Week 5

The week below culminates in a group training ride for what will be my main challenge for this year, cycling 300 miles in 24 hours from Barmouth in Wales to Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, at the end of May. It will be a charity ride for Breast Friends (there is a link to my JustGiving page below for anyone who is interested). I have no idea if I will manage it, but let’s see how the training goes between now and then.

As a result, there were just 2 training sessions during the week, 1^st Feb which was FTP work in an endurance session of 80 minutes, and 3^rd Feb which was tempo work in an endurance session of 70 minutes, with different cadence work for strength. Readings on both days were fairly favourable considering the limited amount of training I would be doing this week. The day of the group ride on the 7^th, the reading was nicely positioned for the 100 mile ride. 52% of the ride was in HR zone 2 and 45% was in HR zone 3; a fairly strong headwind in parts probably meant more time in zone 3 than I wanted. The reading on the 8^th was better than I expected.

Week 6

Following last weekends 100 (7^th Feb) the 8^th started a general trend of low energy and recovery. I still stayed with the training plan during the week, which didn’t allow sufficient recovery from the 100, and the week ended where it began in terms of my Pro reading.

Training sessions were;

• 10^th was 75 mins endurance which included FTP work
• 12^th was 75 minutes endurance which included tempo work

Both these were cut down in time suggested in the plan, to compensate for the additional time spent on the 100, to prevent going too much over the volume for the week. This was my decision based on my Pro readings.

The 13^th and 14^th were both group rides; its normal for me to get high or higher activations when its group rides. However the 14^th wasn’t too far off, taking this into consideration. The rides were 2 hours and 3 hrs 20 minutes respectively. Generally a fairly balanced HR zones 2 and 3.Week 7

Last week of the second 3 week training block has a session included:

• 16^th 85 minutes which included 2 x 20 min threshold work, endurance for the remainder
• 18^th 90 minutes which included 2 x 20 minute tempo work, low and high cadence, endurance for the remainder
• 20^th was a group ride 3hrs 36min, HR zones 52% Z2 – 41% Z3 – 6% Z4
• 21^st a solo endurance/tempo ride for 90 minutes, 7 % Z1 – 58% Z2 – 32% Z3

Reading suggested a lighter session or rest, but based on this being the last session before a recovery week, I stayed with the plan, and the reading on the 22^nd suggested it didn’t have any adverse effect.

Week 8

Week commencing 22^nd Feb will be a planned recovery week

Profile;

TONF

I am a recreational athlete, who has around 5 to 8 hours a week to train (season dependant). I have a family with 2 young children and run a business. Therefore the ethos of my training is to use training principles that elicit the best results in minimal time. By comparison to my cycling friends, I would class myself as average.

This training all counts towards a charity event riding to raise money for Breast Friends. You can check out more on the JustGiving page.