Ups and Downs

It seems an age since my last post, but it has not been that long. Very busy at work so I suppose it makes time feel different. Anyway, last week was my easy week. Apart from the cross country race on Wednesday, the week was easy, though I clocked over 10 hours of training. A big chunk of that was the Sunday club ride. We did 66 miles and I felt much better than the previous week when I got dropped. However, soon after we started my left foot kept pulling out of my pedal. It really unnerved me to begin with because I bashed my Achilles on the pedal a couple of time. For the life of me I could not see why my foot kept unclipping from the pedal. Then, someone pointed out that the tip of my cleat had snapped off. I was reduced to spinning away at a slow speed. If I put any power down my foot jumped out of the pedal.

At 31 miles we hit the coffee stop. Miraculously, there was a bike shop just a few hundred metres from the coffee shop, and it was open! A new set of cleats and I was back to full power! This pleased me greatly as we were out around Saffron Waldon and there were a few tasty inclines. After the enforced spinning on the outward journey, I felt as though I had been let loose. Hence I probably went too hard on most of the return ride. There was only 6 of us left at the end. This time it wasn't all me that split the group up. Tom Caldwell is getting into shape for the road race season and he was putting in a few big efforts. Anyway, I enjoyed it. Julie has come up with a great post-ride snack that really hits the spot. Here it is. . .

Looks good eh?! It is heaps of fresh fruit, hot cross bun fried in whisked egg, topped with low fat Greek yogurt - Nice! How blessed am I to have a lady who supports me while I train on Sunday mornings and then makes me great nosh!! (don't ask why the pic is upside down!)

Since Sunday I have managed a longish run with Nige Porter. Shock!!!! Nige is very secretive about his training but it was good just run with someone. After the efforts on Sunday I took another easy day yesterday, rather than complete my short turbo efforts. So, I attempted those short efforts today as 4 x 6 mins at 310W. I completed these at 305W 2 weeks ago. I really hate it when I don't perform as expected. Whether this is because I heap unwarranted pressure on myself or my expectations are too high, I don't know. Anyway, I blew big time. The legs could barely hold the power that I held when completing 15 min reps. I am beginning to stagnate me thinks 8-( I did 4 x 305W back in November so there is no real progress. My aim of reaching 350W seems to be very far away at the moment. Any suggestions from you bloggers? maybe I should ease back and build when the weather gets better in March? Confused as normal!!

Must dash. I need to recover sufficiently to attempt the turbo session again on Friday!!!