The Triweekly Fortnighly update

Last 3 weeks summary:

Distance: 526 Km (longest ride 79 Km)

# of Rides: 17 rides 

Weight: 98.3 Kg

Pretty good 3 weeks that. 13 Km improvement on my longest ride, and this most recent week I punched out 193 Km. Would like to try a century ride (100 Km) in the next two weekends.

Other good news is the scales have started to shift. Runners often say "you can't outrun your spoon" and I guess that's true of cycling. Adjusting to sugar free sucked hard for a week (it's in fucking everything), but I now feel reasonably adjusted.

Fortnighly Update: Take it to Defcon4

Last fortnight Summary:

Distance: 109 Km (longest ride 33 Km)

# of Rides: 5 rides 

Weight: 99.5 Kg

Pretty sickly fortnight on the bike, because I was pretty sickly. That cold/flu thing gripped on hard. Only now am I feeling back to full health (and I'm still doing the odd cough). Should be back to daily rides and longer weekend hitouts.

I have though decided to bite the bullet on the dietary front, and go to a no sugar diet. That basically means no processed foods & no alcohol. It catches a lot of foods I regularly eat - fruit flavoured yoghurts, cereals, hot chocolates, pre made pasta & curry sauces, etc. It's quite amazing how many foods contain sugar.  It also takes out Pepsi Max/Coke No Sugar. It's thought the artificial sweeteners they contain trigger a lot of the same (bad) pathways that sugar does.  

Let's see if that shifts the scales. Hope it does, because I'm a massive 25 hours into no sugar diet, and it's hard. 

Fortnighly Update - Ravaged by illness

 Last fortnight Summary:

Distance: 273.3 Km (longest ride 61 Km)

# of Rides: 10 rides 

Weight: 99.7 Kg

I was off the bike Friday, Saturday & Sunday. I've gotten some heavy cold/flu/COVID which has really knocked me about. I'm typing this on Monday, and I still feel naff. Didn't ride this morning and doubt I'll ride tomorrow either.

Bloody annoying. I'd gotten myself into a good rhythm of morning rides. I was also hoping to ride 80+ on Saturday.

Big dogs cock.

Fortnightly update - Post of truth

Much like I'm keeping a check on my kilojoule intake, I'm also hoping a fortnightly blog post will keep me honest.

Last fortnight Summary:

Distance: 349.1 km (longest ride 67 Km)

# of Rides: 11 rides 

Weight:100.3kg

So I'm aiming to ride 7 days a week. Monday to Friday will be 60 minute rides, Saturdays a long ride (approaching 3 hrs), and Sundays a 90 minute ride.

I'm aiming for a kilojoule intake of 9473/day (That's a number the Medibank Private calculator spat out for me for a male my age and weight trying to lose weight, off a base of light exercise). If I'm hitting that number, and riding hard, the weight should come off.

Other things I'm also trying/doing:

* Riding fasted. Other than a quick short black, I don't eat before I ride in the morning (except on the Saturday long rides). There's some decent science behind this actually.  The human body has evolved to be rather good at defending calories (a throwback to caveman / spearing a mammoth days). So the thinking is one need to have these mini fasts in order to crack those calorie defenses. It's the same science that's behind the 16:8 diet

* Going to the gym. My son was keen to join a gym, and the local Planet Fitness has a duel membership offer that was too good to refuse. I'm not down there smashing the machines 6 days a week, rather doing a couple of 40 minute free weight/stretching sessions. That's can't hurt. 

Tough Love from Dangles

Dangles (aka Dave) is a great cycling mate I know from way back. Probably the best cyclist I know. 

To say Dave rides a lot would be one of the world's great understatements. Here's his Strava profile. Keep in mind he was a relative latecomer to Strava, so that 110000 km he's racked up short sells his experience.

He's also a veteran of big one day rides like the Alpine Classic & the 3 Peaks. I'm planning to ride with Dangles at the alpine classic next year actually. Anyhow after my latest blog update, Dangles provided some tough love:

"The way I see it, if you can’t manage an average approaching 200 km/wk (i.e. EVERY week), then making real progress will be difficult.

If you head to Vic at 100 kg you’ll struggle getting beyond the first major climb of the day, regardless of what route you choose. That weight handicap is a huge ask for heart, lungs and legs.

I think you’ve got to aim to be well under 90 kgs (lets say 85) come the start of December, with the knowledge that Xmas tends to throw a spanner in the works.

But if you can be around 85 then at least you’ll be in the riding groove, which will making it easier to keep Xmas in check.

 Otherwise I don't see the point of heading to Vic In Jan. Those hills aren’t kind to big fellas (even little fellas), regardless of their romantic allure - it’s a long way to go for a DNF"

Consider my arse firmly kicked Dangles. To be honest, it needed a shoeing. I'm a gold medalist in excuses. 

 200 km/week minimum from now on. 

End of May now. So where are we at?

I think the one line summary is good but not great.

I had a really solid April on the bike. 488 km across 16 rides. Couple of 50+ KM rides in there.

May though has been patchy (300km). I had a week in Sydney for work (and I rode very little), then did 4 days on Daydream Island, so again was off the bike.

I have though started returning to hills - in Townsville that means Castle Hill. Initially I was just doing half Castles, but I decided to bite the bullet and do the full climb on Saturday. I didn't push hard as I wanted to make sure I didn't blow up, and I laid down an 18.49 for the climb. Last year the best I found was an 18.15. That's encouraging. I can easily see that becoming something in the 16s soon.

That's the bike.

The scales one line summary though is shorter: shit.

I'm still stuck bloody close to the century. The last few weeks I decided to bin the diet diary. It's ok when you are set in your patterns, eating similar foods, but it's a pain in a social, grazing kind of setting. And I figured I was set enough in my behaviors.  Clearly not.

I think tracking keeps you honest. It's too easy for that occasional treat to become a regular event. 

Pre-Easter: A good couple of weeks

143 Km last week (my biggest week in 12 months), 53 Km this week already, with 4 days to ride over the weekend. 

I've also started stretching every day. Being more flexible makes me more comfortable in the more aerodynamic positions on the bike. And that makes a big difference. According to Bike Calculator moving from the hoods to the drops will save me 90 seconds in the opening TT of the Great Northern Tour. Over the 200 Km of Alpine Classic, it shortens the trip by 35 minutes.  

My stretching regime is pretty simple. I'm using the Start Stretching App on my iPhone. It's a 15 minute daily series of stretches (9 in all).