Training with Training Peaks

Training with Training Peaks

This week I started my new Training Peaks training plan. I have edited it slightly so that it fits more inline with training for 24/12 hour endurance racing.

My main training sessions are around 3 to 4 hour session where I have two or three goals for the session.

On Monday my first 3 hour session was a sub-threshold (heart rate between  139 – 147) with tempo (HR between 131 – 138) phases and hard efforts on the hills. I kept my cadence high for this session and pushed hard, harder than I needed to but I felt good and I knew that my body was capable of working a little harder so I decided to go for it! When I got home I had done 64KM in 3 hours which was an okay distance for that time. I had spent 53 mins in my sub-threshold zone and 24 mins in my tempo zone with another big block in my anaerobic capacity zone (HR between  156 – 255) I was pretty tired for the rest of the day but felt happy with my first training session on my new plan.

The rest of the week comprised of a few sessions including going back to Pilates. It was great to be back in a Pilates class and Stacey is a great teacher I left Pilates nearly as tired as I was Monday from thinking about breathing, alignment and working muscles that had been asleep for a while!

Saturday was another big endurance day this time 3 hours with the same goals sub-threshold, give it some on the hills and high cadence. I chose a new route and it turned out to be rather hilly! 1000m of climbing in fact which made for some slow cadence sections and a lot of hard efforts on the hills, these hard efforts were added to, by the fact my bike wouldn’t change down into the small ring, no amount of limit screw fettling seemed to get it changing properly so I gave up and decided I would just use it as an extra training element!

At about 2 hours 40 I was still heading North away from home and made the decision to add on another hour to my ride. It was a beautiful day and I felt strong, the only thing I was running out of was water so a quick stop at a pub to get my bottle refilled kept me on the road for an extra circuit.

I arrived home after 4 hours covering 77.5KM with an average heart rate of 142 and a max of 181 I was really happy with my extra hour and the fact I climbed 1000m. I have only really just started training properly again since the end of February and I know from experience how quickly form drops so to pull off two good long rides in one week has left my feeling super happy.

I recommend Training Peaks to anyone looking to evaluate training it is simple to use and has some great features to help you stay on target and not over train.

Here is a brief outline on what the acronyms and numbers mean:

CTL (Chronic Training Load) is also called Fitness; it is a rolling 42-day average of your daily TSS (Training Stress Score). It indicates how much training load you are currently managing. If your Fitness(CTL) rises you are capable of handling a higher training load and therefore are more fit. If it decreases you are becoming unfit.

Watching this will indicate whether your training is working and you are improving or whether you need to put more in or have a rest day.

TSB (Training Stress Balance) is a way of measuring ‘form’ form is the magic term used for an athlete who is race ready.

Form in Training Peaks is measured by subtracting today’s Fatigue (Acute Training Load, or ATL) from today’s Fitness (Chronic Training Load, or CTL). Both Fatigue and Fitness are expressed as Training Stress Score, or TSS per day (TSS/d). Once the software has done the math, the remainder is your Form (by the way, the resulting Form value is for tomorrow—not for today.) It can be either a negative or a positive number depending on which is greater- Fitness or Fatigue. If Form is negative you are likely to be tired and probably not race ready. If Form is positive then you are probably rested and perhaps on form and ready to race.

If you would like to know more about using Training Peaks they have a brilliant blog or feel free to drop me an email.

It’s been a while

It’s been a while

Sorry for the long period of silence it has taken me some time to put my thoughts into sentence form!

Since competing the Trans Alp at the end of July life has been somewhat bizzare… I came back full of memories of the highs and lows and buzzing from achieving my dream to complete my first stage race.

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Top of Umbrail Passe

The Trans Alp was a magical time where life was completely consumed by racing. The year leading up had also been consumed by training, after a week of re-telling the story and the excitement that we had achieved it, I hit the ‘what happens next’ wall. I found it difficult to describe how I was feeling, but down pretty much covers it, after such a high it was a massive low and for a good few weeks I couldn’t get on my bike for the shear fact that I didn’t know why.

I decided to take the pressure off trying to find the next thing and spend some time enjoying cycling with friends and family which was fun.

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Portsmouth ride with Lauren

Getting out and having some chilled time on my bike was great and gave me time to clear my head and think about what was next.

After a coffee ride with my Mum one day she said why don’t we do a challenge together! after lots of discussion we have now decided to do London to Paris next year which I am super excited about!

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Mum and I riding along to South Cove, Lowestoft

Alongside this my plan is to tackle another stage race. I would love to try the Trans Pyrenees or Swiss epic, so whats next?

I am going back to the gym to build my all over body strength for a few months before putting in the miles starts again.

Thanks to all my friends and family and sponsors for your support over the years.

 

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Vo2 Training Session

Vo2 Training Session

Today I did my second vo2 session of the week! These are lung busting short sharp efforts with minimal rest in between.

I have been at home this week so found a loop on quiet country roads which was around 2 miles and sprinted round as fast as I could.

My best time was 6 mins 33 seconds with a max heart rate of 186 bpm.

I did four efforts which is an increase of one effort and between each one I had a 2 min rest.

Altogether I did 19 mins at my threshold heart rate (between 168 – 186) which i am really pleased with.

Cycling along the beach at Benacre

 

New Year, New Challenges

New Year, New Challenges

As it’s the start of the New Year I have heard a lot of friends new years resolutions, to join the gym, stop drinking or eating sugar. My new years resolution is to gather as much experience in endurance racing as I can and establish my first year riding in the Elite category.

I am under no illusion that this is going to be tough not only in moving up to the sharp end of racing but also taking on a new longer distance and essentially having to adapt my physiology to be able to cope with the increase in distance. Where cross country racing is short and sharp with races not being over an hour and 30 mins, I have predominately for most races been anaerobic for most of the time (heart rate above 170bpm). Endurance racing is going to require me to work aerobically to be able to take on food in order to fuel the long distance.

With this in mind I have been scouring the Internet for events and came across the UK’s only beach race. Looking at the photos and reading about the event I decided this would be a great first long distance race for me to tackle. I also managed to convince Martyn that he should race too for moral support, he reluctantly agreed.

So a little bit of information on Battle of The Beach. It is 25 miles (40km) of beach, singletrack and double track and the race loops three times around this 7-mile course.

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Taking place in Pembrey Country Park, South Wales on March 21 – 22nd . There is a weekend of racing including roller racing on the Saturday, a youth race and many categories in the main event on Sunday afternoon (including my open female race). The trophies for first, second and third look awesome and there is also prize money for the top three in the open male and female races, bonus!

I have done a little research on the results from last year where the winning female had impressive lap times of around 31 minutes making her travelling speed 14 mph, on the beach! That is as far as I’m concerned, super speedy and has motivated me to increase my speed training.

To increase my ‘spinning’ capability Mark my coach has set me the task of high cadence sessions working up to a cadence of 130 rpm! At the moment I can’t reach 130 rpm, but with practice I am getting closer! The idea of these sessions is to get me used to a higher cadence, which will eventually allow my heart rate to drop so I can work aerobically for longer during endurance events.

So far my training for this season is going really well I clocked up 475 miles in 37 hours in December.

I am going to keep a diary of my training and my progression towards 14mph off road consistently which is my goal for March and Battle of the Beach.

 

 

Performance Testing – A Vo2 Max test

Performance Testing – A Vo2 Max test

Last week I revisited the incredible team at Surrey Human Performance Institute for a vo2 max test. My last one was in June, when my vo2 max was 47.5 at a power of 240 watts. I was in the middle of my racing season so took on board the new training program as much as I could but with races every other weekend this wasn’t always easy. Have a look at my plan here.

When my season ended in September I really concentrated on performing anaerobic threshold sessions at a hear rate of 150 – 155 and a wattage of 180 – 200 watts. I have been doing one or two of these sessions a week along with hill sprints and strength and conditioning to build the power in my legs, i am now going to change tact and concentrate on getting in a long endurance ride every week and increasing my leg speed on tempo rides when my heart rate will be low and in a fat burning zone and my leg speed high. This will improve my oxygen use and my cycling efficiency.

After my latest VO2 max test my new VO2 max is 50.7 at a power output of 280 watts. This is a great improvement and i feel happy that all the hardwork working at AT has paid off! I think it also highlights the importance of knowing your numbers and working within heart rate zones as my performance has improved, lets just wait and see how this transfers into racing!

My new anaerobic threshold is 229 watts and a heart rate of 145 – 150. I am now working on my new training program ready for my first race in March.

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