Thoughts from the Turbo - Coaches

As yet another turbo session takes its toll on my brain, I try to focus on what I’m going to be doing during the session, that’s when it dawns on me that in years past I simply did what I thought was best during the winter, endless hours spent meandering around with no real purpose or direction. “Get out and do some hard miles” was what they all said and generally that’s what I did as a kid. You still see it now guys out thrashing round on long hard fast winter rides at almost the same pace they achieve during the summer months and taking three days to recover from it, that may work for some but certainly not me. Things for me have thankfully have moved on, which kind of brings me to my opening point. On each day through the winter I know exactly what I’m setting out to achieve during the training session. How? I hear you ask. Well it’s quite simple my coach told me.

If I could offer one piece of advice to aspiring cyclists it would be this, get yourself a coach. It sounds such a simple concept, but there are a few pitfalls

Things to avoid are

1. Someone picked at random from the internet.
2. Someone who will charge you an arm and a leg.
3. Someone who only contacts you once in a blue moon.
4. Someone who has a stable of cyclists.

I’m sure there are many, many more. Things to look for are

1. Someone who is qualified
2. Someone local.
3. Someone who will spend time listening to you.
4. Someone who you trust.

Your coach can make the difference between being a talented bike rider who never quite fulfils their potential, to being a winning talented bike rider. It is as simple as that, they identify what you are good at and probably more importantly not so good at and show you how to improve it. A good coach not only plans training schedules but offers advice on bike position, nutrition and can tell you when to slow down and avoid overtraining. They can boost your confidence and show you how you are improving. All of the above are things that I have fallen foul of in the past, but with the benefit of a second set of eyes watching over you and stopping the rot before it sets in all the negatives can be avoided and your goals achieved.

There are many different thoughts on training available on the internet and I like many of you reading this will have read over them and not really made head nor tail of the finer points of the articles. There is a reason for that and it’s simply that the author has not published them as they want you to sign up to their program which I think I covered in points 1-4 on my things to avoid list. I can’t advocate any particular type of training as things that work for me may not work for someone else, we are all different.

Good coaches are worth more than any piece of lightweight kit you can buy. If you are prepared to explain your goals, take on board their training plan, work hard and have an honest working relationship with them, you will realise your potential.

That’s enough from me I don’t want to give everything away!

Scottish Event dates for 2011

The calendar's about to be released, but there appears to be a few problems with the British Cycling calendar. So here's a summary of what we know so far with a good bit of help from the Braveheart Fund forum.

Scottish Championships
22nd May 2011: Road Race Champs (Men & Women). Vortex RT in Balfron. Initial details here.
29th May 2011: Scottish 16km TT. Ythan CC, Laurencekirk.
12th June 2011: 40km TT. Fife.
26th June 2011: 80km TT. Fife CA.
31st July 2011: Team Time Trial Championship.
5th, 6th & 7th August 2011: Scottish Track Championships Weekend. I got this date wrong originally, this is correct
21st August 2011: Scottish Criterium Championships & Youth RR Champs. Johnstone Wheelers.
28th August 2011: Vets Road Race Championship. Granite City RT, Alford.
4th September 2011: Team Road Race. Falkirk BC, Grangemouth.
9th October 2011: Scottish Hill Climb Champs. Kennoway RC, Freuchie

More important dates coming.....

Thoughts from the Turbo

With the winter weather appearing to have decided to actually be proper winter weather again this year my turbo has once again taken a battering and looks like it will continue to do so over the foreseeable future, which leads me to the question, what goes through your mind as you while away the hours on your turbo? (or as my eloquent coach likes to call it “the turdo”)

The irony of it is that the majority of racing cyclists probably spend more time riding the bike in the winter in preparation for the summer and therefore the hours spent sitting going nowhere give your mind time to wander to some incredibly strange places.

Firstly there is the immediate surroundings, for me that means the initial battle with the boss for the right to claim the kitchen for a couple of hours, this delicate negotiation requires a certain strategy, I usually get two options pre or post evening meal dependant a number of factors, these being whether the kids have friends round, I get home from work on time, what the boss is cooking and how long the planned session is supposed to take. Once this calculation has been made out comes the mat to collect the sweat, the obligatory fan to minimise the sweat, the turbo to create the sweat, bottles to replenish the sweat and the portable DVD player to try and take my mind off the sweat.

All set up, but know the difficult decision. Which one of the DVD’s will I choose to watch, again. I have several options here there are the recordings of the 2008 or 2009 Tour, which if I ever get onto Mastermind would be my specialist subject. However the orchestrated daily escape, chase down by Columbia HTC, Cavandish sprint win can become slightly tedious after the fifth or sixth watch. Alternatively there are the “giveaway” DVD’s from various cycling magazines that have been collected over the years exalting the triumphs of now disgraced/tainted former greats of the sport or an option I find myself exploring more often lately boxed sets of classic TV series (not so subtle hint for Xmas present there!) I opt for the 2009 Tour.

So into the saddle, switch on the Garmin and the designated session commences. That’s when it starts, what do I look at? The Garmin has numerous functions to consider which can be confusing, the DVD with the dulcet tones of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen confusing each other in an attempt to fill the many tepid moments of ITV4’s live coverage or the fact that I really should consider re-decorating those walls. I tell myself to concentrate on the session and with that in mind I focus on the Garmin and try to match the cadence, heart rate and power output to what is after all a carefully structured training session, put together by the coach. I remind myself that this is all part of a master plan which is intended to deliver me to a peak of fitness at the right time in around six months time, six months! That seems an absolute lifetime away…….

The first fifteen minutes normally result in sitting perfectly in the correct zone set for the session, but that’s only a temporary state, it normally coincides with the first advert break and a bloke telling me that some guy called “Iron Jim” can get me the perfect body by hanging from my door frame or Gloria Hunniford saying if I drink some friendly bacteria I can lower my cholesterol to acceptable limits and by the time I’ve mentally checked to see if the door frame could actually take my weight and considered the value of Gloria’s advice, I’ve dropped right out of the zone.

I manage to get myself back to where I should be for a while but the screen can only hold my attention for so long, I start to look down at my bike which I really should clean as it hasn’t even been on the road for about a month, how did it get that dirty? It’s at that point when I notice the forming of the inevitable bead of perspiration. It usually starts somewhere in my scalp, trundles down over my furrowed brow until it reaches decision time. Will it take the direct route straight down my nose or divert via the eyebrows into the corner of my eye and thereby cause the gritty salt laden sting which will annoy me for the rest of the session. Result! Today it decides on the former and I can amuse myself with that well known turbo pastime of blowing the sweat drip from your nose. With a bottom lip that Bubba Buford from the Forest Gump movie would be proud of I begin to disperse the droplets with increasing skill just before gravity takes its inevitable course, it is only after about a dozen shots that I realise I have caused what would appear to be a small cloud burst on the screen of the DVD player just as Team Columbia are within striking distance of the hapless Frenchie’s that have spent four and a half hours of futile escapism from the peleton.

I’m still churning out the revs and somehow have arrived in a subliminal state where I’m actually beginning to enjoy the feeling of spinning away on the spot. I start to focus in on what my body is doing and every now and again can sense each component part working to a point where I can mentally isolate each individual muscle. This state of mind is abruptly shattered as Iron Jim’s mate exalts the brilliance of the paint restorer and free micro fibre cloth available at all good stockists. I wonder if would clean my filthy frame?

Not long to go now, Cav has long since romped to another stage win, annoyed the commisaires by having a bit of imagination with his victory salutes and being insolent enough to tell everyone the basic truth that he is by far the quickest sprinter in the world in his post race interview with Ned Boulting. I meanwhile am still at least four months away from riding a bike in anger, probably just as well as I remove myself from the saddle with jelly legs, there is a long, long way to go, oh well at least that’s one more training session completed.

My final task is to return the kitchen to it’s proper, use stash the turbo and grab a shower before stretching out and analysing the data file. That’s when it sinks in that tomorrow I’ve got to do it all again! Brilliant I just can’t wait.

Alf Engers

After the excellent article on Alf Engers competition record recently publish on Veloresults, specifically PART2, but also PART1 .I thought I should try to recall my memories of that day away back in 1978.

At 14 years old it’s not often that you can say that "I was there" but I was. It was my first proper racing season and I was building towards doing a decent ride in the unofficial British Schoolboy Championship, George Herbert Stancer 10 mile TT (herein after referred to as the 16km Individual Road Pursuit) in early September. I’d qualified third fastest for that in the Eastern District Heat having broken my collarbone four weeks previously and eventually finished in eighth place that year. Looking back on it I think I peaked about four weeks too soon, any way I digress.

Rather unscientifically, I’d ridden myself into some decent form over the summer and a couple of weeks prior to the Unity CC 25 (40km IRP) a 57 minute ride gave me a reasonable shout of getting into the event, so when the start sheet landed on my doormat I scanned to see where I would start, mainly because that would determine how early I’d need to crawl out of my pit to make the two hour journey to Witham in Essex from Norwich. The good news, I was off at number 114 which only meant getting out of bed at 4:00 am for a 7:54 am start. The bad news, Alf Engers was only six minutes behind me! All things being equal that meant he wouldn’t catch me until somewhere towards the end of the return leg.

The E72 course was based on the rolling A12 dual carriageway, one of the main roads into North East London at the time, it had a reputation as a “fast course” which let’s make no bones about it should read "drag strip" and down purely to the volume of traffic which travelled on it. The course has long since been abandoned as being too dangerous. I’d ridden it once before and looking back at it, even on a Sunday morning the route was choked with articulated lorries. I really should have reported my old man to the social services for letting me ride on there. There’s no way I’d consider doing that now at 47 let alone 14, my boys certainly won’t be doing anything like that. The course itself took advantage of the RTTC rule which meant that the finish had to be within a mile of the start, on this course what it meant was the outward leg was considerably longer than the return which as it turned out was a major advantage on that day.

On 5th August 1978 the wind was coming from the South West which meant that outward leg had a tail wind leaving only the final 16km or so into the wind. As usual my Dad got me to the HQ with just over an hour to my start time and we went through the usual routine, as I collected my number I had a sneaky look to see if 120 had been taken yet, it had, just in front of me. There he was Alf, "the King" ear-ring glistening, just ahead of me. He didn't look all that, but on closer inspection it was apparent he was wiry strong and had the classic gaunt look of a man who was ultra fit or maybe having read articles since, knackered from having worked all night at the bakery, I prefer to think it was the former.

Even at that age I was aware of Alf’s legendary status and how the RTTC seemed to have a vendetta against him. I’d been at a couple of events where he’d ripped the field to shreds and recall my Dad telling the story of seeing Alf approaching a roundabout on the A1 in the middle of the carriageway sit up to grab the now infamous brake levers in an attempt to make the turn, there was no doubt he had an aura around him. I sneaked away to warm up on, in comparison to "the" bike, my not so trick Reynolds 531 frame which had been built by R.E.Buck in Ipswich although I did have a great pair of wheels 28 spoke colnago titanium hubs on mavic rims shod with a pair of clement 1 silk track tubs. I’ll not tell you what chain ring I had on the front, suffice to say it had the look of a dustbin lid which, coupled with a six speed straight through 13-18 block gave me a ridiculously high top gear, again not the ideal combination for a 14 year old, but these were the days before high cadence and any real scientific approach to racing it was a case of get into the little sprocket and grind away. The tubs however made a fantastic noise with 160lbs inside them and I felt superfast during the warm up.

I rolled up to the start line with a couple of minutes to go, it was on the South bound off slip at Witham, which acted as a ramp, perfect for getting up to speed quickly. The countdown came and went and I was away, all thoughts of Engers quite literally put behind me I settled nicely in to a rhythm for the short distance of headwind before coming off the main road over a flyover onto the North bound carriageway for the long leg towards Colchester and immediately felt the benefit of that self same breeze swiftly pushing me to speeds which must have been around the 55 kph mark. At the time I’d no idea how fast I was going all I know was that it felt incredibly easy as I was catching the guys ahead of me extremely quickly. I don’t know what they thought of being caught by someone of my age or if they even knew, but that was the last of my worries. I was thinking of the head wind return leg, oh and avoiding the trucks that were whizzing past me.

I got to the turn which was around 23 km completed and prepared for the headwind leg, over the bridge and onto the slip road to head south again, strangely enough it still felt fast, I thought it must have been the decline of the ramp, but later realised that the wind had dropped. After a few of scary moments as a couple of articulated trucks dived from the main road across five lanes of traffic in front of me at the Marks Tey junction the traffic flow dragged me along for the final kilometres. I was getting checks from my Dad as usual but, couldn’t hear them due to the traffic noise, he was going mental at the side of the road, initially I thought it was because Engers was about to catch me but with only a couple of miles to go I was still ahead of the game. Off the main road and with a swift negotiation of a couple of junctions into the industrial estate which housed the finish and I was done. I rolled back to my Dad who had a beaming grin across his face and told me my time, I’d completed the 40 km in an average speed of 44.65 kph, knocked over four minutes off my personal best and most importantly I was there to watch as Alf flew past the finish line to clock his 49:24 a fearsome sight indeed and one which I don't ever think will be forgotten. The place was already buzzing as Eddie Adkins, who you have to feel a little sorry for, had only just set a new competition record of 50:50, he must still hold the record for the shortest length of time anyone had held it.

Me? I ended up in 8th and that time remained my best until 2009 when I finally managed to beat it by 7 seconds at the Scottish 25 Champs aero’d to the max, makes you wonder what the “King” could have done with all that kit……..