After the epic weather of the Polka Dot Challenge, I had a very light recovery week, with only 2 hours and 10 minutes of cycling! Come Monday last week, I was raring to get back into training and it turned out to be a good week. I had 5 shortish rides to build slowly back up - this ride from Sunday was my biggest of the week (48 miles and about 4000ft of climbing). It seems to have become my regular training loop.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/7436493
This week I'm hoping to up the mileage again and do the short course of the Polka Dot Challenge tomorrow. I may drive out to somewhere near the start of the course - I'd like to do a 60+mile ride for the day but I have to get back for 3pm to pick up the kids. The ride is 75 miles if I go from my house and that might be cutting it a little too fine for the school run. It looks like it's going to be a hot and humid day so could be a good test for my new jersey, which I finally took the plunge on. It's lovely and fits really well. However, it's bloody expensive so it'd better be good. I think I finally have all the kit I'm going to need for the Etape so NO MORE SPENDING.
My weight has come to a stop at 82kg - last week I was 81.6, the week before, 82.1 - it just seems to hover around that 82 mark. I'm starting to wonder if this is just the right weight for me and I won't get below 80kg before the Etape now? I'm not too concerned about this though as I've come a long way since Christmas already - 11kg & a good few inches lost and I feel so fit and well for it.
On Saturday, I decided to inflate the Swiss Ball to do a bit of core work as it's something that I tend to neglect. Unfortunately, and ironically, the act of inflating the ball did my back in and I've had twinges back ever since. A few nights of long stretching sessions and work on the ball - Colin finished the inflation job - have eased it considerably and I'm almost back to normal. I've now got a routine worked out for the ball and have been doing it in the evening. I see the osteopath one more time before July 20th, just to make sure that everything is nice and loose.
I just made an appointment with the Cardiologist. When I last saw him, he asked me to come back in June. I've been putting it off but it has to happen so I go in on Monday. I'm a little nervous. I don't want to be told that the Atrial Flutter has returned. On my rides, I see no indication of it and my heart rate stays nice and low with none of those huge spikes that I saw in the past. On a few occasions I have woken up with my heart pounding though. A 24hr ECG didn't pick anything up though so fingers crossed, all is still well......
Clive provided a list of medal times for last years Etape -
Catégories Distance Temps Médaille "Or" Médaille"Argent"
A 169,2 05:50:00 06:30:00
B 169,2 06:05:00 06:45:00
C 169,2 06:15:00 07:05:00
D 169,2 06:30:00 07:10:00
E 169,2 07:05:00 08:10:00
F 169,2 07:05:00 08:30:00
G 169,2 07:15:00 08:50:00
Assuming that this years average speeds are something similar, for me as an F, I would need to average 12.3mph to get silver. This will be my "dream goal" for the day. The dream goal for me is something that is slightly out of reach, a huge challenge but not completely beyond the realm of possibility. 12.3mph is going to be hard when you consider that the last 2 and a half hours or maybe more will be spent going up Ventoux at around 5mph, but who knows, perhaps if everything goes well, it might just happen. My success goal is definitely just to finish the event - if that happens, I will be completely overjoyed.
Monday, 22 June 2009
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3 comments:
So how fast would you have to average for the first 92 miles if you climbed Ventoux at 5mph to get an overall average of 12.5mph?
Hey Simon! well done for the DLMC at the weekend - great time.
For the other 92miles I would need to do 15.2mph. However, if you look at the descent of the Col ND Abeilles - 24Km with avg gradient -3% - If I can keep to 30kmph on that section (perhaps this is unrealistic by that stage of the day but 18mph on flat ground is usually about right so to assume I can keep 18mph up on an average -3% gradient isn't pushing the boundaries too much) that would mean I would have 5:17:0 to do the remaining 68km which means avg 12.9mph for rest of course. It's all guess work as this years medal times may be totally different with higher avgs. My maths may be wrong also - I've got a spreadsheet with so many numbers on it! Whatever happens, I'm going to give it some WELLY! Do my best and see what happens. As long as I make it, that is all that counts.
just dozing off in bed there and realised I had messed up my calculations by mixing up my units again. I really must switch over to km.
I *think* if you take out ascent of ventoux and descent of the other, it means an avg speed of about 14.5mph. but that's only for us ladies - you men have it much tougher.
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