Second Sprints Session done.
As planned I went to Trowbridge and met up with my friend and his daughter and we did another sprints session with the timing gate.
To be able to compare my Dialled MX 24R frame to the new Speedco I left my sprint stand slightly too high still so that it was identical to the first week that we timed (09/11/2021). As I hurt my knee on that session and my knee is still hurting I figured that the 2 sessions will be pretty much identical other than the different frames so it would be a good test.
We also measured where the sprint stands was positioned as well so that we can replicate the sessions more accurately over time. We used the crossing painted on the floor as markers for the stand and the start gate for the timing system and the lines are 1.32m apart.
As I suspected I was faster on every sprint on the Speedco so I am really happy that I bought the frame as you can see from the results below, I was over 0.1 seconds faster on every kind of sprint which I am happy about. I also manage to do a full set of sprints this time around. In order to make it easier to track progress over time I have added a table on our google sheet that has the fastest efforts for each type of sprint on it and also shows the difference on the latest session to the fastest efforts:
| Date | Fastest 25m LFF | Fastest 25m RFF | Fastest 50m LFF | Fastest 50m RFF | Fastest 25m | Fastest 50m |
| 09/11/2021 | 4.109 | 4.088 | 6.760 | 6.703 | ||
| 24/11/2021 | 3.993 | 3.950 | 6.655 | 6.591 | 3.95 | 6.591 |
| 0.116 | 0.138 | 0.105 | 0.112 |
Although I feel faster on the new frame and I think that it has definitely helped make me ride faster, I also think that some of the improvement is because of physical adaptation from the previous weeks training as well. I noticed this week that even on the 50m sprints my legs felt really strong (apart from my knee which hurt a lot!) even when pushing to get to the marker and I found myself thinking about my form instead of thinking about how hart it was or how sore my legs were. I also noticed that more core is feeling way firmer this week compared to the previous weeks, and I am also starting to feel like I am getting faster for the whole 50m not hitting 30m ands staying the same speed which is a good sign that I am getting better.
This week I will cut the spring stand down a bit more to make my pedals level when I start to make the pedals near to the same position as they would be on the gate to more closely replicate sprinting out of the gate. I expect this to lead to faster sprint times again next week as my friend and his daughter switched to a box to start their sprints this week and their times improved more than mine did due to the lower front pedal off of the box making it easier to start off. Next week we are also going to do some sprints together to make it more race related. Obviously only one of us will be able to use the timing system on the sprints but it should help the person being timed get better times (especially me as Matt is faster than be so trying to keep near him will push me along!).
I am not going to be able to start the gym at the moment due to financial constraints so I am going to start doing bodyweight exercises at home for now to try and rehab my knee a bit before I can join the gym next month. I am also going to move to doing sprints 3 times a week from next week. I also have Monday afternoons off going forwards as I am on call Friday evenings so I get Monday afternoons in leu. I am going to use this time off to do uphill sprints and then go to the track and practice jumping like I did this week where I spent an hour hitting the table top slowly and practicing my squash and pop and being balanced at takeoff as I have a habit of hitting the takeoff off balance which obviously sends me off balance in the air! After an hour I was taking off really nicely and almost clearing the table top at low speed. I think a few more sessions doing this I will be ready to hit the jump at full speed and send it. Once i am comfortable with this I can then move to the last jump on the 3rd straight and then the first jump on the first straight and then work on all of the jumps in order of size. With a bit of luck after a few months I will be able to clear most of the jumps on the track. I will continue to do my Tuesday night sessions with my friend as I have been doing and then Friday night I want to do downhill sprints with my Son after he finishes school and before I start work again.
By doing this I will be basically following the WINNING TO THE FIRST JUMP SPRINT PROGRAM and if I can do this consistently I think that it will definitely lead to improvements in fitness and improved track speed.
This weekend I am also going to stop drinking fizzy drinks again as I have been drinking a lot of Coca Cola again which is reducing my weight loss and therefore reducing the gains from my training as a whole. I am hoping that by cutting out fizzie drinks and increasing my training load that. I will be able to start 2022 under 100kgs which will mean that I only have 15kgs to go to hit my goal of being 85kgs by the time I race the Worlds. On 1/1/2021 I was 105.3kgs so at the moment this year I have lost 1.4kgs which is pretty poor! If I can get down to 95.3kgs by 31/12/2021 it would mean that I have lost 10kgs this year and I would only have 10kgs left to reach my goal by July 2022.
I am now thinking that I shift my focus for the rest of the year to trying to lose as much weight as possible so I will do the following.
Mondays = Uphill Sprints (strength sprints) + Jump training on the track.
Tuesdays = Power Sprints (flat sprints)
Wednesday = Basketball/ Gates or Racing at Bristol
Thursday = Road Ride (Active Recovery)
Friday = Downhill sprints (speed Sprints).
Saturday = Coaching and Gates
Sunday = Road Ride (Active Recovery) + pump track session.
I think by adding the extra sprint sessions as planned and also adding the 2 road rides as recovery and the pump track session I can greatly reduce my weight before the end of the year. I also still need to practice my car park skills (Manuals, wheelies and bunnyhops) so I will have to find out which days I can fit them in without reducing my performance on the sprint days and also allowing time to recover properly.
I am going to start adding training load from tomorrow when instead of resting as planned I will go for a road ride in my lunch break instead to do an active rest session and increase fat burning a bit. Then on Friday I will go out with my son and scope out the downhill sprint spot and do our first set of 12 downhill sprints. I am not going to time the downhill and uphill sprints this week but next week I will start recording them as well.
I was also talking to Matt about the Regional School of Racing (RSR) minimum entry requirements and I have decided to try and obtain them myself before I get to the worlds and also try and use then to motivate myself and my son to become more skilful riders. The minimum requirements are:
I have already beaten the sprint time by half a second so that is one thing off of the list although I want to see if I can still make it with flat pedals as well soon. I am pretty sure that I can bunny hop 30cm too but I will find out Friday night when we try it.
I am certain that at the moment I will not be able to manual 7m on the flat or do a 14m pedal manual so they are the areas that we will focus on for now. I don’t think that it will take too much time to reach the desired level so I am aiming to get to 20m manuals and 30m pedal manuals as my target as I don’t think that you will need to do either longer than that on the track. I also want to try for a 60cm bunny hop just to push myself a bit and after all 60cm is only just above knee height so should be easily achievable! I used to be able to olly way higher than that on a skateboard so I think with practice I can get over that on a bike!
To start with I will set goals of 2m for Manuals and pedal manuals and build up from there. With the bunny hops I have some adjustable hurdles which go to a maximum of 30cm and I think that they stack on top of each other so I can build up to the 60cm in small increments.