It's been another week of turbo masochism in trying to compensate for two missed weekends due to illness... The days and weeks are flying by-March now! I should have a lot more miles in my legs... It's hard not to get a bit stressed by setbacks at the moment as I've not got the confidence of having really achieved any tangible targets yet but I'm trying to stay positive and in theory at least it is still possible for me to peak just before the Etape as long as I have a bit more of a steady run and keep my head down. Waking up on Saturday I still felt knackered and totally flat so even if I spent the rest of the day regretting it I think it was better to makes sure I was fully recovered.
One thing the flu has done is assist me on my skinnying down goals-down to about 70kg and feeling better for it (getting re-aquainted with my hip-bones after a few years absence) and hope that means I'll be climbing better for it too. My turbo work has been a mix of low heartrate endurance and micro intervals to try and boost lactate threshold and Vo2 max, and I'm trying to get in a t least one hour a day in, some days 2 which is feeling ok but I don't want to overtire my legs during the week and compromise long weekend rides.
2 Weeks till the Spring Onion Sportive which is 100km and 1800m of climbing-I'm expecting it to be a bit of a kick in the head to be honest but will be a good, early opportunity to measure performance as it is timed. Hoping to get out and reccy the course this weekend to get an idea of the roads and get a feel for the route-I'm still a bit nervous about the idea of fast bunch riding so if it makes me feel more confident on the day it has to be worth it!
Still suffering from a lack of local knowledge but I'm building up a bank of GPS routes from websites etc so I'll have a range of opportunities for longer solo runs. I'm really hoping to get in a 100 miler by the end of the month and to really boost my base fitness before spending a lot of time in April and May getting down to climbing orientated fitness as this is where I am suffering the most at the moment.
Until then a bit of patience and PMA required I think....
