Rabbit in the headlights

I think I’ve reached that rabbit in the headlights phase of the year, just stood in the middle of the road staring at the lights wondering which way to go, you know in your head diving left or right is the safest place but somehow you are drawn to that light in the middle. I look at peoples set up and it feels like its turning into a cash race ,you smash yourself to pieces in training looking for ever last 0.5w knowing in your head a few hundred quid can buy you 6w and so on and so on. But that’s life I guess I don’t begrudge anyone for splashing the cash you’ve got to find a way of catching up or staying ahead of the game anyway you can.

Small things are making a big difference this year and there are so many big positive (even though I’ve just had a sulk about being priced out of the game) im just a very need everything sorted straight away sort of person and go diving in head first hoping to bypass all the steps it normally takes to get there, I can’t help it it’s just the way I am.

Big bonus has been having the use of the Boardman 9.4 the last few weeks which Andy was kind enough to let me use to train on and its been great, I was kicking about on a 3 year old cube road frame with some clip ons most of winter and its not a patch on having a tt set up using all the muscles you use in racing , I’ve really missed that over the winter not having a tt bike and a few have asked why didn’t you keep the p4 for training and as a backup and the honest answer is I would of loved to but I needed to sell it to fund other parts and pay some bills, I put every spare penny I have into the racing and a lot of other things suffer because of it so the pleasure of something like a p4 as a training /back up bike for me is never going to happen.

I think we have made big steps in my set up and the use of the services at bike science the last few weeks have really be more than I could of asked for , the velodrome testing in Newport was great to test a few positions but we found this was zapping my power for very little gains, so we tested moving the bars up and down to see where my power drop off was in the aero position and found that there was a big difference in heart rate and lactate between positions, despite coming up 60mm from my previous position and still looking really low I feel I’ve got close to something I can work with,the Newport tests are a great way to check the differences between what I think is fast and what is fast, plus it’s a great experience going round the track after the first bunch of panic laps when all I wanted to do was run away and hide and not get back on the track again . and a few other tweaks from the retul fit has helped with power delivery along with the switch to the cobb cycling saddle it feels like I’m really making head way now and we are chipping away at where I need to be.

I think once the TTE is ready I’ve got the rotor power cranks on and I’ve got a solid set up that we can play around with and tweak il be in a much better place. For a guy who needs everything to be right to really perform its been a crazy whirlwind lately but if it was easy everyone would do it as they say.

The huge bonus has been training, im almost at the point I can push to the next stage and move the training zones up another level, I’ve been hitting the sessions hard and in the tt position and this has brought my power on the tt bike close to what it is on the road bike, I’m still abit down but I think with more time to adapt I should really close the gap right down.ive had two sessions in a week which I couldn’t have completed last year so it’s a huge testament to how far ive come with matts coaching which has really shown me whats needed to get results and just how far you can go if you want it bad enough.

 

Let’s keep the positives coming; I’m very happy to be supported this year by www.indurance.co.uk after Blake Pond kindly put in touch with them. Performance is key for me it’s the area I’m going to make the gains in, I’ve been smashing my weight down, getting my power up and generally working hard to improve myself the one thing I have total control over on bike. In_durance blood profiling in simple terms tells you what is going on inside, if your pushing too hard and on your limit, if you’re not even taping into your potential, what your lacking in to reach that potential and how to reach it.After a long chat with Will from In_durance I was very keen to get on board and over the moon when they said they would support me in 2015 and 3 kits where winging their way to me to get the testing started.

Taking blood at home seemed like it could be a lot of hard work and messy but it was very simple and easily laid out and obviously well thought out buy people who really know stuff when it comes to testing athletes right down to the handy holder for the sample pot. A quick watch of the how to video on the site and I was all ready to go, 2 minutes later it was all back in the box and off in the free post envelope, and 3 days later the first results where back for my vit D3 and being someone on a good diet and already supplementing with a Vit D3 supplement I was expecting a glowing report.

Pretty shocked to see I was boarder line dangerously low in Vit D3, it was all laid out what this meant for performance and overall health, how to address it, best sources to improve the readings and what making these improvements will make to my overall wellbeing. The harder I train the more I push myself these this sort of information is essential for keeping me pushing on to the next training block rather than slumping into a pit of doom when you start under performing and get frustrated and over cook yourself because you think your just being soft and not trying hard enough even though people around you are telling you that you look like a sack of crap (we’ve all been there).

So I’m really excited to see the next results from the other tests, the third one I did yesterday was over and done in about a minute, once you have done it once it’s so simple it’s done in no time and the turnaround for results was brilliant. Its worth checking out the site at www.indurance.co.uk as the people involved with it have a very impressive back ground in sport and Will has been involved as a doctor for the tour of Britain as well as I quality athlete so the whole team know the importance of health and wellbeing on performance and I can honestly say I’m very lucky to be part of it and really looking forward to making the gains that come with it.

 

So a blog that started alittle in the dumps has finished positive , it’s a long old year and yeah I would like to be on it straight away everything perfect and sat back in the chair at night with my feet up  knowing every single box is ticked but to be honest if that was the case as I’ve said before I would probably start going slower in the long run, I might moan about not having the cash to have the best of everything , and spend a week training somewhere sunny with  days in the wind tunnel ,but il fight harder than anyone for the gains I can make from my training and areas I have control of, it will all come of that I have no doubt ,I have great people supporting me this year and wouldn’t even like to guess where I would be without them ( probably taken up darts buy now ) , so we keep chipping away little improvements here and there aiming for the bigger goals one 0.5w at a time .

puzzling it all together

Before I start I wore shorts on a ride this week no leg warmers or bib tights so I’m officially calling an end on winter J . Now the season has sort of started with a few dipping my toe back in the racing water events which have become a mass change everything program for me it seems. I think having so many options and so many ways we can test stuff and try different thinks I’ve sort of got lost in it all, I want to try every little thing and jump massively from one set up to another in a crazy whirlwind of parts and kit and frustrating myself as I know I’m hitting the training targets, I know my power is way up and my weight now 7kg down from last year, everything is there I just can’t seem to click it all together.

Lucky for me Andy has a logical mind and the tools to get the job done which is the opposite to my headless chicken grab everything off the shelve and try it ,dismiss it then try it again.to get to the bottom of everything he has come up with a great way of testing my power drop off in certain positions, as my il slam it as low as it goes two days before a race without a power meter to actually test anything and see how it goes is a pretty crap way of testing anything J.
This involves getting set up on the turbo with a power meter and basically raising and lowering the front of the bike and seeing where my power drops off and comparing it to hr and using the lactate testing in each position to see what stresses each position puts on my power output, then finding an area of hip angle I can work in then going to the velodrome to get the best position in that range.
We had a meeting of minds last week and looking at the position I had tried I was crazy low to the point I was putting out over 40w less than normal and the fact that I had to raise my head to see was un aero as well, and I had been stupid enough to race like this and still scratch my head after wondering why I was still going so slow.
I think part of my problem was not having time to adapt in different positions so Andy has very kindly let me train on the 9.4 so I can train in the tt position, once the TTE is ready and sorted I will train a lot more in the tt position in a set up that works then I’m gluing everything down and just getting stronger in that position before swapping to anything different, to that end I’ve decided to not race until I’m sorted as me going out and performing way below where I should be I don’t feel is in anyone’s interest.

 

Anyway the point of this blog was to basically tie up all the little bits I keep missing and forgetting to add to my blog, so many things are going on ( most excited about working with www.indurance.co.uk but I will go into that fully next time but it’s the future I’m sure in performance management ) , I’ve got the Dursley road club 10 tt on the 11^th April ( shameless plug ) which I’m organizing ( I say I’m organizing I’ve had a lot of help from the club so everyone deserves a shout out ) and was really honoured how my sponsors stepped up to support it especially Nopinz who have been super kind to me and supported me a lot even though they don’t officially sponsor me and offered over £200 worth of prizes , plus bike science offering two lactate test and the likes of jersey pocket and science fitness uk and Jwhiting nutrition offering top prizes it should be a great event, with coffee from Veloton and cakes from Little gems cakes as local as it gets from the town of Dursley.

 

Talking of Nopinz the funky Velotoze overshoes dropped through the letterbox this week , as my smart ones are pretty much falling off my feet and these where about a fifth of the price and come with Blake’s aero guarantee I thought it was worth a try,

Getting them out they felt like a elephants condom but once on the they are awesome, super snug fit even on my small child like ankles and  no wrinkled up areas anywhere, and at that price point I’m going to get a few spares so you can pull a shiny new pair out just for the key races. I haven’t had change to test them or see how they wear but initially on fit hugely impressed.

 

It’s been a busy week for my postman as some serious carbon bling winged its was over from Ireland this week ( I will try and add some pics of the velotoze and the carbon loveliness later but its all on my twitter ) from a little very part time business called prologue Performance ( I say very part time as David works to many hours in his day job ,juggles a family and training and basically does the carbon work for the love for a limited amount of people ) .

I’ve had a berner style cage made for my sram red rear mech which really looks the business and a cover to clean up the cranks around the bb , completely one off bits and very skilfully done and super cheap for the amount of work that must of gone into getting it done. Just search for David Heagney or prologue performance on facebook and check out a lot of tt race prep stuff, I just wish I could get the TTE over to Ireland when it’s ready to get him to spend a bit of time working his magic on it.

 

The focus now is fully on getting the set up right, I’ve spent all of winter working on me as a rider and that area is going super strong much better than I hoped ,but now I need to look at the bike and position , it’s been hard not having a tt bike all winter as its normally a time I would spend looking at little changes and making improvements but the year is young and I have the support to fast track a lot of changes and equipment and hopefully be where I should be very soon.
It’s been a frustrating start to the racing year but that’s all 100% down to me , everyone else involved have done their part perfectly its just some of these things take time to fully click ,but that will just make ever success that little bit sweeter.

 

The only way is up

So the season began with a horrendous day and I was desperately hoping that things would change for the R10/22a but there was little chance of that.

After a busy promising week with a great day at Newport velodrome with bike science and aero guru Rob Barrett we got very good position on the TTE and learnt a lot and I'm looking forward to going back and trying a few things we didn't get chance to test on the day, it's a great way to test things in a stable environment and we got some constant data that showed the difference in the changes we made, so much so bike science Bristol are now offering a testing day at the velo as part of their extensive service which is great as it also gives me another area to explore future set ups.

I was feeling confident and ready , illness has gone and I'm feeling strong again and the tte was ready to roll out,that was until a broken front brake part put everything out as the part needed to be shipped and wouldn't get here in time.

Luckily I could fall back on the boardman 9.4 the only downside is being a shop test bike it's set up and ready for customers to test so I can't go taking out cranks ,extensions , bars etc etc to get it just right for me, that being the case I thought I would try something new and very low at the front for Sunday's race ( needless to say it was a disaster but at least I learnt something now rather than at a key race ) 

Looking at the forecast it was going to be wet,but I thought I would chance it and pray for a dry spot for my ride,on the road to the start it was savage,a lot of spray and foggy,I was thinking it might not be run until I seen a small figure emerging from the mist on the other side of the road, the rain seemed to clear for a short spell but it wasn't going to carry on and was soon raining hard again.

I started my ride already soaking wet from warmup hoping I would soon be back in the car and dry,I was again running without a power meter, I ride like a robot and have got so dependant on it that I am totally lost without it,people say listen to your body and the power meter makes no difference but when you train fully focused on it taking it away for a race is a bit like someone blind folding me spinning me around twenty times then sitting me on the bike and telling me to go for it.

It was tail wind out and I went out far to slow as I didn't even have the garmin on as in the rush I forgot to stick the garmin mount on so I really was riding blind as I could of got a bit of a indication of pace off of heart rate,I couldn't even make it back on the return leg as I was running out of leg speed on the fats way back on the 53t front ring, I finished and the legs felt like I had just finished a decent warm up not a 10tt, I knew I was going to be a lot slower than normal but In truth it was a disaster in my mind and a waste of a trip.

Looking back its a race in my legs,I learnt something from trying a set up that didn't work and found out I need to ride to data or at least just destroy myself on the way out and hold on for the return.

It's been a frustrating start to the year and looking back I should of just backed off if the set up wasn't spot on and trained instead of racing,it's really hard to jump on a bike totally different to everything you normally train on day in day out and be at your best,and I guess I can't expect to just jump on any set up and everything will be fine.

It's crazy as the form is there, the power is up everything is going great but I still have the thought of letting people down in the back of my head,it's at times like that the people behind you make the difference and put you back on the path,Matt assured me we are hitting all the targets and building strong and we are where we need to be for the bigger picture,and Andy has everything sorted on the bike side and we will soon be set up and rocking a rotor LT power meter to give me the data I need,and I'm going to spend some time in bike science riding the TTE on the turbo in the tt position until the brake parts are in and everything is just the way I need it .

If I've learnt anything this last few weeks it's to hold back until everything is right and focus on the big goals.

I guess learning the hard way is tough but it makes you stronger and push that little bit harder to get it right and despite a rocky start I'm feeling good and knowing it's going to be awesome when everything clicks.

The podcast which I recorded with Mark Florence at cyclingtimetrialpodcast.libsyn.com came out Sunday and man I sound bad with a cold, but it was great to have the chance to do something new and it was great to be asked to do it as a three part series over the year. 

Next up is the R25/7 but we have decided that if everything isn't spot on we will just train on through and focus on the next race.

It's easy to forget how long the year is but we will keep building and learning until we get everything right,I have huge total faith in the people that support me so it won't be long before everything clicks and the ropey start is but a distant memory.