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 .