Ok so I have tried to diet along with the increase in mileage, I didn't think I could keep it up for long as fatigue should set in pretty quick along with my energy levels and Ill just collapse into a heap and give up. Soup for every meal of the day and a protein shake got a bit laborious but I always looked forward to my slap up meal treat on a Saturday night before a big Sunday ride. According to Strava's calculations over the last 4 weeks I have averaged over 300 miles over 10 rides per week. The sessions have been a mix of long aerobic, shorter intervals, 1hr thresholds, TT rides, recovery and everything inbetween. Has it worked? Weight as of last week was 68kgs. Phew but its not gonna end there. As long as I feel strong and the motivation is there then my target weight is 63kgs.
One way of measuring my strength/fatigue is to go on a long ride and see how long it is until I die. Sundays are a good day for this. The week preceeding the ride was as intense as previous weeks, 3 days of intervals and 3 commuting days with a fairly hard Saturday to test the positioning on the Felt TT framed road bike.
Sunday 11th March
Awoke at 7am but really couldn't be bothered to get up however a gentle nudge from the missus saying what a mood I'd be in the whole day if I didn't get up was enough persuasion. Setting off in high humidity put a dampner on things but I could see the sun trying to peer through which gave me hope for the ride ahead. Legs weren't feeling majorly great and that swirly wind was still present killing all signs of momentum so I decided on a low heart rate, long ride which hopefully would make my body more aerobicly efficient and lose weight to boot as my fat stores and not my non existant glycogens stores would be used.
15miles in I was out of drink as it tasted like washing up liquid so I threw it away. I also had nothing to eat before or during the ride but my recovery shake was waiting for me on arrival at home. The first half of the ride the wind had really picked up but died down in places then would pick up again but it didn't bother me too much ar at least I didn't let it. In Yorkshire it was its worst. Just got on with my goal of keeping my HR low. At one point I thought I had a Northerly wind which meant a crack at Cragg Vale Strava segment time but when I got there it was a full on head wind but is sheltered for most of the bottom part however I thought I'd save myself for the rest of the week. There's always another day to have a go. The biggest challenge now was to get up Cragg reservedly but some time today and preferably before dark! It is easier said than done but somehow I acheived it. Under 130 bpm for the whole climb. As the ride went on it got more and more difficult to keep my HR low and near the end when I ended up having a slanging match with some scallies , it sky rocketed. Nevermind still a decent average and Hr of 122 meant a job well done.
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