A combination of my FTP test and uploading all of my rides for this year to Training Peaks gave Grant a good idea of my current fitness levels.
My maximum power comes at 88rpm, my FTP is 188W (considered fair for a rider of my weight), I’d overloaded myself during early May (getting ready for the Etape Caledonia) and need a sustainable training load going forward, my VO2Max is 41ml/min/kg (considered a little low by Grant but also seen as excellent for a 57 year old male) and my resistance to fatigue is reasonably good. Grant’s plan was to increase my two main energy systems for endurance riding; the aerobic system and my Functional Reserve Capacity or how much energy I have available once I hit threshold.

Training Peaks links to Zwift so my workout was there when I logged in. I’d looked at it in the TP app and it didn’t look too bad but I’d massively underestimated it. I found it really hard, mostly because mentally I wasn’t prepared for it to be so hard. I wouldn’t make that mistake again!

The plan includes rest days as a vital part of the bigger picture of getting me ready. I’m used to riding my bike a couple of times at the weekend, and with the bank holiday weekend approaching wanted to know if I could still just go out and ride my bike. The answer came back that this was fine, Grant would keep an eye on my fatigue levels and adjust the plan if needed.

The weekend saw my first ever workout session on the road. I found keeping in the power limits really hard and as a result i struggled to get into any sort of rhythm. Surprisingly at the end I’d managed the right intensity so I was happy with that.

LEJOG is one of those bucket list things for many cyclists, myself included. The idea of cycling from one end of the country to another has a strange allure considering how hard it is. I’d looked at it before but it had never got off the ground. The Deloitte version, taking just 9 days, always seemed a bit too much of a stretch but a supported, 14 day event seemed manageable.

In early May I’d thought about riding LEJOG with Pedal Britain starting in June 2022 but after talking to various people, including the people that run the ride, friends and other cyclists I decided to try it next year. Then I rode the Etape Caledonia on 15th May, finished it feeling really good and without having really struggled on the climbs and suddenly it felt like it might be doable sooner. Then a space came up on the ride in July 2022; that gave me 8 weeks to get ready rather than 5.

I spoke to the coach associated with Pedal Britain and he thought I just needed to sharpen up as my fitness sounded like it was ok. That was that then, I booked the last space and waited to hear if I was in. The next morning I had an invoice waiting in my email. My first reaction was “fuuuccckkkkk, what have I done?”

Next thing was to book travel insurance (just in case anything went wrong before the start) and then signed up with Grant Goodman, the coach. His first request, not surprisingly, was to get me to do an FTP test. This is a horrible thing to do, after a pretty hard warm up it’s about going as hard as you can for 20 minutes. The first 10 minutes feel hard, the next 5 minutes hurt and you spend the last 5 minutes just wanting it to end. The good news was that my FTP was the highest it’s ever been, that’s a good starting point. Grant went to work building a training plan to have me ready in 8 weeks.