As the far flung member of the group up in Leeds, I thought I’d give everyone an update as to how things have been progressing over the past few weeks, especially as I’ve been fairly quite since leaving Stratford back in September.
It’s safe to say that I haven’t made as much progress with the training as I would have liked (the same can be said for my dissertation!). Although I managed to get to the gym everyday over Christmas, exams last month meant that I did very little training during January. Because of the weather, most of what I have done has either been on the turbo trainer or exercise bike at the gym. My standard session at the moment is weights (squats, deadlifts and calf raises), followed by an hour bike.
Unfortunately my student loan doesn’t cover the cost of a power meter, but according to the exercise bike at my gym, I’m putting out about 210-230 watts for an hour, which is a lot less than I was doing in the summer. A slightly ‘excessive’ first term back at uni means that I haven’t been this unfit for several years!
However, despite a questionable diet (as recently as Wednesday I got through three pizzas in an afternoon!), the weight is finally starting to shift. As one of my friends kindly pointed out, I weighed “10% of a ton” before Christmas, but I’m now down to 95kg. I’m going to aim for ~83kg by July. I could probably go even lower, but I think anything below 80kg will have a detrimental effect in terms of endurance.
I really need to get out on some longish rides before I can start thinking about which races to do, but the Etape du Dales is likely to be right in the middle of my summer exams, so I may have to give that one a miss. I’ll definitely be up for the White Rose Classic though (if I’m not doing anything with the family for father’s day), and by that point there’s likely to be a couple of spare rooms in my house in Leeds, so people are welcome to stay.
I am yet to have been out on decent bike ride this year, but on Sunday I’m planning on venturing to the edge of the dales -
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I thought I’d put the ride up on here to give me a bit more motivation to do it. It’s only 40 miles but it’s -5 at the moment which is far too cold for a long ride!
Roll on summer I say!
Sam “Polka Dot” Worsley
I still dream of the day when I could (was allowed to) put away 3 pizzas in an afternoon.
ReplyDeleteSo, if Sam is heading to 83kg, and the Rhino keeps losing, does this mean that Shabba will be the TdM heavyweight by the time he returns from Oz? Watch this space......
Good to see a post for our Uni Rep, you are alive then!!!! I assume you didn't get out on Sun or did the snow not get that far up North? We are off to Pizza Hut on Fri lunchtime for Clive's 50th birthday celebration so I shall see if I can get anywhere near the 3 pizza challenge???? And Clive stop kidding yourself with that last post.......I've seen you demolish plenty of pizza:-)
ReplyDelete50! Hells Bells! It's staring to hit home a bit now.
ReplyDeleteStill, the old bloke managed to average 325 watts for 40 minutes tonight (and that's after an hour of exercise beforehand) There's hope for me yet.
Haha, good luck on Friday! Just to clarify, it was three medium sized margaritas!
DeleteI didn’t manage to get out on Sunday as we had about 10cm of snow, so I was stuck on the turbo instead. It’s rarely been above freezing this week, so I’d imagine most of it’s still there in the Dales – I may have to rethink the route for this weekend.
And bloody hell Clive, 325 watts for 40 minutes!!! That is impressive; I doubt I could maintain that for more than about 10 minutes! You’ll be going for the hour record this summer never mind the Etape du Tour!