Liz Randall's Cycling Blog - a life behind bars

"With ordinary talents and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable"



Sunday 27 January 2008

The "Active Recovery" week that wasn't

This week's km total may yet be lacking some quantity (although today's ride will change that) but quality has been waaaay high and the old bod is slow to recover.

Monday was gym with Mother Nag..meet you at 17.35 YES? abs and upper limb mostly so as not to cruel tomorrow's big effort.

Tuesday: up at 0400 and on to the track by 0600 to do "the big test" to monitor current fitness...a somewhat necessary test since I've been without powertap on the road bike since mid December. I KNOW I'm fitter but only the numbers will tell the whole story. And the numbers were good!

Wednesday was a repeat of Monday only with more leg work and Thursday was motorpacing again. This time I wasn't quite so good and it wasn't til near the end that I realised that...of course I wouldn't be good..DOH!...I'd given ALL I HAD in Tuesday's test.

Friday...well I love Friday for 2 reasons..1 cos ..well its Friday y'know "Monday I have Friday on my mind" and 2 cos I have NO training at all..a true rest day. YAY!

Which brings me to the road motorpacing trial yesterday. My older son Alex has designs on improving his TT skills with a thought to doing the World Masters TT in Austria one year soon. But how do you improve your skills when there are NO , repeat NO TT races where you live?...you become the "motor" in your mother's motorpacing session!

So Beach Road, training ground to a million cyclists of ALL varieties, was witness to our first 2 up TT with Alex doing ALL the front work.

Starting at Mordialloc we (well, more accurately he) pushed against what we later discovered was a 30kph almost head wind..after about 10 mins I said you can start to speed up a bit now..."I don't think I can" he said!!! Plus warm up, it took us 33 mins to get to Black Rock and 14 to return.

He settled into the role readily...I'm still learning...trust has to be developed and that will take a bit of time....actually he's a very steady rider, but there are so many cyclists on that road you have to be VERY aware..not easy to do when you're sucking wheel....and of course that's where the trust comes in.

The training was good though, riding at a faster pace than I would be doing solo with my heart rate rising as I struggled to find the "sweet spot" behind him. The road is sorta undulating as coast roads are and my inferior hill capabilities were quickly evident....I'd drop off very quickly then have to work hard to catch up, while he eased off a bit too, and then it was okay again. I think its more a confidence "gotta save my legs" scenario rather than an inability to climb thing.

We must have been quite a sight..2 similarly clad riders TTT'ing down the road.... as we discovered when during a post ride retail therapy session at le knicks one of the guys working there commented on having seen us.

Alex's day finished up with the long awaited "Police" concert. When I booked the ticket for him ages ago there was only 1 level of ticket available so I got it requesting "best available". When we checked on the web before he left it was very close to the front and dead centre...probably didn't need the binocs I lent him!

Ben's exploits over this Australia day weekend (and indeed other weekends) can be read in Bellies Racing blog and the Felt Epix blog.

Today's ride: which I'm putting off by writing this, is a century tour de suburbs incorporating a visit to the velodrome to see if anyone is using the 3hr Master's session there.

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