Training and more training

I have been busy training and have finally made the leap onto the Melbourne bunch rides They are fun and fast (more fun than racing). My first big race is the Mansfield crit and road race in March, until then I will keep seeing how long I can keep up 400-450km weeks. A typical week looks:

Monday - SKCC easy Monday ride
Tuesday - Either 6am NRR or 6.30pm Barkley St
Wednesday - SKCC bunch ride
Thursday - 6am NRR
Friday - rest
Saturday - Hell ride
Sunday - SKCC B grade crit + lots more easy k's

Tour of Bright Preperation

After struggling up the last climb in Dargo and walking, the one thing to help my Tour of Bright campaign is to increase my climbing and the more, the better. This meant more time on the usual suspects in the Dandenong's and trying the two longer climbs below for the first time. Next year if I plan on doing Tour of Bright again, I definitely plan to do one of the lead up camps which unfortunately I didn't get a chance to complete this year. For great detail write up on the climbs and most importantly the official start/finish points (to help time yourself for Strava), visit the Climbing Cyclist. Always bring a warm jacket as the temperatures vary around 10-15degC from top to bottom and descent is always cool. Plus always bring plenty of food and water and spares in case something happens as there is not a huge amount of traffic at times and phone reception can be non existent.  

Lake Mountain - 20.5km, 992m at 4.5% ( x 2)

 

	Lake Mountain is a great ride. The first 4km's is the toughest part requiring some quite a bit out of saddle work to get the job down quickly. But once this is over, the rest of the ride is easy sitting at the 4-5% allowing a nice steady rhythm with a couple of flat areas to recover on and even a small downhill section approaching the turn off. The first half of the descent is very smooth with nice flowing corners and be careful of the last k's back in Marysville which can be very quick due to the steep gradients.

Mount Donna Buang - 16.9km, 1001m at 6.5% (x 2)

Even though it is over 3k's shorter than Lake Mountain, it climbs the same vertical height with a steeper and very constant gradient making it in my opinion harder as there is no reprieve. The last km approaching the summit is by the far the hardest at around 8% making it a tough finish that seems to go on forever and ever and ever (destroying hopes of a quick top 20 Strava time). Again, the descent is quick and flowing making it a lot of fun to come down but be careful, I came across a motorbike accident with his bike well of into the trees and he was lucky to walk away.

Northern Combine Woodend - C Grade

Today was another fine day of racing with the Northern Combine. After a few initial attempts of a breakaway in the opening k's, one was successful (unfortunately I wasn't in this particular one) and they held on (just) to the end. On the first lap the pace was on with B grade appearing in the distance until it relaxed into a more steady rhythm. I felt a lot better today spending more time on the front, off the front, chasing breakaways and just for the hell of it, doing a big turn in the final k's to really test the legs (it turned out the breakaway's weren't that far ahead). I fought all the way to the line finishing again in the top 10 (just). I knew my big turn wouldn't help my finish as a few riders exploded past me, but it was an important test to push me that bit harder in preparation for future weeks. 

 More importantly, I backed it up today with 90kms of recovery with a couple of TT intervals thrown in. My training regime is slowly but surely turning up the intensity while maintaining decent k's finishing up with just over 350km for the week. The last 30km's were completed on my ergo annoying the hell out of my girlfriend trying to watch TV.

Nothing special

I didn't race for once, but still trained. I spent Saturday out riding in the Yarra Valley with almost 1km of vertical climbing. Unfortunately on Sunday the weather wasn't very good and my trip to the Dandenongs with repeats of Inverness Rd was cancelled, instead I had to make do with some intervals at my anerobic threshfold (AT) peaking at 6mins. 

What you missed this morning (WYMTM)

For me it way my first official indoor ergo session, the data is truncated for some reason but you get the picture.

Tomorrow I am looking forward to a recovery day. The hardest thing about it will be making sure I actually recover and not to chase down everyone on Beach rd.

Saturday morning training - the 90km Stockdale Loop

 After completing numerous training laps of the RAAF base in Sale and the more recent stints on Melbourne's Beach Rd, it was good to do a completely new ride with a new group. Today I ventured out with the SEMC (Sale Early Morning Crew) on the 7am ride leaving Sale through to Stockdale, stopping for a coffee at Stratford before rolling back into Sale.

As the Wellington Cycling club has its criterium championships on Sunday, I was told the pace was more subdued than normal. The key sections of the ride are Sale to Chins bridge (friendly), onwards to Munro and Banana Hill ( faster), downhill back to Stratford (fastest) and finally back to Sale (friendly again). Once the fog lifted, the day turned out to be a stunner with joyous times had by all. Banana Hill turned out to be a slight disappointment as I had already completed it without realising.

This is a great ride I'd recommend to anyone with a good amount of undulations on virtually car free roads. If this wasn't enough, here is my full Garmin summary of the ride http://connect.garmin.com/activity/70090739