Monday 30 August 2010

A fat burn

Monday 23/08/2010

Okay so after riding with the Zappi guys there was some new knowledge in the Edward camp about fat burn. Apparently after a long ride in the cardio range a fat burn "easy ride" the day after is called for. This will teach your body to burn fat for energy more effectively on your longer rides. No, I haven't read up on it but after nearly 3 hours with a heart rate average of 160bpm an easy ride sounded just the ticket so I figured it wouldn't hurt, also I ran the theory by my two doctor friends and they didn't pull any funny faces which was a good enough indication to me the this easy ride theory could be true.

Anyway I headed out from Headington, towards Frilford Heath and toured around some familar ground,

You'll notice in the stats this was an easy ride, missing the hert rate data stupidly as that's how we all know we're in the fat burn range, bugger, anyway rest assured I took it easy.








Saturday 21 August 2010



The guys at Zappi's cafe meet at 9am on a Saturday for their weekly ride. It's open to anyone so I figured, go along see what happens. It's doesn't take long for you to realise that these guys take their cycling seriously and that Carbon is the only thing to be seen on.


http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=160638561340


They set off in two groups, the fast group and the "slow" group, or as was pointed out the crazy people and those with sense. Well I like to think I have a little sense so I went with the "slow" group.  


Now the data is a little out because I managed to stop the timer on the GPS for the fastest section, a 20 minute descent from white horse, nuts, but here's what was salvaged.



The total ride was approx 44miles and it was tough! As you can see from my heart rate below, my body got a bit of a beating 



Had a really good ride though and with some lovely people. It was a first time for me, riding in a group so hand signals, drafting and group positioning all had to be picked up pretty fast. The guys had a great sense pace and when I was at my limits so many thanks to them for their consideration, just hope I wasn't too much of a dead weight :)

Then it was back to Zappi's for an Americano, the best Americano you're lightly to come across.  



Friday 20 August 2010

Headington to Kidlington Short Sprint

So Here's a little sprint from Headington to Kidlington. It's amazing how much imporement there's been in just a week of training. Moving Average up from 15.1 to 17.4mph. Switching back to the clipe pedals and carbon shoes ready for the training session with the Zappi guys at the weekend so hopefully see some better powers transfer to the pedal and see that moving average get a bit higher.    

Monday 16 August 2010

Witney and back

So I really wanted to do the Oxford / Brill circuit today but had a few problems with converting the Google Maps file into .tcx for the GPS. Was running out of daylight so figured better just to get out there and ride. Found myself in Witney again. 31 miles there and back, moving average at 15.3mph, slightly faster than the weekend ride but I didn't have the half a stone worth of rain water weighing me down so won't congratulate myself too much.


Just want to say thanks to John for checking over my knee, felt a bit tender the last 10 miles but apparently it's going to be okay and won't be needing any injections just yet. 


Some stats as always

Saturday 14 August 2010

A ride through Witney

The ride today took me through Witney, absolutely poured with rain for the first 25 miles. I weighed myself when I got back and I was carrying half a stone! of rain water. Started using Garmin connect today, bit more detailed data. Went out without the cadence censor today which was a shame becasue it would have been useful on the hills for gearing but Heart Rate monitor worked well, needed to be strict at 155-160bpm because I was loosing a lot of body heat in the wet. Some data, all you people on diets would have liked the 1400 Calories burnt, got some eating to do now however.


First Play with Training Data

Okay, so here’s the first bit of data coming out of the Edward training labs using the Garmin 705 GPS. The device gives information such as Cadence, Heart rate, speed etc... but it also has maps which work which like a sat nav, bit harder to use than a sat nav but you get the idea. After installing eight software packages it was finally time to go out for a ride.



I'm viewing all the data with Gamin training centre, here's some screen shots

Elevation measured by the on board altimeter – Quite surprised there was a 50m change in this, just shows Headington really is on a hill.



Grade % which = elevation/distance * 100 which can be thought of as incline.



Pace which is an inverse of speed which measures at any point in time how long it takes to travel a unit of distance (km in this case),



Finally speed, reached 45km/h at one point, which is about as fast my brain will let me go in the rain.   



I mapped the route out using http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php , the download it as a .GPX file straight onto the GPS. Google Earth is also becoming pretty useful.