My flight is booked, my favourite Hotel Boevendaal in Erondegem is booked, a car should be ready for me to pick up at the airport so all I have to do is get myself to the airport and I'm off.
To be honest I've hardly raced since my last trip in 2011, 2012 was never on, having just completed a house build and moving to our little country property, there were way too many 'jobs' to do and which to be honest many still aren't finished, but are they ever finished? One of the toughest jobs has been cutting down about 150, 15-20 metre Red gum tree's and clearing them away and with probably another 150 to go I've still got that to look forward too in the near future!
I took a radically different approach to my training this year, mostly because I could, but also because I wanted to see if the new approach worked the way the 'experts' seemed to suggest it would and partly because I hadn't raced for so long I just wanted to get 'going' as quickly as I could.
So 'Reverse Periodisation' was my approach for this year starting in December 2012 with blocks of pure v02 and Anaerobic Capacity intervals, that's level 5 and 6, with a bit of 7 thrown in. Basically that's sessions of 3 minute, 2 minute, 1 minute and 30 second intervals at 110% and upwards. To be honest I didn't think I could go straight in at the deep end like that but it worked fantastically well. Even at the end of one block my numbers came up remarkably, the percentage improvement was really impressive, even if I do say so myself. I did make sure that each work session was followed by a rest day or recovery ride, I realise that I'm just too old to do back to back work sessions like I was able to even just a few years ago.
I then worked through a block of pure Threshold and sub threshold intervals, or level 4, much longer intervals working up to 20 minutes times 3 or 4 in a session. Again the improvement in Threshold power was dramatic.
Finally I moved into more mixed blocks where I had a mixture of the first two blocks with endurance rides of 4/5 hours in the mountains (if up to 1000m qualifies as mountains?) to bring up the stamina levels.
When I started this years training programme, I had done some research, admittedly not on aging cyclists! but on aging marathon runners, that suggested that the loss in overall performance from year to year as you age, is 0.8. In 2009 I had a fantastic year on the bike, I won 11 bike races and performed really well in Belgium, indeed thinking I was a really realistic medal prospect in the ICF World Championships - until I punctured, but you can read about that in my 2009 blog! In 2009 I trained about 20 hours a week, but I do not think I am physically still capable of that level of training anymore, so 2013 has been based on a more modest average of 12 - 14 hours each week.
I looked at the power numbers across a range of metrics that I achieved in Belgium in 2009, factored in the loss multiple .8 per annum to try and be practical; they were my power number targets for this year, trying to be realistic about being 4 years older, much as I want to forget that dynamic!
I've only raced 4 times this season and those on my UCI licence with the 20 year olds, mostly because I'm over travelling 4 hours each way to race in my preferred Veterans racing, and have one 8th and a win to my credit. Although I would have to admit that although I rode well on a tough course (for me), it was probably my head (and experience)that was the key factor in the win.
I'm now in a final Race phase block of training which reduces the amount of endurance riding slightly, and focusses on race type simulation intervals which are all hard sessions but given my overall lack of racing, very necessary at this stage. Frequently mixing up all the training levels and physical 'systems' into a single workout. Such as spending an hour in the 'sweetspot' (88 - 94%) with 10 second surges every 2 minutes, sounds easy, is easy for the first 10 minutes or so but gets increasingly more difficult to maintain the percentage level after each surge and not to simply freewheel to get you heart rate under control. A session that certainly leaves you knowing that you have tried.
My power numbers are very encouraging, it might be difficult for the first couple of races whilst my body adapts to racing intensity, but I'm very hopeful that I won't make a fool of myself at least!
