2011 January Training - Part 2

Finishing out from Part 1 on my January training diary, I'll cover the 'meat' of the Gran Canaria trip and then the recovery.

After doing several 3 day blocks of 2 hard days, 1 easy day, I was ready to move to 3 days on, 1 day off.

The first part of the first day of each block remained the same – 3 x 13 minutes at Threshold – why 13 minutes? That was roughly how long the climb was, I would have rathered it being 15 minutes but the location was perfect – a 45 minute warmup from home and at the most arid part of the island - so the least chance of getting rained on while doing the tough intervals. The remaining part of the ride was mid tempo climbing up to the maximum amount of riding I had planed. It started as 3.5 hours but worked up to 4.5 hours.

A sample threshold day - 2,400m of climb in total

 The following day was a long endurance type ride – between 5 and 6 hours – I would ride tempo on the long sustained climbs – about 80-85% of FTP and the rest at endurance pace. This is when I get to see most of the island.

The last day of the block had 2 options – a group ride if I can find a descent one, or a split day. If it was a split day, 3 x 20 minutes at Sweet Spot (90% of Threshold) – if I can. This would be followed by 1 minute on, 1.5 minutes off by 10-15 times in the evening. If it is a group ride, I would plan for 6 hours with a few harder efforts thrown in (as well as a coffee stop!). By the end of this, I'm pretty toast and ready for a recovery day.

Out with my wife on a group ride :)

As the weeks progressed, my Threshold power increased steadily so that my final sessions where the best of the trip despite having acquired a lot of fatigue – somehow, all my best efforts come when I'm in a fatigue hole.

Upon returning to Ireland, it was 3 days of very easy riding and a weekend of longer rides, but still at an easy enough pace (group rides to add in some social aspect). With that, I was ready to start February and build again.

2011 January Training - Part 1

I love the training I do from November through to January – it covers so much of what I love about cycling (aside from the racing) and builds the big base that I utilize for the rest of the year. Long bike rides, beautiful scenery – many of the spins more social than my normal routine – a lot of riding by feel and really listening to your body. An important aspect for me is training the body pretty hard, but not having to use much 'mental energy' – hard training and racing uses a lot of 'mental power', so in the winter I recharge that. I have already talked a little about what I did in November/December, here I will bring it up to date with January.

Well, first, once Mel and I returned from the US – we had one small problem to deal with – the Irish weather. Freak weather meant that much of our training over Christmas and until we headed off again for Gran Canaria was going to be indoors – on our indoor trainer and on the rollers.

I was never a fan of training indoors but the Cycleops 300 Pro indoor trainer has really helped change that (so much so that all my recovery rides are now on the trainer – just more time efficient and I can really tune out). A good road feel, built in power, sturdy and super quiet – it ticks my boxes. When we were away from home (around Christmas) – the turbo trainer and rollers where out. A bunch of two hour sessions (I was doing things like 2-3 x 20 minutes at upper tempo with constant change of pace) kept the legs ticking over.

Before long, it was January 4^th and time to travel to Gran Canaria for our 3 week camp.

Stop to enjoy the view (sometimes)

Traveling to the Canaries at this time of year is really a no brainer for cyclists that have the flexibility of performing their day-job from anywhere. Mel and I are both fortunate in that all we need are our laptops and a fast internet connection.

For the first 9 days, I follow a 2 days on, 1 day off training protocol. Too many people when they go to training camps burn themselves out by going on back to back 6 hour epics each day. While we are there for 3 weeks – it is important to treat it as a normal training block and ease ourselves into it.

This is a simplified version of what the first 9 days looks like:

Day 1: Long warmup, and powertest – see where the legs are at – rest of 3.5 hour ride is by feel – enjoy it. I do the same ride at the start of each year.

Day 2: Long ride – again, ride by feel – 4-5 hours – throw in a hard 3-5 minute effort – see how the legs are feeling and use it as a marker for the trip

Day 3: Recovery ride – easy 1 to 1.5 hours, go for lunch

Day 4: Upper Tempo (say 80% of Threshold) on climbs (1.5hrs total at 80%+ of Threshold power) 3.5-4 hours

Day 5: Long Endurance – Upper Tempo on Climbs – focus on various skills (fast pedal etc...) - 5 hours

Day 6: Recovery ride – easy 1 to 1.5 hours, go for lunch

Day 7: 3 x 15-20 climbs at Sweet Spot (90% of Threshold) – sprint work at the start. 4 hours

Day 8: Long Endurance – Tempo on Climbs – focus on various skills (fast pedal etc...) 5.5 hours

Day 9: Recovery ride – easy 1 to 1.5 hours, go for lunch

At this point – the body is pretty well acclimatized and it ready to up the intensity a little.

It is always super important to watch hydration and nutrition during this time (well, ANY time!) especially if the conditions are different from what you usually train in. Weighing yourself first thing in the morning, and then after you return from the ride is a great way of monitoring your hydration levels. On long hot sessions, I tended to lose about 700 grams of body weight – about 1% of my total body weight so more than acceptable for hydration loss. The first thing I do everyday when I arrive in from training is grab the ZipVit Recovery from the fridge, put the feet up and enjoy.

Eat well!

Part 2 coming up soon.

Doing the 'loop' in GC

The 'loop'

It is not that often I write just about a training ride, but this one was pretty cool. A lap of Gran Canaria. It is around 185km and pretty tough in places. A group of about 12 of us left from Maspalomas at 10am (8 of us finished up). A steady pace the whole day with some amazing views – we even picked up a few other riders during the spin.

Some dude called Fabien went to the front... :P

A sheer drop off - stunning

HR, Power, Altitude for the spin

8 of us finished up the ride in the end. One more training session on the island and my training block will be complete.

GC T-Shirts

Like last year Mel and I have found a few 'interesting' t-shirts while walking around the shops... Spot the wonderful English :)

Another GC Update

Sunday was the second day of a big weekend of bike rides. Saturday saw lots of threshold climbing and a sigh-seeing trip to Las Palmas in the evening (beautiful - pictures to follow).



Sunday was much more 'serious'. The main part, well, the bit that looks toughest was a 27km climb that climbed almost 1900 meters. There were long sections of this rough climb that averaged 18% with little or no reprise. Hitting the top of the climb (around 2,000 meters above sea level – the air was noticeable thiner and a hell of a lot colder then when I started) – a quick pic and a mad dash down the mountain to warmer temperatures. To end it all, a 20km ride from Maspalomas back to Vecindario into a 60kmph head-on wind. I was in the climbing gears the whole way home on the flat rode!

Tenerife in the distance

GC Update

The first week in Gran Canaria has been very busy, both from a cycling and work perspective. Arriving here this time has been amazing, blue skies and even warmer than last year - why don't I just move here?

My brother Mark, who has restarted studies in Swansea, flew over with his friend Mike for a few days. Pizzas, tapas, beers and ice-creams were shared and it was great having them over. The above pictures is us at Parado Cruz de Tejeda.

Gotta get some sun

Mel and I have left the cold freezer and joined many other cyclists wishing for some warmer weather in Gran Canaria for training. We only have our road bikes with us (due to work, it is faster to get the training in when you don't have to ride to the trails) but have been enjoying the hills.


Three things so far: I got slightly burnt on the first day, watched two vans smash their wing mirrors while passing each other showering me in glass and helped 4 roadies in the middle of nowhere who didn't have a chain tool between them but had one broken chain.

Funny Gran Canaria Pictures

Walking around I've seen a couple of funny things - these are a few of the things that I actually bothered to take my camera out for

We were walking to the beach in Maspalomas and found a random weighing scale

The following are unusual for their use of cool sounding English. I guess Chinese and Japanese guys get to laugh at us all the time.

I was going to pick this up for Mel as a present - I don't think should would be impressed.

A day in my GC life

Mel has just gone back to Ireland (college meetings to physically attend) but I'll be staying here for another week. With that, our little apartment seems rather quiet so I thought I would sit down and write something.

These last two weeks have been amazing. Both our lives during this period have been pretty much focused on two things. Work (the thing that pays the bills) and cycling. The separation here from our normal routine and distractions has allowed us to become very efficient at both and I get a good feeling of being on top of the work and training for the new season. The weekends are fun, and rest days (Mondays and Fridays usually for me) are mostly about work and a tootle to the beach for lunch but the real benefit that I have found is in the other three days of the week. At the moment I'm getting in 3-4 quality hours on the bike each of those days (a little less if I include any intensity).

I climbed up this today...

... and met Mel for coffee here before she left

It is a simple life – one that I could only really stay focused in for a few weeks without a change but I have enjoyed it. You really do ONLY work, ride, sleep and eat.

2009 Gran Canaria

As anyone following me on Twitter or Facebook would know (yes, I joined Facebook – I resisted for a long time but gave up at Christmas), Mel and I have currently relocated to Gran Canaria for a few weeks. This is by no means a holiday, just a chance to do what we usually do, work and cycle, in slightly warmer surroundings. I organised most things and Mel took the important role of finding accommodation, a cute little apartment in Vecindario with blazingly fast internet (vital for the work end of things!).

My days are now filled with long road rides (no MTB with me unfortunately although I hope to hire one at the weekend) followed by the rest of the day working and then off to bed. A simple life with little distractions and I'm really enjoying it.

Since we arrived, we have basically gone on two hard rides, a rest day and then repeat.

I had known that there was a chance of rain on the first day we arrived - down at sea level it was fine, but as I rode towards the 1,700m peak of the days ride the weather turned misty and rainy. Fortunately, it was still around 20C when I got back to our appartment.

The next day proved to be 100% dry affording some spectacular views.

Mel enjoying our rest day. We tootled around for an hour and found the nearby waterfront.

5 days and counting I have been wearing shorts :)


Yesterdays ride seen clear skies and gorgeous views all day - it's so easy to go on long rides when it's warm and sunny and you have these panoramas.

Tenerife in the background

The profile from yesterdays ride