It's getting colder....

Another week has gone by and the temperatures dropping with today hitting a cool 4 degrees. I'm still in the building stage and slow riding which, with the wet roads and leaves suits me fine. I have had a read about the reasons for going slower and the plan is to teach my body to burn fat. To do this a solid block of slow and steady training is essential for me to improve my times. I used to think that going fast was the only way to improve my riding but actually not slowing down over a long ride can be a limiting factor. I'm trying to teach my body to do something that doesn't feel natural and it doesn't want to do. If I carry on riding hard my body will apparently continue to burn sugar as a fuel rather than developing my bodies ability to burn fat.
This is when an eight to twelve week block of training at low intensity is essential. It is taking a huge effort particularly when I spot targets ahead but the people I'm riding with are happy to stick to my plan with me. So, I'm hoping to see the results of riding faster and producing more power in low heart rate zones. So far one thing I have noticed is the lack of gels during rides. I used to suck down one or two a ride when going faster. Since starting this training I haven't used any even on four hour plus rides. So there appears to be anecdotal evidence it is working when combine with a 5lb weight loss.

Training wise, plans have been a little different this week. It's half term so I don't have all day every day free through the week. After the polocini ride on the Sunday Monday's ride was two hours in zone 1 spinning out the stiffness from the hills. the cadence and sticking to zones is improving. Tuesday was my rest day this week to help with child care while Wednesday ended up the longest ride of the week at four and a half hours round Beeston castle, Chester and lots of other very muddy lanes. It is getting tricky out there and Dave, the guy I was riding with came off his bike after hitting a patch of mud while going through some gates. Luckily I didn't have to leave him to stick to my plan as he was straight up with no real damage.

Thursday was a one hour ride in zone one. For the fun of it I took the TT bike out to get some practise in riding the bars, getting used to the trickier cornering and anticipating braking. It wasn't the best idea. I'm not used to TT bikes and this left it trickier to maintain zones and heart rates particularly with the harder gears. I described it as being similar to whipping a race horse to a trot. It just didn't want to go slowly. So I'm waiting for comments from the coach on that one.

Friday was just over two hours of riding in warm weather and sunshine. Great fun, while Saturday was just over an hour on the tacx late in the evening. This led to a later start on Sunday to make sure I recovered. The difference between today and Friday was palpable. It was cold, wet and very windy. I had a four hour ride in the planner but hoped to do five. Between the late start, a puncture early on, the wind cold and rain, not to mention the clock's going back I fell five minutes short of the four hours. I only had a rear light on and made it home five minutes after lighting up time. I actually noticed the Garmin screen darkens at lighting up time. So despite the cold I still managed to hit the higher speed for the rides target zones.

The week's mileage was up 17 on last week at 220miles keeping up the increase that has been happening since I started. The only other news is I have been researching time trial helmets this week and have ordered one  though I'm not sure if I will wear it yet. More on that next week. This week I'm going to look at the research on wheels. Finally it's only about six weeks until the slice arrives.....which means only eight weeks to Christmas, time to pick your cycling kit for gifts from friends and family etc.