Weigh-in And first full laps Monday!
I woke up at 5am this morning to go to the gym and then remembered that I had a lot to do at work early this morning so I went back to sleep until 6am and then I did my weigh in and I was surprised that I am down to 107.6kgs this morning even though I haven’t been able to ride a lot this week due to a dodgy wrist and shoulder! I have lost 1.1kgs in the last 3 weeks which is pretty good going as I have been hurt for most of that time!
| 25/04/2022 | 108.7 |
| 02/05/2022 | 108 |
| 09/05/2022 | 107.6 |
After the weigh in I got ready for work and then I rode the Octane One Zircus 2022 to the office. I am super happy with the way the bike rides with the seat and post from the 4X bike as being slightly longer than the Gusset seat post was before I cut it down it doesn’t hurt my knees so it is perfect to ride to and from work with.
I then worked until 13:30 and then went home and ate breakfast (Overnight oats, mixed nuts and honey) and then chilled until 14:30 and then got ready and went to the track with the S&M Steel Panther 24″ originally to do some start hill sprints but I forgot my sprint block so I decided to warm up with 3 pump laps, the first one with no pedalling, the second with half speed pedalling to the first jump and then pumping the rest of t he track and then the third lap pedalling flat out to the first jump and then pumping the rest of the track. On my pump laps I concentrated on getting my cornering technique dialled in as I haven’t been putting my weight on the inside grip so I haven’t been turning very sharply and have been grabbing a handful of brake which is less than ideal!. By the third lap the technique was feeling automatic so I decided to progress to full laps instead of sprinting!
I did 3 x full speed laps with 5 minutes rest in between to simulate 3 moto’s then I rested 10 minutes and then did 2 more laps with 10 minutes rest in between. I was really happy to be riding the Steel Panther again as it is the bike that I am most comfortable on and that I don’t have to think about what the bike is doing. I am still not really used to riding the Dialled MX20R or the Octane One Zircus so have to concentrate on what the bike is doing where as with the S&M I feel way more connected to it so I can concentrate on what I am doing not on what the bike is doing!
I was feeling sick after the first 3 laps but I managed to do the semi and the final without blowing chunks so I am pretty pleased with myself. I plan to do this every Monday afternoon apart from after Nationals where I will have done a bunch of full speed laps all weekend so will need to rest on the Monday! Next Monday I will take the timing system and try and time my laps so that I can see how much slower I get over the 5 efforts! Adding the timing system should also make me more motivated to go full out every lap too!
I am pretty pleased with myself with the effort that I put in for my first session but I want to build up the amount of laps to get to a point where I am doing 8ths, 1/4, semi and finals to try and get to a level of fitness to be able to cope with the race load of the Worlds in July. I will do the same workout next Monday and then add a lap every 2 weeks until I have added the 2 extra laps and I am doing 7 laps a session. Depending on how quickly I get used to the load I may add another lap to get to 8 laps in case we have to do 16th as well at the worlds.
I was also surprised to find that my wrist felt fine and my should wasn’t too bad either! The shoulder was a bit sore but not enough to notice when I was riding.
I also need to eat earlier before doing the full laps as just over an hour before training was not enough time to digest my breakfast as I forgot to eat at 11 as I normally would.
It was released at the weekend that 32 riders will qualify for next years Worlds as they are being held in Glasgow so as the host nation we can take double the amount of riders to normal. This basically means that there will be 24 automatic places and you have to compete in at least 6 Nationals to qualify. This means that I need to race all of the rest of the rounds. Also as I am going up an age group I will need to get as many points as possible to try and have enough points to finish top 20 in the 50+ age group to make sure of a place! I have my work cut out for me especially as Birmingham is up in the air at the moment but I will do my best to qualify again!