It's a Base of two halves
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| 27 long rides! |
Just before Christmas I wrote a blog summarising the first half of my Base period for the 2021/22 season.
This blog post will roundup my training for the second half, from late December 2021 to early March 2022.
The plan for the second half of Base was much the same as the first half - lots of volume with two hard rides and two long rides per week.
The Crash
In early January I hit a cyclist trench in Haxted, rugby tackled the road and came off second best.
The damage to the bike was extensive and expensive. Fortunately, the damage to my body was mostly aesthetic.
The crash happened on the Sunday of the second week of a block, so I moved my recovery week forward one week and cracked on with training after that.
Lifting
Like the on-the-bike training, lifting had been going really well prior to the crash.
Resuming lifting was not so straightforward. My left shoulder took the bulk of the impact so I was a bit limited as to what I could do without making things worse.
I didn't lift during the post-crash recovery week, but returned to the gym the following week for some light resistance training. I gradually built back up, taking things easier for around a month. I was back to lifting like I had been pre-crash by mid-February.
Crash rehab aside I've been in a really good groove with lifting. I enjoy the morning workouts in the garden and I can feel the difference on the bike; it's like having an extra gear especially at slightly lower cadences (80-85rpm).
As I move into the Build phase, I plan to keep lifting twice a week in the mornings before my hardest rides in the evening. It seems counterintuitive, but it works. It follows the 'Make hard days hard, keep easy days easy' mantra.
I'll caveat that by saying that I won't hesitate to lower the weights, drop a session or stop lifting altogether if I feel it's having a negative impact on cycling performance. I don't think that will be the case, but I'm prepared to do so if it is.
I'm excited to try lifting on the morning of an evening race this season. I'll do it at a few non-priority Interclubs and see how it feels.
Commuting
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| Two hour endurance ride |
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| Two hour commute |
If you look at the two screenshots above, the first image is a two-hour endurance ride, and the second is a two-hour commute. Clearly, the endurance ride is more efficient, more specific and an all-round better use of time.
I think the good thing about the commute is sheer volume; even if the quality of the ride is a bit shit, it's still four hours on the bike.
And there's this strange phenomenon with commuting that I've never been able to understand. I seem to get great legs a few days after a commute. But the same doesn't happen a few days after a four hour long ride.
Going forward, the plan is to commute once a week. The challenge will be keeping fresh throughout the season. Which is why I've juggled training around.
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| A typical Base week |
This screenshot is a good reflection of an average training week for this Base period. Lifting/hard rides on Tues/Thurs, back to back long rides on the weekend and easy filler rides in between.
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| This is what a week with one commute now looks like |
It's early days but I prefer this new schedule. I've ridden six days a week for quite some time now, but I enjoy having an extra rest day off the bike. It breaks the week up into a three-day and two-day block.
I've also noticed I've had good legs more often. I had good legs on four out of five days in that week. Normally, I'd expect one or two good days, and I'd often have rubbish legs in any given week.
When the season begins, I'll have to shuffle things around again. Interclub TTs are on Thursdays, which is currently a rest day.
Do more work
One of my goals this autumn/winter was to do more Work (as expressed in kilojoules).
During last year's Base period I averaged 8,489kJ per week.
This year, I averaged 9,521kJ - 12% more. Interestingly, my average TSS was very similar - 645 this year compared to 636 last year.
This is one of reasons why I'm skeptical about TSS, and why I prefer to use kilojoules to measure longer periods of training.
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| PMC: CTL stays fairly flat because I ride a similar amount block to block |
Waste less time
I also aimed to spend less time in zone 1. Last winter 25% of my time on the bike - 55 hours! - was in zone 1. I managed to cut that to 16.5% this winter.
That works out as roughly 45 minutes less in zone 1 per week. I'm pretty happy with that.
Key sessions
At the midway point of Base, I'd worked up to Tempo Bursts and plain Sweetspot as my hard weekday rides, gradually building time week on week.
Then I progressed from Tempo Bursts to Sweetspot Bursts, and the Sweetspot ride became Lactate Clearance.
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| 3x20 Sweetspot Bursts. I tried to avoid letting the power drop (see blue lines) after the bursts |
Sweetspot Bursts are a nice way of breaking up a quite monotonous ride on the turbo; and it's a 'fun fast' ride on the road. The bursts are a good way of teaching your body to handle those little surges - up slight rises, out of corners, etc.
I tend to neglect sprints and efforts above FTP in general, so they also help to keep those systems firing.
I've really enjoyed playing around with the Lactate Clearance ride since my crash. I started with 3x12 minutes - 1 min @ 400W, 2 min @ 280W - which felt fine.
Then I was too aggressive with the progression. I tried to do 3x15 with 1 min @ 400W, 1.5 min @280W. In hindsight, 1 min hard, 2 min tempo is the right balance.
The purpose of the session is to overload your body with lactate, then train it to clear that lactate at a moderate intensity. I kind of forgot this. What I was doing became more like Lactate Tolerance, which is a very different session.
This is a fun session though. Very hard to execute on the road but very good practice.
As I get closer to my first target race in May, I'll probably change this session so it's closer to traditional over/unders as that will also be race specific.
What's next?
So, it's March. I've done my winter miles, now it's time for summer smiles.
I was going to peak three times this season - in May, July and September, but my main race - B100/4 - has recently been moved to August.
So, I need to have a rethink. For now, I'll build up to the F2A/25 in May, recover, then work out what to do next.
There will be lots of midweek races through this next block but they'll be training races where I'll ride there and back to keep up the volume.
Target races
My main target is B100/4 in August.
After last year's 100 mile TT in Kent - Q100 - I said I'd only do another 100 if it was on a decent course. Anybody that has done the Q100 or Q50/11 courses knows how painful the stretch of road from Camber to Lydd is, especially on the fourth lap.
So, I decided to go for the (apparently) faster and smoother B100/4 on the A11 dual carriageway in Norfolk.
That decision dictated when my first peak could/should be - ideally early May. I had a look at events and it quickly became apparent that it would be a 25.
In an ideal world, I'd love to race the P881/25 again as it's only an hour drive, it's a beautiful surface and course. Unfortunately, there are very few races on the A3 this year, probably because of the crash last year.
The next best option would be the F2A/25 on May 7. It's a bit further than I'd like to drive, but it's a 2pm start so no need to set a stupidly early alarm.
My third and final peak is undecided but probably going to be the East Peckham Interclub on 10 September. There's Q100 on 4 September or Q25/12 on 11 September. I could double up with the 10 and 25 on consecutive days, but I've yet to race successfully back-to-back. We'll see...
Build phase training
This time of year I find the hardest. Base is pretty straightforward: ride as much as you can recover from, sprinkle in a few harder rides and you'll get into pretty decent shape.
But with trying to keep volume high, training races, readapting to the TT bike, making training more specific, it feels like there's a lot more to juggle.
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| First time on the TT bike since mid-September |
TT Bike
I'm going to just ride the TT bike outside until it feels more comfortable, then I'll do efforts in position.
I have a few race specific over unders planned in the lead up to the 25 on May 7. Working backwards, I probably need to start them in early April.
Last year, I did seven three-hour z2 rides on the TT bike from 28 March to 20 May in the lead up to Q100. They're hard work but I think they're the best session you can do to prepare for a 100 mile TT.
I'd like to do more this year. One a week from April to July would put me in a good place for the 100 in Norfolk.
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