Mt Keira

20.11 NP 326W, CAD 76rpm, Speed 17.3km/hr

a new best, if only by 1 second.

Felt really good for the first 3km, but think i went out a little to hard, suffer for the back 3km.

Form is coming along nicely!

Alive

Yes, still alive... But not cycling as much as i would like.

Mt Keira this morning was a healthy 21.22m NP ~ 300W

Fairly happy with this, but more work needed to get down to the PB of 20.10.

Back

Back from Spain. Wow, what a trip!

700km ridden, 12km climbed. Met a few Spainish cyclists who showed us the back roads around southern Spain, had fabulous weather and an overall brilliant time!

Unfortunately, I can't say I've come back fitter. Another bout of tonsillitis is testing my nerves and has put a serious dent in my training.


My MAP test this morning was a stagnant 380W, which is not impressive. Still my main focus is to get healthy then get fit... in that order.

Anxiety

The mind is a powerful force.

For the past month or so, my training and health has not been 100%. Tonsillitis and more recently infected saddle sores and waking at midnight and not being able to go back to sleep. As a result, my training really suffered and one of the disappointing aspects was not being able to back up after a hard days training to ride again.

Took a trip to the doctor to get the saddle sores checked out and left with the usual antibiotics and steroid cream, but to treat the sleeplessness I was given a referral to a 'horse whisperer'.

Needless to say I was experiencing - unknown to me - anxiety, which results in altered respiration (shallow breathing) the result of which was I was training, sleeping and generally living in a hypoxic state.

Currently at day 4 of the 'program' (regular breathing sets to retrain my brain to breathe properly) and things are fantastic! I'm sleeping well, i've gained another 50watts that were missing from my life and my general mood has improved immensely.

I'm so glad i've fixed this prior to Spain.. should make things much more enjoyable!!!

The final week

Nothing sensational to report.

I did an excellent session yesterday taking in some serious climbs which with some serious head/cross winds made for a very honest session out in the saddle. To make matters interesting, my powermeter battery failed just prior to the start of my ride so I had to just concentrate on the pedals. Rode out with a friend as hard as I liked and the legs responded well.

Final long ride and race this Saturday. I am really hoping for a result at racing to set the mood for Spain.

Back

Amazing what a 10 day course of antibiotics can do. Starting to feel human again.

A welcome side benefit of the tonsillitis was a drop in weight ~ 2kg. So now i'm back under the magical 80kg mark.

Now I just need the legs to start firing up and everything will be sweet for Spain.

grrrrr.....

F*&%king bacterial tonsillitis - again - second time in 5 months.... These suckers are coming out!

Certainly explains why i was not in form today.... back to ENT this week.