... starting off where I left six months ago ...

When my heart rate was hovering between 80 and 90 percent of my maximum heart rate for six minutes at a time and my fingers were throwing the gear shifter, down cog by cog, in search of a hard enough gear that provided the required resistance to make my quads burn, I knew I was back into training.

Shane, a good friend who is gaining his coach qualification, had scheduled a two hour session on the wind trainer for Tuesday night because I had begged him, pleaded, not to make me get up at 4:30 AM, just yet. Last Sunday, when I received the training program for the next four weeks, I was excited - no early starts. When I got home from the office after 6 PM Tuesday night, I regretted it. Two hours on the wind trainer, I don't remember ever having attempted this or ever having lasted that long. An hour, yes, maybe an hour and a half, but two full hours? I was wondering whether leaving my cosy bed at 4:30 AM in sub 15 degrees Celsius temperatures to ride in the dark on the road was the less painful alternative. But I can hardly go back now and make him change the program, can't I? And I see the benefit of these strength session: 3 x 6 minutes at 80-90% of my maximum heart rate and at 50-60 rpm cadence with five minutes recovery inbetween made my legs burn alright.

Last night I spun my legs on the rollers for an hour with five short sprints. Sprinting on the rollers was something new and so was sliding my hands to the drops. Amazing how much I was wobbling while sprinting. It ended up being more of an exercise in bike handling than an exercise in going fast. Next I have to learn to drink from my water bottle while riding on the rollers. Baby steps for some, giant leaps for me, and I now choose rollers over indoor trainers any time when a year ago I wouldn't even have considered riding on rollers.

Rest day today and tomorrow I'll repeat the messed up test from last week.

Alberto giving one of the Samford Valley locals a hand with a Bogey (as observed on my last leisurely Sunday afternoon ride before training commenced).

Testing times

From right to left: Scott, Daniel, Shaun, Alberto, Shane and I enjoying our coffees at Poppy's after an early morning ride yesterday.

The westerly winds were blowing all night. The alarm went off at 5:30 AM - time for test number two. It was 12 C in the house. I could hear the cold and dry desert air howling in the roof and whistling in the window seals. It's the type of gusty wind that rips into you, through your skin and deep into your bones. It makes you freeze from the inside. I pulled the doona tighter around me and went back to sleep.

The next time I woke up it was 8 AM and the sun was up. I didn't hear the wind blowing anymore but it was even colder now. The cat snuggled up to my bed-warm body. He was cold, too.

Over coffee I turned my thoughts to the task at hand: a three kilometre time trial and a two kilometre hill climb, back to back. For the time trial I had chosen the Nundah criterium circuit but there were races on until about 10 AM so there was no point rushing. For the hill climb the steep side of Mt Coot-tha was ideal with its 2.3 km and an average gradient of about 7%.

My legs had felt fresh the day before so I was keen to get the tests done. I felt very determined to also tackle the negative thoughts after Wednesday night's time trial . At 9:30 AM I rugged up and rode down to the track. A couple of warm-up laps and it became clear that the pacing would be a challenge, with a strong head wind blowing stiff into my face on the long finishing straight and the tail wind pushing me through the S-bends on the other side of this 1.2 km long oval.

I had hoped for 220 Watts average power output for this short distance but it was almost impossible for me to keep the power up through the S-bends with the wind pushing from behind. The graph clearly shows how my cadence and speed went up while power and torque drop as soon as I turned out of the head wind. The good thing was that it was over so quickly that I had no time for any negative thoughts.

Time trial stats:

• Average power: 200 Watts
• Average speed: 32.11 km/h
• Average heart rate: 167 bpm

I didn't hang around and left straight after the time trial but it took me almost an hour to ride the 19 km to the bottom of the climb. This bitch of a head wind was blowing into my face all the way. I took my time to safe my legs fo the climb as I was keen to set a good time.

But with a head wind blowing even on the climb - as if the gradient wasn't enough - I knew there was no point concentrating on time. I felt strong and no thoughts of quitting entered my mind.

... until I looked down and saw that my Powertap had gone blank. I pressed the buttons to force it to search for the signal. It kept idling and idling all the while I kept climbing and climbing, hoping that it was still recording even though it wasn't displaying anything. I pushed to the top and sprinted up the last steep incline and pressed the time marker when I rolled over the white line that someone had drawn on the road.

Well, as you can see on the graph, the battery in the power hub indeed had decided to die half way through the test. I will have to do this test again next week but I love the numbers it did record before it died. I'm hoping to repeat these kinds of numbers next week.

Mt Coot-tha stats for 0.93 km and 4:13 minutes:

• Average power: 232 watts
• Average speed: 13.31 km/h
• Average heart rate: 160 bpm
• Power to weight ratio: 4.13 watts/kg

I just got home from the bike shop where they replaced the batteries in the hub. My bike is good to go again but I might give my legs a couple of days rest.

Handbrake

Test One
Temperature: 18C
Wind trainer setting: 3

Click on graphs to enlarge.

10 minutes warm up with two one-minute sprints
30 minute time trial
10 minutes cool down

First ten minutes
I was feeling good and highly motivated. Every time I looked down, I saw power outputs in the 180ies and 190ies, which was very encouraging. Five minutes in and I started hurting. My legs were fresh and firing but my heart felt like it was jumping out of my chest and my breathing was heavy. Eight minutes and I felt like puking. I just concentrated on the ten minute marker so I wouldn't miss pressing those buttons. I tried not to think beyond.

The next twenty minutes
Once I had hit those two buttons to mark the first ten minutes, I knew it was going to be a long painful stretch to get to 30 minutes. Twenty insanely long minutes and my head instantly went into uncooperative mode: "It's ok to have a low power output. You've been sick. Nobody will know that you didn't give it your all." I was hurting badly. My head was spinning and I felt like throwing up. My legs were still feeling fine but my fitness wasn't allowing them do give more. I was dripping sweat and a puddle started appearing underneath the bike. The 13 minute mark (23 on the graph since it includes the warm up) and I was thinking of giving up. "Shit, not even half way, yet! I can't do this. Why am I hurting myself like this? Just climb off the bike and forget about it. It's not that important." I was riding with a fricking handbrake pulled in my head. I tried not to listen, covered the Powertap with my towel and started concentrating on my pedal stroke. Pushing down the pedal stroke, pulling up the pedal stroke - making as even circles as possible - listening to Ministry of Music on my iPod - an agonising eternity. The last two minutes were the longest and when I hit the 30 minute marker, my head was spinning and I had to swallow hard not to vomit. I had left it all there, not on the road but right there on our back terrace, just like Buttsy would have wanted me to do.

Power (yellow bars) and heart rate (red bars) distribution over the entire 50 minutes.

Average power stats:

• Entire 30 min time trail: 174 Watts
• First ten minutes: 182 Watts
• Last twenty minutes: 170 Watts

To put this in perspective: When I did the same test last June, my average power output was 161 Watts. My friend Debs told me, that, to win a state or national title at elite level, I would need to put out between 250 and 300 Watts in a time trial.

I was mindful of not starting out to hard but I still did. Correct pacing in time trials will have to be a focus point in my training. And if I could just learn to take that mental handbrake off and - if not enjoy - but at least mentally support what I'm doing instead of sabotaging myself.

It wasn't fun and I am not looking forward to do this again anytime soon. Oh, there is another equally painful test scheduled for Saturday! Well ... I better start worrying about that one when it's time to hurt.

Am I ready?

Sandgate jetty last Saturday

A few days ago I was asked by a friend, who is giving me a hand with coaching, if my body is ready for more intensity. I didn't answer his email. He called me a couple of days later. I told him that I honestly didn't know but that I was keen to give it a go because we won't really know until we try, will we?

He has done a marvellous job so far … of holding me back. If it would have been up to me I would have jumped into big training sessions about a month ago. Looking through my training log just now, I realised that I did on average 150 km per week for the past ten weeks, with one week as high as 235 km and some weeks only 80-90 km. I thought I was ready in May and then I was told: "I need you to do the same low intensity thing for one more week." and then another week, and another.

So I was very glad when I finally received the email with the subject: "It IS time to get started". Test week for me this week and I am very excited and also a bit nervous.

I can smell coffee ...

I promised to give an account of my “I will just put a few less of the well known and scientifically proven toxins and processed food into my body for a while” diet. So this post is for Lisa, Lily on the Road and Bluenoser (Blue, sorry, I haven't emailed it through, yet. I'll do so as soon as I finish this post).

The suggested length for this diet was seven days. By day six gut feeling told me to extend for another three days to make it a ten day diet. Don’t ask me why? Maybe I just enjoyed it so much that I wanted to keep going. Therefore today is the last day and I’m all giddy about the prospect of having a cup of coffee tomorrow morning. Should I get up half an hour earlier and make it a big thing? I probably won’t be able to sleep tonight, just like a child before Christmas … or I might stay up till midnight and have a little espresso then?

Even though I’m looking forward to having coffee again, I can’t say I missed it while I couldn’t have it. Caffeine seems just a habit but not an addiction because after the initial withdrawal headache I was not craving it.

It was the same with bread and sugar and I have to report that the most interesting sensation was the lack of hunger and cravings from day three onwards. I normally munch all day and always feel hungry or at least peckish but this diet seems to have restored my natural appetite.

One of the unexpected tough things turned out to be salt. Food just doesn’t taste without salt and after realising that vegetable stock has heaps of artificial flavour enhancers and salt, I used lots of parsley and spring onion and herbs but nothing really tasted that good without salt. I’m looking forward to put salt back into my life, almost more than coffee.

The other interesting thing was my first ride. I was about to grab my usual bar for the mid-ride snack but, hold on, bars have sugar. The only food item suitable for the back pocket turned out to be a banana. And nothing but pure water in the bottle … I wouldn't be able to sustain this aspect if I had to train at high intensity.

All in all I had to be more organised and take lunch to work. Food preparation took a bit longer and shopping because of all of the label reading: try to find dried fruit that are just fruit and not sulphates or find fruit juice that is 100% pure fruit juice and not all sugar or canned corn that has no added salt or sugar. It also cost a little more as I went shopping at Mrs Flannery’s (an organic food store) but that was off-set by not spending any money on lunches and coffees.

It wasn't part of my goal, and in my case I would rather count this as a negative, but I lost about a kilo and a half of weight in ten days, and that's without trying. As mentioned above, I wasn't hungry once and ate heaps.

Now, how did I feel? Apart from the initial headache I felt great. No major discomforts and I had plenty of energy. During the spin sessions on the rollers on day five and six of the diet I felt strong. The good feeling off the bike continued but I can't claim the same for on the bike. The past three days, every little incline I could feel lactic acid building up in my legs straight away, even though my heart rate was only in the 140ies. The legs were missing spring and felt sluggish and heavy. I was still able to put out power but it just didn’t feel good.

Only a nutritionist can probably explain what is happening but maybe I did not get enough carbohydrates from just brown rice, potatoes and vegetables and my glycogen stores are depleted and the heavy legs are due to lack of fuel in form of sugars? I’m not sure how to explain the sensation exactly and whether sugars have anything to do with it. It’s all just my very subjective and unscientific observation.

Oh and one last thing: I don't know if you remember my hair loss problem that started sometime late March and went on and on for weeks? Well, it slowed down a little just before I started my diet and I'm happy to report that it has completely disappeared now. I take this as an equally unscientific proof that the diet has worked and I'm just glad that I've got some hair left.

My favourite breakfast: Fruit salad with natural yoghurt, cashew nuts, goji berries and honey. Usually I had (and will continue to have) flaked brown race porridge with fresh fruit (usually rock melon, strawberries or banana)

This was the highlight of my week: Quinoa, broccoli and salmon for lunch.