An off-day.

After two solid, good days I had, as stated in the header, an off-day on my bike today. Luckily, these are more of rarity than normality. Truthfully, my legs were kind of heavy but alright if not even on the better side considering the earlier days. But it was my mind, for some reason, that was off, sloppy, lazy, unwilling and well – just add your own adjectives.

Anyway, here is how it goes on a sloppy off-day:

I wake up earlier than my morning alarm uncertain whether it was the glorious sunshine or the gusty wind banging the door and windows. Then you decide to get up as it isn't worth trying to sleep for some odd 15 minutes more. Now, it is time to take the morning recovery check, and as a byproduct of which I managed to wake up my father as the HR-belt beeped like hell since it had limited memory left and I hadn't emptied it the night before.

Once I get to downstairs to make some proper strong coffee I managed to spill the coffee beans all over. Then serious coffee loading during and after breakfast. After breakfast a small break and check the weather. I think: 'Ok, I'll go out at eleven”. At eleven I decide to go out at noon. At noon I decide to have lunch instead of training. After lunch I have to take a little break before going out. At 1pm I'm sure that I'm ready now, but still I opt for an early afternoon coffee. Then at 1.30pm it is finally time to get set and go before it will get dark. And it is still windy...

I get out of the house with a planned route in mind, but from the very first pedal pushes I start changing it endlessly with ever improving excuses in mind. If something breaks, if some place hurts and if... I had ridden 20mins before the first route change happened, the next one took 10mins, but the process was efficient to say the least and I never got bored with it. After all, I was wandering all around aimlessly trying to make the GPS-trace look cool – and it eventually does look super cool! Mid-ride I ate a chocolate brownie, just for the sake of eating something good, not for the energy, but today for some reason – it didn't taste that good at all, still I ate it. However, I want to point that the power was kind of there, but I wasn't ready to take it out today. These days just happen once in a while. So there I was just riding sloppily trying to make most of it with not real determination.

The plan was to go for 3.5hrs. But as sloppy as I was, I had to punish my weak mind by topping the ride with a bonus of half an hour. I wanted to just find some determination, which I finally found when I was climbing the last hill home and the reason was apparent – refreshing shower. Training done, all good.

In fact, it wasn't so bad today. I managed to do what was in the plan even if I was really sloppy. So, all good and tomorrow some intervals before rest.

PS. I did use some colour pencils, in case someone left it unnoticed.

The beginnings of real business.

Yes, three days into the more intense stuff now, and already I'm feeling it and at least I'm trying to convince myself that I'm fresh for one more day before day off. Actually, it depends if I recover sufficiently by tomorrow morning – then I'll give it a go. If I'm incompetent, then it is better to swap for a rest day and adapt the program. Either or – this is good. So far I've managed to go through all three days, but sooner or later there will most likely be some desperate DNF's in training as I just can't keep up the power. I just like the interval stuff as the limits are more easily accessible and you pretty well know when you are on limits.

Counting days is another thing I'm doing pretty consistently. It just 10ish days and my stint in Spain is over and we'll start moving towards north slowly spending a week of training in southernmost France and then towards ferry to Finland. Hope it will be spring by then.

And as a last note. It ain't always good to eat proper sports food (energy bars or gels etc.) during rides. Nothing lifts the mood better than chocolate cupcake, Coke and Chupa-Chups (but only if cola flavoured). Tried and tested, I rest my case. Yet I'm open for ideas from Chinese to Haribos. Any suggestions?

Just to finish up the update with some artistic photography by my father and me as an almost perfect subject: 

Up the hill...

 

...almost there.

My secret training method.

Concentration.

And off you go.

Good, better and best news.

TT-training

  

Sometimes things go well, and at that time, one should simply cheer the moment. Last week in all fronts was a week to remember. Hence I'm training here; I'll start with that. Last week was the hardest week I've ever done, and still I'm feeling confident that I can build up on that two more three-day blocks. It comprised 24ish hours of training, and practically none was just recovery, and no session was pure LSD (obviously not the drug, but rather Long Slow Distance). All we have to do here is to foresee that I won't overreach too much and therefore, turn it to overtraining. For now, there are no symptoms of that and my morning tests of HRV are giving green light and reacting well. So training is working and as a bonus, I've lost some weight and yet managed to keep my strength levels relatively well outside just riding my bike.

However, nothing lasts forever and this is my last month in here, in Villamartin. I'm eager to make most of it by finishing the base blocks on a high and then getting a good start with the more intense training. And fairly soon, we are starting the major tour with our Civic across Europe to Finland, although the plan is to stop somewhere for a week not to distract training with too lengthy traveling. Then it is pretty much time to think about some racing to support the training schedule, but again, I've got no precise idea where and when. And if the weather turns out to be severe – I might just have to catch a flight or do something to get back to somewhere in the sun (and to be added – it rains like hell here at the moment). Also before that, my mother is coming here for a holiday during my recovery week, good times.

Rest day

But the biggest news by far all winter I received yesterday - actually Friday, but the system was in maintenance, and I didn't catch it. I received an unconditional offer to study a master's degree in Performance Psychology in the University of Edinburgh. Yesterday, after my training, I wasn't really able to say a word about it, but after a good night's sleep and a day's rest – I'm super stoked! For me, it is a big, big step forwards and to gain an admission to such highly ranked school, as is University of Edinburgh, is amazing. So, if nothing dramatic happens I'll be on my way to Edinburgh come September.

I'm not going to rate the news as which is the good, better or best news. All the three are important to me. Having it good on training, getting to the really intense business in my season and gaining the admission to go further with my studies are all things that give me the widest of smiles.

Plyos on the beach

More plyos on the beach.