Monday 30 December 2013

Icy conditions on the road - should have chosen the turbo!

My training has been limited over the last couple of weeks. As mentioned on previous blogs the run up to Christmas was a little stressful but I had a great day at Calshott (track cycling). Thereafter I managed a decent long run and a few shorter sessions around the Christmas period when I visited my sister and her family in Belgium. A couple of swims helped to make the weekly totals around 5-6 hours, a bit under the target, albeit I had Christmas down as an easier week.

Last week I wanted to end with a long bike session and opted to get up early to complete a 2:30-3:00 route on my road bike. I expected it to be cold so had a few layers on, however when I left the house around 7am it did feel much colder than normal. At that time it was quite dark (I was riding with lights) but I soon noticed how icy it was and then regretted my decision to take the road bike rather than the mountain bike. I should have turned back to swap bikes but I thought it would get better as the sun came up. I only got about 5 miles down the road when I hit some black ice and even though I was only going slowly the bike slid out underneath me and I ended up on the road with a some nasty bruises and cuts up my right leg and thigh. Fortunately there was little damage to my bike, just a nasty chunk out my right pedal, which must have taken most of the impact. Luckily there was little traffic so I picked myself up, straightened my front wheel (not buckled) and continued on my journey. The conditions didn't get any better and my confidence had taken a bashing. I ended up gently spinning and free wheeling on any downhill not wanting to raise my speed much more than 20km per hour for fear of coming off again.

I changed my route, opting for a loop that wouldn't take me more than 10-15km from my house, as I was getting very cold, mainly because my work rate was so low. This was not going well. Finally I got back to the house - a disappointing session, about 1:50 in the saddle and not even 30km in distance - snail pace!

Reminder for self - get the turbo out!!!!

Oh well, a new week and I started with an hour swim at Steyning leisure centre where Chris had a decent session planned including 4x 250m of hypoxic breathing (every 3,5,7,9,11 strokes - different every 25m/50m). There was also some 50m sets in the warm up and some sprint work at the end before the cool down - all good stuff.

Tomorrow I want to get in a 1:30-2:00 run at an easy pace (all aerobic) - just plug myself in to my iPhone to listen to a favourite podcast or two and run.

The long Club swim on Wednesday has been cancelled because it falls on New Year's Day but I will be swimming again on Saturday. The turbo is going to get an airing and a ride on the mountain bike could be on the cards. I hope to push the volume back up to around 9 hours and 10 the week after.

Will check in later in the week to let you know how it is going. 

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