The Twenty Kilometer Time Trial

After the hassles in the past two weeks I hope I am back on track. The Time Trial went much better than I thought it would. I was very apprehensive. It was nice and warm with no wind and still sunny. There were twenty in my group and we started of thirty seconds after each other. As usual I started off too fast and my HR went up very quickly. Too quickly in fact. It was soon up to over 150. Now the strange thing is that my max HR is supposed to be 155 according to my reconing and tests that I have done on myself. Not scientific of course.

After five ks. I was still going well with my HR now hovering around 159, my legs felt strong and my breathing not overtaxed. I did in fact push a bit harder and the HR went up to 162 and I was still below anarobic threshold(91%MHR). Didn't go into the red. So what is happening? At the end of the TT the HR came down quite quickly. All I can say is that my training is working. The hill intervals have made my legs pretty strong, but my heart had too work harder to supply the oxygen to my blood to convey it to my legs. Because of my lower blood count the heart had to work extra hard to make up for the deficiency.... Or,because I have a bit of a leaky valve the heart is not as efficient as it should be and had to work harder. But that does not account for such a high HR which should have been in the mid 150's. Maybe I would have gone faster but I was reluctant to put my heart into overdrive as I had done a couple of weeks back.

I finished low down but some were old enough to be my children, grand children or evengreat grandchildren!?? and out of the twenty or so riding in my group I was only a bit over 4 mins behind the leader. Av.cadence was 84 but was actually more as I only checked after a slow ride back to the car.

Next week twenty Ks. round the lake. Not Taupo.

Not a good time for me.

This has been a bad time for me. After my 60 km ride on Friday I was quite elated,but my elation was short lived. On Sunday I decided to do some medium hill intervals and warmed up as usual. Then I started up the hill and about the two hundred metre mark I noticed that I was several seconds ahead of my normal time. This encouraged to increase my speed and at the half way mark I was still way ahead. At the top of the hill of one kilometer I stopped the watch at 15secs better than my best time. Wow!. Then a glanced at my HRM and found my heart was beating at 177, more than twenty above max. It remained at 177 for perhaps five mins even though my breathing was back to normal and then only gradually dropped over the next twenty mins to 135.Suddenly it dropped to more or less normal for that sort of effort.Should this worry me? Well yes of course it did and left me really unhappy. I stopped training for three days.

Yesterday I did some short hill intervals keeping my eyes on my HR,and never letting it get to high.The short hills don't allow it to go too high. My times were all a bit better and the HR was also good, but afterwards in the evening it became very irregular. Its back to normal now. I know that some cyclists do have irregular heart beats with thickened left ventrical wall and doctors are worried about it.

Cyclng up Col de Argyll

Another attempt to ride up to the mountains was foiled by the rain. Ten ks into my ride rain started spitting at me with a dark cloud covering much of the sky in the direction I was heading. I back tracked and decided to ride over the Argyll hills to sunshine on the other side,to Otane and the Patangata Tavern. I still managed to do sixty ks. My cadence was again only 78 yet I spent much time well over ninety.The last sixteen ks were into the wind coming home.Still it was an interesting ride.Bottom picture of the Tukituki river. Second to bottom,spreading fertilizer on the hills.

Voetstoets: Parade of nations

My son Bruce is competing in the World Duathlon Championships in Edinburgh today for his age group 45-49, read about it here.

Voetstoets: Parade of nations: "This was a lot of fun."

Training September 2010

1...........17kms. Six short hill intervals.
3 ..........22 kms. Ten short hill intervals. The weather was too cold for a long ride so I decided to stay close to home so I could chicken out. This was supposed to be a hard week but with the inclement weather maybe I should just make it an easy week and then next week will have to be hard. I'll wait to see what Sunday turns out like.
5...........28ks. Otane via Tod Road. This was to be a long ride into the mountains. The promised 18^oC didn't materialise and when I set off it was 8^oC but it did warm up to 10^oC. Anyway I aborted the long ride and decided that this week would have to be the easy week and now next week will have to be hard.
7...........19ks. Eight short hill intervals in higher gear. Times better than 22/8/10 and heart rate lower and I did two more intervals. Weather much warmer with some sun and no wind.Good workout. Cadence 78 Av. HR 114.
9..........Rain all day.Was able to get some work done in the nursery
10.........60ks.
12.........12ks One medium hill climb in very fast time which pushed my HR up too high so I cooled it.
15.........17ks. Eight short hill intervals.Rain interrupted my training.
19.........30 mins on trainer. weather still bad.
20.........30 mins on trainer.
21........ 21 mins on trainer.Very windy gale force winds out on the road.
22.........30 mins on trainer. wind still very bad out on the road.
23.........14 kms. three short hill repeats. Had to fit it in the best I could .It was very cold with occasional rain and strong winds. was pleased to get some miles in.
26.........31 mins. on trainer.Everything is working against me. I have suffered an acute attack of gout in my left foot and have been unable to put on my cycle shoes. I managed to find some perdnisone which helped me so I managed to do 30 mins on trainer this evening. I was hoping to enter a 10 k time trial on Tuesday. Now I will just have to wait and see.
27........10 ks. Hard warm up of 8 ks and then one short hill in record time and then a warm down. Just changed wheels and tried out the bike to see all is ready for tomorrows time-trial of 10 ks. now changed totwenty ks. on Ashcott Road.Its very flat.My time will put me into a group.Probably with the kids of ten years old.My foot still hurts a bit.
28........20 k. Time Trial. I had a great ride. Finished low down but most were old enough to be my children, grand children or great grandchildren!?? Av.cadence was 84 and out of the twenty or so riding in my group I was only a bit over 4 mins behind the leader.