I Need To Confess
The season is now a month in and I’ve done four races but more than ever I am really enjoying the training at the moment. My first ever race was in 1982 (cross county running), being able to continue racing and more importantly training for 40 years means one thing….my heart is in it. That’s how I train with heart and passion.
However I feel I need to confess something. Just because I seem to be able to race ok, you would probably think I know how to train. Well guess what, I really don’t.
Without a word of a lie I genuinely do not know what the following words mean….
-Sweetspot
-Anaerobic
-Lactate Threshold
-Tempo
-Acute Load
-Normalised Power
-Perceived Exertion
I’m sure over the years I have been told, but these simple training principles have just never sunk in. Maybe they have, whether I’m inadvertently doing it right or not I don’t know.
Do I need to know? Is it all just intuitive?
Do you need to be that specific?
My mind pretty much immediately switches off when riders talk training protocols. It’s so dull. It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve started using a power meter. Am I getting the best out of myself or should I be a lot better? I remember in the 90s when pulse monitors were all the rage, training at Camber Sands and the team put a monitor on me when we were doing sand dune hill reps. It annoyed me so much I ripped it off halfway through. I think it mucked up their lactic testing.
Nowadays you have these apps that give you eight training zones. Eight! Well I only have three modes;
1) Easy
2) Hard
3) F@@king hard
I certainly don’t need any external motivation or virtual display showing avatar riders. I just turn off the lights, put the new Suede album on (which is fantastic by the way) and get ready to bite the handlebars!
So as it’s the end of September I will be upping the training through October. October has always been traditionally a high mileage (now high intensity for cyclocross) month. Over the years I’ve just been too stubborn to take on training tips. I’d always much rather just do my own thing. More recently my memory and inability to absorb new information (or maybe just my lack of intelligence) has rendered any external advice pretty futile. What is it they say about an old dog?
The new five minute FTP test rubbish just infuriates me. A test to determine your perceived watt capacity for 60 minutes condensed to just five minutes because 60 minute would be too hard is just laughable. DO THE BLOODY FULL HOUR TO FIND OUT YOUR WATT CAPACITY FOR AN HOUR!!
Anyway this was the last week’s training;
Saturday 24th Race in Milton Keynes
Sunday 25th Race in Swindon
Monday 26th 2 hours easy at 160 watts
Tuesday 27th 2 hours pacing behind an ebike on the road (blasting the hills)
Wednesday 28th 2 hours including 10 x 5 minutes (2min recovery) - averaging 330 watts
Thursday 29th 2 hours in the woods (skills, tricks and hill blasts)
Friday 30th 2 hours including 2 x 10 minutes (1@350watts, 1@360watts)
So am I doing it right and what am I doing wrong? Answers on a postcard, but I probably will not listen (or understand). Exerting myself, with whatever ‘normalised power’ and ‘acute load’ I currently have available, is what I enjoy and that simple pleasure of bombing around on a bike, just can’t be beat.
