The Success and Unease of Training like a Pro

I have itchy fingers - no, not an infection - but like travellers have itchy feet, I have itchy fingers.  I have been staring at an empty page, longing to write something but no words come because there have been no great adventures recently. 

Yet I am more at home on a bike than I have been in a long time (not that I've taken this years' race bike out in weeks).

Training like a pro: I have focussed my efforts on my weaknesses this week and yes, for me, that is strength which means the trips to the gym are back on.

There's two good things about that in March:

1. I can get a big and useful workout done in the space of 1-2 hours.
2. I don't feel terribly guilty about not going out on my bike when the weather is shitty because I have to recover from a gym session.

After a gym session on Friday, we did get out yesterday to stretch our legs with a walk into town.  Then after I'd recovered I took my new bike, Twiggy, for its first spin on the rollers.  I realise I'm turning into a Zwift wanker without the Zwift account.

It took me a while to get the rollers and the bike set up so I was comfy but once started, I got plenty out of it - waking up the lungs and fast-twitch muscles and getting comfy on that bike just in case I get to use it any time soon.  1 hour 20 minutes later and I wasn't quite spent but I was quite hungry.

But there are no epic stories to tell from my roller sessions, my trips to the gym or my commute - which is blissfully and thankfully dull.  The most exciting event on my bike in recent weeks has been meeting up with Becky after work on my bike like a well ingrained hipster and my speedy drag races up the hill that are genuinely getting faster and less frantic.  It's so rewarding when I ask my legs for something and they respond.

In the absence of wild camping weather (or something anywhere near) weights and rollers are still great mood lifters.  They do a tonne for my fitness and confidence and the endorphins get to work and I'm more ready than ever for a nap.

Some people may not need to lift weights or work on their aerobic capacity.  It may come naturally when they ride.  They are lucky people who have probably spent their lives in clubs and pelotons, never really understanding why I wouldn't just turn up.

It's nice to see some of the people I look up to in the endurance world openly admitting to a cheeky turbo or roller session to get out of the weather.  Mostly they probably, like me, don't find much to talk about in it.  I'd like to think that everyone else is holed up indoors through this weather.  All waiting like chrysalis for March to be over, April nearly through, so that we can emerge, like butterflies to be flitted far and wide on colourful wings.

Training like a pro goes beyond the boundaries of the bike and going to the gym.  It's a wholistic approach to self care which strays in to coming to terms with day to day chores and makes them more bearable. 

The whole point of there not being someone else to do shit for me means that in some ways I'm like a lowly paid domestique, doing all the chores for myself.  There's no soigneuse to take care of my massage, food and no maintenance team to look after my bike. 

After months of being a slave to a difficult and stressful job, I am now taking measured pleasure and awareness from the following:

• having a shower (hygiene)
• the supermarket run (being stocked up with Calories and nutritious food)
• washing and rebuilding bikes (mechanic)
• cooking (nutritious food)
• Tidying up (hygiene & safety)
• Driving to work (recovery)

I still haven't really got the hoover out but the risk of injury, exhaustion and allergy attack puts that on a low frequency spectrum that I'm only prepared to endure once a month or less.  Other things I have not yet mastered include:

• massage 
• stretching
• cleaning the team bus

Rest still happens though this year I am trying my absolute best not to let it stray into laziness.  Where before I may have let laziness continue all day, instead I have replaced it after a while with simple, non screen-related tasks.  If I still can't get up then I at least get the knitting out.

Last year had more miles in it so far.  It also had more hours.  It had less weight training and that aspect only went down hill.  It will be interesting to see just how it helps me progress.  Last year at the Mag 7, I commented to Matt Payne that my annual first awakening to hill climb training comes with the Mag 7 ride (last year in advance of Ireland, the year before in advance of Alpe d'Huez).

This year I feel like I'm already three weeks into addressing my particular difficulty with hill climbing and we still have 2 weeks to go before the Mag7 race.  By testing myself on the course last week I realised that what I thought would have been working for me actually really wasn't (long mountain bike rides on a heavily laden bike).  In retrospect it's a good job I started weight training when I did.  I'd love to claim it was planned but it really wasn't.  Perhaps my body was giving me subliminal messages, secretly craving the thing that it will make it go faster.  After all, I know I'm *supposed* to do this, I just never really felt like it before.  Perhaps it was Ruth Marsden that started it.

I think I did, at least, realise that the yoga alone wasn't going to give me the strength I need and with an ever growing influx of new year students late on their new years' resolutions (for good reason - Exams), yoga is being strength-diluted with breathing, relaxation and stretching taking over.  I had to make my gym money go further and so far weight training has been a success. 

When I went to the gym today there were moments when the black leather cushion material on the machines burned into my skin from the beautiful winter outdoor sunshine baking them hot.  I also strengthened my glutes as the hailstones tore around in the maelstom of a flurry.  If I'd been out in that I would have been soaked and cold for hours afterwards.

There are moments when I think nothing will do away with the guilt of not being "out there in it".  Blogs like this where I'm trying to persuade myself more than you, my dear reader.  But there are moments when I will walk away from a hailstorm and into a hot sauna and I am fine with my choices.

I could be bothered by my hours and miles for this year being down compared to 2018 or we could acknowledge that 2018 still left me empty when I got to the race in June.  Sure, my endurance was OK but I had neither strength nor speed.  3 days in I was frazzled, uncomfortable and behind.  13 days in and I'd ridden myself somewhere near into the shape I should have started in. 

By contrast, though I've ridden less this year, I've climbed more per km and done it faster - and mostly on a loaded bike.  Interesting.  It's gonna be interesting.

Train Like a Pro - Day 2

Well, I did declare today a rest day but when I got pissed off with it I decided to try that gym thing out again.

I walked over which is a warm up in itself.  I also got some cash out the machine and yet, all the way there, I never addressed the issue of feeling hungry.  So I arrived in the foyer and popped open a pack of crisps and a cereal bar that lurk in my rucsac.

I looked like a right food addict in front of all the lovelies.  

Still don't like the running machine thingy, nothing like the real thing but after my sit-down snack, I had to get the heart rate up to deal with the air conditioned cool inside the room.

Maybe I don't like the running thingy because I was digesting my snack.  Still, quick stretch then back to the machines.

I took notes this time, made it count for something.

It was all just... satisfying.  I arrived around 4:30 and left at 6.  I am nothing less than super-inspired for when I go back to work.

With steak and top quality veg for dinner, this training like a pro lark is really suiting me.

Train like a Pro - Day 1

No not drugs.  There's no budget for r-EPO in this household - get ahold of your misrepresentations.

The new way forward in work life balance.  Up early every day to make that journey from sofa to gym before work.  By car or bicycle to make the rest of the work day recovery before returning home via a longer ride - or run - spent enough to sleep before doing it all again the next day.

Picking Friday or Monday (or both) as a rest day to prepare for the weekend's excitement or recover from it.

I did my first weights session yesterday at the actual gym.  I was pretty much dreading it.  I haven't been in for 2 years or more, I'm sure and they have refurbished it - probably moved things around.  I didn't enjoy it back then and I went out and bought some free weights of my own but they're a bit shit and I'm too nervous about falling through the loft floor into the bedroom ceiling.

On first pass at the gym, I hated it some more.  Of those still working out beyond 8:30 am on a work day there were lithe and pumped students in UnderArmour leggings and bra tops, sweating with tiny glistening gems and not at all pink or breathless.  Their pony tails bounced to the lat pull downs they were doing.

Then there were the ripped and wiry middle aged women knocking out reps or running avidly on the machines.  Sweating fully under the effort, their short hair spiked by the sweat.  Their winter suntans only vaguely rose-tinted as their defined glutes barely moved in run stroke.

I was entirely dressed in cotton, having come straight from a gentle yoga class in a well ventilated room.  I had no intention of getting a sweat on resulting in the wonderful soggy-bum look of cotton.  I was there to go through the adaptation movements and remind my body of the wonderous joy of weight training.

It was also a reconnaissance mission to establish:

• Do I want to do this here or at home (requiring investment in more kit)?
• Is everything still where it used to be and what's new?
• What is here and where are all the things?
• What did I forget that I need to bring next time?
• How do the things work and what do I like / want to use?

I didn't even take a notepad in to write down what I was doing.  I should have, for as it turns out, I really enjoyed myself.

I did a little warm up to top up the warm from yoga.  I adjusted and tweaked the settings, taking all the machines out of tiny girl mode and switching into grown up sizes then dropped all the weights down into tiny girl mode.  Surprisingly some of the weight went back on  - after steering a 21kg mountain bike my arms are in good shape.  My glutes and hamstrings are fooked - which is what I expected and why I was there.

Big red admission flag: I got one machine completely wrong - sat on it the wrong way, tried to pull instead of push.  Tried it three times before I realised I was being an idiot.  Nobody saw me - at least nobody said anything and after that, I made sure to take a discrete look at the instructions before getting any machine I thought I knew.  Clearly they were out to trick me.

It took me a while but I did eventually start to relax and enjoy myself.  I stayed completely within myself both mentally and physically.  For the first time ever I didn't look around at what others were doing - either to tuut knowingly or worry for their safety.  I rested between sets, I enjoyed the freedom and challenge of movement and I relaxed contentedly in effort well done.

A number of times I got up to leave thinking, "That's enough, I'll just..."but then found another machine to re-familiarise myself with or a new bit of thing that I wanted to have a go at.

I didn't consciously avoid the free weights area or play on the mats with my own body weight because I'm not motivated to do those exercises right now.  I have my yoga and honestly, I'm bored of training without props.  A mixture between too much effort or guessing if I'm doing it right.  Instead I'm enjoying the focus of the weights room.  Put me in the stocks with the frames, cogs, pulleys and clanging metal and bizarrely my brain felt freer, more relaxed, less concentrated.

I left with a clear head and went in town to source myself a form of outdoors aerobic exercise to offset my new affection for indoors based training (a new bike).  Something light to do some audax on but also, in the meantime, something light to get some aerobic training on up and down the valley.  My mountain bike leads me to do whatever is asked of me.  I'm hoping the road bike gives me chance to spin the legs faster and speed up the progress I make with all this strength.

Once I got home I set out for my afternoon ride - leaving home at 1:30.  The Peaks were alive with half term holiday makers doing cool stuff like flying kites and mountain biking with their kids.  It made me very proud and happy to live here.

I rode till 7:30 in the evening. 

Didn't quite make the Edale cafe yet - I always faff too much en route and don't leave early enough.  I did get over 50k in and enjoy every second. 

It was just the right length ride and I ate then hit the sack straight after again.

Today, training like a pro was easy.  Same again tomorrow?

Good Intentions Etc.

A run to work turned into a ride to work with a gym session turned into a weights and yoga set at home. Clearly I was most comfortable there as I properly overcooked it and am going to bed hoping I haven't damaged myself. I can't be doing with a few days off right now. I need training before I let the growth begin.

Tomorrow evening though my lovely husband takes me out to watch Jenifer Laurence be gorgeous. What more could I ask for?

Sssshhh

It's a day for being quiet. TSK is doing the Dunwich Dynamo today but instead of driving all the way down to london to ride to the Suffolk coast, he's just going to head over from Sheffield later on this evening and arrive there, about 6am for his swim in the sea.

I had my ocean swim this morning. Rother valley didn't quite match up to the waves of Ullswater in June but it was tough.

I've had a hard week. I have trained hard on my bike twice in two days and run twice in two days, including a run from work to Santander in Brinsworth with over £500 in cash in my shoes. It's not that I'm particularly worried about Brinsworth as an area but I'd forgotten my bumbag and running along clutching £500 in twenties in my sweaty mit seemed a little risky. I mean, knowing me, I'd drop it.

I also did a swim on Wednesday night at the pool. Ages since I've been to the pool.

For some time I've been debating the pros and cons of my gym membership. It was cheap at £29 per month and very flexible. The advantages: that I wil tend to pop in for quick 20 minute sessions because I feel like I'm getting my money's worth if I do; that frequently and in the winter when I want nothing more than to sit on the machines in the warm and run on the treadmill, it's always there, on my way to work. The cons: I wasn't doing that anywhere near frequently enough, especially in the summer with all my fun I'm having with the Sheffield Tri club. I have to pay for Sheffield Tri and so training was getting rather expensive.

Last week I checked the account that my gym membership comes from. They were only ones who hadn't switched over my direct debit and the charge had gone up to £38. Well, long story short, they apologised and refunded the excess from the last three months but the damage was done and I wasn't prepared to pay £38 at all, especially as I get so much more - coaching, techniques, speed sessions from the Sheffield Tri group.

So with Sheffield Tri providing the swimming training, Dark Peak Fell Runners offering the run training and Norton Wheelers / Sheffield Tri the bike training, I only had one gap to breach. Cliffhanger left me a 10% discount card with my ticket which I very nearly recycled. Since I noticed the discount I have been making a long list of things to buy from Decathlon.
Today:

• one transformer for the battery fridge so I can cool it on mains,
  
• one set of weight lifting weights type things to help me actually grow some muscles and...
  
• we are now the proud owners of a slackline kit. Partly so we can play at balance-type fun stuff in the garden and when we go away. Partly so we can tie the vanu cushions together every time we go to bed at night.

Next week, the cat sitter is coming to meet Lenny. There are now only a few things I have left to organise for the PBP. Proper holidays this year (for me anyway). I'm looking forwards to virtually stoking TSK in his exploits and starting to get ready for my big end of season effort. August is going to be sweet.

Maximising Strength

This morning I moved from Transition at the gym into Maximising Strength. Finally I was lifting real weights. I felt a bit more justified in pushing 78kg on my legs instead of 45kgs. Of course it meant I couldn’t do free weights on my legs because there’s no way I can actually lift 78kg in my weak and feeble cyclist’s hands.

The problem with sitting in a nice cradle pushing weights is it isolates muscles but, I asked advice from the nice fella instructor and he showed me an alternative - a machine I can use as a free-weight that puts the weight on my shoulders - so now I am fixed for life. It demonstrates the difference between the leg press and lifting free weights. Bearing in mind I lifted 78kg 5 times already, I just struggled to lift 50kgs free weights. So now Ihave to figure out a weight I can actually sensibly lift.

After I ran home it seemed that it would take less time for me to haul on a pair of cycling shorts and shoes and go straight to work than get changed into work clothes and de-ice the vanu so I cycled to work.

A perfect day for trying out the new tri bars, I cut (wiggling slightly) through the wind along Swindon Road and Wharf Road. There’s a little adaptation to be done – the elbow pads clash with my knees and I needed to re-jig the light and Marvin the Garmin fitting. It made for an interesting ride home without a light and I was incapable of climbing overtown hill out of the saddle.

Finally though, the legs are hurting like they’re growing again

Adiction

Monday I was disabled from getting out of bed by tired. Serious tired.

As a consequence I got up on Tuesday determined to go to the gym before Andrew gave me a lift to work. Unable to find my keys, I still set off for the gym late, wishing TSK good luck for his interview.

Following the run to and from the gym I hopped on the bike to ride to work then went to spinning training on Tuesday night. I measured the lung funtion a few times with it dropping to 420 under stress and back in the warm air after being out in the cold. No change during the spinning session though.

Madness of a day.

Wednesday is officially a rest day.

Back to it tomorrow.