Training blog - page 25

Day one hundred and sixty five: Wednesday 19 July 2006

Bike.  As promised, I hit the roads for a longer distance ride.  Today I covered 60.7 miles at an average speed of 17.4 mph.

Average temperature for the ride was 74 degrees farenheit, heart rate average was 133 bpm against a maximum reading of 177 bpm.

My legs felt very good and I found they could respond when I needed them to on rolling hills etc.

Day one hundred and sixty six: Thursday 20 July 2006

Gym.  Today, I paid a flying visit to Lakenham Sports and Leisure Club.

With the intention of doing about half of the total possible workouts, I performed seven today, starting with 'Superman' ball raises, on which I did two sets of 20 reps.

After this, I managed the now usual three full sets of 20 reps at 20kg on the tricep pulldown machine.  I am pleased to report that I am now experiencing only minimal pain around the right elbow joint.  Torso twists came next - I performed two sets of 25 reps per side at 25kg.

Four more exercises followed before I wrapped up today's session.  These were inner thigh squeezes (one set of 20 plus one set of 15 reps at 180lbs), 50kg leg curls (three sets of 10 reps), outer thigh pushes (one set of 20 plus one set of 11 reps) and finally, three full sets of 10 reps on the leg extension machine, at a weight resistance of 90kg.

I did experience minor muscle tweaks whilst performing inner thigh pushes and outer thigh squeezes, hence the lower number rep count than usual for each workout.

Exercises not performed today: dumbell pullovers, hip flexor raises, total hip kickbacks, ab crunch machine, leg press, calf raises and upright rowing bar.

Yoga.  This evening I did ab crunches and reverse curls (two sets of 30 reps on each) before doing a short session of Viniyoga postures.

Firstly, I performed five standing forward bends follwoed by the same number of upward legs and arm stretches.  Five bridge poses were performed next, then the same quantity of cobra poses.

The penultimate posture when I do Viniyoga is always the knee to chest postures (5 reps) with a 3 minute corpse pose following to bring training matters to a close today.

Day one hundred and sixty seven: Friday 21 July 2006

Rest day.

Day one hundred and sixty eight: Saturday 22 July 2006

Bike.  Another ride on my winter training bike today.

The weather was a little strange, well the rain isn't for this country but I was expecting to be caught in a thunder storm.  Stationary clouds hovered above which produced heavy bursts of rain whenever I passed underneath them.  Coupled with spells of cold then hot air usually equals thunder and lightning.  It never happened.

Today, the first five miles was a commute to the shops.  Once back on the bike, I did a further ride, so I cycled a total distance of 42.09 miles today at an average speed of 16.4 mph.

My legs felt fantastic today and I would say my body was very grateful for yesterday's rest day.  Further mileage is planned for tomorrow; I hope to take the mountain-bound bike out for a couple of turns of the pedals.

Finally, I did two sets of 30 ab crunches, the same quantity of reverse curls and handgrips.

Day one hundred and sixty nine: Sunday 23 July 2006

Bike.  No rest for my legs as I embarked on a 55.5 mile ride today at an average speed of 17.4 mph.  The bike used was the mountain-bound one.

The weather was almost a carbon copy of yesterday's, with the only difference being that the isolated rain clouds yielded what can be described as drizzle.  Average temperature was 78 degrees farenheit.

My legs felt fine, perhaps a little heavy but nothing too noticeable.  Next effort on the road will be on Tuesday.

Day one hundred and seventy: Monday 24 July 2006

Gym.  The fatigue in my quadriceps reached a new level today, with me being able to manage only one full set of 10 plus 2 reps on the leg press machine (265kg).  Unfortunately, I let the weight load drop too low and was unable to press the 265kg back up.

On the calf raise machine, I performed the full three sets of 15 reps at a resistance of 105kg and the full number was also managed on the leg extension aparatus (three sets of 10 reps at 90kg).

Next, I did two sets of 20 reps on the inner thigh squeeze machine, very quickly followed by the same number on the outer thigh push aparatus.  The 'Superman' ball was the sixth exercise performed today; I managed two full sets of 20 reps.

On the tricep pulldown machine, I managed the full theee sets of 20 reps at the target resistance of 20kg.  Overall, I am finding these easier to do; over the last three or four weeks my triceps  seem to have become stronger.  I climbed on the machine next door, being the torso twist.  I performed two sets of 25 reps per side at 25kg.  Again, my abs have acclimatised to this resistance and even though I am doing each rep slower, still find these difficault to do them at a speed which would work the relevant muscle groups.

Exercise number nine was the ab crunch machine.  I managed a full set of 30 reps at a resistance of 50kg.  This effort was followed by a session on the upright rowing bar machine.  Here, I managed one full set of 15 reps, followed by a second set of 11 and finally a third consisting of 12 reps.  This is an improvement one the previous attempt at this workout.  The resistance was set at bar weight plus a total of 7.5kg weight disks.

Finally, I comfortably performed the full three sets of 10 reps on the leg curls aparatus at 50kg resistance.  Suprisingly (knowing how my legs are feeling right now), each rep reached my gluteal muscles (a full rep).

Yoga.  As is fairly typical, before starting an evening's yoga session, I did some floor mat workouts first; on this occasion I did two sets of 30 reps on both hand grips and some further ab crunches.

The yogic postures performed this evening were that of the Viniyoga group.  I started with 5 reps of the standing forward posture then the same number of upward legs and arms stretches, bridge poses, cobra poses, knee to chest poses.

I wrapped up the session with a corpse pose which I held for the best part of three minutes.

Day one hundred and seventy one: Tuesday 25 July 2006

Bike.  The humid, oppressive weather continues.  Today seemed like a very good opportunity to get some more miles in my legs whilst fudnraising at the same time.

I left Little Melton and headed for Lowestoft in Suffolk.  A total of 66.55 miles were covered at an average speed of 15.9mph.  This kind of speed is generally regarded as fast touring pace.

My legs were very tired and jaded but at about the 55 mile stage, they began to shows signs of waking up.

The plan for the final week before leaving for France is to cease training rides, weight work and yoga and attend the gym three times to do some light work on an exercise bike, aimed at keeping my legs ticking over.  Of course, other preparations such as fitting new tyres and brake blocks need to be done in addition to fully checking the bike before packing it in a hard case bike box.

I remain very confident of doing this ride and am very much looking forward to cycling up mountains once graced by Tour de France winners including Eddy Merckx, Jacques Anquetil, Fausto Coppi, Lance Armstrong, Greg Lemond and Miguel Indurain.  I certainly feel very priviledged to have this opportunity whilst at the same time helping animals, children and the elderly.

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