Confessions of a 4th 3rd cat chopper

Lets see if I keep the blog up this time… last post on my old site was three years ago 🙂

Planning on detailing training through the winter and racing next year in an effort to go from fourth cat to second cat in two seasons. First half achieved this year, with a patchy race schedule. Hoping to build on that next year with some quality structured training this winter

A bit about me – I’m 43 (going on 60), spent most of my adult life as a slow, fat mess but decided to do something about the fact I couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without breathing like Darth Vader five years ago now. Did some running, but eventually my knees moaned at me enough to make me consider a bike, so bought a 150 quid Piece Of Shit from Decathlon that I ended up doing a 50 mile ride on and discovered I quite liked it. Literally left the Piece Of Shit chained up to the bike shelter at Coulsdon South station after it started to fall apart and bought my first ‘proper’ bike (Cannondale CAAD8) in January 2012. I loved that bike. Got me from London to Paris inside 24 hours, countless training rides out to Surrey, Kent and Sussex and hundreds of commutes.

Since then I’ve got divorced, found love, moved Oop North and changed jobs. The one constant in all that time has been cycling – though more bikes have been added 🙂

It’s bittersweet to find out you’re reasonably good at something you never even considered doing (I hadn’t ridden a bike since I had a go on my brother’s BMX when I was twelve) until reasonably late in life, but – like every other MAMIL out there – I’m making up for lost time.

I’ve discovered racing and TTs and after dipping into both last year, have done more this year. Achieved my early-season goals (racing cat upgrade from 4 to 3, sub 22 10 mile TT, sub hour 25 mile, qualify for the Fat Lad world championships in France (more on that disaster in a later post haha) and ridden the Tour of Flanders for the first time and Paris-Roubaix for the second) – so am looking to build on that with a ‘proper’ program of training on the road and (urgh) the turbo this winter.

I race for Chorley CC in Meatspace, and Kiss RT on Zwift

Hope you find some of the articles/blog posts useful (if I ever get round to putting some up)

360KM on the front…

Sunday was a base miles day, with a nice early start (2 AM!) out through the lanes of Cheshire to Congleton and back up through Knutsford, then to Birchwood and St Helens, out to Formby and Southport, then through Preston and across to Blackpool, back across the Fylde coast then down through Preston and Chorley back home. A reem day out – not much in the way of climbing, but a pretty grim headwind all the way back home made for some hard work!

Riding at night on country lanes is a brilliant experience with a light strong enough to pick out potholes and other road issues from a good distance – it’s peaceful, and often results in nice surprises – like the barn owl that swooped down alongside me outside Tatton Park to grab a mouse, or the bat that flew alongside me for a while near Jodrell Bank

One thing it brought home to me was just how much top end I’ve lost in the last couple of months. My average was well down on what I would have expected this time a couple of months ago. Makes me think that when training starts in a couple of weeks it’s going to be pretty grim for a while…

https://www.strava.com/activities/1231930103

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/2115241412

What crashing into a barbed wire fence at 40mph does to carbon…

At some point I’ll do a write-up of my (ahem) ‘eventful’ participation in the Fat Lad World Champs in August (Gran Fondo World Championships in Albi). For now, here’s what happens to a Cervelo S5 when moody Swedes who can’t hold a line on a descent cause you to bin it into a barrier at 40mph… 😢

End of Season (in every way possible)

Garmin Connect
Strava

Since getting binned off at the MAMIL world champs in France in August, I’ve lost every bit of top-end speed I had, seemingly overnight. I’ve not been able to hit my interval wattages, haven’t been able to sprint at all and feel like my legs are completely empty.

Yesterday was the culmination of this, after being shelled two laps into my last Road Race of the year (St Helens CRC 2/3/4 End of Year Points Chaser). Despite a pretty fast start (boosted by a load of second cats looking to get the points to either maintain or cat up for next season), it should have been a pace I could hold reasonably comfortably (45/46k/h on the straights). Instead, right from the flag drop, I found myself slipping back through the bunch and having to make jumps to get back on the wheel in front. Quickly losing two teammates showed the pace was brisk, and coming round the corner at the top of the first lap I found myself drifting near the back again. Two more concerted efforts got me back into the middle but every time there was a jump I drifted back and after two laps of it, just climbed off

A frustrating end to what’s been a pretty good season all told – I can’t believe one crash could make such a difference in performance, so might look at taking a proper rest in October (something I’ve not really done for a couple of years now)

On the plus side, the new circuit was pretty good (a loop between Town Green/Melling/Bickerstaffe used by Harry Middleton for their chaingang – flat as a pancake but might be interesting in crosswinds as it’s pretty exposed) – always nice to have more circuits available to race on

Going to take a break from anything strenuous on the bike and just do some riding for the next month. Hopefully get my repaired bike back from Target Composites and start my winter plan around mid November.