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Training blog - page 22
Day one hundred and forty four: Wednesday 28 June 2006
Rest day.
Day one hundred and forty five: Thursday 29 June 2006
Bike. Today I cycled to another fundraising destination and raised a further £118 for the three nominated charities. Obviously, cycling to raise money gives my legs the opportunity to accumulate mileage for the forthcoming Alps, which are now five and a half weeks away.
A total mileage of 51.49 miles were covered at an average speed of 16.9 mph. My legs felt ok with only slight aches coming from the quadricep area of both legs. I would say that leg power is constantly improving and at last my cycling muscles are mixing with muscles developed at the gym. Both legs feel as strong as each other; something which I could never say until now.
Yoga. This evening, I held a long awaited classic yoga session, but before this started I did the usual three exercise mat workouts; forearm development, ab crunches and reverse curls (two sets of 30 reps of each).
I started with a corpse pose (Savasana), which I held for about two minutes. A series of neck and eye exercises followed, which I find useful for head and eye co-ordination.
There is rarely a yoga session where a cobra pose (Bhujangasana) isn't performed. True to form, I performed one next and held the posture for about 15 seconds. A half locust pose (Ardha Salabasana) followed which I performed twice on each leg. Next came a head to knee pose (Janusirshasana) which I held for approximately 30 seconds.
A few more "daily postures" were performed; a forward bending pose (Paschimothanasana), held for 1 minute, a shoulder stand (Sarvangasana), again held for 1 minute and a fish pose (Matsyasana) which was held for about 30 seconds.
Three more postures were performed before finishing today's session. These were a half spinal twist (Ardha Matsyendrasana) which I performed on both sides (30 seconds per side), a yogic seal (Yoga mudra), again held for 30 seconds and finally, another corpse pose which I remained in for three and a half minutes.
Day one hundred and forty six: Friday 30 June 2006
Gym. With rest days becoming few and far between, there was only one word to describe my body today - knackered. My legs in particular seem to be ok whilst on the bike, happily accumulating mileage but once in the gym, they seem to object and they certainly make me aware of that!
First of all, I performed leg presses. At a weight load of 265kg, I managed one set of 10 reps before climbing off the machine; all the muscles being worked on this exercise had had enough by this stage. What I may have lost by not doing the full 3 sets was made up on the leg extension machine, where I performed a full 3 sets of 10 reps at a weight resistance of 90kg. Again, quadriceps are worked on this particular workout.
Next, I did three sets of 10 reps on the leg curl machine at a resistance of 50 kg, but the hamstrings were extremely sore by the final few reps. Inner thigh squeezes came next, with me doing two sets of 20 reps at 180lbs resistance. These were closely followed by 'Superman' ball raises. As usual I performed two sets of 20 reps.
I performed two full sets of 25 reps on the torso twist machine at a resistance of 25kg. Again, the side abs being worked were aching by the time I climbed off the machine. Tricep pulldowns were attempted next but unfortunately my arm gave out such an acute pain which I haven't experienced before, that I had no option but to abandon these after only 7 reps at 25kg. Finally, outer thigh pushes were performed but again, I only managed two sets of 10 reps (only half of the usual number of reps) as the gluteal minimus muscles refused to do any more.
Today's training was concluded with two sets of 30 reps on forearm development exercises, ab crunches and reverse curls.
Over the weekend I plan to visit the Norfolk and Norwich University hospital to have the elbow x-rayed and to see what my options are in regards to an operation. Postponing the ride again is not an option.
Tomorrow I will be doing a long distance bike ride of at least 80 miles.
Day one hundred and forty seven: Saturday 1 July 2006
Bike. With the roads likely to be quiet due to the England versus Portugal World Cup match (yes I know, the least said about this the better), I decided to go for the long distance bike ride promised above.
According to my heart rate monitor, today's temperature in Norfolk was 26 degrees celsius. With the air being sultry and oppressive, I drank two 750ml bottles of powdered electrolyte mixed with water and could easily have consumed another bottle of the solution during the ride, consisting of 84.8 non-stop miles at an average speed of 17.8 mph.
Today's ride was the longest in terms of distance that I have done for over a year and will be the first of many between now and the end of July; one week before I travel to the Alps I will cease all intense training so that my legs are fresh for the 106 mile ride up the four mountains. My legs felt ok throughout the ride and were tested up some fairly steep up and down hills as I approached areas such as Fakenham and Bawdeswell. Had I had more liquid available to me, I would have ridden a total of 100 miles.
Yoga. Firstly, I did two sets of 30 forearm development exercises before this evening's Viniyoga session.
The first posture performed was a standing forward bend (5 reps) followed by upward legs and arms stretch (5 reps). Bridge poses came next (again 5 reps) with the same quantity of cobra poses being performed shortly afterwards.
Knee to chest poses (5 reps) were the penultimate posture, with a corpse pose being the final exercise of today.
Day one hundred and forty eight: Sunday 2 July 2006
Bike. Today was Velo Club Norwich club run.
On a sweltering day, I cycled 49.2 miles at an average speed of 16.8 mph. On the return journey, the temperature had reached 91 degrees farenheit.
I am happy to report that my legs felt strong and aching was experienced from them, even after riding at the front of the group for quite a long period. For those unfamiliar with group riding, the cyclists riding at the front usually have to generate a lot more effort than the riders behind them/him/her. Consequently, it is usual for the cyclists doing the work to have a higher heart rate than those following; the rest of the group are sheltered from any wind and benefit from a slipstreaming effect created by the front cyclists.
Day one hundred and forty nine: Monday 3 July 2006
Rest day.
Day one hundred and fifty: Tuesday 4 July 2006
Before reporting on a very busy day of training, I would like to provide an update on the elbow. Yesterday, I went to the N&N hospital and spoke with my consultant. He agreed that the remaining k-wire was backing out and an offer was made for the offending item to be removed from the elbow; a small incision would need to be made just above the elbow joint under local anaesthetic then a pair of surgical pliers would be used to pull the metalwork from the wound.
The operation took approximately 30 minutes as a deep incision had to be made, with two stitches being placed to stop further bleeding of the wound.
I was advised not to do anything strenuous for the remainder of the day.
Bike. At 4.52 am I left home and cycled 62.0 miles exactly, at an average speed of 18.0 mph. I wanted to cycle this early in the morning to find out how my body responds biologically to a very early morning cycling effort; once in the Alps, I plan to start the ride at approximately 6.00 am.
I am glad to say that my legs passed with flying colours and can also reveal that my heart rate has dropped by typically 5 - 12%. This is very positive evidence of cardio fitness. These drops have occured regularly over the last 10 days; I wanted to ensure the reading taken was a consistent one over a period of time. Usually, just before climbing on to the bike before the start of a ride, my heart rate would be in the region of 45 - 50% of my maximum heart rate (MHR) but the same reading is always now anything between 36 and 38% of MHR. I am also finding that my heart is recovering significantly quicker after an intense effort than before. This is substantiated by information shown on recent exercise file graphs on my Polar heart rate monitor.
Typical temperature during this ride was 61 degrees farenheit.
Gym. Today's session was used primarily to do some workouts not performed within the last week.
Firstly, I managed the full three sets of 15 reps on the upright rowing bar at a weight load of the bar weight plus 5 kg of weight disks in total. Total weight lifted: approximately 23kg. Next came leg extensions, where I managed the usual three sets of 10 reps at 90kg weight resistance. I performed each set with significantly less rest time between sets than usual.
I walked into the main gym room next, where I used the 'Superman' ball to do two sets of 20 reps before climbing on to the inner thigh squeeze machine. Here, I managed the full compliment of two sets of 20 reps. Outer thigh squeezes followed, with me managing one full set of 20 reps plus 15 reps of the second at a resistance of 120lbs. This is quite an improvement from the previous gym session.
The next exercise attempted was leg curls. I performed three full sets of 10 reps at 50 kg, however, the very last three reps were curled to about a 50% distance only. Hip flexor raises were next on my list of exercises to do. I did three sets of 15 reps on each leg with a resistance of 52.0 kg per leg. Similarly with total hip kickbacks, the same quantity of repetitions were performed by my legs / hips had to overcome resistance of 88.4kg today.
Ab crunches on the crunch machine was the penultimate workout of today. Here I managed the full set of 30 reps at a resistance of 50kg.
To finish today's training, I tried doing as many tricep pulldowns as I could manage, bearing in mind I still have two stitches in the right elbow area, which may split open the wound. My concerns were unfounded though as for the very first time, I managed three full sets of 20 reps at the target weight resistance of 20kg! What a fantastic way to sign off from a hard day's training.
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