Author: 342days

It’s been a couple (three?) months since my first FTP test – I wrote a post about it back then, but headline was an FTP of 216 watts.

So round two earlier today….. 🥁🥁🥁

227 watts.

Not sure how I feel about that.. yep, it’s an improvement; pretty much by around 5%. At that same rate of improvement, by May next year I might get to a further 15% – so an ftp of maybe 250-260 watts. Let’s just do some rough calcs…:

My current weight is 73kg; so as of today my ftp watts/kg is 3.11

If I make no further ftp improvement but bring my weight down to 70kg, that’s 3.24 w/kg

And if I hit the 260 watt ftp, that’s:

• 3.56 w/kg at current weight
• 3.71 w/kg at 70kg

So there’s some hope. And a couple of rides this week also showed some positive, albeit modest improvements – averaging around 17.5mph over a couple of hours

But a long, long, long way to go

As of today, it’s 8 months until race day. A quick google tells me that’s roughly the gestation period of a hippo; well – if a hippo can grow a fully formed mini hippo in that time, surely that’s plenty of time for me to get ready? (Thankyou John for some helpful perspective)

Depressingly, the evenings are getting shorter and the mornings darker.. and with that, my time on zwift is going up. So thought it timely to share a bit about my home setup – it’s pretty basic!

The bike: a 20 year old decathlon 7.1 road bike – just about the most basic bike decathlon sold back then, and it served me well for a few triathlons back in the noughties…

The trainer: a couple of months ago I treated myself to an indoor training upgrade – from a smart, but pretty basic Tacx vortex – to the JetBlack Victory with zwift cog. I’ve never had or used a direct drive (one you take the rear wheel off your bike and connect directly) trainer, but I’d never look back – it’s just so much more realistic and smooth – and would highly recommend the Victory – for the price (£400 in the UK) nothing comes close, especially with zwift cog included.

The training app: as I’ve mentioned before, Zwift is my go to training app – and now I have zwift cog I doubt I’ll use anything else. I’ve been a reasonable user of some of the training plans in the past, but have recently discovered the Robopacer rides which have brought a whole new dimension to riding. Miguel and Maria are my current go to robopacers, but I’ll look to advance to Coco and other quicker rides in due course.

The entertainment: no matter how good the training software is, you can’t get away from the fact that training indoors is pretty dull. So Netflix and Prime Video are my current go to options

And to give you an idea of how luxurious my setup isn’t, here it is in situ in my shed/office:

Had a couple of post holiday zwift rides yesterday and today; I’d heard other fellow zwifters talking about ‘Miguel’ and ‘Maria’ – so thought I’d give them a go.. pretty awesome (how had I never tried before??) – they’re a great way of keeping effort pretty consistent but over a more realistic terrain (versus workouts which keep your power consistent – which takes away a lot of the realism of climbs and descents).

Definitely an easy way of squeezing in a ride without needing to find a group ride or choose a workout – suspect I’ll be best buddies with Maria/Miguel/and maybe even Coco and Yumi?? soon

Where did it go? Just back from a lovely break in Croatia, but struck with a sinking feeling as we look down the long 4 month slog to Christmas.. kids back at school next week, back to work on Monday… yay.

I started this site – and the goal – over two months ago. Fair to say the energy and drive I’d hoped it would instil hasn’t quite been as forthcoming as I’d hoped.

And that 342 day countdown? It’s now 260. Have I achieved what I’d hoped in the first 25%? No where near.

That’s not to say all is lost. I’ve been steady on the bike; my running is slow but consistent; and my (pre holiday) weight (I’ve not dared to get back on the scales yet) was 71.8kg.. I don’t think I’ve seen that for maybe 20 years.

So whilst I’ve said it before – this is a crunch point; with just over 8 months to go, now’s the time to commit. Allez!!

Having immersed myself in the Tour de France over the past three weeks, I’ve an even greater admiration for the skill, strength and resilience of world tour cyclists; maintaining that level of focus and drive on a sustained basis is remarkable – within the backdrop of cycling 200km each day and all the associated pressure, both from the team and sponsors, and the media. It’s genuinely next level. And they’ll be back on their bikes this week – getting themselves ready for the next event.

All this puts into perspective how modest the challenge I’m setting myself is; and instead of being all ‘woe is me’, a little bit more ‘can do’ will go a long way.

One of the biggest mental barriers has simply been dragging myself out of bed to train; and the biggest reason to hit the snooze button isn’t because I just prefer to sleep; it’s the thought of putting myself through pain. So the new plan – or rather, adaptation of the current plan, is a total focus on zone 2. I know I’ve said that before but this time it’s for real. A few days in and it’s working – in as much as I’m finding it easier to haul my ass out of bed – let’s just hope that the guidance that training should be 80% zone 2 – does what it needs to.

I’m going to FTP test in a couple of weeks which will be the first test…. In the meantime here’s a recap of the past few days.

Where did the last three weeks go? It’s felt like a tough balance over the past fortnight – work is full on, the girls are just breaking up from school, and I’ve personally found motivation tough and energy levels lower.

I’ve kept plugging away on the bike – but some way off my original target per week… it’s proving pretty challenging to get out more than a couple of times a week… but I know that’s not good enough so something needs to change.

..and fitness continues to creep up – however Strava works this stuff out – but not even back to my level 3 months ago:

I definitely need to give myself a stern talking to – 301 days to go… have the past 41 days really been enough???

As we all melt in the UK (heatwave ending today, apparently), mustering up any energy to frankly do anything isn’t easy. Even writing a few words here was beyond me.

The same was true of any form of exercise – other than a brief swim with the girls on Sunday.

And then yesterday in the office – very grateful for the air conditioning but failed to squeeze in any activity… disappointing.

So dragged myself onto Zwift this morning – and ended up a sweaty mess but a good ‘threshold’ workout so feel slightly less bad about myself. Still no resistance band workout though.

Lazy day yesterday; no blog update, no exercise. I think I need one of those from time to time.

Back on it today – early rise to beat the heat; another mini heatwave in the uk, which will be sticking around for a few more days… we don’t cope too well when it gets above 30.

A while back I read (most of) ‘the 5am club’. I say most of, whilst I love a self help book which is built around story telling, I ended up finding it pretty excruciating; so I gave up.

But the gist of the book – unsurprisingly – (and in danger of wildly over simplifying it) is the importance of setting up your day in the best way possible – and how you maximise that first hour of the day to do so – through exercise, meditation, reflection and learning.

I’ve always tended to be a morning person – and I really subscribe to the principles the book is lauding; but right now, dragging myself out of bed at 5am is a challenge.

It also talks about habit creation – and whilst it’s inevitably tough at the start, in time it becomes the norm… I certainly feel a long way off that at the moment.

Today’s effort (noting a complete lack of strength training.. again):