No Pain No Gain

Well I'm a week into my training schedule and it's going well so far.

The diet which I thought would be the worst part isn't so bad - in fact at some meals I feel really stuffed. A typical day is as follows:

Breakfast:- bowl of porridge with ground cinnamon and chopped banana, two slices of wholemeal toast lightly buttered, glass of milk and my supplements.

Lunch:- feta, spinach and potato fritatta, apple and banana.

Dinner:- wholemeal pasta/whole rice, three portions of veg and steamed chicken/fish.

This week I've lost 5lb so far and 3% body fat.

Training this week has consisted of gym sessions on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday with rest days on Tuesday and Friday.

Saturday was a really hard interval session comprising of the following:-

4:00 minute warm up
1:30 tempo riding
2:00 high speed tempo riding
15 kilo efforts with 1:00 recovery between the efforts
4:00 warm down

It was complete and utter agony from the 6th kilo onwards and upon getting off the bike I really struggled not to vomit. After reading Sir Chris Hoy's autobiography I kind of expected this but asked his advice via twitter and got the following message from him.

@AndyCreer sadly it's just all part of the fun I'm afraid. Bad news is the better you get the more you are able to hurt yourself!

Saturday evening was the final trip down to the National Cycling Centre for the climax of the Revolution series featuring a certain Chris Hoy. If you've never been to one of these meetings before you get to see a real cross section of talent competing in a wide range of track disciplines.

This morning I've been out for a chilly base building ride but the legs are a bit sore after yesterdays efforts and from ignoring the 'why stand when you can sit' part of the cyclists mantra.

Riding a bike -The Great Escape.

The cleats on my shoe enter the pedals with a click, my fingers curl around the thick newly applied bar tape and my arse kisses the saddle. I'm man and machine as one as I roll down the road.

I check what I'm carrying - £10 note, spare tube, multi-tool, tyre levers, pump and CO2 inflator. The main decision is where do I ride today? How strong do I feel today? How long before the wife misses me? - then my mind has wandered.

The thoughts that usually occupy my mind are slowly stripped away. The distracting usual thoughts first - did I lock the door? Should I get fuel tonight or in the morning? What's for tea? I then progress to the more important thoughts - what is my Grandson doing? Should I change jobs? Should I buy another house?  - then suddenly my mind has switched off.

The pain comes now and again of course, but the pros do say suffering is optional, but brains own pain killers, endorphins, are more powerful than Prozac and suppress pain and induce a feeling of wellbeing. I think it was Diane Ackerman the American port who wrote "When I go cycling...the world is breaking someone else's heart."

I ride a bike for few reasons - to keep fit, to enjoy the countryside and to travel but mostly I ride to escape I ride for the silence, I ride to empty my brain, I ride for the void. Random thoughts do enter this void - lines from songs, lines of poetry, an old girlfriend - but mostly they are like snowflakes falling on water.

Sometimes I get home and I'm not even sure where I have been until I download the data from my Garmin.

On the bike my brain switches off and recharges - its the Great Escape.

New Year - New Start

Happy New Year.

Well I now know what kind of shape I'm in after being tested on a rig. The tests show that my functional threshold power and VO2 max are reasonable for my age and that I have a good peak power output but the major downside is that I am just too heavy (or fat if you don't want to be PC).

If I can shift 90lbs then I have the potential to be okay at time trials and sprinting but I need to make sure that I lose fat and not muscle. Currently I am 43% fat which is pretty piss poor by anyone's standard but with a strictly monitored nutritional plan and training plan we should be able to turn that around. The plan is to lose 45lbs this year and 45 lbs next year.

Training is roughly two to three months of long steady rides to get the body used to burning fat and then in March/April the speed work will start to bring up the speeds together with the distances.

Why the name change?

Well it's been a long 5 months since my last posting and a few things have changed and I don't just mean the title.

So why has the title changed? Basically as far as I am concerned LEJOG is in the past now and you have to live looking towards the future so the use of LEJOG in the title wasn't really apt. I was discussing what I'd call my autobiography and this came up as a possible title. The wrong gear not only refers to being in the wrong gear but also making the wrong choices in life.

I've also completed my first sportive which I enjoyed but I struggled on the hills with feeling really sick more of which in a bit.

After the sportive I came down with a bout of flu which I thought explained the sickness. Two weeks after the flu I had a second bout and a chest and sinus infection and then suspected glandular fever so I've been off the bike for two months.

Now I'm waiting to get Christmas out of the way and start with my 2012 goals which I'll post up about soon.

Back in the not so blazing saddle.

Well after a week off work enjoying far too much food and booze I've landed back on planet Earth today - back counting calories and back training.

With not really riding much at all for over a month I'm easing back into things with a proper training plan and have just completed my first ride of the week.

Tonight's ride was an hour and a half at training level 2 on flat terrain.

What is level 2 you may be asking - for me level 2 training rides mean maintaining a heart rate of around 70% of my maximum heart rate - 119 to 128 beats per minute in my case. Now this may sound easy as it's a really low level of effort but herein lies the problem - accelerate from traffic lights and you're out of that training zone it really is hard to hold back from going harder. The other thing is you get over taken by commuting cyclist in suits, kids on BMX bikes, snails etc.

Tonight I had my bike computer just showing me the time of day, time taken for the ride and my training level so that had no indication of my speed or distance and I have to admit that after what felt like walking pace (with a high RPM) I was surprised to have covered 20 miles.

Tomorrow is a rest day (yes really) and then back on the bike on Wednesday.

The aftermath

Well it's three weeks since we finished the ride and life is slowly returning to normality so I thought I'd blog about  the aftermath of the ride.

The evening we finished was a cracking night with a meal and plenty of booze which considering I was out of drinking practice I'm pretty pleased that I didn't fall asleep in the toilets (unlike someone I could mention).

Monday morning was 9am start from the hotel in Thurso and back on the tour bus - to be honest it was on the bus and into bed for a few hours for me. We stopped north of Edinburgh and I decamped from the bus said my goodbyes and got in the van with Billy as I was getting dropped off in Carnforth rather than going all the way to Warrington.

It was great seeing Julie again and after saying farewell to Billy it was off to the pub for tea. According to Julie I was in the pub with her but my eyes were somewhere else. After the pub it was time to go home and start life without Hugh. Opening the back door it was horrible not to have him waiting for us and the house seemed really empty and big without him - looking back I think the house seemed big and empty after living on a bus with 15 people. One other thing that was a bit strange was not having to hold on whilst making a brew.

Going back to work wasn't fun either and it's taken two weeks for me to get back into the swing of things properly but now life has returned to some sort of normality even though some things still set me off getting upset about the dog.

As for the cycling - well I hate to say it but I lost all interest for it. I think I was more tired than I thought but now we have hit July I'm about to get back into the groove and start a training plan going back to basics with my endurance. My wife has also ordered a bike through CycleScheme so it will be good to out together.

I have no immediate plans for anything else really this year apart from some time trials but I really want to do a nice LEJOG ride for my 40th in 2013 so I need to keep up the work. I neglected my calorie counting for a couple of months before the ride so I'm going to get back onto that as I feel I could be a reasonable climbing if I lose the weight.

Finally I've decided to keep on going with the blog as it will motivate me to keep on training.

Day 5 - Alness to John O'Groats

Up with the lark this morning as we had a 6am start.

We woke up to stunning morning, grabbed our bikes and got ready to set off whilst everyone else slept snuggly on the bus.

With staying at the camp site we had a few more miles to ride until we hit the A9 but when we did the view over the Cromarty Firth was out of this world with the mist rolling off the land and making the rigs that were in for repair look like ghosts.

We had a fairly laid back ride as we just took in the countryside on our journey to just north of Dornoch - the bridge over Dornoch Firth was another stunning bridge ride. We passed over the baton (it was actually a pebble from Lands End) to team B and we got in the minibus and headed to Helmsdale a cracking little harbour village and a good phone signal meant a chance to phone and check on things at home.

After piling on the tour bus we drove into Wick for a final 'dump' stop before John O'Groats. About 10 miles out from JOG we all got on our bikes and started the final ride.

After a final hill we swept down into John O'Groats to finish our ride.

After hand shakes and hugs all round it was time for the end of ride photos.

So there you go - 874 miles with us spending 59 hours 50 minutes in the saddle knocking an amazing 20 hours off our target and raising £46,000 in the process but the most amazing statistic of all is the number of punctures - none!

There is one group of people without whom none of this would have been possible - they were up and out from 6am and didn't finish their day until all the riders had finished - our amazing drivers.

(L-R)Colin (tour bus driver), Alan, Simon, Beccy, Billy.

Quite how the guys (and girl) can cope driving a van at cycling speeds without getting fed up of the traffic queuing up behind them I don't know. Add to that the fantastic banter and the willingness to put up with no end of abuse from us cyclists and always come back smiling and cheery.

As for Colin - the phrase 'Cool as f**k' was made for him. Mirrored aviator shades, laid back attitude and a job driving fuel into Vietnam during the war this guy is class.

So that's it - 6 months of preparation for under 60 hours work and it's been bloody ace.