Tuesday 15 August 2017

Me vs Winter vs Training

It has been brought to my attention that I have had a cough/cold virus since Queens Bday weekend (mid June) and I haven yet to recover. This has been reflected in my training, especially my long rides with LOC. The last long ride with LOC was 8th July 2017.


We have started our "cram-training" for Amy's Gran Fondo. This block consists of 5 training sessions a week with Monday and Friday as trainer sessions and Wednesday and Sunday as rest day. Personally, I will do a swim on Wednesdays and Sundays to aid in my recovery.


It started off with a trainer session on Monday morning. Luckily I an idea of the session ahead and did them at my own due to the technical issues the coaches had. My session was over an hour as I started on the bike around 5:50am and finished just on 7am. Once I am done with these sessions, I will have to rush to get ready for work by 7:30am to get there in time.


This morning was the VO2 sessions at Richmond Blvd. I enjoy these sessions as I get to push my limits without the pressure of keeping up with the group or letting the TTT down. Heading back to the carpark works better for me due to my weight and the slight downhill compared to the other way towards Melbourne Girls. I arrived early this morning and did a quick warm-up half-lap before the start of the session as I am the only one who drives there. Different if this session was on a Thursday where I would have had to ride in from West Melbourne.


As I had mentioned before, tomorrow will be my swim session after work and Thursday will be at Albert Park lake working on our Steady State Tempo (SST) with a few sprints. I also enjoy this session as I get to work on the sprints which is my (pun) strength rather than endurance or climbing.


Friday will be VO2 trainer sessions and Saturday will be a long ride from Kew and we will be doing the Mt Pleasant Loop. The last time I attempted the Mt Pleasant loop, I was so exhausted at the end that I nearly cried. Fingers crossed that I will be able to get through this week's session. Extra fingers to be crossed that my anxiety won't be that strong that it stops me from getting out of bed and heading towards that training session early Saturday morning.


It is hard to manage my anxiety with these cycling sessions as I don't have a fool-proof solution. If I don't think too much about it then I won't stress too much and will be able to sleep and get myself out the door and do the session however if I don't think about it then I won't be prepared. Being prepared for me is being in control of the kit I am going to wear, nutrition, hydration, charging lights and Garmin, sometimes I even pack the bike in the car the night before.


I will only be doing the Mt Pleasant loop for 2 weeks as I will be doing Ol'Dirty on week 3. As much as I stress about doing the long ride on the weekend, it will be beneficial for me for the climb-training required for Ol'Dirty, Amy's Gran Fondo, Daylesford and Giro della Donna.

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