Before the 170 mile coast to coast that is.
And I should be just about hitting peak fitness and maintaining that for the last two weeks......and I feel nothing like fit at the moment!
I've taken a couple of days with no alarm clock to try to get a little rest.
I'm tired thanks to trying to cram a heck of a lot into just about every day. I have a couple of big weddings to attend to so a lot of planning goes into them, going to look over the venues, checking mileages and timings and just looking things over so I can plan exactly what we are going to do on the day itself. Then there was the 14 hour marathon wedding on Sunday, lovley couple, great families, loved the day but boy am I tired afterwards! I also have the small matter of a big studio campaign in May for family photography so a box of 5000 leaflets is not going to distibute itself......off out to visit shops and businesses with piles of those on my way to a meeting with a wedding coordinator...
And I am still trying to sell my house. Sold it twice but the chains keep collapsing. It's good that I am still getting interest in the house but preparing it for a viewing takes between 2 and 6 hours and three in a week is a serious amount of time to be doing housework. That's all time that is utterly wasted if the viewer ends up not biting. And time is a rather precious commodity right now.
Add to that the weather. We have had a few nice days in April, here and there, generally when I have been busy elsewhere but generally, cold, grey and when I have had time on my side, wet. Almost into May and I'm only just cutting the grass and the daffodils are still just flowering, trees are not yet in leaf. That tells a story.
So in the last ten days I have managed 25 miles with Kate at Northwich, a spin over to Alderley which is another 25, 20 very hilly miles with Tony and Glen around Rivington which nearly killed me and trust me, does not fill me with optimism about the hills on the coast to coast. And 11 miles over to New Mills just to spin my legs out after the hills. 81 miles in the last ten days is not helping me hit the fitness levels I need.
It's going to be back on the turbo tonight. The weather forecast for the end of the week when I can get some time to go out is rubbish again, cold, wintery and wet with the chance of sleet.
By now we should have had a bunch of nice days where I can get out and do the 50 and 60 mile rides that I need and Im strugglng to get 20 in. It's not helping at all and it is going to make the 170 very hard work indeed.
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Saturday, 20 April 2013
wheeee
Some on bike footage from our ride out at Rivington yesterday. The climb up is a horror but this is the reward at the end. We came into this piece of footage at a rate of knots and it's basically 40mph all the way. :) Gave my poor lungs time to recover!
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Shake that booty!
Body fat and weight stuff..........
So far I have been pretty much guided by my bathroom scales but I shall pay less attention to them now. With doing the coast to coast I had a rough idea of what I thought my ideal weight might be. And I'm still half a stone heavier than that.
I'll share the figures with you, no point in beating around the bush and being obtuse. I'm 5'4" and 11st. And I wanted to get to around 10 1/2. But I stopped losing weight. I had come down from 12st and just stopped. So I was chatting with my good friend Kate yesterday after a lovely 20 mile ride and I said that I wanted to lose another half a stone and I was going to have to watch my diet in the next four weeks to see how much I could reasonably shift while still training. Kate shook her head. Now I know what happens when Kate does that.......You get the explanation!
Off she went and came back with a body fat analysis gizmo........and we both did it several times to make sure we got a consistent result. My body fat % is 19%. So I am already in the athlete range of 14-20%. The ideal range for my age is around 25-28%.....and I wanted to lose another half a stone!
I've obviously put on some muscle then :) But from now on I shall be a lot less concerned about what the bathroom scales are telling me and don't get me started on BMI ;) My BMI is 26.4 which puts me at overweight.
So I'm 5'4" and 11st. Overweight according to BMI but 19% body fat, a size 12 with a resting heart rate of 65 and perfect blood pressure at 110/60 :) Not bad for a 48 year old!
So I shall shake my booty and not worry about that half a stone.....would be nice to not have to haul it up hills though ;)
So far I have been pretty much guided by my bathroom scales but I shall pay less attention to them now. With doing the coast to coast I had a rough idea of what I thought my ideal weight might be. And I'm still half a stone heavier than that.
I'll share the figures with you, no point in beating around the bush and being obtuse. I'm 5'4" and 11st. And I wanted to get to around 10 1/2. But I stopped losing weight. I had come down from 12st and just stopped. So I was chatting with my good friend Kate yesterday after a lovely 20 mile ride and I said that I wanted to lose another half a stone and I was going to have to watch my diet in the next four weeks to see how much I could reasonably shift while still training. Kate shook her head. Now I know what happens when Kate does that.......You get the explanation!
Off she went and came back with a body fat analysis gizmo........and we both did it several times to make sure we got a consistent result. My body fat % is 19%. So I am already in the athlete range of 14-20%. The ideal range for my age is around 25-28%.....and I wanted to lose another half a stone!
I've obviously put on some muscle then :) But from now on I shall be a lot less concerned about what the bathroom scales are telling me and don't get me started on BMI ;) My BMI is 26.4 which puts me at overweight.
So I'm 5'4" and 11st. Overweight according to BMI but 19% body fat, a size 12 with a resting heart rate of 65 and perfect blood pressure at 110/60 :) Not bad for a 48 year old!
So I shall shake my booty and not worry about that half a stone.....would be nice to not have to haul it up hills though ;)
The adventures of......
a cyclist in traffic......
Had two incidents in the last week which were not good.
One was a little old lady in a Nissan Micra who turned across my path as I was coming downhill at 25 mph. Thankfully I recognised her as a hazard, covered my brakes and managed to control the bike sliding downhill and missed hitting her....I would not have given much for my chances of slamming into the side of her at 25mph.
So I looked back at the scene on my way home and tried to figure out if there is anything else I could do to avoid not being seen. My jacket is black and bright aqua so it does stand out against various backgrounds but not as much as my "nuclear" pink one! And with it being the middle of the day I didn't have any lights on the bike. So more high vis and constant blinking lights might be in order. However I think I could have dressed up like a lighthouse and she would not have seen me. I was not car shaped.
Then I fell off! On a junction going uphill and I had a 4x4 with a trailer in front of me. We both set off when the lights changed and my left foot stays clipped in to the pedal, as the right one comes over the top the aim is to catch it and clip in. Sometimes (especially on the new bike with new pedals) it takes me a couple of efforts to clip in. Sadly not this time, I got it first time. I say sadly because the guy driving the 4x4 stopped, dead, in the middle of the road and I had just set off, was clipped in and didn't have time to adjust, I braked to avoid cycling into the back of the trailer and promptly fell over! I could not get my right foot out the pedal quickly enough. And an oncoming car clipped my helmet on the way past. The poor lady was horrified, she heard the bang and thought for one dreadful moment that she had run over my head! I had to give her a hug and tell her it was honestly not her fault. Thankfully she was not going too fast but I have a nice streak of Nissan black on my helmet and my vision was somewhat impaired for a few hours. I got myself checked out remotely by my ophthalmologist friend who described perfectly what I was seeing and it seems like I had an ocular migraine which can be caused by a blow to the head.
http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/ocular-migraine.htm
Obviously everything is fine now of I would not be writing this blog :)
I think I may have to save some pennies and invest in a satnav and route plan off the busier routes. More cycling round leafy Cheshire lanes required and less of the A6!
Oh and more high Vis!
and an on board missile system for those who don't even look! ;)
Had two incidents in the last week which were not good.
One was a little old lady in a Nissan Micra who turned across my path as I was coming downhill at 25 mph. Thankfully I recognised her as a hazard, covered my brakes and managed to control the bike sliding downhill and missed hitting her....I would not have given much for my chances of slamming into the side of her at 25mph.
So I looked back at the scene on my way home and tried to figure out if there is anything else I could do to avoid not being seen. My jacket is black and bright aqua so it does stand out against various backgrounds but not as much as my "nuclear" pink one! And with it being the middle of the day I didn't have any lights on the bike. So more high vis and constant blinking lights might be in order. However I think I could have dressed up like a lighthouse and she would not have seen me. I was not car shaped.
Then I fell off! On a junction going uphill and I had a 4x4 with a trailer in front of me. We both set off when the lights changed and my left foot stays clipped in to the pedal, as the right one comes over the top the aim is to catch it and clip in. Sometimes (especially on the new bike with new pedals) it takes me a couple of efforts to clip in. Sadly not this time, I got it first time. I say sadly because the guy driving the 4x4 stopped, dead, in the middle of the road and I had just set off, was clipped in and didn't have time to adjust, I braked to avoid cycling into the back of the trailer and promptly fell over! I could not get my right foot out the pedal quickly enough. And an oncoming car clipped my helmet on the way past. The poor lady was horrified, she heard the bang and thought for one dreadful moment that she had run over my head! I had to give her a hug and tell her it was honestly not her fault. Thankfully she was not going too fast but I have a nice streak of Nissan black on my helmet and my vision was somewhat impaired for a few hours. I got myself checked out remotely by my ophthalmologist friend who described perfectly what I was seeing and it seems like I had an ocular migraine which can be caused by a blow to the head.
http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/ocular-migraine.htm
Obviously everything is fine now of I would not be writing this blog :)
I think I may have to save some pennies and invest in a satnav and route plan off the busier routes. More cycling round leafy Cheshire lanes required and less of the A6!
Oh and more high Vis!
and an on board missile system for those who don't even look! ;)
Lil Ribble has arrived!
I picked up my new bike last Thursday :)
Has been called Lil Ribble, coz it's still tiny :)
Still getting to grips with Lil Ribble, first job was to put the saddle off le Velocipede onto Lil Ribble. That way I am working on the setup without the added complication of a new saddle being less than comfortable. So far so good. Did 25, 23 and 20 mile rides over the last four days and it's not quite right yet, but I don't think it is too far off. I'm going to pop it onto the turbo on Thursday for a spin and the best way for me to check my setup is to put one of my cameras on a tripod and video myself pedalling. I can see on the playback of I am over extending, it is ever so obvious because the muscles literally jump out at you! and you don't want to be doing that. That is caused by having the saddle too high. Equally though, you can get some chronic knee pain form it being too low and 1/4 inch can make a huge amount of difference. So a little fine tuning required.
I have to say though, the build on the bike is superb. Ribble Bikes were spot on with their build date and I've not found a thing wrong with it. 10/10
April update
Well, it's official! March was one of the coldest on record.......no s*** Sherlock! I'm lucky I still have digits!
It is now the 9th April 2013 and I was cycling up around Buxton just a couple of days ago and there are still banks of snow up there. The blast of cold coming off them was none too pleasant!
So March saw more work on the turbo than I had planned. I had planned that mid March to mid April was the time to go to work on the hills. I can now do my allotted 60 miles in a day with not too much difficulty but doing 60 miles on the flats of the Cheshire Plains is quite a different proposition to the first day of the coast to coast.
This is what the elevation profile for the coast to coast looks like
Lots of hills, mainly on the first day which is why I need to be cycling on the hills near home.
It is now the 9th April 2013 and I was cycling up around Buxton just a couple of days ago and there are still banks of snow up there. The blast of cold coming off them was none too pleasant!
So March saw more work on the turbo than I had planned. I had planned that mid March to mid April was the time to go to work on the hills. I can now do my allotted 60 miles in a day with not too much difficulty but doing 60 miles on the flats of the Cheshire Plains is quite a different proposition to the first day of the coast to coast.
This is what the elevation profile for the coast to coast looks like
Lots of hills, mainly on the first day which is why I need to be cycling on the hills near home.
Tuesday, 12 March 2013
Happy birthday to meeeeeeee!
Apologies for the borrowed image from bikeradar.com.....least I can do is point you to their very nice website http://www.bikeradar.com/
The reason for the borrowed image is that I don't have one yet!
But I will do :)
Oh yes, it shall be mine :)
Thanks to the boys at Ribble I got some really good advice on bike fit and I measured my Specialized, counted teeth on chainrings and cassettes and took it all to see them today.
Yes they can. They can build it with the same gear ratios for me, the same frame geometry, the same width bars, the same steering, the same crank length.....and yes I can have a decent ladies saddle and the pedals and wheels of my choice too :)
So in two to three weeks I will have a new arrival in the house. According to Zoe, I need to let it sleep in my bedroom the first night so it feels at home before introducing it to the other bikes ;)
And, it's not pink :) I was very tempted by what I can only describe as their "stealth bike"
The Ribble R782.....in the flesh is just the most awesome bike to look at http://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/sed/road-track-bike/ribble-r872-shimano-equipped?part=SE13RIBR872SHIM&sub=conf_SERC With the Di2 shifters on the demo bike it just looks mean, menacing and I want one for the wall :)
So, a new addition to the family in a few weeks. I was very reluctant to buy such an expensive and quite frankly smart machine when I started out. I would have been embarrased to be seen wheezing around my neighbourhood on such a capable steed. But now I have that first 60 under my belt and felt so good I am not too concerned about looking like an idiot on it. I shall train hard over the next six weeks and I shall ride my Ribble with pride.......I'm still not wearing pink though! Not unless I have to ;)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)