A new season starts again....

The start of another year of training.

September turned into October and my decision to pull out of the Taiwan KOM race had been made weeks ago during the poor form I was in at this years Haute Route. That decision was not a big one, it was pretty easy by the way I was riding. A trip to Taiwan to get humiliated and a couple of thousand pounds to get there and back. No thanks.

Where do I go now?? Well I had a long chat with my good friend Pete, he as always improves my mood very quickly and after a curry, we ‘d decided I had not yet fulfilled my potential on the bike. I agreed at least another year of riding was on the cards (what races to do we did not decide), but Pete said he would write my training which I know worked brilliantly back in 2014. Just over a week ago I commenced the first day of training.

I might be alone in this opinion but I really do love the training. Training is like a daily “race” to me, where each session has an objective. I find the “race” itself rather nervy with all the other people (or potential crashes) around me. I also get concerned that I will take out people too. So my daily “race” in training suits me well. Unlike last year where I never had a period away from training where I was able to just ride my bike without this focus to every ride, this year was different. With my knees generally intact post Haute Route I had a week off the bike and then just rode for the sake of riding, it was really nice to go out and have no focus from the second I clipped into my pedals. A few of these rides I did with Laurence and had great fun. So after another week of that I was keen to start up the focused training once more, the lack of an objective on rides I had started to miss.

After last years knee issues were fixed by Laurence and his Henley Practice team with a dose of weights and rehab work, I know I need to include this into my routine/training much more. I also believe I lacked a little bit of core work from last season, and want to build a better pedal stroke with better core control.

I have recently invested in a new power meter, this power meter is pretty new on the market too. Its an InfoCrank, it has strain gauges in each crank arm so can give you double the data than my other power meter. As people who know me will understand, I love numbers and quantifying everything, the info crank does this brilliantly. The torque efficiency reading I will be using every time I hit the roads or rollers.

After the first few days of Pete’s training plan I was due a day off, this was Friday. So I did as I was told and had the day off. I spent it mostly wasting my day away which I have a particular skill doing. At one point I was inspired to do a few odd jobs at the shop (Athlete Service), I knew this was a bad idea and in typical clumsy form I banged my right knee on a radiator, thought nothing of it really until Sunday morning I tried to warm up ready for 5 minute interval and my knee was uber sore, really sharp soreness so I had no choice but to slowly pedal my way home with my tail between my legs.

I only managed to get the Info Cranks fitted in the last few days so my first ride with it was the ride Sunday when my knee blew up. The information it gave me was either due to the soreness in my knee, or I am very lopsided with my right and left legs! I hope in a way I am lopsided, then I know if I can fix it I should become faster and more efficient. On the flip side I hope some of the imbalance was the pain in my knee as it was alarmingly bad! We shall see how I get on with the Power and balance issues once my knee has fixed itself. I will also write a blog entry on my opinion of the Info Cranks, first feelings are good and I have not even got to grips with all the data it offers!

I think thats enough of me bumbling along, the rest of the day is likely to be wasted getting annoyed with my knee and not being able to follow my new training plan.

Hope you are all well and those who are in the UK have been enjoying the rare October weather.