they did, they'd play a mixture of hardcore and weak-arse.

Squats... well, they started at 122.5, but finished at 100. My form just keeps going to shit and I'm wasting time. I've lost nearly 10kg, which probably doesn't help, but just the same they feel crappy. So I went back down to 100 since the volume I'm getting done at heavier weights isn't going to maintain any strength anyway, so I might as well cut my losses and at least get some shit done and get LP happening again. Even if it means regressing by 4 MONTHS. Shit. Mind you, if I'd done it two months ago I could still be back up to 140kg by now. Shit.

Bench... well, after sitting at 65kg for ages, it's going up nicely now - 72.5 today, and got them done. Lost the bar path a little on the last of 15, but it only curved down my chest a little and I got it back up without too much trouble.

Powercleans at 75kg, I was really determined to get these done with good form. And it was certainly better than last week - I did catch one not far above my nipples and pushed it up the rest of the way, but aside from that the form felt sketchy, but not bad. The very last rep, I really nailed it - got the shrug, got the jump, and despite being the last rep, I nearly caught it with my nose. Just got to hold that groove in my mind until next week, onwards to 77.5kg...

BBN #4. Did somebody say 'BOOM!'?

That's what happens when your rear tyre, fed up with all of the abuse it's copped over the months, decides that that was one pulled wheel too many and goes pop. Or, as it were, BOOM. The shiny spot on the rim is where the concrete did a bit of polishing as I skidded to a halt from 30ish km/hr. Oh, happy days...

To add insult to injury, I was asked how long my spanner was, and received unfavourable opinions of my nuts. All's fair in sprinting and war...

That out of the way, and a spare wheel borrowed, I headed out with Nic to do some powerjumps. The idea was to do four sets on steadily increasing gears for the first three efforts, then back down to 82 (by which I mean 86) for the last set. Nic very generously gave me a 49T chainring to expand my selection of gears from (nominally) 86/92/99 to (nominally, and once I get a longer chain. Oh, and does one round up or down? Or 'normally'? I'll try normally for greater precision. If one can really be nominally precise. But anyway) 81/83/86/88/93/95/100/102. Huzzah! Not that I need so many 80s. But if I can manage something around an 82 then Carl, at least, will be happy, and 102 (or higher? Should I get myself a 50T chainring as well? 50x13 would give me 104 lovely inches. Probably don't even really need 102. But anyway) will give me a higher gear should that seem to give me better F200 times. And 95 is a nice in-between gear for racing at BBN. Oh yus, I spill all of my secrets hereabouts...

Oh, so the training. Well, that went well enough aside from exploding tyres, felt suitably strong and stuff, and almost chased down Nic's bad back on the 102" 1/2 lap. And the sun came out, which was friendly of it. Groovy.

Beatles

Or should that be 'beetle'? I start this post with a disclaimer - I'm really tired. Not been sleeping well all week and been really busy. So, I'm not too devastated that I failed in all of today's lifts. A bit, maybe, but, you know...

So squats actually generally felt okay, my stance and drive and so on felt fairly good, but my endurance was crappy - by the end of the first set I could barely hold tension through my torso for an entire rep, and each rep got harder and harder to keep tight. By the third rep of the second set, I decided to give it away, as I was back to just bullying the weight back up, which wasn't doing me any good.

I decided to keep the plan for the day rather than backing off, and it almost paid off for the press - 57.5kgs went up 14 TIMES. Damnit. But the 4th rep of the third set, I kid you not, took me a good ten or so seconds to lock out. How's that for strength-endurance? But I was absolutely roasted. No way I could even imagine attempting the final rep, I was as exhausted as a set of deads.

Speaking of which, I tried a slightly different approach to the warmup for the deadlift today - a set of 5 at 60kg, then a single at 120kg to warm up for 157.5kg. Didn't, on this occasion at least, work. I had three attempts at the bar and only got it off the ground about 10cms on the second try. Not because the weight was too heavy (though of course it was heavy!) but because despite at least 10 minutes of rest, I still had nothing and just couldn't set myself solidly.

So not the best session. Two of the attempts were PRs though, and I very nearly got the Press despite being so tired. Better to have gone than not, just the same.

Iron Maiden

So back to the gym I went, determined to have some better form in the squats. One thing (yes, another thing!) I realised was that I've been doing the valsalva a bit wrong (or, at least, it's crept that way) as I've tended to take a breath and suck in, rather than push out. I don't think this is all of my troubles, but doing it right today (at least, I think so!) more consistently helped see more consistently better form. Not perfect, and not every rep, but good enough that I got 15 done at 120kg much easier than has been the case. Even the last one where I completely lost tension, ended up in a full squat at a dead stop, and by gods pushed it back up anyway. With a bit of rounding, but I reckon, in this instance, I can be forgiven it.

Next was bench, up to 70kgs this week. I've had many, many attempts at 70kg, but never pushed all 15 up - until today! It wasn't a doddle, but it didn't feel unbearably hard at all. So a new 3x5 PR, and up to 72.5 next week.

Powercleans at 75kg... so close, but not quite close enough! Even with 8-10 min in between every workset, by the time I get to these I'm getting rather tired. And that's not good for a power exercise which relies on good form and a well-timed snap! Just the same it was only the second-last rep of the third set that I couldn't rack, but there was much usage of arm-pulling before I got to that, it must be conceded. So I'll stay at 75 next time, try to work on getting that jump/shrug happening properly at heavier weights.

SSS Round 3

Well all in all that was a bit of a bizarre day. Actually it started yesterday, when I rolled my left ankle and was limping around strapped up, telling myself that once you're clipped in with toe-straps done up, the ankle barely moves anyway.

So naturally as I roll out for my flying 200, as soon as I get on to the track, before even putting any power down, I pull my wheel - and I'm all strapped in, nowhere near the fence. Fortunately I manage to get enough leverage - with my left foot - to unclip and pull out of the pedal before I topple over. Thank the all-mighty Druw, for now, for 0 degrees of float.

So I went back to the end of the queue, waited for another 15 or so riders, cooled down thoroughly in the strong southerly, and eventually went out again. I was happy with my effort, felt like I jumped at the right point from about the right speed, kept accelerating down the back straight, and held the speed to the line - but only a 13.8 this month. Most times today (except A-grade, who weren't much slower, and Chris Dann, who was faster!) were more than 0.5 seconds slower, so I guess it's okay.

First race I was up against Nic again, and had the lead. I decided to leave him plenty of room, expecting that he would want to jump over the top of me. I was hoping to out-jump him, at least enough to keep him high, but not give him my wheel to sling around as he's done before in training. That didn't quite work, as he jumped out of turn 4 and managed to get past me in to turn 1, so I was on his wheel instead. Perhaps I should have taken height in turn 3? I suspect that would have been too late, so I just tried to come around him. And I almost almost made it, lost by what seemed like a tyre or so. Maybe it was half a wheel, I'm not sure - I was too busy trying to stay upright after pulling my foot off the pedal - strap and all. Somehow not only had the (brand-new. Well, okay, maybe two weeks old) cleat come out of the pedal, but I'd snapped all 4 cable ties that held the strap on to the pedal. I'm still not sure exactly how - I think that my heel may have clipped the chainstay, but I can't be sure. Why though? No idea. Unless in trying to protect my foot and be gentle, I didn't stomp the cleat in to the pedal hard enough and so was never properly clipped in. Impossible to know now. What happened though was that I wrenched my ankle even more, making it hard to even walk. I was not looking forward to my next race against Chris!

Chris had the lead for this one, and I decided to give this whole 'jumping from turn four' business a go. Didn't work though! I didn't really kick hard enough (not because my ankle hurt, but probably partly because I was aware that my ankle was sore. As it were) but in any case I jumped a bit too late to get the best advantage, and Chris (who probably has the better jump of the two of us in any case) held me off to the first corner and, unlike with Nic, I couldn't come around and Chris won easily.

So it was down to the last race against Ben, which was a dead rubber since the finals in 4-man B-Grade were set already, to give me my first win in B-Grade in my 4th round of racing there. I had the lead, and looked to hold the pace at a reasonable level so that I didn't have to jump hard from a low speed. Ben was sitting in right behind me, which makes it harder to see, but at least I didn't have to worry about him having height. He was sitting back a couple of lengths, which meant that I had to watch for him coming up to my wheel with speed. I covered that though, and coming in to turn one I wound the pace up - not a hard jump, but enough to make it hard for Ben to come around. I kept increasing the speed and coming out of turn 4 I had a look around to see Ben still a bike length back - finally, my first win in B!

But I still had to back-up for the 3v4 final, again against Ben. This time it was three laps, and this time Ben had the lead. I was unsure how he was going to play it, but was worried that he might elect to make it a 900-metre pursuit - and that's exactly what he did. I decided to just let it go for the first lap, see what the gap was and how I was feeling before deciding whether to panic or not. As we came up to 2 to go I felt comfortable despite not getting any draft from Ben, and the gap had stabilised to about 5 lengths - enormous, really, but we were only doing 40-odd. So I reassured myself that not jumping after him was the best thing to do, and worked on steadily increasing my pace. I was briefly uncertain coming up to one lap to go as the gap was still about 3 lengths and I was gearing myself up for an actual sprint, but as we closed upon the 200m line I could see that it wouldn't be necessary, as Ben was clearly flagging. After passing I had a quick look back and saw that he hadn't kicked again to get on my wheel, so I just rolled on with one more quick glance to be sure coming out of turn 4 before sitting up to roll over for third - my second win in B, and first podium! Sure, it was a tiny field in B, but third is third, damnit!

What is there to learn? Well, I probably shouldn't have left Nic quite so much room, I doubt he needed so big an invitation to jump. Still, it could almost as easily have been a win. Chris, well, I feel like I can beat him (at least sometimes!), but I haven't managed it in a race as yet. A combination of imperfect tactics and insufficient power application. Ben, well, it's a different set of tactics to an all-out sprint, and I managed to work it well both times, so that's something to be happy about at least.

A couple of months now before there's any more sprints - more SSS, and perhaps Vic Masters? It's a season goal, but given that I'll be racing against other Masters like Neil, and possibly Dino and Chris Ray depending on what entries are like, I'm not anywhere near the level of looking at medals. But then, goals aren't necessarily for the achieving so much as for their utility in driving training!

Tapper tapper tapper

Nothing very exciting today, just 3 downhill sprints. I did the same as last time, except in 53x14 this time to more closely simulate race gearing, and with a bit of a gusty headwind to contend with. The results were fairly similar except for the Ivanhoe sprint, being rather exposed to the wind. But the goal really was to sharpen up for the weekend, and I think I more or less managed that, and hopefully didn't blunt anything via my not-exactly-recovery average HR of 155. Rest tomorrow, bit of shpinny shpinny on Saturday, and all fired up for Sunday!

Eels

Squats still suck. Ended up doing the last set at 100kg after not completing sets 1&2. Bah.

Press rocks - 55kg went up 15 times no worries, to get me back to where I was with the press 10 weeks ago. Huzzah! Next time we shoot for a PR.

Deadlift at 155kg also rocks. I was getting tired, and a bit rounded, but by gads it still went up 5 times. Cool.

BBN #3

I was slightly surprised at the turnout, the day after the metro championships, but there were a good 8 or 9 sprinters on show. I, of course, showed up late, and so was playing catchup a bit - no surprises there.

After the warmup powerjump it was on to Flying 100s on 99", just working on the jump and the line, trying to keep low through turn 4. I generally do that fairly well, though today I ended up around the red, partly because the drill only went to the end of turn 3. Speed was okay at around 53-54, but not quite all-out.

After that was powerjumps out of turn 4 - one just to the end of the straight, then two for the full lap-and-a-a-bit. The idea was for the inside rider to keep the outside rider up high by not diving for the lane, an interesting tactic which seemed to work well, though I wasn't actually on the inside for any of the drills! For the second drill I was with Em, who kept me up high down the front straight but on 99" I just had too much rollout for her down the back straight. After that I was trio-d with Jarrod and John, and jumped from about 20m behind to pull around for the 'win'.

After that I dropped back down to 86" for a one-lap match sprint against Hayden, a chap who had randomly stopped by with his family and who proceeded to thump us all. He'll be in A-Grade next week if he keeps his promise to come along! Turns out he was a pursuiter with the AIS some 12 years ago. He's got an enormous jump, which I was hoping to negate by pumping the speed up high (hardly likely to happen in just one lap!) or by getting him going the wrong way and stealing a break. That latter almost worked coming through turn one - I pulled up the track, he started following and then I went to dive sharply down behind him while he was going the wrong way. He saw it though and turned steeper up the bank, leaving me to swerve back as I couldn't be sure I'd miss his rear wheel. A few seconds later he jumped and got a bit of a gap. I followed but pulled my wheel slightly - and was surprised that he didn't get as far away as I thought he would, 'only' winning by a second or so.

Nothing terribly exciting from the evening, solid training session but no notable results. This week is a taper for Round Three, and with any luck I'll actually do it properly this time and be in good shape for the weekend!

Everclear

More gymnal frustration. And two new 3x5RMs.

Squats at 120kg... well, they were awful. 4, 3 and 2. My form was atrocious, no lower back control, just all over the shop. I really am thinking myself out of this. Annoying. But, I have an idea...

Bench I took up to 67.5, and got all 15 - the last rep of each set was a bit of a push, but it never felt in danger. And while I've done 14 reps at 70, it's my highest 3x5, so call it a new PR. Cool.

Powercleans went up to 72.5, and they went up pretty well. Again, the last couple (of 4!) in each set weren't quite so clean, but the form still felt about right - not pulling with the arms, jumping and shrugging, and it generally felt good. I was just tired! So that's another PR. Also cool.

So I'm pondering switching things around - warming up with squats, switching to the other two (bench/powercleans or press/deads) to get myself completely switched on through workset(s) before finishing with squat worksets. It's something that I feel might work for me - though perhaps in between press and deadlifts. A set of 5 heavy deads leaves me about able to sit down, and that's it! But the press is heavy enough that it should get the neural activation going, get the focus in, get me aware that yes, I can lift heavy things. It's a thought, anyway.

If it was just strength/focus/recovery holding me back due to the focus on on-bike stuff, I wouldn't mind. But it's not, it's mental. And that means I can fix it. I hope!

Do not Spin. Do not collect $200

Well today was meant to be some spin, but instead I had an interview to go to and a 20km return ride. Not too bad, but it turned out to be enough for me - 308 metres of climbing is hardly epic, but when most of it is packed in to 2.5kms of 7-10%, it's enough to do me. Have I mentioned that I don't do hills any more? Not that I ever really did, but now even less so! Still, these are hills I'm going to have to tame - not to get up them in a minimum time, but at minimum HR. I was quite happy to do my recovery ride on Tues at an average of only 127 bpm, and fancied that it indicated that I was getting used to such a ride again after ages of not doing it. An average of 151 bpm at an average moving speed of only 21km/hr (including the 70km/hr descent on the way back!) indicates a distance to go yet!

Bloody music things

All this thinking of band names, it's too hard! Especially when I'm not really going anywhere with the weights. Well, that's not entirely true - I set a 1RM in the squat. But it wasn't exactly planned that way...

I was intending to stay at 110kg 3x5 today, and worked up to that. Taking 110 out of the rack after my warmup sets though felt really heavy, and after 1 rep I wasn't sure if I could make it. I did a second, and my form was awful so I racked again and pondered for a while. After a bit I reluctantly started taking the 5kg plates off the end, before I stopped again.

You see, I've been taking weight off, and significant amounts of it, each time I squat - it's almost reverse linear progress. My 3x5RM is 130kg (okay, with not-so-set back) and here I am, struggling on 110kg even to do a couple of reps. My sleep has been a little off, and I suspect I'm not eating enough (it's always hard to judge when losing weight. I'm going to start tracking again for a week or so, see how it's going) but that's a huge amount back. So I began to think that perhaps I should load weight ON, to at least counter the psychological element.

So that's what I did - not for sets of 5, but just for singles; feel the weight on my back, feel how my body reacted, and see if I could get it up. So I loaded 120kg - one rep, down and up, felt fairly good, a little rounding but felt fairly firm (didn't take the camera today unfortunately!) Waited 5 minutes or so, loaded 130kg on and did another one. I could actually feel the back break at the bottom of this one, but held it and managed to push back up without too significant an effort. So up to 140kg, heavier than I've ever done (previous was my 3RM, 135kg.) This time the back really broke, and it was a struggle getting it back up, but by gods it went back up.

So what have I learned? That I really am strong enough, and I've been cowering under the bar a bit. I need to strengthen my back, improve my control, but if I keep dropping the weight I'll just get weaker, not my back stronger. So I'll continue to focus on the back between sessions, put the bar back to 120kg for the next session, and if I get 3x5 there with reasonable form I'll head back up 2.5kg at a time.

After that, back to the press, and having acquired some 1.25kg plates I loaded up 52.5kg and sent it on its way. I practised the Mark Rippetoe double hip-whip (which I'm sure looks ridiculous to bystanders) and got it up, 15 times. Excellent.

Deadlift... well, one set at 80kg, and then 155 didn't want to move. Perhaps not having chalk didn't help so much on that one - must make sure to remember it.

A mixed session, but I've come out of it feeling positive and like I have more direction. Which is groovy.

BBN #2 for summer (well, late spring really)

Halfway to the track tonight it suddenly occurred to me that attempting to ride without pedals would not be terribly successful. So I ended up arriving at my traditional time of Late, with a hurried couple of laps and a powerjump before the frivolities started in earnest.

First up - I really need a 96" for Blackburn. I rode 92" this afternoon, except for the sprint at the end on 86", and it feels a little too small. 99" on Blackburn is still probably a little large for me when there's wind (ie: usually) and 96" is kinda in the middle there. Have to order a 50t... I know I said I was going to do that already, but I haven't had a chance to budget - and with Christmas coming up, budgetting is a scary, scary thing...

Anyway, started off with a couple of 'paired' Flying 200s, in threes. I lead out the first one, and... that's about all I know. Noone came past. Garmin tells me the max was 52.8, but I forgot to turn the GPS off, so it also tells me I did a lot of riding in the carpark, playground and neighbouring ovals so I don't think I'll pay much attention to it. Especially since I also apparently recorded a cadence of 237.

Second 200 I was in the second spot, and spent the last 50 metres or so before the jump trying to avoid the wheel in front - I kept thinking it was jumping, jumping, jumping... in the end the jump came just a bit before the 200 line, so didn't really have a chance to drop the wheel and so on. Instead I let a little gap open to run in to and around, and that worked well enough. I dropped back down in to the lane and eased up coming to the line, only to hear a last-minute rush on my outside as the rider in third closed in. I held him off, and so won the adulation of crickets and balloons everywhere.

Next up we were practising a common move at Blackburn - jumping from the exit of corner 4 with about 350m to go. First one went fine, though I could hear a strange clicking sound coming from underneath me somewhere by the end. Sensibly, I ignored it and just lay my bike down in between efforts, before realising during the wind-up for the next that it was my cadence magnet hitting the sensor - I must have pulled the wheel ever so slightly in my previous matchup. This time I was against Chris, who out-jumped me down the straight and then refused to stop pedalling so that I could get back around him. After getting off the bike I noticed that the tyre was actually rubbing - not quite enough to drag, but enough that it couldn't be spun more than half a revolution.

So I fixed that, changed gears, and rocked back in for another sprint against Nic - we were, of course, both entirely spent. This time though I managed to actually jump out of turn two, pull ahead of him down the back straight and drop in to the lane to take the win, which was nice - I'd been telling myself that I wasn't going to do what I did last week and simply give in to feeling tired, but to go as hard as possible anyway, so pleased that I managed that.

I also managed, on every jump but one, to pull my left cleat out of the pedal - thank FSM for straps. Not sure an OS delivery will get here in time for this weekend, so might have to pay double and source that one locally...

Brief stats and humorous map here.

Road Sprints

I knew this was going to be tough, but it was tougher than that! 20km commute, 3 uphill sprints, 3 downhill sprints. Sounds entirely doable like that, but hills aren't exactly averaged out on my commute in. In fact, 4 of the sprints were done by the time I got to about the 15 minute mark...

So the first one, uphill sprint on ~4% grade. I had slight problems with gear selection, but I still managed to make it a 30-second effort over about 275 metres. I hit just over 35 at about 80RPM and held it there the rest of the way, finishing at about 33km/hr. Strava tells me I hit over 1200W, which I'm certain is accurate. Give or take 40% or so. Not bad for a warmup.


Then 2 minutes later, it was time for the downhill sprint. I started at about 55/102, and finished at about 67/122 over about 250m. Pretty good, though it's still slightly downhill after the run-in - Strava reckons 3%, but again, that's probably accurate within about 40%.

I then had 3 whole minutes before the start of the next uphill sprint, this one 110m up a 6% climb. I started more than halfway up this one, so if I ever do it again I should probably start it earlier. I peaked at 30/74 in just 16 seconds, so half the length of the first one. But having so little rest between, I'm not sure how much longer I could have gone. Certainly I was crawling along at about 5km/hr afterwards!


But just a minute and a half later it was time for sprint number 4, and it showed. I started at 49.7/87 and peaked at 54.3/99 over 200m, Strava power a measly 700W. Time though for a bit of rest, if you can call climbing through Heidelberg rest!  There was no way I was sprinting along Burgundy or Studley, so the next sprint would be along the flat post Ivanhoe descent on Heidelberg Road. Not something one would do in peak hour, but at 14:30, just fine.

I considered doing the full Red Rooster sprint, but piked in the end - not sure if that was a sensible idea, or if I should've kept going up the hill for that bit of extra capacity work. So it was 220m from the boulevard to the end of the bridge, entering at 58 with 0 cadence, losing about 1km/hr before accelerating up to nearly 61km/hr at 110RPM.

I finished with something else I'd never dream of doing in peak hour - a sprint up the Hoddle Street overpass. Accelerated all the way up to 40/99 over the top, before cruising the rest of the way to my destination. Rooted! This is why I'm no good at road racing.

Delilah

Well this should be the start of some more regular gym training for a bit, and hopefully some better form in my squat.

I dropped the weight again, down to 110kg, after plating up at 120kg. If necessary I'll go lighter still, but I think it'll be okay at 110kg. My form wasn't perfect, but my back was much better. Another couple of sessions there, get the back perfect and stronger, then work back up again, see how it goes. It's not like I need to squat 150kg by Christmas.

Bench, still at 65kg, mainly because I haven't bought 1.25kg plates yet. But I'll hopefully get them shortly and start back up on the bench. I'm not confident to make 5kg jumps at this weight without a spotter, but I feel that I can still progress.

Powercleans up to 70kg, and the form wasn't so good - the shrug is a lot harder to do even than 65kgs! I got them all, but don't think I'd get 75, and certainly not cleanly. Again, 1.25kg plates should come in handy.

Not so much DOMS after this one, but still rather tired and sore. It'll be great to get back past that again!

Successful Recovery

It's not tremendously exciting, but for the first time since I've been training, on a recovery ride I actually kept my average heartrate in my recovery-type zone thingie, under 139. 138, that is! Sounds silly, but when you're riding through the hills of Ivanhoe, Viewbank and Montmorency and you're built like... well, a very large sprinter, is not so easy.

DISC #3 for Summer

Oh, the glories of a strength session! Let me see. Race Gear + 4? No worries, call it 99". Race Gear? No worries, call it 99". At least for the 82" match sprints I went back to 86". Hopefully I'll be getting a new chain ring, chain and cleats this week sometime...

So 99" 1/4, 1/4, 1/2 powerjumps from 10km/hrish, nothing terribly exciting. The two half-lap seated powerjumps from 25ish were slightly more interesting, got up to 53.2 on the first one after making more of a conscious effort to accelerate through the middle of the range.

But it was with the motorbike efforts that the fun really began. A 250m MACC on 99" was always going to lead to tears of joy. My jump, as always, was a bit suspect, but I worked to try to continue pushing through to get back on the roller and push the speed up as high as I could. And it worked reasonably, steadily accelerating for the first ~150m, hitting a top of just over 63 and maintaining over 60 almost to the line, probably back to 58 as I crossed. Not quite up to my goals yet, but progressing.

The 500m windout didn't quite go to plan - again on 99", this time no jump just a steady acceleration. And that went fine until turn 2, ~300m in, where I came too far forward on the saddle, had too much weight on the bars and started weaving all over the place, wobbling for King and Country. So instead of hooning down the back straight at 62/63, I dropped back to 58/59 and more or less sat there through the last 100m on my own to the line. Opportunity missed, though I still hit nearly 63.

That was originally supposed to be it, but we lined up for some more match sprint practice instead. I was paired with Nic, who was talking the whole way around about how he had nothing left. I didn't bother letting him know that I had nothing either! We had a bit of bumping practice through turn 1/2 as Nic tried to push me up the track and I decided that actually no, I like it here just fine thank you! So I was actually in a good position coming out of turn 2, right next to him with a bit more height and run off the bank. Trouble was, I couldn't jump! I just kinda rolled down and tried to accelerate in the saddle. I saw Nic get out and thought... nup. Not gonna happen. It was basically a race to turn three, see who could claim the lane, and I was never in danger of getting there. I'm frankly astounded that my garmin shows a max speed of 53-odd - I would have guessed I hit mid-40s at most! A good little bit of extra tactical experience though.

Queen

I think Freddie Mercury's about right for today's effort! It's been a long time since I've been in the gym, so I wasn't exactly expecting miracles - squat was at just 120kgs, press at 50 and deadlift ended up at 150, after a bit of hemming and hawing.

Squats were tough, especially by the third set - my form felt rather scatty, just trying to remember how to do them! By the third set it was getting impossible to even set my back, and I stopped after just two reps - I could have muscled them up, I reckon, but they would have been ugly and not progressed me anywhere. I'll stay at 120 until I'm confident that I can hold my back all the way through, and then slowly progress back up.

Press at 50 felt good and I had no problems getting all 15 reps, though I notice that now that I've stopped pausing at the bottom, Mark Rippetoe is recommending stopping and whipping the hips instead. Whatever. I'll go with that which feels like it works best!

Deadlift on a 'normal' progression probably would have been 160, and I thought 140 would be a sensible stop for this return - it's been 4 weeks since I deadlifted! Instead I ended up deciding on 150, and made them, though it was really tough and I tried a reverse grip for the last rep. No idea if it helped or not, but I got it up! My back was a bit rounded, hips a bit high on this as well, but that's easier to fix than for the squat. Should be fine by the time I return to the dead in 2 weeks.

Lessons

Well, I've learned at least one! That is, sometimes you have to train at 9 at night, else you'll never get anything done.

:05 2 x 6s HCLR:1 (39x23 : 46")
:10 2 x 7s PG+12 (107") SS (R,L):4
:18 4 x 7s BGSS (116") seated L,R,L,R:3
:30 4 x 6s BGRS (116") (20) seated:3
:42 2 x 12s HCLR:2

 Which program looks deceptively similar to one just a moon or so ago... excellent! Chance for a direct comparison, no? Well... no. Or at least, not really. Last night I was training out on the verandah in a thunderstorm. Actually, the thunder had gone by then and it was just rain, but that's not quite so impressive. So humidity was high, and though nothing was wet, I suspect that affected the results. But for all that...

107" SSes, which I've been doing a bit of, hit a top of 149/76.9km/hr. Wow! Bestest result ever!!#*! Well, for a few minutes, anyway...

Going through the 116" SSes the numbers just kept on climbing, until I hit 142/80.2km/hr. 80.2! That's insane. I'm sure I'm getting stronger, and I've certainly had plenty of rest lately, but it's still suspicious. It's not a spike, because everything last night was high (from minute 10 to minute 39, the lowest result I had was my first one, at 76.5km/hr) but that just points towards lowered resistance due to humidity. So I'd expect that next time my numbers will be lower than this. If I hit 80 again, inside, on a 'normal' day, perhaps then I'll get a bit more excited. I'd be more excited about hitting 65 on the velo though!

Anyway, stats are here, for what they're worth!

Samson?

No gym today. Today rest day, so have tooth pulled out instead. I BLAME COACH.

SSS Round 2

I have almost no idea what to say about Round 2 at this point. On the one hand, I managed a PB at BBN of 13.567 for the Flying 200 - almost precisely what I managed a couple of days after Round 1, and half a second faster than my previous best. I'd forgotten to turn my Garmin on (hooray! shout all those who think I over-analyse)  but presumably the pattern was similar to that run. My jump was okay, though the transition down the track was a little shaky and probably cost me a tenth or so. I didn't feel like my general sickness/fatigue/listlessness affected me too much, though my 'resting' heart rate (not straight out of bed, but just sitting around) was around 100 and I was very strained afterwards. Still, a good ride and room for improvement. Not sub-13 though (not that I was actually expecting that, but) so I BLAME COACH. Still owe him a porsche though, apparently.

So this time I was 5th out of 7 in B, rather than 6th out of 6, and 25 100ths faster than the slowest time in B, rather than 3 10ths slower than the second-slowest. I was (un?)lucky enough to get a bye, which meant that I only had two races in the heats. First up I was against Chris Dann, and he had the lead. I've trained a bit with him, including a couple of weeks ago at this very velodrome, and I thought I had an idea of what I needed to do to beat him, knowing full well that he was good enough to beat me if I did it poorly, or if he did something else. I was basically hoping to get to about 250m out and jump from there, from as near to next to him as I could manage.

And... well, that's about precisely what happened. Except that I dropped a bike length behind him - which turned it in to something more like a flying 200 following rider tries to pass than a powerjump, and the result was the same - he beat me, and again I basically gave up by about turn 3. Except that I could almost swear by the Garmin record that I actually hit my top speed of over 57km/hr about the time I crossed the pursuit line, only 20m or so from the finish. Which seems bizarre. In fact, the whole thing is a little odd - after jumping from 39-49 in 3 seconds, I then added 1 km/hr per second for the next 8 seconds. With no appreciable difference around the time I felt that I'd given up and stopped controlling my line. Which makes it seem likely that my head had given up, I'd lost focus (partly... mostly? because of being sick and without pizzazz. Or something) without properly informing my body, which for wont of some more definitive direction just kept on pushing until it stopped. But I'm certainly not good enough to win races with that level of commitment, certainly not against someone like Chris Dann.

My second race was against Jonathon Dent, an U17 rider I've never seen before but who qualified as much faster than me as I was to Chris. I had the lead this time, and as last round my plan was to get the pace up, keep it high and have a more steadily-increasing speed drag race rather than a jump from slower speeds. And again, I managed to do that, I controlled the race fairly well. As expected he came past me towards the end of the back straight - but I was prepared for that, and increased my speed, trying to keep him on my hip. I reacted though, rather than just accelerating 20m or so before turn 3, so instead I more or less held him on my shoulder, and coming out of turn 4 we were basically side by side. Not surprisingly, from there he took the win by a wheel or so. At least in that race my focus was much better, and even though the time between races was much shorter than between the F200 and my first race, I felt better.

But that was it for me for the day - not even a free 'win' to boost my tally to 9 points could help, and I was well out of the finals. I had intended to stay to watch the rest of my Splat! and aboc sprint squad team mates race their finals, but I was suddenly overcome very dispirited and demoralised, and so unsociably departed to go home and curl up in bed.

Time to shake off this cold-y flu-y thing, get back on the keto, get back in the bluddy gym and perhaps spend more time on the velo than on the trainer, get more bike handling and power-transferring at speed training in. Just as I'm about to start work again and find my time disappearing. Ah well. Ain'tn't nobody gonna pay me to ride my bike!

Bleugh

Now I sick. Maybe why I feel crap yesterday. I blame Coach. Just because. Hope be better Sunday.

Tapering

Me no like coach. Coach say to me, he say "You no go gym. You taper."
I say "..."
I say "But me have to go gym or I turn in to boy-man squat 27.5kg 5RM!"
Coach say "You go gym, you get DOMS, you not recover, you ride bad. You no go gym."
I say "But how I taper from nothing?"
He say "You not get stronger, you not get faster. You rest."
I say "..."
I say "Yes Coach."
I rest. I rest more than even coach tell me to. I ride today, sprint, and feel crap. I blame coach.
I ride sub-13 on Sunday or Coach, he in big trouble.

ABOC Summer #2 with DISC

Or something like that. After yesterdays spinning 'warmup' I felt in a reasonable place for a bit of sprinting action. First up we did some powerjumps on (for me) 86", 2 x 3/4 lap. I lead out the first one with Dino, jumped at the 200 line from mid-30s and sprinted to the line unchallenged. Second one I was in second position and followed Dino's jump down the back straight. Here I was in a good sort of position to go around him, but I just haven't been able to get that move right, and I came out of his draft and just sat there, finishing a bike length back - right where I started!

After that we went up to race gear, 99", and did a motorpaced entry + 150m. I jumped poorly, but still managed to hit 61.4 coming out of turn 2, but couldn't quite hold that down the back straight, dropping back to about 57 which I held to the end.

Partnered Flying 200s, and I lead out the first against Craig. The jump again was ordinary, and I rather dove down in to the lane before the 200 line rather than smoothly coming down and still up around the red line at that point. I actually accelerated down the back straight this time, up to around 57 from 55, and held that to the line pretty well. The next one was similar, following Craig this time, except that I was meant to lay off coming out of turn two, take height, run down in to the slipstream and around. Again I got it wrong, not taking enough space and rather diving back down behind him leaving me with not much of a run. So I pulled back out too sharply, got stuck on his hip and couldn't pull past. Marginally closer than with Dino, but not much!

We finished with another 1.5 lap match sprint, and I was up against Jarrod this time. I was behind him, and had plenty of height when he went with about a lap to go. I was half intending to practice the laying off again, but I just plain had too much speed and muscled around him instead. So not quite the right sort of practice.

One thing that's become enormously more apparent as I've gotten stronger in the gym and on the trainer is that that's not really being transferred to the track very well. I'm almost scared jumping for a flying 200 because my bike handling just isn't good enough, especially at DISC. Or, at least, I've convinced myself that this is so. And I did hit the fence with my foot winding up for the second 200. I don't have a power meter, but I reckon if I did it'd show that I was down a good 10% at least in my jumps compared to on the trainer, and quite possibly more (I mean, I've never trained with power, so I can't really quantify. But you get the idea.) Simply because I'm lacking in confidence and skill. More training I guess! And at least BBN isn't quite so slippery...

My capacity for spinning is bounded...

So here we go, back to training again. And it was a bit of a horrible session really, but I coped better than I thought given my lack of training this week:

:05 2 x 6s HCLR:1 (39x23 : 46")
:10 2 x 7s PG+12 (107") SS (R,L):4
:18 2 x 8s PG RS(80) (93") seated:3
:24 24s PG RS(80) (93") r/up seated 8:100, 8:130, 8:max
:31 30s PGSS (93") seated unpaced
:38 21s PG+8 (99") RS (60) r/up 7:100, 7:130, 7:max

There was supposed to be a couple of HCLRs on the end of that, but I didn't last that long.

107" SSes were very good, especially given the layoff. 147/75.1 starting with the right, followed by 143 (or 159?)/75.8 on the left - happy with those!

93" RSes were also satisfying, hitting 157/71 and then ?/69.4 - almost high enough that I'd be resetting my PG again if it was recalibration time!

Then came the awful bits - the capacity work. The first 24 second effort wasn't too bad, ramping up over 130, hitting a top of about 138 and holding it fairly well the whole way through.

The next effort, 30 seconds unpaced (that is, going hard (if not quite a 100% sprint) from the beginning and holding it as long as possible) didn't quite last the distance - in fact, it lasted pretty much about 24 seconds! I held the speed up pretty well though, over 60km/hr for about the first 18 seconds or so, then fighting it down to about 55km/hr to 24ish seconds before grinding to a halt a couple of seconds later!

One last effort, 21 second rampup, I managed the distance though not the cadence targets - it was more like 100/110/129(max) and the last 7 second effort was rather peaky, rather than hitting and sustaining. And then I was done - I stayed there, trying to get myself in a state to be able to do the closing 10s HCLRs, but just couldn't manage it. If it weren't my first session back, I'd've pushed myself, but not this time. Next spin I'll complete!

Lifestyle Periodisation

It's what happens when life just says: "Look, mate, you're just not going to train this week. Remember on Monday, when you had a couple of hours but were still recovering from Sunday? And Wednesday, when you felt guilty about 'wasting' time at the gym when the house was still a mess? Well, guess what? That was all the time you had this week, my friend."

I did one 20km ride on Tuesday, home from school dropoff, in which I at least included a few hill sprints and one 'flying 200', as it were. And now my daughter's sick and I can't even take time away from her (except now, at 9pm - I'm sure I would jump on the trainer now if I wanted it bad enough, even though I got 2 hours sleep last night) to do 45 minutes because she's so miserable.

Next week, theoretically, would be a taper for SSS Round 2. But I'm not sure it's possible to taper down from a week of nothing. So here's the plan. Fri: 1/2 Spin. Sat: Spin. Sun: DISC. Mon: Gym. Tues: Recovery. Wed: Spin. Thurs: 20km road ride. Fri: Recovery. Sat: 'Sharpen'. Sun: Race.

BBN Numero the One for Summer

So, I may have turned up a trifle late. Again. Again I had an excuse - my daughter's school Spring Fair. And it should all be over now. Probably Maybe.

Anyway, did a couple of 1/4 lap powerjumps on my own on 86" as warmup. Not bad, hit a top of 46.5, over 77m as opposed to the 62.5 of DISC. Next up I went up to 99" against Chris Dann for a 3/4lap powerjump - a good 230m or so. I was on the inside, jumping from 35km/hr or so, hit a top of 54.5 some 30m from the line, and crossed at about 52.6 after pulling away from Chris through turn 3.

We then moved on to Flying 200s in pairs, and the first one Chris lead out and took his revenge - I wasn't recovered very well from the powerjump, and after giving myself a bit of space coming out of the jump, just couldn't manage to increase my pace coming around him and basically gave up by turn 4, coasting in behind him, almost coming undone by going underneath him because he slowed coming in to the straight when I expected him to pull away, before remembering that we don't go that way and swinging back up the track. After a bit of rest, I lead out the next one and managed to hold him off, hitting a top of 55.3 and crossing the line, according to my Garmin, at about 28.2km/hr. Amusing things happen on the velodrome with GPS enabled.

Finally it was a 1.5 lap match sprint against Emily, back down to 86". She was (nominally) leading, and watching carefully. I looked for any gaps, thinking about taking an early jump, but was content to leave it later so long as the pace was high enough, and we were tracking about 30 so that was okay. I drew up next to her coming in to turn 1 on the last lap and jumped with the advantage of height. I wasn't quite able to draw past her, though I probably could have dropped down in to the lane by the end of the back straight, but I'm not quite confident about that yet. As it was, after slipping a couple of times up on the blue line, I ran really wide coming out of turn 4 and only just hung on to beat her, hitting a top of just over 55km/hr.

I'm pretty happy with that training, having had a very busy and tiring weekend. Granted, I was training with people who (by Round 1 F200 times) are a bit slower than me, so I could have hit precisely the same numbers and lost each match-up against, say, Nic. But overall it felt pretty good, I was marginally less clueless than in the afore-mentioned Round 1, and I'm feeling happier with not just my jump, but accelerating in the middle of the race, down the back straight and coming out of turn 4. Hopefully Round 2 will be more successful than Round 1...

Unspun

Well, I was supposed to do some spinning this week, but it didn't quite eventuate. Tuesday and Thursday saw me riding out of and in to the city (and will continue to do so for the next couple of months) at... not quite recovery pace. Well, Tuesday wasn't so bad, an average HR of 140 - right at the top of my recovery zone. Thursday though was 162 - or about 82% of MHR. Average. Highest was 195 - just down from MHR by a few beats. 35% of the ride was above 170bpm. So... not quite recovery. Then I spent hours today putting up a... well, they call it a marquee, but it used to be a circus tent. Wielding a sledgehammer in the rain has never been so much fun! So call it an atypical week. Oh, and it looks like I should add an 'excuses' tag...

Judas Priest

Well this one was another virtual repeat - everything's been reset!

Squats back to 120, and I made a point of at least starting with a better back position. I didn't keep it that way though, and still the form doesn't seem great. Not really bad, and there was little upper back rounding, for example. But every time I got down near parallel my lower back would round. But I guess at least I'm more aware of it, and it's something I can continue to work on as I take the weight back up.

Bench I did 65kg again, which actually makes three sessions in a row I've successfully done 65kgs. Time to take it up, perhaps?

Powercleans up to 65, and again I felt a nice rhythm - at least, after the first 2 or 3 of the first set. The second and third set went up really cleanly, nice powerful jump and shoulder action, so I'm happy with that.

It should also be noted that since starting lifting (and going low-carb/high protein) I've actually dropped 7kgs or so. Still at least 12kgs to go, but it's heading in the right direction. As noted though, it might make it unlikely that my lifts will increase much over the summer period. But next winter, look out! 2xBW squat, you're mine...

DISC Summer #1 with ABOC

Nice to get back on the track today after lots of spinning and lifting. I was on standby as support for Team Splat!'s Around the Bay epic which left me rather late getting to DISC, and without a partner for powerjumps when he defected to the enduro stream!

Accelerations generally felt a bit soft tonight, especially on 86" but even up on 99". My body just didn't feel right. I hit about 43km/hr in each 1/4 lap powerjump on 86", but felt like I should have been able to get higher.

The next drill was a F150 with a motorpaced entry on 99". I was pretty happy with this despite the sloppy jump, it felt fast and was - an average speed for the 150m of 60.47 with a top of 62.4 after crossing the 200 line at about 59. In fact, even though it was only a 150m effort, my average speed for the 200 (approx!) was still 59.5 - or only just over 12 seconds. Of course, that's with a motorpaced windup and entry, so even though the 150m was unassisted, doesn't quite mean it equates to an actual 12s F200, even at DISC! Still, nice to go fast.

After that, a full F200 though motorpaced the entire way this time. Again my jump was poor, and I came down off the fence too early, but speed was good - crossed the line at about 55, and accelerated all the way, crossing the line at about 61 (and still accelerating!) for an average of 59km/hr, about a 12.2 or so. All I need to do now is to organise a motorbike for my races...

For the first time in ages (well, a month or so) we did a windout, back on 86" (one day I'll get a new chain so I can go down to 82"... one day). Got up to 61.6 on that, which is a pretty decent effort. I don't have my cadence sensor at the moment, but it would have been up around 150 or so.

Finished off the evening with a practice match sprint - again, I didn't have a partner, but this time I formed a group of three with Merv and someone I don't know. Merv took the lead and I was initially at the back, but moved up through the middle, keeping height. Merv jumped from the bottom with about 300m to go while I stayed up the bank, accelerating and watching the other rider behind me. I saw that he wasn't going to come underneath, so I just dropped down around the 200 line a couple of lengths back, accelerated down the back straight and came up beside Merv just before the turn, held him there, then pulled away to win. Which, all respect to Merv, with my speed I should be able to do, though he's a better rider than I am.

What band plays the music of one man collapsing?

That was the story of my weights session today - one man collapsing. My theory about bar position seemed to be largely confirmed, but it was hard to test as I didn't get past 3 reps in any set, even after deloading to 120kg for the last set. I had no physical or mental drive to really push the weight; somewhere between lack of sleep and lack of adequate nutrition the drive I'd had on Wednesday was gone.

That specific issue aside, I learned enough to decide to reset my squat on the basis of form - the issue I have with getting the right set in the lower back is too significant to fix at the limit of my ability, and while I'm pretty sure I could keep on lifting heavier even with poor form, eventually I'll injure myself.

Press was okay, though just 2 sets at 55kg; the weight was heavy but manageable, but again, just no drive.

Deadlift I decided to set the bar at 160kg just to see what it felt like. The first attempt I aborted, but the second attempt went up fine, no hitching and it felt smooth. I set up for a third, but just as I started to pull I decided that there was no point in attempting a perfect set of deadlifts given how I was feeling. Interestingly, watching the video, I aborted the first attempt because I swung the weight out quite a way (a good 10-15cm) as I lifted it up. The second, successful, attempt swung out a little, but barely an inch or so.

So an awful session, but still points of useful information came out of it.

World Track Masters

In other events, David Willmott was unable to defend his title in the men’s 55-59 sprint, taking the silver medal after being defeated by Gil Hatton of the United States in the final.
Wilmott had breezed through the afternoon qualifying, posting the second fastest flying 200 time of 11.558 behind Richard Voss of the USA who set an unofficial new world best time of 11.458 seconds. -CA

11.458 seconds for the flying 200 in the 55-59 year old age group at the World Track Masters. Jeebus! I'd better get training...

Spin Harder

I know that for many aeons I've held that spin is nothing to get excited about. And it's not, really, because it's not Real Life. Still, sometimes one needs something on those sunny spring afternoons of the soul...

Not that today's session was without its own share of controversy. And it started mildly enough - doing the same program as 2 days ago, I recorded just 182 in the second HCLR and 137/70.3 in the 106"SS. At this point I was wishing that I'd gone lift heavy things instead.

But I gritted the teeth and slapped the thighs and gave it everything for the 116"SSes. And recorded just 72.2 for the first one. Well, I thought, ain't nothin' to it but to do it and pulled out a 133/74.4. Excellent! But, thinks I, that's so close to 75, surely I can do better? And too right I did - 74.5, in fact. Hmm. Not quite what I had in mind. Curses! So I huffed and I puffed and I blew my way to 135/75.3km/hr. Woooo! First time above 75km/hr on the trainer, so I reckon that's worthy of being happy about. No, it's not a KKRM, but hey, it's what I got, oright?

This got me thinking though ("Oh no!" goes up the collective groan.) Last time I managed to go faster on the rolling starts, no? So... let's see what we can do! So as not to bore everyone to absolute tears, I managed a catching-my-breath 72, solid 74.8 and 75.1, before one final effort... and that's where the controversy begins!

See, Garmin Connect just shows max speed/cadence in a lap, which is handy. Golden Cheetah, on the other hand, gives the actual second-by-second values from the unit. According to Garmin Connect I hit 136/76.2. Woot! But Golden Cheetah gives a top of 123/71.97... and 135/70.00km/hr. Eh? So... well, actually, so what! Maybe we get excited about a photo finish for the gold medal. For a PB on a trainer? Not so much. Any way it adds up - is good.

Then for shits and giggles, 24 seconds of HCLR goodness, hitting a top of 203 (and this one does seem to be accurate!) in the last 12s effort. Noice.

Oh, and after much analysis and reflection I'm of the opinion that the problem with my squat can be traced back to having the bar too low on my back. I've been wondering about it for a bit as the weight gets heavier, and I know that I'm always trying to shove the bar as low as I can manage to, thinking that that's the way to do it. And at lighter weights, that's okay - but as the weight gets heavier, it wants to go further down my back. So I have to lean further forward to keep in balance, and rather than attempt to keep my chest up, I'm allowing my back to round to keep the weight on my back - and occasionally rolling it forward. To a position, in fact, probably closer to where it's meant to be - on the posterior delts. Not underneath them. Which is part of the reason I was hoping to get to the gym today - to test my theory. Watch this space come Friday...

Surprise!

Right when you least expect it, a secret spin session gets snuck in while you're almost looking the other way... the essence of track sprint, really! But I wasn't about to be caught off-guard, oh no!

:05 2 x 6s HCLR:1 (39x23 : 44")
:10 2 x 7s PG+12 (107") SS (R,L):4
:18 4 x 7s BGSS (116") seated L,R,L,R:3
:30 4 x 6s BGRS(20) (116") seated:3
:42 2 x 12s HCLR:2 (44")

Deceptively simple, no? And I do like a good strength workout. But that's not because they're easy - they're just a different kind of hard!

HCLRs: 186. Takes a little while for the neurons to start firing properly, to start spinning rather than stomping really quickly.

107"SSes... a bit ordinary really, 138/71 is a good few percent off my best. Not actually bad, as such, just not particularly good.

116" SSes... well, there's no immediate comparison, but back a few months ago doing these I was getting numbers around 117/61. Today's 4 efforts produced a very consistent 130-132/72.4-73.7 so again, numbers on the trainer clearly improved over the last 6-odd months. I wonder about the interpretation of such results in the current context though - should my BGSSes be faster (and only 6rpm less shpinny) than my PG+14SSes? Am I strong, but not powerful? Or is this exactly what Perko would do, only plus 20% or so? Email time...

Interestingly (perhaps) for once my RSes produced very similar results to my SSes in the same gear, and very marginally higher - a top of 131/74, and still accelerating (if only just) at the end of the 6 seconds - 7 or 8 second efforts would have seen me hit 75, I reckon (at least for the first three. The last one I might have hit 26 and then fallen off the bike, exhausted.)

12s HCLRs to finish off and by then my neurons were properly firing, and weren't so roasted as to have gone on holidays - top of 191, and held for 7 or 8 seconds at that 'suspiciously high cadence' as Golden Cheetah calls it for the duration of the interval.

So there we have it. Brief stats here. Satisfactory, but, well, it's spin, hard to get excited about it at the minute!

Sword Master

I've been thinking about training, and life, and how the two of those fit together. Where I'd like to go, how I might get there, and how to stay focussed along the way.

And then I remembered this comic. I feel a bit like I'm still in panel 1. But maybe I'm actually in panel 4, and the slap's just around the corner... 

Please note: this is not my image, and I've included it here just to illustrate a point and to encourage you to go read Oglaf.

Here's to working on understanding, unlike our poor dimwitted hero, the lessons I'm taught along the way.

Oh, and go read oglaf. From the beginning. You'll be wanting to send me a line to thank me for the tip.

Erm... still Slayer!

Finally I got back in to the gym and did a full workout! Nearly two weeks since I've been in the gym at all, and two and a half since I did a full squat workset. So prudence was the order of the day, as I repeated that workout with the exception of resetting powercleans to 60 kg - a 20% reduction to ensure I get back to a point where I have good form.

Speaking of which, my form was a bit ratty for the squats. I got them all up, but watching the video is a bit wince-inducing. Mind you, doing them in the first place was too, so it's not that surprising. There was one squat in each set that I didn't get correct depth on, so to be picky you could probably call it a miss. More importantly though I was having quite some trouble keeping my back in its appropriate arch, and a good 11 or 12 of the lifts had some amount of rounding, 3 or 4 fairly significantly to the extent that the bar was rolling up to my shoulders. A couple in the first set were largely due to what might be called inattention, as I wasn't quite in the right groove. It's been a while, after all. After that though, it was primarily a matter of muscular fatigue, as my back muscles struggled to keep good tension under the repeated loading.

Bench at 65kgs was fine, which isn't terribly surprising in a way but at the same time, is good. Mind you, my benchpress is in exactly the same spot as it was 2 months ago. Or closer to 9 weeks, actually. That's... kinda disturbing!

Powercleans I was happy with. Only 60kg, it is true, but it gave me the chance to really focus on my form and it felt very smooth. After the first couple of reps I really got in to a great groove, everything felt like it was firing at the right time, and although the weight was noticeable, I could have caught them all on my head without bending my knees if I'd wanted to. Which, erm, I didn't. Odd that.

Wreaking my rewen-ge

Turns out I was supposed to do a repeat of the recovery spin today, but I didn't check my email so instead I popped by BBN for a bit of redress. Maybe it's difficult to actually wreak rewen-ge on a concrete track, but not so difficult to do to oneself!

I was momentarily thrown off plan by happening to bump in to the same chap from back in April - who's bought a new track bike and is looking for some racing! So it was nice to chat, but I really wanted to get out there. I was trialling straps on my pedals for the first time - they felt good when on (though they're only cheapies, so I don't know how long they'll last) but getting in and out of them is going to take some practice!

Anyway, after a bit of a warmup I did a couple of half-lap powerjumps (which at BBN is... well, about 165-odd metres, because I went from pursuit line to finish line) on 86", hitting only 50.9 on the effort from ~30km/hr. Bit low, I thought. I then switched up to 99" and did the same, from ~10km/hr and ~30km/hr. Hit 52 this time from 30, which again, felt a bit low. Not by an order of magnitude or anything, but still. Enough to make me concerned that perhaps I wasn't going to make much headway on looking for an improved F200 time.

But I headed out from the chute, and wound it up over the abridged BBN F200 distance. On Sunday I jumped late from... actually, it's hard to tell! Certainly above 40. But it's a rather gentle 'jump' in the garmin record. I crossed the line at about 49 and eventually hit a max of  54.5km/hr before gracefully curving back down to 51kmh, for a time of 14.185 at an average of 50.76km/hr. I don't have such precise timings, of course, for today and a direct comparison is meaningless because of the different conditions - there was all but no wind today, for example. But I can say that I jumped from just on 35km/hr, crossed the 200 line doing pretty much smack on 50km/hr, hit a max of 55.3km/hr (and held above 55km/hr for 5 seconds or so) which decayed back to ~51 again by the time I crossed the finish line to record an average speed of conservatively 52.99km/hr, generously 53.67km/hr and most likely 53.5km/hr. Which makes for a F200 time of somewhere between 13.587 and 13.415 seconds.

That's still a little slower than I'd be happy with. But I'm much more satisfied with that as a measure of where I am than with what I managed on Sunday, conditions notwithstanding. And there's useful info there, too - accelerating after the line is okay, but by 5km/hr? Probably a bit much. So jump should probably have started earlier - more like the start of the clubrooms, perhaps. The question, of course, is could I hold the speed all the way to the line in that case. Crossing the 200 line at something closer to 52 and holding the same sort of pace as in today's F200 to the line would see me riding something more like a 13.28. Which is closer to where I feel I should be at the moment. Wouldn't necessarily mean I'd win any more races, because there's a whole lot more to it than speed over 200 metres, but it's a start!

SSS Round 1, 2011

Well, that was rather a disappointing day. Short version: Slow F200, last qualifier in B-Grade, lost all three races. But, you know, it's me, so there's a longer version...

Let's approach this in terms of lessons learned.

i) Sunday is race day. Not, races go from 12ish to 4ish, but Sunday, the whole day, is race day.

I arrived late after attending to assorted family matters which left me with little time to warm up, check my bike, or get myself in the right frame of mind. With the wind on Sunday, gusting strongly up the back straight, actually getting out there in a couple of different gearings to check how they felt was important, rather than just guessing. As it was, I guessed 92", and that was probably too small. My tyres were low, too - only about 90psi at most. I hadn't ridden at BBN since last year so I was rusty on the right lines, places to jump, etc. and in my F200, I jumped too late though my line was probably not too bad. Result was a F200 time of 14.185, more than a tenth of a second slower than my time from Round 6 back in April, before I started training! Yes, it was a slow day, but that's an awful time.

ii) I need to be more active in my races.

By this I mean not just in terms of moving around more, or being more aggressive, but thinking more and being adaptable. In my first race against Nic, I was following and wanted him to keep the lead, be dragged up the back straight protected from the wind, then coming in to corner 3 to run up the bank, down in to his slipstream with pace and around, as we've been doing at DISC. But the key point came much earlier than that...

 

At 59 seconds I threw a bit of a fake, just wanting to get him thinking, maybe get him to jump. What happened though was that he went for it, going all the way down the track (and off it!) while I just swerved back up. And sat there. And sat there. And waited for him to get back on the track, get out of the saddle and accelerate while I wasted my height and the advantage that I'd gained from getting him going the wrong way. Eventually, I responded but too late - I wasn't quite able to get on his wheel and couldn't accelerate around. I was closing, but was never going to get there.

iii) I need to kick harder.

I've improved since last year, it is true. But the main point really is that I wasn't kicking as hard as I could. This I think is part experience, part confidence, and part bike handling skills.In my second race against Ed, I decided to take the lead and gradually wind it up so as to try to negate his acceleration a little. I felt that I controlled it fairly well, and brought the pace up. But I always expected him to come alongside. Watching the video though, just as with Nic he's still out of the saddle and accelerating at the point where I'm in the saddle and not confident to get out at that cadence.

I had the legs to accelerate more, but needed to be able to get out of the saddle. He sails past, and I keep plodding along.

iv) I need to be aware that I'm racing against another human being!

In my race against Ian, I decided to try to sit behind him in his blindspot. Fine, but I didn't think it through too much further. I let him get too much space, dictating the pace, and then I neglected to take advantage again.

At 42 seconds, again I threw a fake with nothing to back it up. I rolled down the bank not when Ian was looking forward, but immediately after he'd looked back at me again. After doing that, I just sat back up behind him, lost a bit of ground, and he jumped. Somehow I was caught off guard, he got the gap and won by that margin. As someone commented at the end - I'm a bit of a one-pace sprinter. Or, at least, that's how I raced. Too timidly.

Obviously there's much more to it than just 4 lessons. But I think that those are some of the important aspects to take away from these races. I was clearly off my best, for a number of reasons. What I need to do is work on those aspects and come back stronger next month. And, clearly, losing weight is now the more important aspect than gaining strength, and the ability to apply strength on the track is more important than getting bigger numbers on an ergo.

Shpinny

Well, there was supposed to be a weights session in there somewhere, but it's school holidays and, well, I've hardly had time to scratch myself. So today (rather late itself!) was tapering spin time.

:05 2 x 6s HCLR:1 (39x23 : 46")
:10 2 x 7s PG+12 (107") SS (R,L):3
:18 12s PGRS (93") r/up 4:80, 4:120, 4:max
:25 9s PG+4 (99") RS r/up 3:70, 3:115, 3:max
:32 8s PGSS (93") (preferred leg)
:39 7s PG-4RS (87") (80)

Numbers probably aren't terribly relevant for this, but I'll bung 'em up for completeness anyway.

HCLRs up to 187, 107"SSes up to 73.6 again, 93"RS 63.1/140, 99"RS 63.9/135, 93"SS 68.8/154, 87"RS 62.9/152.

So in other words, all still groovy, the body's still working, legs ticking over, and I'm feeling good for Round 1!

DISC Session #23 with ABOC

Hmm... what to say? Half-lap seated powerjumps hit a maximum of 53.4 on 86" against Nic, not bad. Motorpaced entry + 150m was okay, hit a max of 61.2 on 99" despite a bad jump and entry line, lifting my front wheel off the ground by quite a bit. Was still just below 60 crossing the line, so pleased with that.

Partnered Flying 200s I was feeling a bit tired already, and only hit a max of 57.1 when I had the lead. I followed on the next and tried to pass Nic, but got just about all of it wrong - left too much of a gap on the entry, closed in on the back straight but not quickly enough, swung up once already on the bend, came back, then came back out of the draft way too late... my tactical prowess is not extreme!

We finished off the session with a 1.5 lap match sprint - did this three-up with Nic and Neil for the fun of it. Nic led it out, Neil behind me. I tried to keep height, Nic came up to about the blue, and both Neil and I went for the lane at the same time with a lap to go. I got there first with only a moderate jump, hoping to keep increasing my speed all the way to the line. Neil came past me in the end, but only by half a wheel (all you need, of course!) but I was happy enough with the effort.

Anthrax

Well, I feel as though I'm coming to the end of this series - which group will get top billing? With the start of the sprint series around the corner, there's probably only one more session of real strength-building in the gym before we move on to a more bike-centric training period until December or so. After all, the primary focus of strength training is to be able to ride faster. I'll miss it a bit, I must confess; hopefully the 'maintenance' focus will give me enough of a fix of being under the bar.

That said, there wasn't much strength-gaining going on this morning! After being fine all week, as soon as I got under the bar to do my squat warmup, my right knee/hamstring/buttock flared up again (last week I felt it more in the knee, this week more in the buttock) and restricted me to just 80kg before I pulled the pin. I'll be taking a good look at my form to see if I can pick any twisting or stance issues, and trying to ascertain if anything has changed significantly since the last time I videoed my squat.

So I moved on to the press, with a 2.5kg jump up to 57.5kg today. And perhaps I should have just gone with a 1kg jump instead, because I ended up doing 3 sets of 3, instead of 3 sets of 5! No drama, I'll keep it there for another two attempts; if I can't get 15 reps done, then I'll reset back to 50kg or so.

It was up to the deadlift, then, to restore my honour and a bit of a sense of accomplishment to the morning. I knew, going in, that I was doing 155 - still, I flirted with the idea of trying for 160 instead. I was never going to actually do it, I don't think, but it's hard not to entertain the thought of keeping on pushing as far as possible.

It turns out, though, that I almost certainly wouldn't have gotten 5 reps up at 160 anyway. One can't say for sure, of course, but the extent to which I had to strain to get 155kg up 5 times gives a pretty damn good indication! But up they did indeed go, so I left (after 5 (jumping) chinups with slow, controlled negatives) feeling fairly satisfied with the session. And a bit odd - knocked about by the deadlifts, but with a curious lack of leg-shnozzlement due to the lack of squat worksets, and with intact lungs. I'll have to try to fix that next time!

Final 'winter' spin

Because tomorrow is the equinox, and hence the first day of Spring! Well, that and next week, the 'official' last winter spin, is a tapering spin. Anyway.

HCLRs. 180 and 191 on 39x23. Felt a little uncoordinated, since I haven't ridden for nearly a week, but otherwise okay.

Then.

:10 2 x 7s PG+12 (107") SS (R,L):3
:18 18s PGRS (93") r/up 6:80, 6:120, 6:max
:25 21s PG+4 (99") RS r/up 7:70, 7:115, 7:max
:32 30s PGSS (93") (preferred leg)
:39 30s PG-4RS (87") (40) r/up (5:80, 10:100, 5:130, 10:max)

6 measly efforts over 29 minutes. Easy! The vomit at the end was purely decorative.

SSes - noice. 73 and then 74.4km/hr at 144RPM on 107" - over 1km/hr better than my previous best of 73.6/165 on 93". Improvement is edemifying.


Then some absolute endurance efforts that put PBP to shame. Well, you know.


First one, 18s on 93"... it's kinda tough to even hit the cadence in 6 seconds, let alone actually hit it instantly and sit there for 6 seconds, but that's just life as a human. Max of 63.4/142 and held it there no problems, no dropoff at all.


21s on 99", I did get a bit of dropoff in the last few seconds, down from a high of 65/136. There was no intention of holding a manageable pace on this one though, just hit it as hard as possible and hold on as long as I could. Which is not, apparently, 21 seconds!


30s on 93" with a standing start... kinda like a 500m TT really! And as is more or less traditional in a TT, I went out way too hard and steadily dropped off - I mean really, it's almost a straight line from 62.9km/hr at 141 back down to 52 km/hr at the end. And did I cover 500m, even on the trainer? Well no, closer to 450m. What's that, a lap and a half at Blackburn? Future SSS opponents, take note - how much more info could you possibly ask for??


Then 30s rampup on 87" - I have to say, putting such a complicated pattern of 5 and 10 seconds at the end of such a session is cruel. At least for me, with noone to yell at me but myself. Anyway, max of 59.7 at 142, which tells you precisely very little about it. Actually it wasn't bad - I didn't hold that speed for the final 10 seconds, but it only decayed back to about 55, and stayed above 135RPM to the end. Then went and decorated the bathroom.


Oh, and by the way, how's that for good program design, hmm? All of the efforts (bar the HCLR, obviously) smack in the 130-140RPM zone. Even works for me on my dodgy trainer.


Brief stats here.

Slayer

Ah, that's better! 130kg squat, up and down 15 times, all groovy. Well, not entirely certain about depth on a couple, but I think they were okay, and the groove was pretty good today. I think it might be prudent to switch to 2.5kg jumps now, but I'll speak to the coach about that one...

Bench, back up to 65kgs, and felt pretty good. It's getting hard after the squat to back straight up to bench or press, which means that the length of the workout is getting a bit extravagant!

Powercleans, up to 75kg but form broke down pretty badly and I only completed one set. After finding a great groove a couple of weeks ago, I've lost it again and it's just too damn heavy now to get up without doing it properly. So I suspect resetting might be an idea, get that groove back, and work it back up again. But again, something for the coach to advise on...

Knee

It's disappointing to miss a DISC session, especially now with the first race of the season so close, and 4 Flying 200s to do. But I think it was the right decision. Now, Monday morning, my knee feels much better, I'm not limping, and I'm confident that I'll be back in the gym tomorrow, with spin on Thursday and then back to the powerhaus on Saturday.

Megadeth

Bit of a mixed morning in the gym. I woke with a bit of soreness and stiffness, particularly behind my right knee, but nothing that seemed extravagant. Doing my warmup squats though, it was becoming more noticeable, but I hoped that it was just a minor problem. After 2 reps at 130kg though, it was too sore, so - after briefly considering going down to 125kg - I abandoned squats for the day.

Moved on to the bench, and did my first reset to 62.5kg, and got them up no problems.

I possibly should have left it there, but I was determined to deadlift - my last set at 140kg I felt my form was a little off, so I was looking to rectify that. Back locked, chest up, eyes forward. Possibly not the best with a sore hamstring/knee, but oh well. Did it at 150kg, and although it felt damnablier heavier, it also felt better, my form felt more solid and my back felt happier.

So pleased to come out of the session with a positive lift (finished with some chins, too - still jumping, but not as much. Have to be more consistent with them!) and will keep an eye on my knee. It's even sorer now as I've cooled down, and my maybe-missing-DISC-due-to-family-committment is heading in the direction of definitely missing it. But I'll see how I pull up tomorrow.

Spineroonie

Not sure what the official spelling of 'spineroonie' should be, but I'll go with that. This is Part One... because I've not done all of the spin session yet. Yes, that's right, I quit, and I didn't even vomit. What a sad, sad day for hard men everywhere.

:05 2 x 6s HCLR:1 (39x23 : 46")
:10 2 x 7s PG+12 (99") SS L,R:3
:16 12s PG (87") RS (80)
:22 14s PG (87") RS (80)
:28 18s PG+4 (93") RS (60)
:35 24s PG+8 (99") SS seated
:42 30s PG+8 (99") RS (40, seated)

Well, that was the idea, anyway. And no, my PG+ inches aren't quite perfect, but I've only got PG+6 and PG+12. What're ya going to do? Oh, right, get a better trainer...

So HCLRs on a slightly bigger gear, 44" (according to Sheldon) rather than 41". Max RPM of 186, so quite similar to 'normal'. SSes were good, up to 149/72.6, can't complain about that. PGRSes, slightly shorter than last week, and from a higher initial cadence, gave slightly better and more consistent results - 143/60.5 and 140/59.5. The final 'preliminary' was 11s longer and 8" harder than last week, so was rather in the category of 'the tough part' than the preliminary! The result was good though, solid and consistent 125/56 for essentially the whole interval was pleasing.

And then... 24s 99" SS lasted all of about 12s before the legs just wouldn't go anymore, and I didn't have the will to push them any more. I don't know if that was the better thing or not - if I'd kept going, I would have been lucky to finish with a cadence above 60 or so, which is not good quality. On the other hand,  pushing through is kinda the point. So. Part one because, once my daughter is in bed, I'm going to try again - do another warmup with HCLRs, then attempt the last two exercises again. Okay, won't be as good as doing them at the time. And maybe if I were with the rest of the squad I'd've made it. Who knows? We do what we can, we try what we can't, and we see what happens. And last week I did them on only 93". Stay tuned...

Edit 1: I've just realised that I'm a numby. No, really. PG is the gear that you can't quite get to 160RPM in 8 seconds from 80RPM, isn't it? Not, in fact, the gear that you can get to 160RPM on. So my PG is actually now 53x15, 93", not 53x16, 87". Whoops. So I in fact have 93" PG, 99" PG+6, 107" PG+14, and 116" PG+23. Erm. Well I'm not doing the whole friggen thing again. And I'm NOT doing the last two on 107".

Edit 2: For all you funky mothers who've been desperately (or coolly) tapping on that refresh key, here it is.

HCLR: Doesn't really matter. Warmup.
99" 24s SS(seated): Max of 132/64.2, held above 130 until ~20s, then decayed ~10RPM over the next 4 seconds. Not bad, but need to push harder at the end - that's when the race is won, after all!
99" 30s RS (40, seated): Max of 116/56.3 - Maintained >54 until ~24s where I dropped to 52.5, slammed it all the way back up to a monsterific 54.1 and held it there to the end.

Comparison? Tough, because last week I was on 93" and only had a 7-minute break rather than 5 hours. But you know what I can compare it to? This. Four months ago, in a 6-second all-out sprint, I got to a maximum of 115RPM on 99". Now I'm doing that for 30 seconds, and for 6 seconds I'm doing 150RPM. Suck on that, previous me.

Brief stats are here and here.

Low-carb cake

One thing you might imagine having to give up on a low-carb diet is cake, right? Well, not so fast there! You can indeed have your cake and eat it too. Just not at the same time, obviously.

Now, I'm going to break the rules of food blogging here by not including any photos. Why? Because I'm not making the cake today, and you know what? It looks like a fucking cake.

Ingredients:
6 eggs
~100g stevia (I used Natvia, which has 5% carb, 0 sugars)
400g dark choc (I used 85%, you could use higher or lower but the carb count will change)
250ml cream (or use 300ml, if not using a liqueur)
1/3 cup cointreau, rum, or nothing.

Preheat oven to 180C and prepare a cake tin of some description.
Melt choc atop a double boiler or in a microwave or whatever, let cool a bit.
Beat Eggs and stevia. After ~5min, pour in the melted choc while still beating. Continue until it's all well mixed.
Gently fold in the cream (or cream + liqueur) and then pour in to cake tin.
Place cake tin in a roasting pan or some such and pour boiling water in to the pan so that it comes halfway up the side of the cake tin.

Bake for about an hour. Check after half an hour and cover with foil if you think it might get dry or crispy. Unless you like it like that.

Take it out of the oven, but leave the cake in the tin. Let it cool down, cover it if you want, then chuck it in the fridge. DO NOT TOUCH FOR 2 DAYS. Then cut it in to 10-12 pieces, and eat. It'll last a couple of weeks, if you can manage to let it.

Stats? The whole cake contains ~100g carbs, 370g fat and 90g protein. Or about 10/37/9 per 1/10th slice, using 85% chocolate. You can even ice it with a white chocolate/butter icing (roughly equal parts choc and butter melted and cooled, 100g each will cover the cake nicely) and bung on some strawberries without going above ~15g carbs per slice.

Metallica

That's right, it's all starting to get a bit heavy now!

125kg on the squat, and it felt... well, pretty good, really. I do need a form check, because it's a bit harder to be certain about the combination of depth and chest up/straight back now. It's rather obvious when the back rounds, but not so obvious when I don't get full depth - or, rather, I feel like the depth was fine on all of them, but that makes one nervous because one has no variation from which to make a relative judgement - maybe they were all bad?

Anyway. Squat. Is heavy. First rep (actually, since about 105kgs, not just now) I feel like I can barely unrack the bar and that I might fall over, and wonder how on Earth I can possibly get back up if I commit to that first squat! But I do it, and it is good, and then I try to do it 14 more times. Oi, vey.

Press. Is 55kg. Is success! Only just though. On each set after 2 or 3 reps I switched from starting from a dead stop at the bottom, to starting from the top and trying to use the 'bounce' at the bottom. I'm not sure how much it helped, really. But I got all 15 up, and that's the main thing. 57.5 is going to be a struggle though!

Deadlift. Oh boy. Damnably, damnably heavy. 140kgs. 5 times. It went up, but for the first time the bar felt like it didn't really want to leave the floor. I kept repeating to myself "If the bar leaves the floor, the legs and back (and everything else!) can take it the rest of the way." I'd like to thank my eyes for their contribution to the lift!

DISC Session #21 with ABOC

Whoops! Bit late for this one, and full of lunch still. Ah well, never mind. Powerjumps and flying 200s with an attempt to pass the leading rider. Powerjumps were fine, very jumpy, marginally powerful. Got up to 4km/hr on the second one on 92", good result.

Edit: 45km/hr! Not 4km/hr. That was not, in fact, an effort to disguise my abilities so as to lull my SSS opponents in to a false sense of security. I'm not that clever. Just typlexic.

Flying 200s the idea was that the following rider laid off, built speed and blasted past the lead rider to take the victory on the line. I was with Carl, and for the first effort the plan didn't quite work, as the trailing rider mistimed his effort and didn't quite get past the lead rider. In the second effort, the trailing rider rode perfectly, passing the lead rider about 10m before the line.

I'll leave it up to the imagination of the reader to determine who was which when!

End of the night, I was rooted. Still rooted from spin on Friday, actually. And, as predicted, this week's spin is even harder. Sigh. I'm sure it'll pay off...

Is ABOC, is sickly.

There was a movie a while ago, called "John Tucker must Die" I'm pretty certain that Carl Brewer of ABOC was channelling that film...

:05 2 x 6s HCLR:1
:10 2 x 7s PG+12 SS:3 L,R
:16 14s PGRS (60 - seated)
:23 16s PGRS (60 - seated)
:30 7s PG-4 RS (100 seated)
:34 24s PG+8 SS (seated)
:41 30s PG+8 RS (40, seated)

I mean, really. That's just awful! Mind you, I suspect that next week will be even worse...

So anyway, 190RPM in the HCLRs, good effort. 146/70.3 for the 53x14 SS, which is not bad, if not my best. First 53x16 RS gave 143/60.5, while the second dropped back to just 136. 53x17 RS from 100 felt like a good effort, up to 152/60.7km/hr.

But all of that was just the preliminaries, really. The last two efforts were aimed to get as close to vomiting as possible without actually doing so. And, I'm excited to say, I managed to do just that! Well, so far anyway. Half an hour later and I'm still recovering!

My aim with these was to hit as hard as possible from the start to a cadence I thought I could manage and hold it there. And I did pretty well - max of 136/61.2 for the 24s effort, and held it around 60km/hr for about 21s before sliding down by 7 or 8 RPM over the last 3 seconds.

For the 30s effort I made an effort at a hard acceleration without going all-out. Only managed to get up to 121/54.5, and cadence was a little erratic, varying between 115-121, but I held it in that range for the whole 30 seconds, so I was happy with that. And hopefully by the time I wake up tomorrow morning, I'll have recovered!

Aerosmith

120kg of squatting goodness. Which just sounds so wrong. Again, damnably heavy, but it went up okay - except for about 3 reps with not-so-good form. They still went up, just not as well! The bar is so heavy now that I can't correct form problems mid-lift like I used to, so it's vitally important to get in to the right groove during the warmup sets. That's getting better, but I need to be more careful with it - not pushing the hips back far enough is particularly problematic. And very very soon, I may not be able to recover a mistake like that.

Bench... meh. Reset time. I was a bit rushed, but even from my final warmup set at 55kg I was pretty sure it wasn't going to go. Only got through one set at 70kg, but no drama. Don't really need big chesticles for the bike!

Powercleans up to 70kg, and while they weren't very 'clean', they went up okay. Caught a few on my hands today, rather than my delts, which I haven't been doing so much lately. I was really running out of time by this point, and so that combined with losing a bit of focus probably contributed. That, and it's getting heavy!