The View from my Bicycle + VIDEO + GRAPHS

So last week, in an effort to find a new view from my bicycle, I ventured down to the Free State flatlands determined to train hard. The goal was to put down 16-18 hours of training in 6 days. You do the math. That's a minimum of 3 hours each day.

As it turned out, tough as the week was, I surprised myself by:

1) enjoying it
2) finding I was a lot stronger - despite earlier sickness - than I'd have guessed
3) becoming very tough mentally as a result

Some of the highlights of the week included doing a hard 3km swim and following that up with 10 pullups. To give you an idea, 10 pullups are tough as it is. To do them after 3km of swimming, and not struggling, that's quite surprising.

I also cycled 137km on my own. That's surprising on both counts. My last long ride was around 75km. This was almost twice as long, and I can't remember when last I trained - on the bike - alone. I have done some indoor training on my own, and that - because it is so boring - does toughen one up a lot. Still, 137km in the wind wasn't a joke, and I surprised myself by averaging over 30km/h. Here's a short clip from the road...

You can see below that it's reasonably flat (brown line), but turning back is a gradually undulating uphill, not helped by constant, nagging crosswinds.

One silly aspect of the ride was forgetting to apply sunblock to my arms and legs and also forgetting to eat over the last hour or so (I didn't completely forget, I didn't want to consume too many expensive gels).
In any event, I paid the price for not applying sunblock.

My skin was burnt so badly for the 4hours in the sun that they stung. Like they had been singed by a hot pot.

I have to credit a South African remedy - it's called PREP. Very good stuff, and a few days later my skin isn't a holy mess.

I also did a 18km run over a fairly tough route, and for the first time felt definitely LIGHTER. This lightness was to be my saving grace on the last tough day - a 105km race. Here's the race profile below.


Now you can see the toughest effort was right in the beginning. There is a very nasty constant climb that you don't expect in the beginning, and my legs really weren't interested in that sort of effort, especially at the beginning. It also proved to be the hardest effort for the whole race. In any event, just before the downhill the leading bunch broke away, and I found myself adrift with 3 other riders, one of them my brother.

We worked well together and were fairly evenly matched in terms of strength, with each of us taking equal turns at the front. I went through a bad patch at 60km, which I think was from the high sugar content of the gels backfiring (I've been cutting my sugar intake sharply). But a few kilometres later, (probably the 1hr 45 min point above) I felt better again and started to dominate the group, doing long stints in front, first on the downhills, then on the uphills too.

The wind was all over the place, so didn't really allow a reprieve. At the turn on the Caltex bridge my brother asked if we could stop for water. I didn't really want to stop, but since I was riding on one bottle myself (he had two) I thought if we could make it quick it would be fine.
Can't really blame the two other guys for not stopping. In the end my brother took a long time, and I drifted off with the two other riders started to grow small in front of me. At first they were just 30 metres ahead, then 50 metres, then 100 metres, then 200 metres. My brother took a long time to reach me, and then wasn't coming round so I worked to get back to the other two.

I was under the impression they were riding hard. It took all of 20 kilometres riding on my own then to catch one. The other one had gone off on his own at the top of the biggest climb.

It was an unfortunate result, but in terms of training, it was perfect. It meant I essentially time-trialled the last 25km and felt really strong. Also - though I have no idea what my brother's backstory is - it was interesting to ride in such a weakened condition (the 137km was deep in my legs still, nevermind all the other exertions) and still find myself so strong.

Often when we do races he rides with the VA's or VB's and I ride with the open seeded guys. His time is often 5 minutes quicker than mine, but I've often thought this is due to the strength of the group pulling one along. Especially the first 10 % of the race. On the last two occasions I've encountered my brother on the road in a race, I was able to pull ahead. On the one occasion I had no Zipps, and on this last occasion, I was using the lighter rims.

In the end I did 16 hours and 8 minutes of training. My weight dived to 79.6kg at one point. Tonight (after dinner though) I weighed myself and tipped the scales at over 82kg. I'm going to have an easier week this week, probably 10 hours, and then want to follow that with 12 hours, and then 18 hours. Not sure when I'll get the 18 hours in but want to at some point.

It is great to see a combination of lifestyle, diet, determination and discipline bear fruit. I'd recommend it to anyone.