I’m now in my second full week of Cycle Fit Challenge aka my last ditch effort to get a bit faster and stronger ahead of the Red Hook Crit in London. Somewhat surprisingly, I’ve actually been enjoying having some structure to my riding as it means I can prioritise cycling and plan my days accordingly, and rather than finding being told what to do annoying, I’m relishing the purpose this training has given me.
I also like the break from thinking – I spend quite a lot of time thinking, planning and wondering and it’s quite nice not having to do that when it comes to cycling for the time being – I just complete what’s prescribed. And the short, sharp intense sessions give me a real break from day-to-day worries because I’m so utterly focused on what I’m doing for the duration, to the exclusion of everything else. Read more about why this state of ‘flow’ is helpful here.
After my race last week, on Friday it was time to try another Zone 5 interval session at the Velopark. I was really motivated to push hard and get my heart rate into Zone 5, which for me is above 178bpm, as I’d failed in my previous attempt earlier that week. Sadly, it was not to be and Zone 5 remains elusive. My diary reads:
“Terrible again. I sincerely hope that ‘trying’ is of some use and that I’m getting something out of this because I can’t complete it properly. Basically, I can’t sprint flat out for longer than 45 seconds so I blast off as hard and fast as I can in an effort to get my heart rate into Zone5 but then I’m totally done and for the rest of the segment it’s extremely hard to even keep going so I end up forcing out short bursts of sprinting and struggling. It’s so, so hard. I must be a wuss because I can’t handle the pain!”
Bummed out and feeling like a failure, I emailed James from High Rise Coaching with some feedback, quickly bashed out my bodyweight circuit training then headed off to a wedding to drink loads of champagne, Pimms and red wine and forget about cycling for a while. The ensuing hangover certainly took my mind off things!
On Monday I headed back to the velopark to try out a new Zone 5 interval session that James had suggested as I was struggling so much with the original one. This new interval session was made up of shorter max effort/Zone 5 intervals with shorter periods of recovery in-between, so I thought I might be able to successfully complete every effort as well as get into that bloody Zone 5. The session began with a minute flat out sprint, followed by a 2 minute recovery then I had to complete ever decreasing intervals of sprinting and recovering until I was sprinting for 20 seconds, recovering for 30 seconds, sprinting for 20 seconds, recovering for 30 seconds etc etc.
I began by sprinting off as hard as I could but as I seem to totally suck at this kind of thing after 30 seconds the pain had already set in and my legs and lungs were complaining. I then caught a pedal as I came out of a corner which kind of threw me and made things even more difficult. Determined to try as hard as I could, I carried on to complete the interval session as best I could but my best turns out to be crap, and when I checked my heart rate monitor at the end, despite the fact I felt like I was going to puke, yet again I’d failed to hit Zone 5. I do dislike the way people say ‘can’t is not a word.’ Screw you, because I bloody well can’t!!!