The blog has been quiet for a reason. I have been doing absolutely nothing recently. After the National 12 and the Welsh 10 mile, we had a couple of club 10s left and my times started to creep up again. I think I had peaked around the National 12 and was heading downhill again so I threw in the towel. It had been a great season for me and it has ignited a real interest in the open time trial scene.
I took September off and invested heavily in my beer gut, managing to put on a whole stone by the time I weighed in yesterday morning. It’s scary just how quickly things can degrade when sedentary. I also noticed myself feeling a bit depressed during this time, perhaps due to the lack of any adrenaline or endorphins. The hair on my legs grew back almost as quickly as the spare tyre too.
I did use this time, however, to investigate and plan the following season and winter training. I have decided to adopt the famous Black Book training plan by Peter Read. All it requires is a turbo trainer, a bike and a heart rate monitor. I have all of those items and have set up the summer road bike permanently on the turbo in the shed. This morning at 6:30 AM I stumbled across the garden and mounted up for the first time in a month. The next hour was spent at Peter Reads Level 2 (75% MHR) or in my case 160BPM. I went by feel and over exactly 1 hour I nailed an average of 160 so must be gauging my pace well. It felt good to be back but It felt much harder than it should have. I’m sure things will soon improve. Legs were ceremoniously shaven in the shower afterwards. If only the gut could be removed as easily.