Guinea Piggin’

I’m volunteer for a study that some uni researchers are doing, it is about the incidence of extra oxygen on cycling performace on athletes. During four weeks I have to go into a lab twice a week and do some excercises on the lab bike, some days with an oxygen mask and other days just sweating it on 20km time trial.

There was no reason for me to volunteer, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to get info about what happens while I am racing on my bike. Results will be given to me in due time and It’s supposed to be good information for my coach and me for when we sit down and plan.

Proffessional athletes have this kind of testing done whenever they require and at the top of the line it’s amazing the amount of money that goes into hyper analizing everything in order to obtain better performance. As an amateur athlete it feels miles away.

But in the end I reckon that one basic principle applies. Hours on the bike, or running or swimming and a good programme will make you better. Any shortcut will ultimately bite you in the backside at some point, and that will be the last triathlon.

Back to the big race, I’m on the base period of my programme. In short, the common agreement is that a training programme needs to be periodized and specific. By periodized it basically means that it is not doing the same thing over and over again but building cycles where different aspects are covered. In our case it’s base, strength, endurance and speed. Each of these I will pass through over the next 20odd weeks.

I’m getting close to 300, so here’s what I did today
Date: 6-Apr.
Sport: Cycling
Time: 1hr
Distance: n/a 5x5min efforts + 3min recovery

Comment: I was masked and breathing from a 200 litres bag full of air... good fun to watch