After sucking so badly at the Cumbernauld Nationals this weekend it has re-iterated the fact that I need to start getting serious with my training and start to get some kind of consistency with it too.
My gates at the weekend not only showed that I am a pussy and need to man up and hit jumps flat out but it also highlighted that I hit top speed at about the 5th pedal and then I am lacking any higher gear to keep pushing faster!
To get around this I am going to start sprinting 3 times a week doing one session of uphill sprints, one session of flat sprints and one session of downhill sprints.
I also need to work on my leg strength and endurance so I plan to do 2 gym sessions as week to work on this as well as fitting in one or 2 pump lap sessions a week to work on carrying speed and building fitness as well. When I am doing gate practice on Wednesday and Saturdays I plan to start building up the number of straights that I put effort into to get my body used to performing for more than the first straight and also build up track fitness!
To make me more focussed I am going to set a goal of sticking to the training plan outlined below until the Peckham National on the weekend of 17th-19th June. There are 25 days until the Peckham National so just under a month to try and get into some kind of shape.
I also want to start doing the stretching part of the Knee Ability Zero workout book that arrived on Thursday. I plan to do the stretching Monday and Friday nights after doing Manual training.
May 23rd to June 17th Training Plan
The training Plan than I want to follow is:
| Day | AM | PM |
| Mon | Uphill Sprints | Manuals + Stretching |
| Tuesday | Downhill Sprints | Coaching |
| Wednesday | Gym | Gates Bristol |
| Thursday | Rest Day | Rest Day |
| Friday | Flat Sprints | Manuals + Stretching |
| Saturday | Gym | Gates Bath |
| Sunday | Rest Day | Rest Day |
As I am still tired from the weekend, I will rest today other than doing the stretching plan from the Knee Ability Zero workout book as well to help with my recovery. Tomorrow Morning I will Swap the Downhill Sprints with Flat Sprints so that I can get some baseline measurements before I start training on Tuesday afternoon with Coaching at the track.
I am also going to get an S&M Long Johnson seat post so that I can try and use it as a cooldown post and race post with my Tioga D-Spyder pivotal seat that is currently on my Dialled MX20R then I can swap between riding and cooling down without the need to swap seat posts and carry either my cooldown seat and post or my Box one seat and post. This will mean that after a race I can put the seat up and cool down straight after the race while I ride back to the team gazebo. It also means that I have one less thing to pack/ remember and way less hassle! This will also make it easier to travel to the Worlds. I can use the Box seat and post on the 20″ as it lives in the Container at the track so doesn’t need a cooldown post.
I already had a 25.5mm S&M Long Johnson seat post with an S&M Pivotal Seat on it so I have fitted it to my Race bike and it looks like the long post may work as I want it to. I will try riding the bike with it on tomorrow night at Coaching and see how it goes and I will also put the Tioga seat on the Cruiser as well!
This is basically how the seat post will look/ work (Ignore the state of the bike! I am just about to clean it from the weekends abuse):
The longer seat post also means that I don’t have to swap my current seat post out to fit the bike in a bike stand to clean it and work on it which is another plus point in my book 🙂
After I cleaned my bike I changed the gearing from its usual 36×16 to 41×16 to see how that feel for the next month or so until my Curtis arrives then I will have to ride 36×16 as that is the only gearing that works on the Curtis!
I am also thinking of trying rental bars again so I will swap my stem and bars for my S&M Top loader stem and my Renthal bars and see how the bike feels.
I have been thinking about what I will do with my other bikes once the Curtis arrives and I think that I will sell them all to pay for the Curtis Build. Once I get my other Curtis back I will get it concerted to 10mm dropouts and disk brake and then build it up with the Staystrong Wheels and use it as my training bike and keep the Worlds bike as my Gates/Race bike.