Hearty Training

The frustration of the sprained ankle continues however I can still bike so really its no biggie :) As a result my bike training is actually going ok and for the first time I've been wearing my heart rate monitor on the garmin which outputs pretty graphs like this:

As you can see most of the time I'm averaging about 130-139bpm peaking at 160 in this case. My highest to date is 167. Going back over the past few rides you can see I'm actually peaking a little higher as usually I don't get much above 154 or so.

I can conclude the following:

1. since I've stopped the running my aerobic threshold has slightly reduced..or
2. since wearing my monitor I'm now seeing just how high I can get my heart rate on a climb!

Point 2 has been compounded by finding the wonderful world of Stava. For most people this means going as hard as possible at key points on the ride and then uploading to see just how far up the leader board they are. I've managed a few 3rds and top 5 places down here in St Albans however a cunning tip for you strava users....

Get yourself to the middle of nowhere and cycle an obscure hill, this was the case for my recent holiday to Devon. KOM feels great even if the board only consists 3 people I can tell you :).

If you have reached here via Stuart's blog (Hi Stuart if your reading, I promise I'm not a stalker just loving the blog!) you'll realise that I have to date utilised zero structure to my training compared to a guy who although modest seems to have a pretty good structure to his plans.

 I'd like to claim a holistic zen like approach that is based on the sound judgement of effort and "listening" to my inner self. Unfortunately we all recognise that as frankly crap, the truth is that I can't be arsed.

So the plan I do have is

1. Hilly Hampshire in May (1st sportive of the year....eeek)
2. Chiltern 100 at the end of may
3. The long one (wiggle) in June
4. Marmotte

I'm getting out about twice in the week (thats cycling by the way) and always a long one of between 60 and 90 miles or so at the weekend. I'll also start running just as soon as I can again (its 6 weeks now :( ). My primary aim is to have enough fitness to enjoy getting around the Marmotte as apposed to just suffering the whole way. I'll guess we'll see if my chaotic approach works for me.....