Tapering is exhausting!

...'cos I'm not tired at night and so am having a bit of trouble dropping off to sleep.  One (?) plus is that I now get to see a few TV programs I'd previously fallen asleep through!

Today's training is nothing, nil.. a "rest day".  

Today's task is to sort out the bike's weight problem once and for all..it was still 20gm shy yesterday.  The weights under the saddle had  shifted, so I think  something down the seat tube might be the go..well padded so as not to rattle. I've tried another heavier seat tube but the angle isn't right.  So off to Ben's shop I go for help with the task.

With only 3 days and 9 hours to go I'm now starting to dream of my life post attempt, working out how to start building up my training to be able to deal with  28 days of >100km of hilly riding up the length of Italy

Gulp! 4 days 10 hours to go

Not much to report in this post...today's training is an easy road ride or easy ergo and I have to drive over to Ivanhoe cycles to put Jens with race wheels on onto the official weighing machine.

Monday's forecast has dropped to 22 degrees with Friday in the 30's.....hmm!  Melbourne weather is always a great source of conversation....after weeks of being unable to contemplate having even a sheet covering me overnight, last night was quite chilly and was snuggle under the doona(duvet) time and its still summer. 

I'm starting to fantasize about March 2nd and beyond. I'm looking forward to have a glass or two of adult beverage  for starters! then my training will change as I start getting used to riding 100km day after day after day. To this end I've cancelled my staff car park ticket and will start riding to work. I can also get round to bleeding out $$$ for the various trips I'm doing, having only paid  deposits so far.

I've added another trip to the list...(getting a taste for this!) I'm off to NZ for the Wattyl Lake Taupo Challenge in late November.  I'd been debating whether or not to do this when I saw that some Eastern Vets club mates are going and have a bed free in their accommodation.  That was all it took and so the flight is booked and paid for and all I have to do is enter. By the end of the year I should either be extremely fit or totally wasted..or both.

Next year I'm looking at cycling trips in Canada and South Africa.   I'm very aware that we never know what is round the corner for us and so am keen to do these trips while I'm fit and healthy and this attitude  has been underlined in spades since I heard of a cycling friend in her 40's who's discovered she has lung cancer with secondaries in her hip.

Phil is back from Morocco which turned out not to have been the best of all his trips...the weather and his gut  having let him down a bit....a minor attack of Delhi belly struck again.

Taper time

• Panic re:  the UCI and the 60+ record is now over as its been changed to  the 60-64 record.
• Training  last night was spinning  on the rollers for 30 minutes  and today is a 20 minute lapping effort on the boards.
• I  have 3 fishing sinkers taped to the underside of my saddle - Jens weighs 6.820kg and so I can either leave it as it is with slightly heavier pedals on or put on the lighter pedals and add another small sinker!...decisions decisions!
• I'm having trouble getting to sleep..not anxiety yet..just all part of the taper since I'm not tired.
• I've distributed flyers out at work headed "Want to see a Physio suffer" the answer seemed to be a 100% "YES! we want Physios to suffer".
• Monday's forecast 25 degrees cloudy.

 Still to do:

1. Check that the right amount of officials are engaged for the night
2. Check which weighing machine is being used and get Jens onto it
3. Check the cafe is still ok to be open for the evening

On the topic of "not getting sleep" I've taken to listening to audiobooks to help me drift off...this is fine when they're on CD's , but when they're on your iPod you have no idea when exactly you fell asleep.  So what I propose is a device in the iPod which can detect when your brain stops being alert and will trigger it to turn off...a sort of extremely smart snooze mode.

Yikes!  5 days 10 hours to go

6 days and 9 hours to go

The forecast for Monday is finally up on the BOM site and it looks like it'll be perhaps a bit on the cool side of perfect but at least I'll not be feeling ill from heat and humidity.

I had planned to get onto the track at 0800 this morning for some steady sub speed/threshold lapping, but failed to ring DISC to see if it was free so have had a lie in instead and will go a bit later at a more civilised time.

Before Phil went away to Morocco I'd told him I wouldn't be meeting his 0600 flight this morning as I was usually at the track on a Tuesday and such an early arrival was stretching the friendship to breaking point what with the airport being at least an hour's drive away.  Anyhow I'm truly glad I stood my ground on that one since he'd got his days wrong on the list he'd typed out for me and he doesn't actually arrive until tomorrow! The flight into Melbourne is a daily one so had I gone to meet him  I'd have been hanging round for hours waiting for him to emerge.  

What luck...for both of us!!!

Yesterday I got my tyres checked and they're fine.   I also had a panicked conversation with Cycling Australia following an email telling me the oldest age grade in the hour records is called 60+ rather than 60-64 and at close to 40km is not one I can better.  I asked them to ensure the UCI would be granting a 65-69 record which they should since there are other records in that age group.  I do hate it when these glitches come about in the final run up and wish officials would get things sorted weeks out rather than days out...it does my head in at a time when I shouldn't have these sort of worries.

Rest day today

"No man is an island" and making an attempt on the hour is definitely not a one man show, it might be me up there grinding out the laps but in order to get the show on the road there have been years of help and advice from  my coach Auriel Forrester, an understanding family on the home scene and  a crew to help on the night.  

The crew is Carl..timing/pacing...walking the line, Lawrence the provider of ice, spare wheels just in case, pre-race liaison with officials and style queen ie visual reminder when I'm starting to lose the loooong(well relatively)/stretched out/aero position and finally son Alex-general duties.  Yesterday evening I met up over a "coffee" (actually lime juice cordial..yum!) with Lawrence for a briefing to make sure we were on the same page; she was track side with me on my last effort and so it was easy to refer back to what worked and what didn't that time.

Added to their tasks before and during the attempt they  will also need to  be there to catch me at the end of the hour, rip off my aero helmet, put on the camelback and put me on the road bike to do a few final extremely weary circuits to start off the recovery process.  Experience tells me I will need 1-2 hours before the drug test can be completed, so hanging around for that long is also part of the job description for someone as I will need to be driven home.

Things yet to do: get weights for the bike, have tyres checked out and new ones glued on if needed, source an ice vest to borrow, taper wisely, stay clear of germs, eliminate walking long distances, stay cool, calm, collected, positive and confident.

Finally Baby Baum has his first blemish...bugger! actually its on the forks not the bike itself....must have happened in the car.

7 days 10 hours to go 

Skinny bike, the count down and final checking continues

Baby Baum aka Jens is now 70gms under weight; that's just over 2 ounces which is a mere nothing and if  I can't find the malleable lead strips we used to have at work, I'll go to a fishing shop and get a couple of sinkers to tape to the seat rails.

Today's training is to be a road ride but relaxing and fun.....so it will incorporate a visit to the library to take back a TV DVD series which is missing  one of the DVDs, to Anaconda to ask them to  take off the security tag they disabled but left on the Camelback I bought and finally up the 1 in 20.

Yesterday I spent a greasy hour taking my SRM cranks off and then thought I might give the bike a real clean so took off the derailleur and jockey wheels and was somewhat mortified to see just how filthy it all was.  I had the usual problem of getting the chain back the wrong way first up but at least this time I ensured I got the lower little wheel in the lower position.....dunh!

Despite the citrus hand wash gloop we have, it took for ever to get my hands clean and not surprisingly it gave me the same data as the  gizmo  the Hand Hygiene project officer brings around at work. Since it was revealed that alot of the germ problems in hospitals are caused by inadequate hand washing by all (staff, patients, visitors) they've had a drive to make us more aware of really thorough hand washing techniques.  

 8 days 8 hours... and I'm now starting to check out the weather forecasts. Seems we're in for a nice week with temps in the mid 20's but rising to mid 30's over the weekend, but I'm not taking this as gospel quite yet - "accuracy and weather forecasts" are not words I put together a week ahead of an event.

And while on the countdown theme..I have 39 more days of fronting up to work - but I can't get excited about this quite yet..maybe in 8 days, and 9 hours I can!

When electronic gizmos let you down

as they surely will do sooner or later and Murphy's law usually has a say too.

For the last 18 months I've been training  with an SRM powermeter on my road bike and since  Late last year one on my track bike too.  As a result I'm grooved into training with power input.  My training instructions are along those lines..eg 20 min efforts at 170-180watts with a cadence of 75-85..that sort of thing,

On Monday I asked my coach how long I could expect the batteries on the cranks and the powercontrol to last since I'd like them to be working for the every km of the 3,500 km I'm going to be cycling up the length of Italy come May and June.  We'd decided I'd probably better get then sorted before I left for Europe and then...bugger me... but the battery on the cranks failed totally on Thursday...did I jinx them or what?   

This would have to be my only gripe about my SRM's...there was not one solitary clue  that the battery was about to turn up its toes...one minute there, the next.....not.

So today's training ride (Croydon to Yarra Glen and back) was a 2 hours ride with efforts as described above but was a bit hit and miss as I had neither watts nor cadence-enjoyable for all that.

With the bike 140gm underweight I'm deciding how to fatten it up...I had thought to change the seat post, but I'm a bit anxious about changing anything and so will probable secure some lead onto the underside of the seat instead.

Uh, oh...single figures now...9 days 6 hours to go

10 days 10 hours

Yesterday I spent rather alot of time in my car dashing to and from work.  Not only did we have the painter in doing the final touches to our bathrooms, but I had arranged for the ratokil man to check out where the rats nest is and to put down bait.....I've had enough of rats.  What a surprise! 

$364 later and I have 5 baits around the place, have warned the neighbours and have destroyed the compost heap, which apparently was too enticing for the many  Samuel Whiskers living and working in  Croydon (link up for those not raised on Beatrix Potter stories). I also locked the cats indoors overnight and will have to for a while until Sam and his mates are dead Dead DEAD...giggles evilly.

Training last night then was multi-faceted.  Core work as I huffed and heaved the compost bin over and shoveled the stuff into a bin.  Speed work as I sprinted away when a rat emerged and finally steady state stuff  spinning on the rollers in front of the TV while glassily watching "The Biggest Loser" and "So you think you can dance".

Today is a rest day. Alex is off to the Otway Odyssey  this weekend and so spent most of yesterday do "things" to his bike, so with  him over in Forrest grinding out 100km on his MTB and  with Phil  trail bike riding in Morocco it looks like I'm going to have one of those rare and beautiful coupla days when I can do exactly what I want, when I want and how I want yahoo! and yee ha!

Thanks to  son Ben for tightening the cones on my race wheels..Ben now works at Trailmix.  While at the shop, which is situated in Lysterfield Lake Park, location of the Commonwealth Games MTB race, I bought a really groovy pair of rainbow striped socks - the current trend of socks having a long cuff is ok for people who are tall, but at 162cm I ain't got much room between ankle and calf muscle and those socks look downright ridiculous on me.  So these socks are the low cut variety which suit me perfectly and what's more lower the tan line.

Off to have a massage...yeah!

Final dress rehearsal...I hope

This morning I hit the boards again...feels like a home from home now....for another attempt at a dress rehearsal in an effort to erase the last week's disaster  from my memory.

Last week I was tired from sleeping poorly in all that crap weather.  I also found I didn't like the method of keeping me on pace at all.  I'd borrowed a chart which gives you seconds and tenth's of a second in bold print.  However what I discovered was that having to read something every lap disturbed my concentration and so led to ..well...a disaster.

Today we used the "walk the line method" and this proved to be 100% better.  So I did 3 efforts with a minor recovery between for re-hydrating and, as it turned out, letting others have a turn on the track (I was s'posed to be solo on the track but a communication break down meant that I had company...actually it worked out ok and saved me $$$$$$.).

Pacing is 1000% vital and this was what I needed to nail today and did:

• With "the hour" the urge to ride as you feel has to be well and truly resisted in the first 20 minutes, which is a period when the effort should be marginal...your yells of support are heard and are very welcome.
• The second 20 minutes takes forever to go by and the effort starts to feel very  hard..I can still tell what's being said but am beginning to slide into the state described below. 
• The final 20 minutes is a lifetime long and is incredibly hard... can't hear, can't react, are in a very bad place , a"world of pain" and it is this part of the hour when your  encouragement is supremely vital.

 If you're reading this and live in Melbourne..please come along and yell your support. The canteen will be open so you can  wet your whistle and carb load for the long haul!.

 I've been asked what I think about while churning out the laps...the answer is...nothing except keeping up the speed and cadence....any deviation into "thinking about something"  causes me to drop off the pace.

11 days 22 hours to go

Bloody cat

I don't post very often on Facebook..more of a lurker..but here's today's input....."sheeeee-t bloody cat..another live rat in the house..this time (shudder) in order to escape the cat it decided to climb up Alex who calmly walked outside with me in the background thanking my stars it chose him and not me. Now I know they can climb that well I'm really keeping out of the way".

I love my cats but sometimes that love is sorely challenged!  and thank god for a brave Alex...calmly walking outside with a rat clinging to his T shirt!! shudder shudder yeeeeetch shudder shudder.

Actually what was even more disconcerting was the way the rat ran/climbed up the outside house wall...our house is made of  weatherboard ...horizontal bits of wood nailed to a frame..so it was climbing up a shiney recently painted smooth surface...scarey.  Also I think I'm going to have to get some sort of ??skirt? at the bottom of each of our inside doors so at least any future rodent visitors can't get out of the room the cats are corralled in overnight.

Decent weather and a clean bill of health

Woo!hoo!  the temperature is in the mid 20's and all is good again.  Last week I had a dress rehearsal for the hour attempt but with the incredibly exhausting weather we've been having recently and lacking a good night's sleep for about a week, I was waaay off.  Started too quick (memo.. pacing, pacing, pacing you idiot ,not how you feel) and just didn't have what it took .  So that's been called the dress rehearsal of the dress rehearsal and the dress rehearsal proper will take place this Wednesday.

I decided that  I'd have to buy a stand alone AC unit just in case the weather turned feral again, but when I discovered they cost $600-800 decided that for that I'd could book into a motel for 8 nights!!..so that's the plan..feral weather = retreat to a motel.

and the clean bill of health?...well for my 35 day cycling trip from south to north of Italy and 'cos I'm over 60, I've had to get a doctor's certificate to say I can cope...the ignominy of it..just because I'm over 60..pffft!.  

So in order to get this  certificate I've had to go through a 3 stage test...

Stage 1 was heart lungs and abdo prodding in the doctor's office...pass.  

Stage 2 was ECG, and blood tests as follows..glucose, cholesterol, thyroid function, liver function.  All came back as well and truly ok and the technician for the ECG said she rather wished her ECG looked as good as mine!..heart rate for the test was 49.  I haven't taken my resting HR recently but its always been in the low 40's, so 49bpm when up and about  is good. 

Stage 3...well I  guess I should be grateful I have a conscientious doctor but I'm a bit peeved 'cos despite the flying colours results, he wants me to do stage 3, which is a stress test. When  I booked in for the test I asked what the protocol  was and  was told that I'd be asked to walk on a treadmill until I got to a certain heart rate...!!!  I asked if I might have to run...not likely she said..more like a brisk walk...ha! ha!..can't see there's going to be much stress in that test.  something tells me I'll be running.  

The test costs $464 of which I should be able to get $300 back..luckily (or unluckily) I can say I have a family history of coronary problems or I'd have have to fork out the full amount.

13 days 23 hours til I start my hour attempt

An invitation for March 1st

to support me in my Hour Record attempt and  I say "attempt" deliberately because with the incredibly uncomfortable/inclement weather we've been having recently my training has gone off the rails more than somewhat (its been either wet and windy, windy or very humid and hot).  

The attempt will take place at DISC 5.30pm (1730) on Monday March 1st. and I'd love to have people come along and give me support since, if my recent trial is any indication, I'll need heaps of verballing  vocal support of a raucous nature to get me over the line. The licensed caff will be open for drinks and snacks.

I'm really keen to get this in the bag as I'm also going to try for a World Best Time(Record) in the 500m TT at the Nats in April, which would make a rather unusual double.  Unless someone has again sneaked in while I wasn't looking, I should be creating the WMA8 (women 65-69 year old) record for the hour, but there is a time for me to beat in the 500m TT.

Counting the days

Not that I'm counting of course...much!

However this is where I'm at currently.....

I have 23 days  til I make an attempt to create a World Hour Record for WMAS 8 (ie women 65-69 years old)

I have 53 days  to front up for work before I cease permanent part time work permanently

I have 90 days until l I fly out  to take part in the 35 day tour of Italy riding from Palermo to Como


in there somewhere but currently not being counted are the State and National Masters Track Champs  (March and April respectively) where I'm going for a World Record in the 500m TT. I managed to break it in an earlier event but it couldn't be ratified as there was no drug testing/not enough officials and a few other things that made it ineligible.


The hour and the 500m records make  for an interesting bookending of effort do they not.

cyclist's sun tan lines

I can deal with the ones on the top of my arms and on my legs..'cos generally they're covered by shorts/trousers and shirt....what I'm struggling with is sun tanned arms and alabaster white hands.

Are there such things as backless cycle gloves?

yet another character building ride and a proud mother post

with the forecast of temp in the mid to high 30's, a total fire ban somewhere in the state and high winds it was obvious no ride was going to be "fun".  With having to avoid mega hill climing due my asperations on the track, my options for good long rides are quite limited.....so I reluctantly set the car off towards Black Rock .... another ride along Beach road would be the site of my suffering.

The way the flags were flapping and the boom gates swaying gave me a hint of what I was up for, so instead of going out for 1hr and then turning round, I decided it'd be Black Rock to  Frankston and back no matter how long it took.

Needless to say the ride out was a soda and was done in 43 minutes, and the ride back was diabolical!  Actually even the ride out was tricky with the wind coming from behind my left shoulder but veering quite a bit so occasionally as I passed a road to my left I'd be blasted directly from the left and nearly lost it a coupla times.  there was no chance of sitting up hands resting lightly on the top of the bar.

On the return journey  my back was giving me the hurry up (couldn't sit up ..see above) and I was thoroughly shattered. I also noted with some dismay that all the traffic lights I normally willed to be green ...WERE green but this time round I wanted them to be red! Later on I had an exuse for a long rest as a following cyclist handed me  back my little saddle baggy that had apparently slipped off its mooring.  I thanked him profusely and then spent a good few minutes fixing it back on..grateful for a genuine reason to stop and rest.

Ricketts Point came and went without a glance at the speedo.....who cared...not me that's for sure.

I found my car and sat like a stunned mullet for quite a while before packing up and wandering off home.

Wildside..slight error on my post re this..Rhino's not with Ben, although another mate is...Andy Bell who's riding in the vets class.  Currently Ben's sitting in 7th place in the Open class with a great ride today ending up 3rd for the stage..Andy was doing fine but looks like he must have had a mega mechanical during  this morning's stage.

Beach road..busy and a bit dangerous in the late morning

woo!hoo! a 4 second improvement up Ricketts Point which was 88s and now is 84s and doing it tempo..no out and out "sprinting".

My 2.5 hr ride was cut short due to a costume failure(!)..no not actually..no Janet Jackson story here...but 2hrs after I put it in, my left contact lens disappeared somewhere in my eyeball..one moment I was seeing, the next I was one eyed....and this  is not the first time its happened

I knew it was there somewhere 'cos of the discomfort, so I just had abort the ride and find a mirror to see where the little f*&%er had got to.  Didn't find it until I was nearly home after some serious eyeball searching at every set of red lights..it was somewhere under my top eyelid.

So that was the downside...the upside was that, since I turned round early, I wasn't running out of energy when I got to the bottom of Ricketts Point and so was a happy camper with an improved time up the 700m hill just riding tempo.

And now I'd best get horizontal for a while I guess as I'll have to now do a longer ride tomorrow.....always providing my contacts stay where I put them......

Work upheavals,the week's training and holiday preparations

Work upheavals:
This week has been one of those unsettling times where not only did we have Tuesday off to celebrate Australia day, resulting in a certain amount of confusion in my small brain as to exactly what day it was for the rest of the week, but there was also alot of angst amongst the managerial levels at work due to a certain "re-structuring".  This of course didn't effect me except WRT the funding for my Workplace Wellness and Communications Group...will it keep going past this financial year?

This week also seems to have been when many have come back from holidays since I've been approached by rather alot of staff expressing surprise that I'm retiring....the word is out so I'd better start preparing a speech for the farewell party!

This week's training:
has been a mix of roundy roundy roundy plus 2.5 hr road rides.  The weather has been calm enough for me to do laps on the outdoor track, which not only saves money but also time since the track is 400m, just over the road, from where I work. This weekend's efforts will be on the road..2 x long steady rides with today's been more effortful than tomorrow's. For the rest of the week I'll be on the track Tues and Thurs and the road for very, very easy efforts MWF.

Holiday preparations:
I'd have to confess to looking forward to changing my training over to preparing for my Italian epic, although once I start slogging uphill again the groans will be in the mega decibel range.  I've started off the proceedings for getting a medical clearance..so far its blood tests and an ECG, but if the GP  wants to  I might end up having to have a stress test.  HA!

I've got myself a new set of  contact lens..they were s'posed to allow me to read maps as well as everything else, but the optician gave me the ability to read at "medium" range which leads me to wonder how many maps he gets to read and how long he thinks my arms are.  However they do correct astigmatism and so that's a definite plus.

Found on a friend's facebook ...what`skill..I wonder how it ended!

Talking about highly skilled cyclists...Ben and his mate Rhino are over in Tasmania for "Wildside"..check out the website and his blog  and for those who don't know him, he's the one on the right.

Well that's coffee drunk and brekky eaten, so i'm ready for whatever the day's got in store for me.. better get out and do the 2.5 hours tempo while the weather is friendly.