Rubber Legs

I've got Ixworth crits on Monday - my first outing in the slimming black & red of ESTCCN (catchy eh?!) so thought i'd better get used to making efforts when ones legs are shot from constant accelerating.
The plan was to adapt my normal 30 seconds sprinting, 4'30 recovery, into 30 'on' 30 'off' - thinking that after 2 or 3 i'd be getting rubbery.
The problem was, i seemed able to cope - i thought, oh i'll just do one more, and ended up doing 8 had 3 minutes rest, then did another 6, and wasn't getting tired - what IS going on??
Maybe the quality wasn't so good or something - or maybe i've turned sprinter overnight...
I'm now a little bit more confident about Monday - just gotta avoid swine flu...

Hello team mates

Better than expected!

After a day of nerves and butterflies I finally rolled up on the start line of the evening 10m TT. Wasn't sure what to expect as I haven't really done anything like it for such a long time. Had a taste of what was to come doing a 2up with Shaun last week round a twisty sort of hilly route and that wasn't pleasant. Any way in my head I thought I should at least be able to do a 25 ish time although was riding a bike that the longest time I have been on was the ride down to the race and hadn't ridden at all in the Tri bars until my warm up. During the warm up decided that my seat was too low but I was already well over the min insertion point so not much I could do.

I knew the rider starting behind me had been doing 22:40 so was expecting him to come flying past by the turn and I was going to use him to pace my self back, only problem is that he never came. At the turn not sure if he had gained anything so I cracked on and ended up with 24:03 Now I'm just gutted I didn't get a 23 something. The tester mentality soon returns!! Certainly not as fit as I used to be and still way off my old form but I think I'm harder mentally and seem to be able to keep much harder and more consistent effort.

Off to find a longer seatpost (ahem Tim) and almost looking forward to riding the VCB open 10 on monday.

Nerves 2

Well it was neither good or bad. I'd say somewhere down the middle. There was plenty of force in the legs but not much pedlin. Was strong enough to start the winning move but not fast enough to keep up!

Following a race like that (painful) there are two ways you can go, up or down, the good news is based on this morning troshing 3 hours (starting at 5.30) the answer is up. Long live the espresso.

Torq Gels

Knocked out another 4 hour ride yesterday my 2nd in 6 days with a couple of 50 milers inbetween including a 2up 10 with Tim B during one of them, anyway i'm not normally a fan of gels, after consuming them you can either throw the wrapper away littering the countryside or put the sticky mess back in you pocket, quite windy yesterday, well i thought it was as i was below 15mph in places on the flat, nearing 3hrs ridden and already munched 2 torq bars it was time to resort to the gel, out the other side of Halesworth knowing i was soon to get a tail wind down the gel went, soon after my pulse perked up abit and i seemed to have fresh legs all of a sudden, i rode back from Halesworth not just in the big ring but in the middle of the cassette attacking the little hills on route, once back to Bungay with 3.45 on the clock i quickly added the 6 mie Ellingham Mill loop at 20's to make my riding time just over 4 hrs and 78 miles covered.

Hammer Hannan rides again

There was a point I reached last night after a training ride with Joshua, a point that was sharp, and painfully obvious, young legs can climb fast. I have always thought I was a good climber, steady power, strong to the top and quick out with quick recovery, that was until I realized the difference between me and our youngest member, speed.

I have been training up gas hill in Noz for about three weeks straight now doing repeats of 10-12 of the 20% gas hill and the 16% telegraph lane 2-3 times a week. I have been feeling really good, strong and I think at my pace could ride them all day long. Josh joined me last night and made me ride my little tits off, he sprints from bottom to top every time and even had the cheek to ask me "where's this hill then" as we are riding up it.

Oh youth, how cruel you can be to the old.

Needless to say I hurt today and Josh was out riding again.

Nerves

Well its been about 22 year since my first race and I've ridden a shed load in that time, but one thing that never changes is the gradual fear/nervousness that creaps in leading up to a race, never more so that the first one of the year.

4 days before the race it's already started. For me this consists of butterflies and and gradual lightening of the legs that make you feel like getting out of your chair might be a challenge, let alone whipping, the 12 round, I'm old, so haven't got with the programme and started whipping the 11 (note 'whipping' is not the correct term for getting the 12 round, but in the interest of public viewing, the word that sounds a bit like t and hat wasn't appropriate)

Come race day its a dry mouth and an unhealthy amount of time on the toilet, followed by a sigh of relief or a couple of hours of backside breathing and suffering, all depending on how good your preps been.

I'll tell you which one on Monday

Back in Business

Felt good to get into some kind of routine again this morning with my longer route into work.  Only 26 miles but felt good and raring to go for a longer ride home.  Been a bit down recently with recent bugs and illnesses that have kept me off my bike so good to be getting back and trying to catch the rest of the team up.  Roll on those miles…

Ye Olde Train Station

On my journey into work today, the train was fortunate enough to be delayed at Saxmundham for 20 minutes.

What options did I have?? – Ride in from there to Ipswich (as I had my kit with me), or go find coffee? – no brainer really.

But what I wasn’t expecting was to be taken back in time, to a 1940s proper train station caff – complete with dusky old man serving coffee for the paltry amount of just 75p per cup!! – he also did 2-fingered KIT-KATs (although other chocolate is available) for 25p!!!

The guy was about 80 years old, and clearly lived there, as behind the counter, was a large floor to ceiling curtain separating the counter from his living room. Had I been American, I would have remarked how cute or quaint it was..

I would have taken a photo – I did try, but he took so long to shuffle into the back room, I couldn’t justify hanging around any longer - I was pretending to look at things, but wasn’t very good at it, and he didn’t move very fast.

You just don’t get places like that any more!!

So – I’m going out for an easy ride today – and by the look of it, it will be a sunny one!! – it’ll be a lunchtime ride (LTR) which is about all I seem to do these days – gone are the days of 2 hours of an evening.. I occasionally ride in from Beccles to Ipswich (which is becoming more of an event, and less of an occasion these days)

It’s ‘only’ 42 miles, but is always a headwind so it’s not too appealing, although is a great ride – with plenty of ramps towards Ipswich – including ‘America Hill’ – which is a bit of a killer.

Welcome to the dark side!

Thank you all those which encouraged me to take part in the Godric 10TT on Tuesday night, never will I be the same again.

I have a little place I go sometimes in my head when I'm riding, I dont like going there but occasionally you have to, and thats where I spent 25mins and 14secs of last night, it is a place where my thighs go to die and my saliva turns to powder!

So thanks for the shove towards something that is undecribably hard but undisputably addictive, see you all a the next one.

p.s. young Josh Hannan also performed well with his first recorded 10 in 25.48, not bad at 14 years of age and restricted gears.

Coffee...

There's no better place to dink cofffee in Ipswich than with a view like this.. 'coffee link' does the best i've found as it's run by foreigners!!

Rest day today as i've got a bit of a sore throat, and don't want to 'kill it' before my 2nd race of the season this Sunday.

Feeling good after a few weeks of intervals - the form's a comin'

Image test

Shaun, 'the great' Aldous

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Test from my mobile - apparently it does work!!

First Blog

I've been struggling to set my mobile phone up to be able to blog from it, and failing miserably - apprently, I can't do it from a T-Mobile phone - but it's from email - why should it matter??

So - using the old fashioned way - first post, so will be a littel dull - i'll ahve to think of something spicy for subsequant posts...

Bye for now world.

Welcome

Welcome to the new blog from Streetlife's Extreme Sports Therapy Team. Keep an eye on here for what we have been up to in training and races and general ramblings from the team.