No news is.... no news

Very little to report. Calga 25km TT is this Sunday, but my legs feel absolutely inadequate for an attempt at breaking last months PB. Instead I may head out for my first criterium in 6 months to try and sharpen up the legs a little.

Training hasn't been ideal over the past 3 weeks, lots of work and family stuff consuming too much time to focus any decent effort into consistent training.

In more interesting news, I almost have all of my components for my new track bike and am hoping to get out onto the track in the next few weeks to see what all the fuss is about with this fixed gear guff!!!

Cant wait as I've heard lots of positive comments about track work and the benefits it can translate to road riding too. My body habitus is also much suited to the track than road so hope to take advantage of those extra kilos :)

Keep those legs turning!

Get in the drops and give me 2x20!

A favourite of the training with power brigade is the 2x20. Basically two - twenty minute intervals at your functional threshold.

The first one usually is fairly easily. The second one introduces pain that you typically dont usually inflict unless in a race situation. If the second interval is easy - then you FTP estimate is too low!

Pretty happy with my effort this morning, I also wore a heart rate monitor to give myself some feedback on my HR pacing from my last Calga TT, my HR hovered around 170-175bpm throughout the intervals which means my pacing was pretty much spot on ~ 300w average.

What was also very interesting was my cadence, i averaged 89rpm, which is identical to my Calga TT cadence. I wasn't focussed on maintaining a particular cadence so find it interesting that I gravitate towards this number.. Have to think about that a little more in future...

Calga - 25km TT - PB!

40.58m av hr 170bpm.

Chopped 2 minutes 30 off last months time, and 30 seconds off my previous best ever time.

Had a few extra aerodynamic goodies this time around: 85mm tubulars front and rear, Limar Speed Demon aero helmet, and tossed the final 2cm spacer under the handlebars, so the bars were right down as low as possible on the headset.

Felt ok on the way out - no power data so I was just hammering away at an uncomfortable pace - but never in the red zone. Got to the turn around in 22minutes,had a slight head wind on the way back and was already starting to fatigue a little as I couldn't turn it over as much as i would have liked to on the flats/downhills. Still, I got to the finish in just under 41minutes, completely shagged.

I don't think my power output has gone up significantly, i'm attributing most of the gains to the aero-toys that I have. Any further improvements are going to come from hard work. I would dearly love to crack 40 minutes before the end of the year, that would be a _massive_ milestone. I need to do it within 2 months to succeed.

More TTI's and some specific 2x20min intervals coming.

Happy daize.

Get me to the doctor STAT(in)

This post is an interesting observation of where health meets athletics and its possible interactions...

I had a blood test a couple of weeks ago for a routine checkup. My cholesterol has been persistantly high over the past few years, and no matter how much I pay attention to diet and exercise I always seem to have numbers that are outside normal.

My family history for cardio-vascular disease is quite poor. My father, grandmother and grandfather all have/had ischaemic heart disease along with risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol all ingredients for a heart attack. My cholesterol lobbed in at 6, just above the normal range of 5.5, but way over safe limits for those with increased risk of heart disease (target below 4). I had a chat with the cardiologist and it was decided that it would be best to get onto a statin now and get the cholesterol in check.

Statin drugs work by blocking a key enzyme in the production of cholesterol in the Liver. There are two main side effects of these drugs however:

1. Liver functions can become deranged.

2. Creatine Kinase level can increase dramatically - causing some interesting side effects.

Creatine Kinase (CK) is an indicator of muscle damage. Combining high levels of exercise in the presence of a statin can cause long delays in recovery from activity due to the double effect of exercise induced muscle damage along with the damage caused by the statin. This is exactly what happened to me after my epic ride last Wednesday over Mt Keira and the 3 Deadlies - I was exhausted for days sleeping up to 12 hours each night and simply having no power on the pedals.

I was perplexed at this level of tiredness as it was something I had never experienced before for this length of time. It was only after a few days that I drew a link between the statin and my new found lethargy.

A google on the topic reveals lots of literature on the subject and the very high incidence of myopathy in athletes who attempt to undergo statin treatment!! Sadly - it seems - the entire statin family of drugs have the same effect, the only other possible treatment plan would be to go on a drug like Ezetrol, this drug works by blocking the absorption of cholesterol in the gut - however it has some pretty nasty side effects such as explosive diarrhoea.

I've been off the statin now for 2 days and am starting to feel like my old self again. Brilliant ride this morning with no muscle soreness. As for the cholesterol, i'll try and approach it from a homeopathic way and see what happens....