Liz Randall's Cycling Blog - a life behind bars

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



Showing posts with label training and a bit of cat waffle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label training and a bit of cat waffle. Show all posts

Friday, 8 January 2010

Training and cat waffle

All seems to be on track (pun intended) with my training with a motorpacing sessions yesterday at DISC going really well.  The difference not working full time has to be well and truly acknowledged...should have done it sooner.

Last weeks power test sessions on the roads indicate that no matter how hard we've tried, my best power output which I can keep up for quite a long time is at grind cadence.    I'm no Lance Armstrong (thank god)  I'm a Jan Ullrich (hmmmmm).  On the track I've been gradually upping the gear inches attempting to discover which is my sweet spot for the various races I do and naturally as I up the gear inch the cadence decreases..if it didn't my name would be Jeannie  or Lance and I'd be a world beater at any age. 

This is also important for road TT's as over the past  year or two I've been going for increasing  cadence but my TT'ing has been awful which I had assumed was fatigue and age..but maybe just maybe it was also as a result of changing my riding style....we'll see next TT season.

A group of us at work  had half thought we might go in for the Murray to Moyne 24 cycle relay in March ..but yesterday we realised we'd left our organisation far too late.  Getting the riders together was no trouble...it was the rest of the organisation that was going to be a problem.  So sadly, that project has been scrapped.

My 35 day cycle from Palermo to Como (actually 28 days on the bike over the 35 days) is getting closer.  This is going to be a gigantic challenge for me as I'm just not used to riding >100 hilly kms day after day after day.  My racing tends to be from a 500m dash around the track to a max of 90 minutes, so this is going to take me out of my comfort zone  into a world of DIScomfort.

Cat waffle..

Sometime later this year we might all be OS at the same time for a short period  and so I've been trying to work out what to do with the cats.  I did think of getting someone to house sit but this week's offerings/cat related catastrophes(again pun intended) have made me quash that thought......so in order of play:

1. Over the weekend ...Pippi, a  cat with very long fur, short legs and a balance issue sat down in the kitty litter tray before she should...which resulted in one VERY smelly cat, a disgusting clean up for  us and a visit to the vet for  Pippi to have  nether region fur shave/trim.
2. Monday....Flea, the other cat can't keep soft food down and so when he can't resist temptation ends up noisily and copiously chucking. The reason he chucked this time was discovered in the rumpus room...result...clear up vomit and  dead bloody carcass, chase feathers over the entire house etc etc
3. Thursday...dead rat.  plus wipe up result of purging grass eating.
4. Today/Friday...dead rat.

I think the cattery is the best option but  too many more weeks like that and they might be meeting with a nasty accident....

Saturday, 10 October 2009

Lead up to the masters track worlds

Am I tired or am I tired?

Everyone knows there are difference types of tiredness, I mean for the last say 18 months
I 've been experiencing a BAD sort of tiredness..the sort that comes from stress at work. So, when the opportunity arises I decide to go part time as a retirement plan..move to .5 EFT +.2 of Workplace Wellness and look to retiring after a year or maybe a bit longer.

And how do I feel after 1 week of this change?

Shattered. I mean really exhausted, right down on the base line or perhaps below.

So what's gone wrong? Have I made a really bad mistake?

Hell no!

This is a goood sort of tiredness, this is the sort of fatigue you get when you're training hard and has NOTHING to do with the sort of tiredness you get from work and its stresses.

Training this week has been at the track x 3 or was it 4?and next week it'll be x2 on Tues and Thurs then I'm planning to leave work early on Friday in order to get further than the usual Albury stop...Goulburn perhaps? which will then get me to
Sydney in time to do some Dunc Grey Velodrome training on Saturday.
So its a joke at work...Liz has gone part time and she's still exhausted...and she's going to work for a rest!