Overload

With 1 week to go until the Scott 1000 Bosses cyclosportif I wanted to get some serious riding in this weekend as final preparation. So I went out Saturday with the Bandidos (expats), meeting them in Versailles for a ride around the Chevreuse. Everyone is in good form now, so there was no chance of slacking, plus the fact that our French rider Gabriel, who used to be elite level a few years back had turned up. You can tell he is good, because only seriously good riders can get away with turning up with white world champion shoes, white world champion shorts and a white pro tour leader shirt. He hit the hammer after about 5km and soon we were chasing at 40kmh on the flat. It’s a fairly up and down route so it was a good workout, and this time we went out into the fôret de Rambouillet to extend it a little, on the way picking up a French rider from a club in Trappes and 2 from a club in Houdan, giving us a tidy and efficient group of around 9. Making it pretty easy for me to stay in the bunch and cruise along. We came back the new way to avoid Plaisir, cutting through old Villepreux and back to Versailles. By the time I got home I had ridden 114km at a little under 30kmh, pretty good.

And so to Sunday, normally I would take it easy the day after a long ride, but I had from a while back agreed to ride a randonnée with another expat friend of mine on this day. Unfortunately, when we came to look at the choice the nearest was in Villepreux with a shortest distance of 130km! 130 on top of 115 seemed a bit excessive, but with this being the last weekend before the race I was up for it. We arranged to meet in Villepreux at the start at 8.15.

I got there a little before time to find the car park deserted and not a cyclist in sight. When Neil arrived, he told me that on one website the rando had been listed as Saturday! So we had missed it. An old guy on a bike came past, and asked us if we were here “pour la rallye?”, when we said yes, he told us it had gone well! Oh well nothing for it but to just go for a ride. We headed South, through Elancourt for a change and out across the N10 towards Dampierre. As we did so, we so lots of VTTistes coming towards us, and we remembered there was another rando for VTT and route from Chevreuse. It was getting on a bit, past 9am but we thought we would go and check that out. We got there just after half past, and someone at the sports centre thought we were the first to arrive back on their randonnée! No, we want to start. We registered, and had the choice of 45, 75, 100 or 150km rides. Seeing as we had done 30 to get there already, we thought we would do the 75 and see if we could catch a group on the way back.

Neil was in tester mode, clearly trying to see my form after 114km the previous day, setting off at a pace. However, I am a good wheel sucker these days, and he couldn’t drop me. I took a couple of turns at the front, but I realised this was going to fatigue me on top of yesterdays ride as well as giving Neil a good rest, so to keep him tired I didn’t do too many turns. In any case Neil, being historically a much better rider than me, always seems to take it as his responsibility to do the work, a pride thing I guess! We got to the ravitaillement, to be met by some nice ladies serving the cake and drink and a bunch of old guys with bikes! Oh well, no fast group to come back then. We snacked for 5 minutes and set off for the 40km back to Chevreuse. We did for a few k, come across a couple of time trial, aero bar guys, and hooked a tow with them but for the most part it was just the two of us scooting along.

Back to Chevreuse for a cheese sandwich and a coke, probably not getting full value for our 5€, but not far off, and at least we didn’t have to work out the route. 107km down, and still 30 odd back to Villepreux. I had the bright idea of going back via Versailles as it was a different way and there was only the one hill to climb and its done. That would have been fine, except I forgot where we were and of course there are 3 hills to climb between Chevreuse and Versailles. Amazingly though my legs were strong and I kept going, I even took some more turns on the front up the hills and in the last 10km through to Villepreux. When we were done 139km was on the GPS, in 4hr 45 or so.

Over 250km for the weekend, a great couple of days. I’ll take the week off now, but for a couple of very light spins and then hopefully be all set for the race on Sunday.

Bandido Ride

Each week I have a choice of who to ride with as my group ride. I can either ride with my club or I can ride with my informal club, the Bandidos, who are a group of expatriates living here in France. It generally depends on how the weekend pans out as to who I choose, as the Bandidos ride their long ride on a Saturday and my club rides on a Sunday. This week I fancied the Saturday ride as one of the Bandidos, Jerry is leaving Paris and going back to the U.S. at the end of April, so there won’t be many more opportunites to ride with him.

The weather wasn’t great, but I had my rain jacket with me so I was happy enough. It was the first time I rode up the long hill out of Bougival with the Garmin, and as expected it turned out to be the longest and highest hill of a day of lots of hills! I thought I would be very tired after Thursday’s hill interval session, but I felt pretty good that early in the morning and by the time I arrived in Versailles I reckoned on riding quite well. It was a fivesome today, myself, Jerry, Jochem – the big German who is getting stronger each week, Brian riding one of his THREE carbon fibre Colnagos and Lionel, the indestructible Lionel! We set off under darkening skies along the usual route through the Chevreuse, and it was fun (sort of) to see the total ascent on the GPS continually rising, it wasn’t too long before it had reached 500m! My early morning legs had gone by the third hill, and basically during the course of the day I “lost” every hill to Lionel, I was even struggling to hold off Jochem, I was far from flying, but then I should have expected that after the very hard training weekend. It’s a great route, and the rain never really got going, although the icy wind was a bit of a bother. St.Remy, Dampierre, Aufargis, Les Mesnuls – all the old favourites.

We were going back via Brian’s for coffee (how civilised), so we took a slight detour, and to add a bit of spice I took them on a detour of the detour up the very short 18% climb near Pontchartrain, at last a hill I could win, even if it was only 200m long. Jerry wasn’t best pleased, judging by the expletives he uttered at the top. Jerry was having a bad day on the bike and we kept having to wait a little and shepherd him along, so when we got near to Brian’s, and the other three shot off into the distance, I waited for Jerry and let him slipstream. It’s a long downhill on the main road near to Brian’s, but unfortunately I don’t know the exact turn, so I sped off down the hill and the next thing I know, there is no Jerry and I am near the bottom. I had missed the turn! Well I had a choice, ride back up the hill or ride home. After 3 hours and the rain drizzling and only 15 minutes from my home I chose the later! Although I got lost in St.Germain-en-Laye on the way and ending up riding the wrong way down several one ways to get home.

It was one of those days that needed a hot bath and a cocoa when I got in! Only 91km in just under 3.5 hours, but 1000m of climbing and I was all buty gone. Half of me says I should worry with the 148km La 77 race next weekend, while the other half says its all good training and only to be expected after this weeks hard work on the bike.

Trainer Session

Type: Recovery
Duration: 39 mins

Music: Auf der Maur – Auf der Maur

Call me Mr.fairweather

Type: Muscular-Endurance
Duration: 91 minutes

I got up yesterday morning nice and early, thought the weather looked dodgy, but still had a bowl of porridge. By the time I had finished it, it had started raining, so adding that to the wind and the cold I just didn’t fancy the club ride. So I went back to bed and slept till nearly 10am!

Well I had to make up for it, so I got up again, had a coffee and went and rode the hardest trainer session I have on the list. Simply known as T08, it involves a warm-up followed by 25 minutes riding at 80% MHR, then without a break or pause, 20 minutes @ 85% and finishing off with 15 minutes at 90%. It’s a damn hard hours riding, and you know it’s bad if your legs start to go during the first 25 minutes. In fact I felt a little at around 22 minutes, a bit more at 35 minutes, but not much else. I even felt my best during the last very hard 15. Nevertheless, I have ridden a couple of ks further (nominally according to the trainer) in an hour doing this session, so there is still room for improvement, but I’ve never had my legs feeling so good during this session.

Music: A Retrospective of House Vol.4 Disc 2 mixed by Tony de Vit

Two training sessions

Type: Sleep
Duration: 1hr 30mins.

There I was yesterday afternoon, thinking about the training session I had planned for the day. A session described as a Testing session in the Friel book, but I did feel tired. A week of normal life and getting up early was taking its toll, so I thought I would have a little kip first. Well I ended up sleeping for 90 minutes in the middle of the day. And I always say the only thing better than training is sleeping, or put another way the best training session you can do is to sleep for a little while. I certainly felt better afterwards. So that was the first session, 90 minutes of shut eye. And you don’t even need a bike!

Type: Testing
Duration: 50 mins.

The second session was the Testing session, and it was amazing how good I felt on the trainer. I didn’t believe how easy it was so after the warm-up, I recalibrated the trainer, and it still came out with a setting of +1 (resistance slightly high!). So with that I rode the nominal 10km at a heart rate of 160-163 and felt great. Blasting through it in just over 15 minutes, and way quicker than ever before. I’m not sure what relevance to a 160km mountain cyclosportif a 15 minute testing session on the trainer is, but it is reassuring that each month I seem to be riding these testing sessions quicker and quicker.

Music: The Refused – The Shape of Punk to come

Training

The first two rides with the GPS:

Tuesday:  60.8km / 2hrs 12 mins. The Crespieres 60 route. Approx. 600m ascent.
Wednesday: 50.65km / 1hr 46mins. The Maison-Laffites 50 figure of8. Approx. 150m ascent.

Trainer Session

Type: Muscular-Endurace, Tempo.
Duration: 1hr 17mins.

I finished off the 3rd week of the Build 1 period with a muscular-endurance session on the trainer. This session is called the Tempo session by Joe Friel, and involves a warm-up followed by 30-90 minutes in zone 3 at a cadence of around 90. Today, I did 20 minutes warm-up, followed by 50 minutes in zone 3, which for me means an HR of around 157. I felt pretty good, although started a little tired. In all it means I have completed each of the three 10 hour weeks in Build 1, so I am pretty pleased. Next week is a light week (5 and a half hours), and I think I deserve it and need it.

Music: Nite-life vol. 1 mixed by Jon Marsh

Recovery Session

Type: Recovery
Duration: 40 mins.

I was still tired after yesterday so I couldn’t do more than a short recovery session on the trainer. For once I didn’t actually feel much better after I had warmed up. I imagine it reflects how good yesterday’s ride was.

Music: Angels and Airwaves – We don’t need to whisper

Finding the hills around Paris

Time: 3hrs.
Distance: 70km.

What a great morning’s ride today. 3 hours and only 70km! Partly due to negotiating the irate Paris traffic and all the traffic lights, but also due to the hills we rode today. I met up with Marcus from Down Under at Longchamp and we set out to ride up as many hills as we could find. Up and down all morning, Ville d’Avray, Versailles, St.Cloud, two ascents around Meudon, including the 14% ski jump climb. All in all according to Marcus’ GPS we did almost 1200m of climbing in 40km, which is a higher percentage than the Marmotte! It’s amazing how much forest you can find around Paris as well, we managed some scenic moments in the fôret de Meudon and the Parc de St. Cloud. I felt pretty good on the climbs, the legs didn’t go, but it was hard at times, and I went up the ski jump at 12kmh and I am sure I have managed it at 14 or 15kmh at my best.

Recovery Session

Just a “recovery” session today for 70 minutes. I ride these without a heart rate monitor, in 34X15 at a cadence of around 110. From experience I know that will give me a heart rate under 75% in the 140s somewhere. I think I do occasionally push a little too hard in these sessions, usually depending on the music I have playing. Today it was One Giant Leap. Riding on the trainer is a great way to listen to all the hidden gems in your CD collection.