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.