This week got well and truly messed up due to work pressure getting me out of my usual routine! There was an issue at work that I had to deal with that meant that I only got to walk in the morning on Monday morning last week so this meant that I was stressed and not feeling too well all week and my body got increasingly sore and stiff as the week went on!
I was also only able to do one track session and one coaching session all week so by the time gates came around on Friday my body was a mess and my left knee was really sore! It was so sore that I had to put flats on as it was really painful to unclip with the HT pedals on 🙁
Needless to say I didn’t ride a whole lot on Friday night 🙁
Although my week was really bad training wise I did drop weight from 106.1kgs to 105.7kgs although my weigh in was on Friday not Wednesday due to waking up at 5:15 and immediately starting work!
I think I was even more sore on Friday night as on Thursday night Matt had us doing wrong footed training and a lot of pump laps which meant that we did a lot of miles and also worked muscles that we don’t usually work which is good in a way but really painful at the moment!
This got me to thinking and I think that I am going to change my track training slightly in that I am going to be a bit more focussed and do pump laps before working on my skill that I want to learn instead of rocking up to the track and playing on which-ever straight I feel like playing on for an hour or so! For one its getting a bit boring and for 2 its not really helping much or building skills when I ride at race speed!
To make my training more efficient I have built up my Dialled MX24R Cruiser to leave in the container to use to train on at lunch times and today I am going to leave the dialled in the container and bring my Jump bike home and then I can use it to ride around town on instead of the e-bike as I’m getting a bit lazy and getting pretty much nothing out of the ride to work 🙁 When I have the Dialled in the container I can then ride the ebike to the track at lunch times to warm up then I am ready to start training as soon as I get the bike out of the container.
Yesterday I ordered some new forks for the Dialled as I’m not sure about the Inspyre ones that are on there and I also bought some Staystrong flat bars to try out on the Curtis so I will swap the S&M bars from the Curtis onto the Dialled to replace the Inspyre bars that are currently on it as they are really not very nice! I also did a service on the Dialled and swapped out the headset that was disgusting and shortened the brake cable and moved the lever onto the correct side (left) and put on some new ODI Vans grips to replace the super disgusting Forward grips that were on there. I also swapped out the 24 x 2.1 Tioga power block tyre that was on the front of the dialled for a 24 x 1.75 tyre that I found in the garage as the 2.1 made the bike feel like a jump bike as it was massive!
I am just about to swap the cult freestyle pedals for my pedal innovation pedals and then the Dialled will be dialled until the new forks and bars arrive later in the week when it will be really dialled.
Although the Dialled doesn’t fully ride like the Curtis it is close enough that it should be fine to train on during the week and it is fine to be left in the container where as I wouldn’t want to leave the Curtis in the Container as it is way too nice and also really expensive and would get wrecked really quickly! The jump bike is also a bit nice to leave in the container and it has been scratched a lot from being left in there 🙁
I am currently trying to organise my flat so that I can find a place to put my bike stand so that I can get the Curtis onto the stand and out of the way but still on display! It looks like the only place will be in my bed room but it will be interesting to find a place that will not get in the way of my gym area! I am leaning towards moving the weight bench closer to the bed then there will be room at the end of the room in front of the window to hang the bikes out of the way! I currently have the Curtis at that end anyway so I know that there is space so it should work!
Next week I also want to start weight training again on Wednesday and Fridays and doing a full body workout to try and get stronger and get rid of all of the aches and pains that I currently have. I have also seen that all the kids doing the Bath Uni training are getting faster and faster which has to be down to the weight training that they are doing on a weekly basis so if it works for them then it should work for me 🙂
I will have to start off slowly anyway as my shoulder is not up to lifting heavy weights still although it is getting stronger and more mobile all the time so hopefully by the time I start racing again next season it will be 100%.
My goal for the rest of the month is to work on getting back to being consistent again and not missing any planned sessions and definitely not missing any walking sessions in the morning as it makes me way more stiff and also makes me feel a lot worse.
Planned Track Days
To make my track sessions I will try doing 6 x Full lap pump laps then do my normal training after that. I will alternate having Right and Left leg forwards and one day I will do no pedalling down the start hill and the other day I will pedal to the first jump and then pump the rest of the track. The no pedal day will work on building up speed and the pedalling will work on carry and increasing speed. It is going to be really hard for the first few months but after that my technique and fitness will have improved to a point where it is not too hard any more and then I am at the point where I need to start adding full lap burners to the training! That is a ways off yet so I will worry about that when I get there! As I get more comfortable I will start to try and add manuals and jumps to my pump laps as that also makes the drills more race like as well and basically pump laps are all about building and maintaining speed and manualing and jumping are better at that than pumping alone. This will also mean that I will be practicing all my race skills at near to race speed every day!
By switching front foot each lap I will be balancing out my muscles which are obviously out of balance as I hurt so much after doing right foot forward pump laps on Thursday night! This will not only help with injury prevention, it will also mean that if I get to a jump with the wrong foot forward in a race I will be able to continue to carry speed comfortably and most likely not crash which is what happened last season a couple of times!
As I said before my goal with this training is to get to a point where I can do full laps easily so that I can do 2-3 full pump laps and then go to full lap full speed sessions from there without being the blubbering mess that I am at the moment. I have been at the track when some ex pro’s have been racing and I noticed that they just do pull laps when they are training and not the usual doing one or 2 straights that I do. I guess that they already have the fitness and the skills down so I am hoping that by xmas I will be in a position to also start training like this too.
Changing Work Times
I have decided that on Monday’s I will start work at 7:30 not 6:30 as I am not taking my lunch break when I am in the office so I am working 2 hours more for free every week before the week has even started! By starting at 7:30 it means that I can get at least one long walk in during the week and I can walk to the track and back as I was getting a lot of positive results when I was walking to the track as its basically walking up a massive hill for 30 minutes then walking back down the hill home! This will kick start my week and hopefully burn off all of the excesses from the weekend.
Training Week
Monday
Is my full rest day so I may as well make it an active rest day.
AM – Walking to the track and back first thing
AM – Ride to the office
Lunch – Rest
PM – Ride home from the office
PM – Rest
Tuesday
AM – 30 minute walk before work
Lunch – Ride to the track
Lunch – 6 x no pedal pump laps followed by Manuals on the 3rd and 4th straights
Lunch – Ride home as a cool down
PM – Coaching
Wednesday
AM – 30 minute walk before work
Lunch – Ride to the track
Lunch – 6 x pedal to the 1st jump pump laps followed by Jumping
Lunch – Ride home as a cool down
PM – Rest
Thursday
AM – 30 minute walk before work
Lunch – Ride to the track
Lunch – 6 x no pedal pump laps followed by Manuals on the 3rd and 4th straights
Lunch – Ride home as a cool down
PM – Coaching
Friday
AM – 30 minute walk before work
Lunch – Ride to the track
Lunch – 6 x pedal to the 1st jump pump laps followed by Jumping
Lunch – Ride home as a cool down
PM – Gates
Saturday
Walking and rest
Sunday
AM + Lunch – Rest
Afternoon – Play track session
PM – Rest
After looking at my training load I have decided that I will not do weights until the Evening Training Session stop and I will then swap weight sessions for the evening training sessions so that I do not do too much too soon!
Even though the ride to the track is on an ebike it is still a shock to the system and also adding the pump laps will also increase my training load a bunch too so I don’t think I need to add weights at the moment.
In the winter I will have plenty of time for weight and sprints as its dark at 4pm so I will have all evening to work out and do other things as I will have no evening gates or training sessions any more. I will also try and add some sprint sessions in my lunch hour over the winter as that is the only time that I will have when it is light to do sprints. I have asked if we can have a tarmc strip at the track when we get the berms done so that we can do sprints and manuals on it over the winter so hopefully we will be able to get that done 🙂
After the track has had a refurb we will also have a timing system so I will be able to do timed laps on the track as well which will be an amazing training tool 🙂