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Today - January 2012

First decent dump of snow in Niigata today. My oldest boy had his first go on skis. I hear Tiger Woods was playing golf at 3 years old? Ha, Luke is only 2 and a half!

I saw that my mate Tazaki san was on the trainer for three hours the other day!

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/alavasky

What's all that about!?

Time to dust off the snow shoes for some cross training as base training. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Andy

www.jyonnobitime.com/time
 
Swam after the school 新年会 speeches (and food) but then came home and worked the shovel for a while.

A bit ago I emailed garmin to ask why they didn't list snow-shoveling as an exercise activity on garmin connect.

I guess it's not a sport, but neither is 'casual walking', which they do have as a choice.

**

Andy--we need a little more snow here before it's snowshoe time. (real snow and not slush)

John D.
 
Did a few light kms on the bike this morning, testing out my funky knee. Not good results but not completely bad either.

Hit the pool this afternoon for 700m of swimming. Plus a couple with the kickboard and a highspeed kick. First swim in about 2 years. Was good except for the pool Nazis, "take the necklace off.. tape the tattoos.. don't use the kickboard in the empty lane, you have to be in the lane with 14 12 year old and 5 half drowning oba sans." Who were all going about half the pace of me witht he kickboard:mad:
 
45 mins on the trainer in z1/2 (around 130bpm) for base training. 3rd time in 7 days, all of which has been on the balcony, inspired by Andy Wood's example. Character shapingly cold.

Hope I can keep it up even when work starts back up.
 
2 hours on the trainer again. Zone 1 and 2 witth high RPM. Kids are busy tomorrow and the wife is back from a night shift so I'll get a nice long ride in on the bike.
 
Rode from Shimokita to Futako Shinchi in under 19 minutes and then had some time to bike, but not a real plan on what to do. I started off thinking it would be a good chance to lug my DSLR on my ride and take some pictures of the Tama River Pedestrian Priority Path (or whatever the official name currently is), but along the way thought I should explore the Yomiyuri Land hill repeat area people mention now and then. I do not have a smart phone/GPS but mapped what I did when I got home. The climb on the first half was good for training in that it was steep enough to feel like small challenge, but the biggest challenge was not getting hit by a car or truck. The road is really narrow and the traffic is pretty quick. The back half was not as steep and less traffic, but not as steep either. I went up and down that side a few times, and then took a new route home from there as I was sick of my camera bag flopping around on my back.

Where is a good hill repeat route in that area? I tried searching in Map My Ride but nothing came up. Any recommended loop routes I could get some climbing in close to home without worrying too much about getting run over?
 
John, indeed that road is narrow and busy.

How about trying One Kan? It has some nice climbs out of the Tamagawa valley, a very wide shoulder and not too much traffic, almost no trucks.

Or "Hospital Hill", i.e. Kawasaki Kaido towards Seiseki from Koremasa Bridge? This can be done on the pavement (=sidewalk).
 
Thanks Ludwig. I have heard about One Kan before, but never tired it. I will soon. Hospital hill looks interesting too. Cheers.
 
"Hospital Hill", i.e. Kawasaki Kaido is a great hill and if you do the loop its a good interval work out.

ikedawilliams - you mentioned in a previous post that you are base training - it seems that you are interval training which is actually build rather than base.
 
interval training which is actually build rather than base.

James can you direct me (and any others interested) to a resource on building a base on trainers? Or is it simply about a long time spent in zone three? LSD doesn't work with me on these icy roads with -6 out of the wind, and it's more often than not very windy. Thanks.
 
There isn't a lot of traffic on the "victory road" side of the Yomiuriland hill. That's the side that goes up from the Keio station and Korg office. Lots of pink Tarmac. I usually just do repeats of that side turning round at the top where the cable car crosses the road. Lots of dump trucks and ongoing constuction on the other side.
Hospital hill has a huge sidewalk!:bike:
 
Riding up to Ashinoko on the Ekiden ride I realised that my muscle power has decreased over the winter months, the heart was fully capable for the task, happily sitting in zone 1 and 2 as we went up. However the muscles started to ache after a while so its off to the gym for the next few weeks to build strength and muscle stamina.

Will do about 2 hours today at the gym. Light weights lots of reps and then gradually build the weight up over the next few weeks.
 
60km on Arakawa this morning with Eric and Owen. Nice day to be out, especially coming back with the tail wind.

Now I'm off to see the knee doc.:)
 
Really nice to meet you mate.

Sorry I had to bail early. I am still feeling really low after being ill in December.

Will definitely be stepping up the pace in the next month or so, once the medicine starts to clear.

That tail wind must have been awesome on the way back. I caught it for a bit of the way going back to my place, although the final 12km was pure headwind... :eek:uch:

Let me know when you are next up for a blast, and we can head out a bit further!

Hope the knee thing gets sorted.
 
I was down in Kagawa (Shikoku) with the in-laws over the break. I attempted to climb Daisenyama (~1000m) but hit snow just about halfway up, which forced me to turn back and head closer to the Setonaikai, where it was mild enough for the roads to be snow&frost free!

No snow this side of Shikoku...from what I can see on the distant mountains but not had chance to climb above 400m recently so can`t confirm or deny. But today, whilst 3C when I left before 8 am, hit 14C whilst riding by the beach at lunchtime, so I think snow is off the menu. Managed to clock up over 4 hours today by detouring on the commutes. First time in ages had the chance to ride that much. But was very good, and stayed below threshold the whole time.
 
James can you direct me (and any others interested) to a resource on building a base on trainers? Or is it simply about a long time spent in zone three? LSD doesn't work with me on these icy roads with -6 out of the wind, and it's more often than not very windy. Thanks.

Sorry to butt in. I can send you to a discussion on slowtwitch about `base`.
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/forum/Slowtwitch_Forums_C1/Triathlon_Forum_F1/Mark_Allens_Base_Training_Article..._P1221432

This comment from `MuffinTop` (on page 2) sums it up for me:
The situation that you describe does not show that consistent, slow training makes you fast. It shows that consistent training makes you fast. There is a take home lesson in all of this: consistency trumps virtually everything else. Since the easiest way to achieve consistency is to train really easy all the time, it actually works surprisingly well for a huge number of people. If you never do any hard workouts, there is little risk of over exerting yourself, and little risk that you will need rest days. There is also little risk of injury. However, except in very high volume applications, it does not induce the training load that is required to make large improvements.
The stories of people who "train hard all the time but never improve" are incomplete. These people are not improving because, paradoxically, they are not training hard enough. They waste themselves with one workout that's way too hard (usually something useless for a long course triathlete, like quarter miles on the track), take a 10 minute cooldown jog, and then take the next day off. The training load imposed by this workout is lower than that imposed by two 1 hour MAF-intensity runs. BarryP posted an excellent summary of this, which was something along the lines of "the reason slow running is better is that you can do more of it". That is, you can carry a larger training load by being consistent.
I want to say that again in bold type. You can carry a larger training load by being consistent. If you drop all your intensity, you may well notice that you continue to improve. You may even improve at a faster rate than you had previously. If you do, it's because you are carrying a larger training load. Your drop in intensity has enabled a higher degree of consistency, and the net effect is that your total training load is higher. To translate, you are doing more; as we know, more is more.
But the argument that simply slowing down will speed you up is specious. Slowing down, and then training a whole lot, might speed you up. But a balanced program will provide the same results in less time, with the added advantage of increased specificity. The solution to the fact that a lot of people train too hard is not to make them train too easy...
 
Agree with above.

All training is about consistency. However to balance the body for road racing you need a good balance of endurance and explosive power. Base training helps develop the slow twitch and one of the reasons why for a Road Racer it takes up the majority of a training plan, then a build up to the actual race you will focus on interval and speed.

Currently a few of my friends including Yukiya Arashiro and a few other conti pro's are in Thailand, every day they are putting in about 250km just riding around at a casual pace - no hammer fest just at a social speed. Some will be there for the next few months. They will start on the speed work about 1 month before their first races.

But again its all about consistency. Once the kids are back at school I will come off the trainer and put in 130km 5 days a week for 2 - 3 weeks. Again all in zone 1 and 2. While also putting in more gym work to build power.

Once thats done I start to build the cardio and the power and thats mostly done either on the rollers or the LeMond.
 
Key point - if you wanna ride seriously, then spend 8hrs a day on it as 'your job'. Alot of people don't have the time to do this. Doesn't mean you can't still ride and have a good time. Even if I take a long break between events or rides that I think will be challenging, I will usually hit a 'micro-cycle' effort before the event. This lets me have kind of a mini-peak and do pretty good. Of course , if I trained rigorously and consistently, I'd probably do better - but , then, I'd be spending alot more time in the saddle.

Main thing is that once you have established your 'base condition' is to not let it go away. Even a light workout 1x or 2x a week is enough to keep you in maintenance mode. Then use a micro-cycle 'tune up' prior to your event.

Also - it's rarely beneficial to train any distance more than you actually race or ride. For example if you are prepping for a funride hill climb of 10km. Then just ride 10-15km at your highest effort - preferably up a hill. And then focus on improving your time / effort. Riding 150km is not going to make you faster up a hill. Riding FASTER up a hill makes you faster.

Now that it's winter and I hate riding in the cold, unless it's interesting - like snow CX or something , I just hit the gym more often. Again, my gym routine is very economical and simple. I never spend more than 30min in the gym, and no more than 3x a week.

Don't forget that the biggest part of performance is actually genetic. Most riders will achieve 70% or higher of their ultimate capability within just a few months of riding. if you're fast, you're fast. If you're not, you're not. Don't sweat it.
 
Also - it's rarely beneficial to train any distance more than you actually race or ride. For example if you are prepping for a funride hill climb of 10km. Then just ride 10-15km at your highest effort - preferably up a hill. And then focus on improving your time / effort. Riding 150km is not going to make you faster up a hill. Riding FASTER up a hill makes you faster.


BINGO! Thank you Tim.... this is something I've been going on about with athletes for ages. If you are racing stages maxing out at 80km then there is no point doing 150km rides, 100km is perfect if all you are doing is a 10km hillclimb then either training on hills of the same distance or 25km TT's is perfect training!

Don't forget that the biggest part of performance is actually genetic. Most riders will achieve 70% or higher of their ultimate capability within just a few months of riding. if you're fast, you're fast. If you're not, you're not. Don't sweat it.

LOL - Mark Cavendish might argue that point as he is regarded as the bubble bee of cyclists.... all the numbers and stats say he can't go that fast....but he does ;)
 
Really nice to meet you mate.

Sorry I had to bail early. I am still feeling really low after being ill in December.

Will definitely be stepping up the pace in the next month or so, once the medicine starts to clear.

That tail wind must have been awesome on the way back. I caught it for a bit of the way going back to my place, although the final 12km was pure headwind... :eek:uch:

Let me know when you are next up for a blast, and we can head out a bit further!

Hope the knee thing gets sorted.

I was good and thankful for the tailwind coming home. My knee started really playing up and I rode half the way just using one leg. Still keeping up about a 30km/hr pace.

It was pretty funny watching Eric on the fixie when we wound it out to about 45km/hr. he looked like a runnaway train about to explode through excessive rpm!! ha ha ha!

Anyway the trip to the Dr. revealed that I have no internal issues, in fact he described my knee as perfect. So I guess it is about acclimatization and bike set up. We did adjust my seat height as it was a little low and it seemed to improve things a bit.

Looking forward to the next outing!
 
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