Final Training Week

I'm sure it won't be the last week's training I'll ever do in my life but it has been the final training before the L2L ride. The weather wasn't great which was a shame but hopefully that means the weather won't be too bad this coming week. I have all my fingers and toes crossed!

Monday 4th of June

After golf the day before it was back to the bike on Monday. Another change up ride the main thrust of which was to be a fast 10 mile effort. I don't know if it has been the training and the golf on the days before but when I tried the fast section I found that my legs wanted to stop before my cardiovascular system. I guess that is a good thing for an endurance effort, but I think once this is all done I might work on my power a bit more and see what I can do with the speed over smaller distances. Did I hear someone say time trial?

Tuesday 5th June

The one and only weights session this week. And a very easy one too. 1/4 squats, push presses and roll-outs left me plenty of time to do a more important stretching routine. It definitely had the feel of a taper week.

Wednesday 6th June

This late in the training I wasn't going to take any chances at all. This became a recurring theme of the week. So instead of going out into the murky and wet weather I went to the gym and rode an exercise bike for 1:20. I put in some hill repeats by upping the resistance. I did this in the middle 40 minutes with 20 minutes easy riding either side. The pattern for the hill was 6 minutes against the stronger resistance followed by 2 minutes of very easy spinning simulating the trip back down the hill. The benefit of the exercise bike is that I get my cadence reading which I don't on a spin bike. I managed to keep a decent spin rate while not stressing out my heart rate too much which was exactly the point of the workout. Excellent fun.
Note that Strava has a problem with dates and stationary bike workouts that results in the ride having the date of the day before.

Thursday 7th June

I did want to get out on the bike and the forecast for Thursday morning was ok so up I got. Only to find some low cloud and mist hanging over St. Andrews. Lovely. I went out anyway and headed off for my intended route down towards Crail. As soon as I got to the top of the hill out of St. Andrews I realised it was a no go when I couldn't really see more than 200 yards. Again my no risks policy for the week left me no choice but to go and do my miles in the town. With the schedule asking for 30 miles this became an exercise in mental fortitude. Endless loops of the road at the beach and a couple of loops of the town and the road out to the edge of town gave me the mileage and turned out not to be too dull.

Friday 8th

The forecast of another very wet and windy morning made me decide on Thursday night to go to the gym on Friday morning. As it turned out it was wet and windy overnight but might have been ok in the morning. Still, it was only a recovery ride and it was easy enough to spin the legs over in the gym. As I had some company on the bike beside me for a while the time went relatively easily.

Sunday 9th

After a welcome rest day on Saturday I had my last training ride to do on Sunday morning. With only 20 easy miles to do I took the option of riding down to Crail and back home by Anstruther. All quite sedate trying to maintain a decent cadence in a gear that kept my heart rate down to the right levels. So no records broken on this one.
The legs felt a little tired early on but after 40 minutes or so they started to feel more alive and the pace and heart rate was good on the hills home.

Onward

With all the training rides it is now time to get organised for the upcoming challenge. I'm back feeling a little nervous about it now but if I'm not ready now goodness knows how I would have done more for it. So I have to be confident in the plan that was provided for me and just go and do it.
I'll try and blog some after each of the day's riding but it will be connection and time dependent. Oh, and if I can stay awake to do it!