Two weeks away

The Lighthouse to Lighthouse ride is now two weeks away. If all goes according to plan (when does that ever happen?) I should be well on my way this time 14 times 24 hours from now. Looking towards that day I'll probably already be tired of flapjacks but hopefully not tired of the cycling or the views. One of the main things I'm looking forward to are the new roads. Most of my training has taken place here in Fife and, while the scenery is pretty good, I can't wait to see something new and enjoy a fresh set of hills and bends.

I'm much more excited than nervous now. There's little more I can do in physical preparation so now it is down to maintenance of my fitness, getting the bike ready and making sure all the logistical side of things is battened down.

And I'm still crossing my fingers for perfect weather; not too hot or too cold, thin and high cloud cover with a slight westerly breeze. Is that asking too much?

Training update - another different week

This week's training created new opportunities for having some different sessions. All in all good fun but it has left me quite tired. And I get to start it all again tomorrow. This time though I know that this week is the last before I start to taper down before the main event. I can't believe there's less than three weeks to go before I attempt the challenge. And that it is June next weekend. Scary!
Enough of the future, here's this week's report.

Monday 21st May

After the rides at the weekend I had another recovery ride to start the week. I had a big debate before I went out about what I should wear. It looked like it might be quite nice and warm; it definitely wasn't! So I was very glad to have picked the gilet, arm warmers and longs. The ride itself was very gentle which was good as it was all I could do to spin my way over the ridge in Strathkinness. Just as I was coming onto the main cycle path I saw a parked car in the entrance to the field with it's four way flashers on. Poor young chap had an oil problem with his car and it was gently smoking out of the bonnet. I stopped and made sure he was ok. But I couldn't do much more for him, so I carried on home.
In the end this was a case of getting the miles done, rather than being out for the pleasure of riding. I am trying my best not to get bored with the training but it is an effort at times. I'm fortunate that the Lighthouse ride is on new roads as that will definitely keep me interested.

Tuesday 22nd and Thursday 24th

As far as training went it was back to the gym on these two mornings. Good fun as ever and this week was a heavy lifting week which means pushing the weights a little and working hard. That's most likely the last heavy weights session for the training which lifts a weight from my shoulders as I shouldn't injure myself in the gym now. Fingers crossed!
However, the excitement of the day was the fitting of a new bottom bracket and chainset to the road bike. I had a service done last week and whilst most things were ok the bottom bracket had certainly had it's day. I have had issues with the pre-tension crank bolt on the FSA chainset that came with the bike and yet again it was stuck. So to remove this problem I decided to take the opportunity to change the chainset. I didn't really want to make major changes to the bike this late in the day but it made sense. So now the bike has a nice new Shimano 105 chainset on the bike courtesy of my local bike shop. It looks nicer than it's FSA counterpart so it must be faster!

Wednesday 23rd

The schedule asked for a hard 30-miler on Wednesday. For some variety I decided to ride my 3 hills route via Craigsanquhar and Cupar but with a twist. Not only would I climb through Strathkinness from the low road to Guardbridge I would also climb the three major hills twice. Hill repeats with some mileage.
It was a lovely morning, but still relatively cold when I set out. The ride itself went quite well with one annoyance. When I got to Cupar I found the bottom of Bishopsgate closed for road repairs. I was able to take another road and do about two thirds of the climb but it wasn't the same.
Once I got to the top of this road I needed to strip off some layers it was so hot. It's amazing what you can get into jersey pockets. I was happy to have my gilet keep everything in place though.
It was a baptism of fire for the new chainset. But what a difference the new bottom bracket made. The cranks seemed to turn so much more smoothly. Not that it made a great difference to my performance; it just felt better.

Friday 25th

Today's requirement was a very hard day, but I woke up to that east coast phenomenon of a haar. A cold sea fog for those of you not conversant with the term. As I am extremely paranoid about getting an injury or having an accident I decided the workout should be in the gym. And, by happy accident, Friday is the morning I sometimes go to a spin class which I really love. So off I went and, when I met the instructor on the way in, I asked for a class of hard intervals. I'm not sure what the rest of the class thought but that's exactly what we got. So for thirty minutes or so I was able to really push my cardio vascular system to the max. I peaked out at 182 bpm which is over my theoretical maximum and I spent a good part of that time I was over 90% of my MHR. It felt good when we were done, but rather than do the stretch part of the class I took myself off to another exercise bike to do a chunk of fairly high HR steady state work. Close to 40 minutes later I'd done 20km of exercise bike distance with an average HR over 85% of my MHR. It's no exaggeration to say I was tired. But it was a good workout, both physically and mentally, with the second part of it particularly challenging mentally.
You can see the HR trace here if you are interested.

Saturday 26th

A really different ride on Saturday. The training diary had 50 easy miles on it. For a change I asked my friend and colleague Vic to come out with me. He said yes, and it made the ride hugely enjoyable. I kept the route relatively easy but it is hard to find an interesting out and back route around St. Andrews that doesn't have some climbing. The major part of the ups and downs was kept for the second part of the route which allowed my legs to recover before we did them. And it wasn't too severe anyhow. In fact the hill I was most worried about was easier than I remembered as I hadn't gone up it for a while. A mark of my increased bike fitness I guess. The only downside of the ride was the easterly breeze that made it slightly uncomfortable geting home from Pitscottie after Vic and I had parted company.
The weather was fantastic. A proper summer morning which allowed me to go out in just shorts on my legs with a base layer and jersey on top. Fantastic. I didn't so much have a tan when I got in as a layer of flies making my legs look darker. And the weather had brought out all sorts of other cyclists. It was nice to see.

Sunday 27th

Actually this was day off. Nice. My lie-in didn't really materialise as I needed to get up just after 7 so I could go and play golf. Yes, golf! My competitive sport of choice for over ten years until last year's horrible play which led me to cycling and the Lighthouse to Lighthouse challenge. I needed a break. It was really nice to be out with a pal on the links; now I just have to get my game back in shape. A good way to spend a day off training.
Now I need to re-focus on the rest of this week's training!

Another week - more miles

As the ride draws ever closer the training continues unabated. Here's this week's tale of getting ready for the Lighthouse to Lighthouse challenge. Not too much pain and suffering this week. Either I was taking it too easy or I'm getting stronger.

Monday 14th May

The plan had today as an opportunity for interval training. However the weather had other ideas with wild wind and rain. Had I just been going out for a ride I'd have been quite happy to do so but the idea of trying intervals when the wind might blow me around a bit really didn't appeal. So I went to the gym and used one of the exercise bikes to do my intervals on. The nice thing about doing it that way is that the intervals are repeatable and consistent which gives good feedback on your work. In my case I managed 8 intervals 4 on one resistance level and 4 on a slightly easier level. I changed levels as my fourth interval really was a bit of a fail and indeed so was the eighth. It's good to know how much you can keep dipping into the reserves.

Tuesday 15th and Thursday 17th

These two mornings saw me in the gym doing my strength and conditioning work. I really do enjoy weights sessions. The trick to relieve the boredom is to have exercise plans that change regularly enough to keep the interest up. And I can't stress enough how important having a trainer to work up your plan is, and also to show you the correct technique. Often enough I see people in the gym lifting weights that are too large with bad form; they are injuries waiting to happen.
Once you can do squats and deadlifts correctly I believe you have exercises that can keep you strong and fit for a long time. And that keeps us cycling for a long time too.

Wednesday 16th

On Tuesday night I changed the rear wheel and the cassette on my bike. The new rear wheel as a replacement for the wheel that I have broken a couple of spokes on and the cassette as way of getting slightly better spread of gears. The bike came with a 12-26 cassette and I changed that out for an 11-28 to get a slightly lower gear for the hills. However I found that I wasn't really needing the 11 and I felt the spread (11-12-13-14-16-18-21-24-28) was a little wide especially between the 18 and 21. On the road I found myself changing between them quite a lot, where one would feel a little easy and the other one a little hard. So I came up with a plan to split a 12-26 and an 11-28 to make one cassette of 12-28. It's not as hard as it sounds although I did need to "adjust" one of the spacers to make it work as the two cassettes, despite being the same model, had different cog and spacer designs.
The result of that was that I used Wednesday morning's recovery ride as a test ride for the new components. The good news for me was that they all worked well and I'm very happy with the new spread of gears (12-13-14-15-17-19-21-24-28). The big gap isn't there now and it all feels a lot smoother.

Friday 18th

The bike had been in to the mechanic for a check over and adjustment on the Thursday. And this easy 20-miler was a real shame for it as the weather was awful. Wet, windy and cold. However the bike did run well and I got the miles done.
Sadly I managed to cut my front tyre up somewhere on this ride and I had to replace it when I gave the bike a clean before Saturday's trip. I'm impressed with the durability of the Schwalbe Lugano that came with the bike and I put 2800 miles on this tyre before it finally gave up the ghost. It's replacement was it's twin from the rear wheel that I replaced a while ago trying out a Continental Gatorskin. I will be replacing the front tyre with one of these as soon as I can be sure of a couple of dry days as they need a little breaking in in the dry before they give the proper grip.



Note I'm having trouble with linking this ride using Strava again, so I've used my other choice, ridewithgps.

Saturday 19th

My plan had me down for 100 miles on Saturday, but to keep them easy, if there can be such a thing. The only way I could get the required miles in before my other Saturday commitments was to get away from the house around 6. So that meant getting up at 4 so that I could get a decent breakfast in and into the system before heading off.
The Significant Other and I decided we should use this ride as a test of meeting up and support work as well as a test of my riding. In the end it worked out pretty well. We had a wee location mix up on the first rendezvous but nothing drastic and the others all went perfectly.
I picked a route that was essentially as flat as possible. You can't do 100 miles from St. Andrews to Edinburgh without climbing some hills. And even if I could have found a route without any hills I doubt that I'd have picked it. You need some climbing in a day out. However, like the meeting up, the cycling went well, helped a little by the wind which was from a east-north-east direction which certainly didn't hinder me very often. And helped quite a bit in some places.
The one downside of the day was an unfortunate incident with a pedestrian on my approach to the Forth Road bridge. At this point bicycles share a pavement with foot traffic and where the incident occurred the pavement is beside a lay-by. Our pedestrian didn't look when he stepped back on to the pavement from behind his car. At this point I thought he was going to get into the car but when he didn't I ended up being quite close behind him as he strolled up the middle of the pavement. And by the time he heard my request to go by we were much too close. And then he sort of danced around in front of me as I tried to un-clip from my pedals. Sadly I didn't manage it and ended up on the floor. It wasn't his fault I fell over, but it was his fault I was put in that situation. I'll be un-clipping one foot next time I'm cycling that way! The result was a slightly sore knee and a saddle and gear lever that both needed straightening up. That done I was on my way again.
Sadly this all meant I didn't have a chance of doing door-to-door in 7 hours which had been a small target so I just took it relatively easily over the bridge and onto Edinburgh where I met the Significant Other at The Brig. It's a good place to stop. It removes the need to cycle through the west of Edinburgh which is always a pain after riding down from Fife.
This was as easy a century ride as I can imagine. At the end of it I felt better than I did after my last ride down to Edinburgh. It just goes to show that hills really determine how hard a route is.

Sunday 20th

No day off this Sunday but I had a small lie-in before heading out. 20 easy miles were called for and so I headed off to Cupar. I couldn't believe how good the legs felt given the exertions of the day before so to see how good they actually were I decided to climb up to Craigrothie after I'd got there. The initial climb went well and then after I swooped into Craigrothie itself I felt good enough to take the small climb there in a biggish gear and out of the saddle. That's how to keep training fresh without doing too much. I turned for home after that and although it was into whatever breeze there was I had a good ride back. A lovely short ride on a lovely morning.
This ride also saw the second appearance of my legs this year with it being warm enough for no longs and no overshoes. I still had my gilet, long sleeved jersey and arm warmers on and they were well needed.
This was the end of this week's training. I start again tomorrow!

Fear of the unknown

It's the 14th of May and that means I've a month to go before I start the Lighthouse to Lighthouse challenge. I'm not quite sure I can believe how soon this date has come around. I started training last July when I got the road bike and here we are now with just two weeks to go before I start tapering my work down so that I should be in a good position to do the ride.
And how do I think I'm doing? I think I'd say a cautious OK. I don't think that I could have done much more training. Perhaps better training, but in terms of quantity I don't think I could be much better off. There's a good number of miles in the legs. I know that to be true, I can feel them as I write.
The things that weigh upon my mind are now pretty much the things I can't control. I'd like the weather to be favourable but I can't do anything about it so all I can do is be prepared. Might I have a mechanical issue with the bike on the day? I might but I can only plan for it. So I have inner tubes all over the place. Unsurprisingly, after spoke breakages, I have spare wheels. What I would love is one of these team cars with all of bikes and gear you see in races like the Tour de France. And a mechanic!
So the only thing I can control is me. I'll do my best to stay healthy without injury sustained on the bike or in the gym. The most important thing I need to do is to stop worrying. That's going to be harder then all the training.
The fear of the unknown - who'd have thought it?

Milestone

This week saw donations to the Lighthouse to Lighthouse challenge exceed the £2000 mark. Thank you to all those who have donated. I really am astonished at all of your generosity. It is quite humbling.
There is no choice for me now but to fulfil my end of the bargain and do the ride. I'm looking forward to earning the money for Macmillan.
Just in case you are reading this and haven't donated you can do so (if you wish) using the button on the right hand side of the page, or by clicking this link: Donate.

Different Training

With just about a month to go to the ride I feel I'm in a position where I'm ready for it but there's still time to do some training. And I also need to keep my interest up and not get bored. The boredom factor is important as I want to keep enjoying my riding and I also don't want to make a mistake and get injured just because I'm "getting it done". With that in mind I had a real shake up in my training this week.

Monday 7th May

Monday's ride was a recovery ride and I really couldn't decide what to do. As I left the house I thought I'd do my usual out and back to Tentsmuir Forest but when I got to the start point of my ride I decided to do circuits of the town until I reached my required distance. It was a lovely ride, and great fun to see my home town wake up. A novel cycle for my recovery.

Tuesday and Thursday

As well as riding a lot I also go to the gym to do some strength and conditioning work. This week ushered in some new exercises including one called face pulls. I had a picture of me standing in front of a mirror pulling all sorts of faces. Unfortunately that wasn't the case! But the new exercises are also a good change up. I'm still doing a lot of squat based exercises but it is nice to get new variations every now and again.

Wednesday 9th

A day to test the legs a little. Originally I was going to ride a variation of my 3 hills ride from last week, but in the spirit of doing something new I ended up doing some hill work. There's a road that runs south through Strathkinness towards Peat Inn. Apart from a little drop in Strathkinness itself it rises in a series of little steps which makes for a testing climb. After a little warm up I ended up at the bottom of this hill. And my work was to ride the hill, turn round, speed down and do it again. The speeding down did involve the little climb up in Strathkinness. I ended up doing this twice, both times in a big gear standing up on the pedals. That certainly tested the legs and my cardio-vascular system.

Friday 11th

I decided that on Friday I would just go for a ride. I picked a start I hadn't done for a long time. The steep climb out of St. Andrews passes the Grange Inn. It's not much of a hill, but at the start of a day it's hard enough. The route should have been a pleasant trip around the roads south of St. Andrews but the wind always seemed to be in my face until the last couple of miles. That made it hard.
One thing that came out of the day's data is the improvements in fitness I've been making. As well as the first climb I also did a climb from Arncoach that I hadn't done for some time. I didn't climb it any faster really but my average heart rate for the climb was 20 beats lower than the last time I had ridden it. That's an improvement I can live with.

Saturday 12th

The schedule called for 40 miles and I decided to potter about in the hills north of Cupar. I ended up doing 48 miles and for the second half of the ride I really enjoyed the cruising along. The first half had been a bit of a struggle not helped by a north west breeze. I felt I just didn't have the legs today, but again the numbers don't really bear that out. The only disappointing statistic was the average speed which I would have liked to have been a bit higher. Still, I went out and did the route I set, even adding a little on to pop up to Pitscottie near the end so I could go down through Kemback which is a lovely stretch of road. And for that I should be pleased with my morning's work.

Day Off

You may notice that this is being written on a Saturday. That's because I have Sunday off this week. Yee-hah! I promise just to put my feet up and rest. I'm sure that won't be hard to do.

Road Users

I would like to thank all the really good drivers I saw this week for their consideration. Thank you very, very much.
The one chap I really objected to this week was a pick up truck that decided to overtake me on a blind uphill bend, only for something to come down the hill on the opposite side of the road. If that wasn't bad enough, the pick up truck turned into a field about a quarter of a mile up the road. Not impressed...

Getting in the miles

It's been a while since I've posted about training but sometimes training has to take precedence over blogging. Here's what I've been doing.

Saturday 28th April

The schedule was for a middling length ride for this day and a rest day on the Sunday. With this in mind I decided on 50 miles with a trip through the Lomond hills as the highlight. The climb from Falkland up this road is one of the more challenging climbs in the area and I'd been leaving it for a ride where I didn't have much more to do.
The ride started with the gentle climb up to Strahkinness and then the haul out of Dura Den to Pitscottie. Then along the roads of ever decreasing quality to Fruechie via Chance Inn and Kettlehills. I've been working on my nutritional needs and I picked up some water in Freuchie to which I added some energy drink powder to keep me all topped up. Then on to Falkland and the fun.
The climb itself was nowhere near as bad as I thought it might be but I might have been helped by the enforced stop a third of the way up for a "comfort break". The perils of staying hydrated I guess.
The entertainment was not restricted to the climbing. I had not factored in the Sportive Kinross that was on and was obviously in full swing. As I climbed up I was passed a good number of riders coming the other way enjoying their descent. I was hoping for much of the same on the other side of my climb.
Sadly when I got there it was obvious that I was going the wrong way. Hundreds of riders were working their way up the hill. So rather than the nice flowing descent I was hoping for I spent the next couple of miles on the brakes avoiding riders a lot of whom weren't taking care in watching for riders coming the other way. I ended up tailing another rider going the same way and we ended coming into Leslie together.
It turned out he was heading in the same direction as me and we rode along together as we went round Glenrothes. We split up just north of Markinch and I headed up towards Kennoway. This was an opportunity for a wee rest before climbing up towards Porter's brae and the road along the crest of the ridge above Cults. By now the route was into the teeth of the strong north east breeze. It was keeping me cool and making riding harder than I would have liked. It's never good riding into the wind at the end of a ride.
My chosen route swung away from the direct line home and I headed up to Woodside and New Gilston. It's a couple of steep little climbs through these two villages and by now I was feeling it. To finish it, and me, off there was a couple of miles of rolling hills towards home before dropping into St. Andrews.
I was really chuffed to do this ride and find the route through the Lomonds not too bad. A good day!

Monday 30th

The start of Monday was truly disgusting; rain and wind from the off. But I have decided that unless it is actually dangerous to go out I will do as the schedule asks. I've no choice on the days of the Lighthouse to Lighthouse challenge so will have to ride then regardless. So going out whatever the weather should prepare me for any eventuality. There is nothing pleasant to report about this ride especially as it was to be an easy ride. Just the great satisfaction of going out and doing it.
I did learn that I need to find a decent waterproof just in case. My windtop is pretty good at showers etc, but rain, not so much.

Wednesday 2nd May

After a discussion with my fitness guru about heart rate training I decided that this ride should be ridden hard to keep the heart rate up a bit. When I set out I had no idea where I was going but as I cycled along the cycle path (horrible thing - should be re-done or removed) out of St. Andrews I came up with a plan. I would climb three main hills, two short and sharp, one long a gentle. So, from Guardbridge I got back on the road and rode up towards Clayton caravan park before turning off to climb up the hill above Craigsanquhar. No resting at the top and I tried to keep the speed up on the way into Cupar.
From there it was back to the hills again as I came up to Pitscottie before turning down to Dura Den and then the last climb up to Strathkiness. On the way up this I saw a chap wheeling his mountain bike up the steep part of the slope before getting back on as it eased a little. I checked to see he was ok as I went by. Hopefully next time I see him he'll be cycling all the way up it.
In the end this was a good ride with good speed and a bit more of a test for my cardiovascular system. Good for training and great fun. To stop training becoming monotonous it is essential to have a change up every now and again.

Friday 4th

A day for a recovery day which was a good thing after the gym session and round of golf that I'd had on the Thursday. A lovely morning but a bit cool. However this gave me the opportunity to try my new gilet and arm warmers. Both worked a treat and I really enjoyed the ride despite the stiff northerly wind.

Saturday 5th

The schedule called for 75 miles so I picked a route to Edinburgh that was the required length. Having met the riders on the Sportive Kinross the previous week I had of course looked at the route.This gave me some inspiration for new roads and I decided ride to Edinburgh via Abernethy then continue west skirting Bridge of Earn before turning southwards for the climb to Path of Condie. This was a great bit of road and a lovely climb. I'm not going to say it was easy. The first part is steep then it rolls on with the odd steep section. Just before a flat bit through the trees there is one final steep section. It's a bit of a slap in the face this bit.
I'd done 10 miles of mostly uphill work and then there was a lovely three mile descent. Fast with good visibility and good tarmac makes for a lot of fun.
I had arranged to meet the Significant Other in Kinross and I got the opportunity to stock up with more flapjacks etc before heading off again. By now I was feeling pretty strong again and I rode the next 22 miles pretty quickly to get down to Edinburgh in good order.
It was a lovely ride with some good climbing. Spotting two red squirrels as I cycled along made my day.

Sunday 6th

A celebratory meal with friends for their engagement on Saturday night didn't set me up for an early start on Sunday, so I had a lie in. What a treat. But then I had to get out on the bike. As I did so the heavens opened and we had hail pouring out of the sky followed by rain. Lovely! But I am determined to go out whatever so when I was ready I was off.
In the end I had a lovely ride and the route I picked fitted around the weather nicely. I got a little wet but the main rain band was always where I was heading to rather than where I was. Excellent.
After the first climb out of St. Andrews when I felt a bit tired I began to feel stronger. By the time I had got to Elie I was feeling good and enjoyed the climb to Largoward. The ride back from Ceres was a positive delight.
All in all a good weekend which shows, once again, how my cycling has improved since I started training in July. Before I get ahead of myself though I have to remind myself that I haven't even done the equivalent of one of the days of the challenge ride this weekend. Just a note to myself!

Idiot road user awards

There's been heaps of really good driving this week with the occasional driver too close for comfort. But my awards have to go to the two drivers who parked their cars blocking the cycle lanes left beside traffic calming islands. I'm not a fan of these lanes as they tend to become full of grit, stones and other rubbish without the car traffic to clean them out. But to have them blocked entirely just made me smile. No prizes for guessing that these car drivers would probably complain bitterly if a bicycle isn't using the cycle lanes.