I let the train take the strain for the trip to Cornwall. The hotel is literally around the corner from the train station so no taxi needed. 3 of the other riders were on the train so I got to meet Stefan, Paul and Mark coming out of the station. Darren was in the hotel to meet us as was Grant. It was great to finally meet him and talk about the training plan he’d put together for me. He gave me some interesting advice about watching my heart rate. If it goes up and doesn’t come down then I’m likely dehydrated and need to drink more; conversely if it’s low and doesn’t go up then it’s a sign I’m overly fatigued and need an easy day.

We had our first briefing of the trip this evening. Lots of common sense advice as well as some good tips (turn off auto-reroute on our Garmins).

We also got given our Pedal Britain cycling jerseys. I should know not to pay too much attention to the sizing guides for cycling kit. My M jersey was absolutely tiny; thankfully I’ll be able to exchange it in the morning.

This week has been a tapering week; 3 short pretty easy rides with decreasing numbers of intervals at 80% of FTP. Feels like I’ve just been turning my legs over to keep them used to pedalling.

The week has dragged, I just want to get going now.

The amazing thing is that the donations to charity, either through JustGiving or the system at work, topped £2500 this week. I am so grateful to everyone that donated. Thank you all.

The last week of hard training and the most interrupted week since I signed up for LEJOG. Last week ended with a toothache that turned out to be an infected wisdom tooth. Cue 5 days of antibiotics and then having the tooth taken out on Wednesday. This meant no training for a couple of days to allow the extraction site to start to heal.

I am finding the sessions since my FTP increased much harder, especially the VO2Max sessions. My coach is very encouraging; whenever I think I’ve not performed as well as I should he tells me I smashed it. I think that some of the sessions are meant to be too hard and I just need to do my best even if that means I don’t hit every interval.

It was good to get out on the bike at the weekend. I cannot see me riding at anything like the pace I went at on Saturday or Sunday on the LEJOG ride itself but it’s good to know I have the power there to call on.

A week of tapering and then it begins. I just want to get on with it now.

I am using the ride to raise some money for Mind, the mental health charity. I wanted to do it for them as I’ve struggled with my mental health on and off for over a decade and still take daily medication and regularly see a therapist. Part of my condition is a constant feeling of not being good enough and being overly critical of myself. Most of the time I can keep that negative voice in check but it just needs a chink to get into my head. Monday’s session gave it that chink.

It was designed to be a hard session; a ramp session starting above threshold for 2 minutes, 10 minutes at threshold then increasing by 10W every minute until I couldn’t keep going. The 2 minute interval was hard but the 10 minute one, which should have been tough but ok, was harder than I expected. I managed to do 5 of the ramps (out of a possible 10) and finished feeling quite disappointed. My left knee felt stiff, my quads were sore and the negativity began. Am I really in the shape to do this ride, what if I have problems with my knee during the ride, how will I handle doing more climbing than I’ve ever done before? The reality is that the session was ok; I set my 2nd best 20 minute power and my 3rd best 10 minute power. Both of these will be important when it comes to the climbs. Keeping hold of the reality of the situation is vitally important now. The next 2 weeks are going to be tough physically, I need to be strong mentally as well.

The rest of this week’s sessions were really hard. A long VO2Max session got interrupted by a phone call and I ended up cutting it short and a 10x30s interval session was incredibly tough.

Some good news from the coach this week helped to combat some of the negativity that was creeping in. My power numbers are all up, my resistance to fatigue has improved as has my short burst “battery”. The sessions may feel like they are pushing me beyond what I can do but they appear to be having results.

For the weekend endurance ride I tried something different. Rather than having my power being on screen the whole time I just set out to ride my bike but at a slightly higher intensity than I would if I were just going out for a spin. At the same time it wasn’t an all out push myself hard effort. On a similar course to last week I ended up being slightly faster, with a slightly higher average power. Plus I felt like I’d been riding my bike and not just doing a workout session. A win-win.

3 interval sessions this week. The first one was a repeat of the first session I did as part of the training; the one that I wasn’t mentally prepared for and suffered in. This time I was ready for it! It was still hard but at least this time I expected it to be.
The other two sessions were a mix of 30s on/15s off and then 30s on/30s off. These all seem to follow the same pattern, the first interval in each set feels ok, but the 10th interval is a case of “push push push” to complete it. I’ve found them slightly easier if I visualise them as ramps on a hill rather than an interval.
I also talk to myself quite a lot, reenforcing why I’m doing the training and how amazing the ride will be. I’m sure anyone listening would think I’d completely lost the plot!

The weekend sessions were an endurance session and a sweetspot session. The latter was hampered by the strong wind on Sunday; it’s hard to get a consistent power level when the wind is blowing the bike around. I sometimes just want to ride my bike rather than looking at my head unit and the power output display but have to tell myself that time will come in 3 weeks.

Testing week, as in FTP and VO2Max testing.

FTP test was on Monday. A 20 min warmup and then as hard as possible for 20 minutes. 3 weeks ago I was trying to hold 200W, this time I was trying to hold around 210W. I ended up with an average of 208W so my FTP has improved to 198W. I’m really pleased with this, but also know that this means all the subsequent workouts will be that much harder.

VO2Max was on Friday which was also the hottest day of the year so far. The warmup for this one was 45 minutes followed by a 1 minute full out sprint. I pushed this as hard as I could and paid the price in the heat. The 10 minute recovery seemed to fly past and then I was into the 5 minute effort. I wanted to hold around 240W for this but had to settle for 230W. I felt that my power level fluctuated quite a lot during this 5 minutes and I felt I could have gone harder but the heat played a part. Very happy to set new 5s, 1 minute and 5 minute power numbers though.

The weekend saw a mix of a long endurance ride followed by an active recovery ride. The endurance intensity was just the wrong side of comfortable so was pretty hard work. The average speed for the ride showed this too whereas the recovery ride was spent riding up and down Bushy Park at a gentle pace as the park got busier on a Sunday morning.

This was the first week with 5 sessions. The next 3 weeks also have 5 sessions each before I taper in the last week before the ride itself. It is getting closer and closer!

The intensity feels like it has ramped up this week. The intervals are longer, the power expectations are higher.

I’ve started to work with a massage therapist I’ve seen in the past when I have had back problems. It was different seeing him with a view to preventing injury rather than healing from it.

Friday’s session was the first one I didn’t complete. My notes from TrainingPeaks say: The initial 10 mins at 190W was ok. Once the intervals started I found the low cadence (65rpm) a struggle. I got through 10 intervals but had to reduce the intensity a bit.
On one hand I know I had a late night on Thursday, didn’t eat particularly well on Friday so am not surprised I wasn’t at my best but on the other hand it’s a lesson about the importance of sleep and nutrition.

Sunday’s road based workout didn’t start well when the new head unit lost connection to all the sensors after about 1km and refused to reconnect to anything. Turned round, went home, got the old head unit and started again! Feel like I’m almost getting the hang of it now. The tempo intervals with NP bursts were actually fun.

The most important piece of equipment for the entire ride, my bike. If you’re not interested in bike specs and technology then skip this post!

My bike is a Wilier Cento 10 NDR with Shimano Ultegra Di2 R8070 groupset plus Ultegra pedals. I’m using 50/34 chainrings and an 11-34 cassette. The wheels are Mavic Cosmic Pro Carbon UST Disc and I’m running 28mm Continental GP 5000 TL tubeless tyres. I have a Specialized Power Arc Expert saddle and use Fizik R4B shoes.

The bike itself is really comfortable thanks to some special damping where the seat stays meet the seat tube. There’s a technopolymer dissipater that allows the rear wheel to move a couple of millimetres when riding over bumpy and uneven surfaces. The front is really clean as all the cables are routed through the handlebars and the frame uses aerodynamic Kamm-tail shaped tubing.

Monday’s session was a hard start to the week. 30 seconds at 350W followed by 1 minute at 105W, repeated 10 times was hard work. Another 4 minutes at 105W and then the 10 intervals started again. The last 3 were a real struggle and I just hung on. I find these sessions a mental challenge as much as a physical one. When your legs, lungs, heart are all telling you to stop it’s important to remember why you’re putting yourself through this.

The one thing that concerns me is getting injured or ill during the training. Every little niggle gets amplified; this week its some discomfort in my right foot.

Two workouts based around repeating intervals this week. I can feel it in my lower back, not in a painful way, more in a being aware that the muscles have been used. Time to add some core workouts so that my core is being used rather than my lower back.

First ride not in the training plan this week too. It’s the Platinum Jubilee bank holiday weekend so 2 extra days off work. Kaz has the all clear to start riding her bike again so 4 of us set out for a gentle spin. Apart from Kaz doesn’t do gentle spins so we headed off to the Hog’s Back including the climb over Keogh Barracks.

Bit of a disaster installing new cleats when the threaded part in the shoe pushed up through the insole! Good job I had a spare pair of shoes in the cupboard (like you do!).

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.