Chapaeu!

To celebrate!: For the next 24 hours you can save 15% off each of the five videos featuring women's pro racing. Those videos are:

• Blender - 1hr 40min of threshold work and Pain Shakes! 
• Revolver - 15 x 1min max efforts (with a little surprise) 
• Extra Shot - 20min race simulation 
• Hell Hath No Fury - 2x 20min race simulation 
• Chrysalis - 1hr Run/Bike brick workout

You can find them all right here in this blog post. Just use the code WORLDCUP at check-out. 

Knighthood Training Week 8

A pretty vanilla week. Somewhat of three bears week, with two weeks ago being overcooked with 175 miles Papa Bear, last week being a bit undercooked with 121 miles Momma Bear, this week was pretty much in the middle with 147 and shut the front door 3 of those miles were running!!! Baby Bear This is the penultimate week of training so I was glad to have a solid week, it also closed out the month and the quarter so it was a week with lots of closings.

Here is how things shook out;

Monday; Rest.

Tuesday; Lone Pine. Dialed back to 92% as back is still sore. This was a nice solid ride.6x10-minute intervals in the Threshold power level at 95-99% FTP with 3-minute recoveries between intervals. Focused on form on the bike, sitting still, "scraping shoes" etc. GC Data.

Wednesday; Pyramidal. Very pleased with this, some work but well within myself. 40 minutes of Tempo with varying intensity every 5 minutes. GC Data.

Thursday; Red Kaweah. Had to stop for bio break between 2nd and 3 sets and forgot to restart Garmin hence missing 7 minutes and 1.5-2 miles...oh well. 4 sets of 3x4-minute efforts at 95, 100 & 105% FTP with slightly increasing rest periods from 1 to 3 minutes in duration at 50-60% FTP. GC Data.

Friday; Rest.

Saturday; North Maggie. Today was a FreeRide so as Sunday is on the road I just swapped them around. 5x10-minute Power Steps each beginning with 5 minutes between 90-95% FTP followed immediately by 5 minutes of 1-3% FTP steps which top out at 112%; 5 minutes of rest between each interval. Dialed intensity back to 95%, GC Data.

Sunday; Hidden Valley, WLV loop. Nice solid ride with a bit of everything, climbs (2800' of gain), flats and drops. Felt strong, hammered some of it and eased off in some. Followed this with a three mile run in the new Saucony Virrata 2s. I was chasing Becca for a bit and was pleased with the pace given my lack of running. Finished it off with a cold Mexican Coke!

In terms of the month as suspected I broke the 600 mile mark, this is a new high for me even compared to Ironman training back in 2012 when I had bike week (which was 190 miles) I only topped out at 476 and when training for the Tour De Big Bear last year I maxed at 498 so this is a big up in mileage from then.

That being said this plan is very consistent with 4 x 90 minute rides and a 60 minute ride per week and and then whatever I did on a Sunday.

For the quarter, well the numbers speak for themselves. This obviously reflects the two weeks off in January after the bike crash. That being said had I not crashed my training would have looked very different as I would have continued on the Ironman St George 70.3 plan, so there would have been a lot more running and swimming of course! Either way I am pleased with the consistency.

This is the last week of the scheduled plan. I have decide to skip Saturday’s ride; the only ride which I have missed since starting. This will give me an extra day of rest before L’Etape du California on Sunday.

My best estimate is that I will just break 70 hours of training over the 9 weeks and hit 1100 miles. I will write up a review on the plan next week!

Onwards…

Screwed blue!

It’s taken me a long time to finally find a pair cycling shoes that fit, to be honest it’s taken a really long time! The problem is that wearing them in the bedroom and walking around for a minute of two is very different to wearing them on the bike. It’s then that you discover that they pinch, pull or whatever it is that they do to not make them fit. For the record I have tried; Sidi, Shimano, Spuik, Northwave, Giro and probably a few more that escape me.

Last month I picked up a pair of 2013 Bonratger RXLs, they fitted really nicely. The problem was the ratcheting mechanism on the inside of the shoe slipped which loosened the shoe, Bontrager offer a 30 day perfect fit policy, so I took them back to the LBS from where I got them and they gave me another pair no questions asked. They were surprised to hear my complaint and the owner wore the same shoe and had never had any problems so quite possibly it was a random pair. Anyway so far so good!

Now a by-product of trying all these shoes is that you have to switch your cleats…often. I run Speedplay pedals and they require a conversion plate that sits between the cleat mechanism and the shoe, converting the typical 3 hole sole to the 4 hole Speedplay mount. I am going to spare you all the blurb about the cleats as this post is about that tiny bit of blue that you can see at the end of the screws in the picture.

 

That blue is Loctite Blue (aka Loctite 242), do not be confused that it comes in a red bottle! There are three main features of 242;

• Protects threads; Prevents rusting of threads
• Medium strength; Can be removed with hand tools
• Locks threads; Prevents loosening of metal fasteners caused by vibrations

It’s the third one that comes in to play for me more than the others, specifically as a result of all the cleat changing I have worn off all the “blue” from the mounting screws and as a result my cleats tend to loosen sooner than they should. It’s inevitable that they will come loose eventually and of course the more you ride the sooner that will happen. The fix is to simply paint some more blue onto them. Well there is a bit more to it;

1. All the screws should be clean, I use a rag and some degreaser then wipe everything down with a dry clean rag
2. Apply the blue, gently squeeze the tube and apply several drops on the thread, see photo above
3. Wait 24 hours
4. Reassemble cleats

And voila, loose cleats no more! To be honest this can also be used on bottle cages to the same effect, essentially anywhere that might loosen due to vibration! When I travelled to Canada in 2012 I removed the handlebars from the stem to box the bike. I painted all the screws the same way before travelling so they were all good to go when I reassembled the cockpit

Available from any hardware store and even from Amazon it costs about $7.00 a tube which lasts a lifetime!