Update: Training, Italian, planning, packing.

Training
After 2 less than successful training sessions this week I'm in despair..whatever I had before has gone.  Will I ever find it? Hmm..not sure.  Will I keep trying? yup..well at least until the end of this year, although I'm not really sure now that going to the Masters Track Worlds in October will be worth the time and money.  I think I might have to ditch the pursuit or accept a pathetic time.  Too early for 100% decisions of course but the signs are not good.  Need to HTFU +++++

I've got the front wheel trued and re-glued and hopefully I'll have the rear wheel back in time for Sunday's race.  


Since I was going to race the Footscray club TT champs on Sunday and also had to do a 5km  TT effort during the week and 'cos there just isn't a safe 5km  uninterrupted stretch of road  anywhere close,  I decided to ride their circuit out at Little River.

not sure if that's the right circuit, although there aint too many options(!) but that's what i rode.

This hamlet is on the way to the You Yangs and so I was very familiar with the place from my Orienteering, MTB racing and also rock climbing days and bugger me but the almost-built boat in the back yard is STILL there, looking exactly the same as it did 20 years ago!  The guy with the small dog in a basket at the back of his treadlie was new -  sadly I couldn't get the phone out in time for a pix.

The weather was fantastic..blue skies low temp and no wind- it was so cold my teeth ached, my nose ran and I had numb fingers and toes.  The course..flat to mild undulation with a dead road but what a ripper and I wish I'd thought of it before.  It took about an hour to get there, so too far for a regular training area.. but great for occasional long TT sessions.

Driving back I was appalled to see a pall of yellow ish haze over Melbourne..when you live in its midst you just don't realise what crap air you're breathing.  I had a mega nervy turn on the freeway though when, cruising along at 100kph, I came across a sign which said..end of roadworks......O..M..G.  how did I miss that?   With the speed limit at roadworks of 40, 60 or 80kph,  I might be deep in the proverbial.

Italian
Getting there very slowly.  I've rented a coupla vids and had planned to watch first with then without subtitles..only prob is one doesn't have subtitles.

Planning and packing
Bought the sandals, not bothering trying to find any shorts..wrong season+++.

I've downloaded a zillion audiobooks from the library into my iPod but having discovered that having earphones on while driving is illegal in some countries and since I'm going to be doing 4 solo mega trips across Europe I've unearthed my old iTrip.

  Next stop is to see if it still works and to research what sort of frequency it will need to work on in Europe...with the huge amount of different broadcast stations over there and with me driving through 4 countries, a scanning one might be the way to go.

I've also bought a mini  travel MP3 speaker set...not for travelling of course, but for use when listening while in bed...I'm not keen on sleeping the night away with ear buds stuck in my ears and I do have the tendency to fall asleep while listening...!

Another week of training, Italian classes,ebay and getting things done for my hols

Training
this has been a bit on and off since I've managed to pick up a sinusey cold and have been feeling somewhat average.  My SRM also sabotaged one ride's data and as a result I had to get a new battery...my version of the SRM only has one battery whereas later models have two and so last a bit longer.

I am never keen on riding the roads in the wet, so I've been indoors on the ergo.  I have all the Sufferfest training videos and even if I am doing my own training plan rather than theirs they are worth their weight in gold.  I particularly like the one with footage from the World Champs at Mendrisio in 2010.  Good tempo music too, although not actually  a style of music I go for.

Italian
The more you talk. listen and read  the more you learn and at Melbourne's Centre of Italian Studies once you've completed 3 weeks of a term you can attend as many classes as you want.  Currently I'm doing 2 level 6 classes, 1 x 6/7 level and a conversation only class.  The 6/7 class is ++challenging... I can understand what's being said but can't contribute much at that level. 

ebay
so good when things go right and yet so bad when things don't go smoothly.  I "sold" 3 things last week but the buyer of 2  sorta made a mistake  and actually only wants one of them.  Pity.

Holiday preparation
1. TT Brakes
Last week my TT bike's brakes started to give me some grief in that they wouldn't open properly once applied.  I'd been aware of this issue for a while but it finally went over the threshold of acceptability and so I've got it fixed.  The problem was with the Nokon cables

which apparently can't deal with being scrunched up in the way that my TT bike has to be when it's packed into a bike bag.  A road bike handlebars have to be pretzeled as it is but with the addition of extension bars, packing  a TT bike is waaaay more complicated.  Get a kink in the Nokon's inner cable and you're doomed.

2. Wheels.
I'm never really happy taking a disc wheel OS since no matter how you pack it into a soft case, the slightest ding in the wrong spot will ruin it.  So this time I'll be running a very deep dish wheel, and since it's got enough spokes to be legal it can double up as a road race wheel too. Same with the front wheel..ok for TT and RR.

Waiting for a tyre.  Despite having various valve accessories, I didn't have one long enough for this deep a dish! .

So I sent away for one..well 2 actually.....but I think I got a size too long!

No matter.  Now to get it glued on and trialled next Sunday when I race with Footscray CC in their club TT champs as an invitee (i.e. I can race but no chance of glory).

and this baby will do duty as the front wheel for RR and TT.  Its already had a coupla runs, but since it's got internal spoke adjustment and has managed to get out of true, I'll get it trued and glued but wont use it again until I race in  Europe...such a pain  with very little gain for me at my level.

Races still to come...Sunday  a TT,  then 3 x  RR and a TT over the QB long weekend and a final TT on the Boulie the weekend before I leave.

3. International Driving License.
I have no idea why I have to have one of these.  I've never been asked for one when leasing or hiring a car but the   Renault leasing people say I need one.  I could use my UK license (which is totally unblemished unlike my Aus one ;-) but it's an old version without a photo and so probably wouldn't suffice.  So again..off to RACV, fork out $$.

30 days to go!!

Fitness Testing graphs for the past 28 days

These are the latest results from a 20 min test I do up the 1 in 20..currently they are quite a bit behind what I did last year, but are slowly  improving.  The ride in October was full gas and I had to stop to recover after the 20 minutes, the November ride was more tempo, so although the distance and consequently speed are less, there is a definite improvement.

Some stats below are, of course, averages and some not

                        October                                                                        November
Time                   19.59                                                                             19.55 min
Power                160.9                                                                             161.4 watt
Heart Rate          154.6                                                                             149.4 bpm
Speed                   16.2                                                                             16.14 kph
Cadence               64.5                                                                              68.3 rpm (sigh)
Altitude               220                                                                                 208 m
Temperature         25.1                                                                                30.4 C
Distance                 5.4                                                                                  5.36 km
Energy                192.9                                                                               192.9 kJ

This is the distribution of power I've been exerting over the past 28 days ....usually it doesn't have such a big top end shoulder...but twice weekly track training sessions with Darryl will do that to a graph!

 and this is an indication of how my fitness is improving. Put simply, the red line is the acute stress, the blue line my general fitness and the yellow my recovery or lack thereof

Worm farms, work and training

WORM FARMS

Early this week after a long weeding session, I decided to restart using  the compost bin with garden waste only and have a worm farm for kitchen scraps (no citrus, onions, dairy or meat though).  

We've not been recycling ever since the rat episode earlier this year.  For those not up with the tale, one of the cats kept giving me presents of rats either dead, almost dead or in 1 case very much alive.  The presents were mainly left in the kitchen but also were found under the computer desk, in the bathroom and behind a bookcase(the live one).  The Pied Piper of Hamlin told me to get rid of the compost heap which we used for both garden and kitchen waste as it was attracting the rats from...who knew where.  

Emptying the bin  plus all the rat bait he put all along their run seemed to have worked so, with just over a week before I get back to the salt mine, I spent most of  yesterday researching and finally buying  a worm farm for the kitchen waste

fibrous stuff soaking in a bucket..a bit like trying to quickly defrost the mince beef for Spag Blog

then it was put onto of the cardboard in the top layer for the worms to munch through as their first meal

 add 1000 worms

cover with a wet blanket or newspapers or hessian bag and put on the lid.  Apparently for the amount of kitchen waste 3 people generate, eventually  I'll need an extra 2000 worms.  First I have to see if I can manage not to kill 1000 of them!

WORK

Yesterday I went into work to farewell a colleague who was retiring  and took the time to tell anyone who asked just how boring retirement was!  Over and over I said..there's only so much gardening, learning Italian and training I can do before I go stir crazy!  and strangely enough no-one seemed too surprised....

There are many reasons for this of course..the transition from the excitement of travelling OS to ...nothing, the transition from being around and dealing with people to not and the transition from being crazily busy busy busy to ...well...not very busy... 

Soooo..a clinical locum from 22/11 to 7/1 and then a 13 week Project Officer job will keep me out of mischief (and boredom) until April and then it'll almost  be time to go OS again (June 30th). 

TRAINING

With the weather getting better, I'm back on the road.  Today's ride had to be early in the day to escape the windy and >30 C forecast.  A small branch falling onto the road about 10metres ahead of me gave me a hurry up and a clear incentive to get out of the forested area of the  Dandenongs ASAP.  No track training this weekend or next with the Country and Metro champs taking up both weekends.  I'm racing in the Metros next week, but only the 500m TT and hopefully during the Tuesday training session with help  I will go part way to solving the vexed question of which gear to use..  My all time PB about 2 years ago was in the high 42s, lately its been high 43s...I'd love it to be low 43s, but ........

oh TG...cool change coming through as I type!

My recent training..sprinter or enduro?!

Looking at this graph it is evident that rather a large proportion (3/4 actually) of my recent training has been at recovery level (grey) so now my coach tells me its  is time to get some more wattage happening.

However to analyse the days in this graph:

• I had been on holiday in the US for the first few days then travelled back and spent time recovering from jet lag and commenced being a nurse(har! har!) to Phil post hip fracture 
• so when I  finally did get back onto my bike it was in  genuine recovery mode.
• but  the weather here was very, very wet and so  I started doing 2 track sessions a week and of course with track training there's a fair amount of   lapping with not much wattage happening (recovery, light and moderate type) followed by vomit-worthy max short efforts..

 So while there's a lot of grey on the graph I can proudly point to other colours higher up the pix  such as  >23 mins at max, >27 minutes at supra and >52 minutes at threshold levels.  I don't think I've *ever* had that much top end stuff before!

The training I'm doing on the track is totally different from anything I've done previously and has given my ageing body a huge jolt.  Under the banner "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" I can positively report I'm alive ..am I stronger???well, in 14 days time I'll be doing a 500m TT in the metro champs and I guess we'll find out.

How this type of training will help my no1 interest...road TT's will also be of interest.

After many rumours, we've now been told that the World Masters Track Championships 2011 ,12 and 13 are  to be held in Manchester and already I am poised to book accommodation...just waiting for the dates.

GPS learning curve

this was the plan as seen on Garmin’s Base Map program, usable off line, which I uploaded to my Edge 705 where I have a more detailed map on a micro chip thing.  

Unlike previous test rides, when I sprayed the ride copiously with mega amounts of “waypoints”…the blue flags, this time I tried bare bones.   Why? ‘cos every time you get close to where a flag is, the thing bips and an instruction comes up on the screen = distracting and irritating especially when the instruction is go straight on.

BUT..I stuffed it twice..once by not putting a waypoint at the southernmost end of Springvale Road and so got mega beeps from Centre Road on trying to get me to turn right and then by not realising I’d tracked myself along the Nepean Hwy from Mordy  and so was urged to “Do a U turn when possible!” almost all the way to Black Rock. 

I reckon its tiny brain was fried by the time I stopped, which was in the city…a head wind from Mordy to Docklands = forget the planned Donna Buang ride…one struggle fest a weekend is plenty. 

I’ve ditched the top tube panniers ...drove me nuts every time I stood up getting in the way of my knees.

List of things to do

Long rides...check
Ride in foul weather.uncheck...forget it..refuse to practise this one
Long hill..to be done after Masters Track Nats and in clement weather....location?  Donna Buang

the elevation profile is not accurate..there must be a flattening effect over a long ride  since if I isolate the steep parts I discover there are significant sections which are 20% + and for that reason with the Nats commencing on Thursday, this is a task which will have to wait a couple of weeks.

Tired.

I'm so tired I couldn't get out of the house til after lunch.  Actually the rides are only part of the problem...someone sent me a text message very late last night which woke me up.  Then I couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up and fiddled around for a coupla hours, then went back to bed finally emerging at 0900.

Anyhow I went out for 2 hours...couldn't be bothered doing any more.

My bike set up is better and so I'm able to manage long hours in the saddle alot more comfortably.
Chamois creme is my new best friend.
Given time, hills are manageable going up, but steep downhills  are still scarey.
Done the "day after day after day" prac, now I've got to do the "long hill" prac.  Donna Buang here I come.
I only have to work out how to get  pix from my camera to my computer and I'll be sorted electronically....I lost yesterday's pix...dunno where they went.

Easter Day ride

Today's ride....114.7km.  So the total so far is   99.16+109.82+114.7 = 323.68, which means my goal of 360-400km over the 4 days is acheivable.
What is also good is that the amount of climbing I've done these last 2 days is similar in numbers to what I'll be doing in Italy.  I've decided I HATE up down, up down, up down etc etc etc.  Pigeon Banks Road is a prime example...although its great for out of the saddle power efforts though which means I got a bit of 500m TT  specific work in too!

I found a couple of good pix..but am having trouble working out how to get them out of the phone! one of them is of a dead kangaroo on the ground  in front of a sign saying "Kangaroo Ground"  (northern suburb of Melb)...yeah sick I know!  and another one which rural people probably understand, but which  got me scratching my head...it is a sign declaring:  "Warm Blood Sale".   I'll post them eventually.

I have also discovered what Emerald and Kinglake have in common...a plague of European wasps.

Talking of suffering in the cause of whatever your next goal is, this link No pain, no gain has a worthwhile definition of the word "pain" in training.

Putting in the kms for Italy

Yipee! a four day break from fronting up at work and I have a goal of riding  between 360 and 400 km over those 4 days.  Today's ride was supposed to be 100km, but maybe I cut a corner or 2 as it turned out to be 99.16km.  As I approached home I knew the distance wouldn't hit 3 figures but by that time despite being a paid up, card carrying member of the Anal Retentive Society of Everywhere (also known as ARSE), there was NO way I was going to circle round the local streets to make up the shortfall.

I've ditched to SRM powercontrol for these sorts of rides..using the Garmin 705 instead...so now I can get a gazillion bits of totally useless information /stats as I ride...just what a card carrying, life member of ARSE likes!  Of these useless bits of info there are a few  that have me puzzled....Time: 03:53:58..ok so that's how long I rode and I understand  "Elapsed Time", which was 04:24:45......a bit surprising as I didn't stop at all except at lights...soooo 31 minutes sitting a lights?? well I did seem to hit the red lights more often than not. Ok so despite the surprise, so far so good...but what is this number?...."Moving Time:03:52:05". And what about this then..... I had an avg speed of 25.4kph and an avg moving speed of 25.6kph..... ????

Most of the ride was solo although I linked in with a group of 3 along Beach road and ditto for the last 10km.  I got left behind at lights along Beach Road but this turned out to be lucky as when I caught up with them somewhat later they'd clearly had a stack with  1 of the group  sitting on the kerb looking dazed.

Time for a nanna nap

Training and retiring

Training

With the unusual juxtaposition of an hour record  attempt, a 500m track race followed by a 3000km tour through Italy my training of late developed  has a somewhat bipolar  character.   In order to address all aspects (and guided by the Style Queen) my training is equally bipolar....I am riding to work 4 times a week incorporating under geared leg spinning down hills and over geared explosive efforts  when  riding away from traffic lights and then doing long rides at the weekend.

Last weekend I did 1x long ride, this weekend I'm doing 1x 2hr ride  today and the 120km MAD (Melbourne Autumn Daytour) ride tomorrow.  Next weekend, being the long Easter weekend, I will do 2 long and 2 moderate rides and will start targeting the long dragging hills I'll have to ride up in Italy rather than the up down up down up down riding that is so plentiful around where I live.

In the meantime, I've sent off my completed  health  form to the tour organisors, got my Italian SIM and a very simple phone to use while over there and am about to marry up my Garmin 705 with my SRM cranks.  I've got all my gear together and will no doubt have to leave half of it behind since I'm only allowed 20kg+7kg carry on luggage.  So, apart from getting my bike serviced during the week prior to departure, there's really not much else to arrange.

Retirement

The countdown to retirement has now become widely known at work and as a result every day I'm asked how many days left now, although  those I see regularly don't ask, they tell me!   Is there a message in that ?!  After working for 25 years in one location, the thought that I will  be fronting up for paid employment only 17 more times is difficult to comprehend.  

Yesterday I started clearing my desk and desktop.  Audits and projects I have instigated and proudly kept - into the bin,  updated treatments on various problem - chucked, emails I'd saved for some reason or other - deleted.  Chuck this, shred that, pass this on to someone else, delete,delete,delete...what a spring clean!  

There is a huge change happening in our department as 4 long stay Physio staff have either retired or will be by the end of April, resulting in a huge loss of "corporate knowledge".  I'd like to think the place will collapse without me, but know it wont!

The training begins

The tour de rural industries

OK...so today's epic was 104.3 km, 4 hours 30 mins 55 seconds all up..prob 2 minutes of that standing still at lights (3 times only and all in the last hour) and once crossing a busy road..also in the last hour.  The ride was s'posed to be 110km but I made a small navigational error and so went north of the dam instead of south.  Only 2 road kill, no hoons, plenty of short hills and a squillion rows of who'd know what crop.

Damage to my body? nothing a rest wont fix..Towards the end I was getting a bit of cramp, was doing a lot of standing up(!) and had some neck ache, but that's all..my knee was fine..it coped well with the undulations.  The only problem is that I don't know which of the 4..yes 4 count them 1..2..3..4 things I did to try and fix my knee was/were the one(s) that fixed it.  We all know the  golden rule which is to change one thing at a time..but well, I didn't... I did the following:

1. checked out my road bike and noticed the seat had dropped down a bit, so I lifted it to its correct height (probably about 2mm higher).
2. decided that since  my riding in Italy wasn't a short TT, I'd better move from black to grey cleats (grey ones have some rotational play in them..black ones don't)
3. decided to have 3 days off the bike
4. took some Voltaren

gotta get horizontal for a while....

Public holiday Ride

On Sunday I fell into the trap of not reading the rain radar, just  the weather forecast and so my ride was 1 hour on the ergo in front of the Tacx Real Life Video. A pity 'cos it was sunny and dry in the afternoon.  I chose the DVD of the Cape Argus ride...which is actually on  as I write and which I plan on riding next year. 

On Monday I got in a 3 hour ride before the rain set in again. Today I'm riding to work..about 35 minutes direct, but I will add a bit to start clocking  up the kms

Here is the day by day ride plan of my May/June cycling epic

1 Saturday 15 May 1 Palermo to Santo Stéfano Quisquina 103
2 Sunday 16 May 2 Santo Stéfano Quisquina to  Agrigento 75
3 Monday 17 May 3 Agrigento to Gerace 107
4 Tuesday 18 May 4 Gerace to Nicolosi 115
5 Wednesday 19 May 5 Nicolosi to Taormina 82
6 Thursday 20 May Rest day Taormina
7 Friday 21 May 6 Taormina to Palmi 85
8 Saturday 22 May 7 Palmi to Pizzo 86
9 Sunday 23 May 8 Pizzo to Lorica 120
10 Monday 24 May Rest day Lorica
11 Tuesday 25 May 9 Lorica to Castrovillari 127
12 Wednesday 26 May 10 Castrovillari to Sapri 113
13 Thursday 27 May 11 Sapri to Paestum 122
14 Friday 28 May 12 Paestum to Pompei 100
15 Saturday 29 May Rest day Pompei
16 Sunday 30 May 13 Pompei to Cassino 155
17 Monday 31 May 14 Cassino to Tagliacozzo 110
18 Tuesday 1 June 15 Tagliacozzo to Roma 134
19 Wednesday 2 June Rest day Roma
20 Thursday 3 June Rest day Roma
21 Friday 4 June 16 Roma to Capodimonte 117
22 Saturday 5 June 17 Capodimonte to Castel del Piano 74
23 Sunday 6 June 18 Castel del Piano to Siena 91
24 Monday 7 June 19 Siena to Firenze 67
25 Tuesday 8 June Rest day Firenze
26 Wednesday 9 June 20 Firenze to Castel San Pietro Terme 116
27 Thursday 10 June 21 Castel San Pietro Terme to Chioggia 153
28 Friday 11 June 22 Chioggia to Venezia 25
29 Saturday 12 June Rest day Venezia
30 Sunday 13 June 23 Venezia to Tramonti di Sotto 140
31 Monday 14 June 24 Tramonti di Sotto to Cortina d'Ampezzo 121
32 Tuesday 15 June 25 Cortina d'Ampezzo to Canazei 71
33 Wednesday 16 June 26 Canazei to Latsch 107
34 Thursday 17 June 27 Latsch to Tirano 110
35 Friday 18 June 28 Tirano to Como 122

Injuries...none that matter...the  chronic injury in my left shoulder giving me a fair bit of grief currently...but this doesn't impact on my riding.

Tasks..book a rental car for the pre-ride holiday in Sicily and confirm all accommodation  bookings for the pre ride holiday.

Training for the trip of a lifetime..yet another challenge

On May 8th I fly out of Australia for an Italian cycling holiday which will take me from Palermo in Sicily to Lake Como in the Dolomiti.  In between those two locations I will be suffering many days of 100+km cycling up and down longer and steeper slopes of a vicious nature, through rain hail and perhaps in the northern end..even snow. I will also be camping. 

The cycling part is a task I've not had any experience of at all, camping I'm very used to, although not recently.

Last Monday I rode the track for an hour to create a world best for my age grade, now its Saturday and I've finally managed to get on the bike again and done the first of my build up rides, which was a 2 hour ride  with no hard hills.  Luckily this weekend is a long one with a public holiday on Monday, so tomorrow's ride will be longer and a bit more hilly and Monday's will be harder still.  After that I will be riding into work most days.

More anon as training and plans kick into high gear.