Revisiting Coventry parkrun

Can breaking a parkrun course PB by 4 minutes 28 seconds be a disappointment? If the question was should rather than can, then the answer would probably be no. Even the best case scenario today would still have been well outside my overall parkrun PB, and massively improving my 5k times isn’t really that relevant given my next event is a Marathon. Whilst such improvements would obviously be nice, regular and consistent fast 5k runs are all you really need to improve your Marathon time. You are never going to do a 5k effort in a Marathon, and fast 5k runs are just about getting your body used to running faster paces, so that when you run your Marathon pace, it should feel very easy until at least into the second half.

But to revisit the original question, today definitely felt like a disappointment. Certainly not a crushing disappointment, but equally a run which didn’t go to plan. That however gives an opportunity to assess why things didn’t go to plan, and today it was the accumulation of a few small things.

Firstly, the previous three days were definitely a factor. Wednesday and Thursday were consecutive days of hard efforts. That isn’t normally how you should structure a training week, though the fact that the Wednesday was on the bike and Thursday was a run did mitigate that slightly since slightly different muscle groups were being worked. Last night was spent down the pub. As I was driving I didn’t have to worry about my stomach this morning, but it still meant that I did nothing in terms of exercise last night. That might sound ideal in terms of being well rested, but generally I run better if I’ve done a light run or at least some yoga the day before. A complete rest day can leave the legs feeling sluggish, which is far from ideal going into a 5k.

This morning I also had to drop my car in for its MOT. Thankfully that was only about a mile away from the Memorial Park, which is the minimum distance I would want to do for my warm up. However, I was concerned how long it would take to drop the car off and knew it would be better to be too early than too late, so ended up arriving at the start at 08:30. On a warmer morning that would have been fine, but given how chilly it was and the fact that none of the indoor spaces in the park were open at that time, I had to keep moving. The net result was that my warm up wasn’t quite structured the same as it usually would be, and I was constantly worried about either over doing it or under doing it.

Eventually it was time to line up for the start. Coventry is one of the parkrun where they try to guide you in terms of where to stand based on likely finish time, and that seemed simple for me today. The first marker was for sub 20 minutes and that was my goal, so I stood at the back of that section. There were only about 6 people in front of me though, which I found surprising since there are usually plenty of sub 20 finishers at Coventry. Indeed, today there would be 19 of them, so why so few of them seemed willing to place themselves in the correct place on the start line is a bit of a mystery.

A mystery which I dealt with badly it turned out. Lots of people shot past me before the first corner. A few people overtaking you is normal, but for that many to overtake me, I thought I must have set out too slowly, especially given how few runners seemed to fancy their chances of going sub 20 based on their start line placement. It felt fast, but I felt like I had to up my pace. I should have trusted my feelings, because when I had an opportunity to check my watch, it showed that I was going quite a bit faster than I’d planned to set out.

Had this happened at Warwick Racecourse, I probably would have been able to adjust my pace effectively. However, I haven’t run at the Memorial Park for more than a year and I had forgotten how deceptively tough the course can be. The elevation gain is actually more than Leamington parkrun, albeit whilst the elevation gain at Leamington all comes within the 2nd mile, at Coventry there are small but significant undulations throughout.

Having gone through the first kilometre in 3:56, I was a little shocked to see my next split come through as 4:14. I was therefore very much against it to try to go sub 20. I made a conscious effort to lift my pace and try to reduce the deficit – whenever your target is sub 20, you can very easily calculate how far up or down you are on your target. On a good day your final kilometre will be your fastest, but I couldn’t leave too much to do. My next split was 4:05, so I tried to use the next downhill as an opportunity to work up through the gears.

Unfortunately I didn’t have any more left. I felt laboured going up the next uphill, and any flow that I’d had was gone. The next split was 4:08, which completely removed any prospect of sub 20. I tried to motivate myself to at least move up a few positions, but on the two lap course, I now found myself lapping people too, reducing the space available for an actual overtake. Whether I had the legs to do so I’m not sure, but in truth I didn’t really try. I was content just to maintain my position and crossed the line in 20:36.

20:36 is faster than I managed in Leamington, though I still feel like Leamington is the tougher course due to the steepness of the hill. It was however slower than the 20:23 I did at my most recent Warwick Racecourse parkrun. Warwick probably is easier than Cov, but with a few weeks of training behind me I’d hoped to go faster. The fact I didn’t was disappointing, but I don’t think it will take big changes to get to where I want to be. Next week I’m returning to Warwick Racecourse, so I will get the opportunity to put that theory to the test.

Train Like A Pro!

Since I potentially only have one more race in category C before being forced into category B on Zwift, I want to make sure that is the right race. Firstly it needs to be on at a time which suits me, and secondly the course needs to suit me. Tonight I had a window of about an hour in terms of the start time of the race to work with, but nothing quite matched what I was looking for. So rather than just entering a race for the sake of it, I decided to do a hard training session instead.

One of the best aspects of the ‘Back to Fitness’ training plan on Zwift was that it was two sessions per week, with the sessions being 30-50 in duration. It was therefore easy to fit into my schedule. The same cannot be said about the majority of Zwift training plans. The majority demand so much time that not only would it be hard to find time for other sports, it would be hard to find time for other activities on Zwift too. I want to spend slightly more time running than cycling at the moment, and when I cycle, some days I’ll want an easy zone 2 session, and some days I’ll want to enter a race. Admittedly I haven’t looked through every training plan, but I can’t see myself signing up to another in the near future.

The good news is that you don’t need to sign up for an entire training plan to do one of the sessions. Therefore if you have a good idea about the type of session you want on any given day, it won’t take long to find something suitable. I set the first filter at 30-60 minutes, and then set the difficulty to 4 out of 5. After scrolling through a few sessions, I settled on the Annemiek Van Vleuten session from the recent Movistar ‘Train like a pro’ series.

For anyone who doesn’t follow women’s cycling, firstly you should, and secondly you should know that AVV has dominated stage races in recent years. Last year alone she won the Tour de France, Giro and Vuelta. She also won the World Championships, and rarely finishes outside of the top 5 in any of the one day races she enters. Yet there is no secret to her success. She uploads almost every ride she does on Strava and last year clocked up considerably more miles than anyone else in the women’s peloton. In fact only one male professional clocked up more miles in 2022. Obviously there’s an element of natural talent, but a huge amount of her success is down to doing a lot of hard work.

And now it was my turn. This session was a VO2 Max rep session. My current FTP is 254W, which means my VO2 Max power (110% of your FTP) is 280W. Your FTP is supposed to be the maximum power you could sustain for an hour, but thankfully I didn’t have to sustain for an hour. Instead, each rep would be 3 minutes, with 2 minutes recovery in between reps. I would then have another 5 minutes of recovery, before repeating. So in total, 18 minutes of effort across the 48 minute session (including an 11 minute ramp warm up and 3 minute cool down).

My first rep wasn’t terrible, but it was tough enough to leave me doubting whether I could get through every session. My focus was on my cadence. Cadence is controllable, and I knew that the higher I kept my cadence, the easier it would feel as the torque I would need to exert would be less. So during each effort, that was the number I tried to look at, though as things got tougher and tougher my gaze did start to wander over to my heart rate and the time left for that effort.

In between efforts I tried to do everything I could to recover quickly. My heart rate was rising by between 30 and 40 bpm across each 3 minute effort, so the only way to stop myself going too deep was to try to start each rep with the lowest heart rate I could. Thankfully that is something I have practiced a lot when running, and it is one of the most transferable skills between the two sports.

I managed to get through the full workout, but the last two reps in particular required a lot of effort and a lot of concentration to ensure my cadence didn’t drop too low. When I stepped off the bike, I was tired by feeling really good. It was one of those rare sessions where it feels like you can feel the improvement during the session, even though in actual fact the improvement comes after the session. It felt like progress, and my VO2 Max for cycling has actually jumped from 57 to 59 following the session. Which I guess makes sense since they were VO2 Max intervals.

But was I training like a pro? Well, a professional gets to where they are due to the work done over their entire training plan, so regardless of how difficult the session is, I don’t think you can say that you are training like a pro based on a single session. But it was nice to get a sense of the best try to improve, and the great thing about Zwift is by setting all of the efforts relative to your FTP, the sessions can be realistic but achievable. Had I been asked to do reps at 400W I wouldn’t have made it through the first rep, but 280W kept me working hard but still with that belief I could get to the end of the session. It really is a rewarding way to train, and one I’ll be using plenty of times in the weeks to come.

Try A Tri Again

My event schedule for 2023 has so far remained deliberately light. There’s a cost element to that, as events can be expensive, particularly if I have to travel. I’ve also wanted to give myself the opportunity to do some quality training. The Warwick Half Marathon for example would have been relatively inexpensive for me to enter given the start and finish is only a few miles from my house, but a Half Marathon at any pace didn’t really fit into my plan for that weekend, so I didn’t sign up.

By far the biggest reason why I haven’t signed up for more events is that I don’t know what types of events I want to do this Summer, and that’s the main reason why I’ve signed up for the Coventry Sprint Triathlon in May. I did my first Sprint Triathlon last Summer, and having enjoyed both the event and the training, doing another Triathlon seems like the obvious next step.

However, that event and the experience of training for the Triathlon benefitted from a few other factors too. There was a significant novelty factor. I hadn’t cycled regularly since 2013 and hadn’t ever tried open water swimming. The weather was hot, dry and sunny for weeks and weeks before the event, and I was even able to do a bit of training whilst I was on holiday in France…at least up until the point where I fell down the mountain.

Therefore whilst I enjoyed my first Triathlon, I cannot yet say that I enjoy Triathlon. I might enjoy Triathlon, but I need more experiences before I can assess that properly. The Coventry Sprint Triathlon gives me an ideal opportunity to do just that. The course is so local I can ride to the start, which is ideal as one of the aspects of the Triathlon I didn’t enjoy last year was the hassle of getting my bike into and out of my car. I’ve run the entirety of both the bike and run loops previously, so know exactly what to expect, and it comes three weeks after my next Marathon. That’s long enough that my body should be reasonably well recovered, but earlier enough in the year that I can then still have a decent training block before whatever event I do decide to focus on in the Summer.

That is of course if I do decide to focus on an event. There are so many options. I could do a longer Triathlon, I could do an Ultra Marathon, I could do a cycling sportive or a gravel race, or I might decide that I don’t need to do an event at all and instead spend a week or a few weekends bike packing. Right now all options are open, many seem appealing, but none are overwhelmingly compelling. In time a favourite will emerge, but I’m sure the Coventry Sprint Triathlon will speed up that process.

Embracing Chaos

The phrase of my sporting weekend has been embracing chaos. Yesterday that referred to my tactics in the crit race I entered on Zwift. Since I don’t have a powerful sprint finish, the more chaotic the race is, the better my chances of doing well become, since I’ll either find myself on my own at the finish, or in a small group where it isn’t guaranteed that someone else has a big kick. Therefore I tried to make the race as chaotic as possible, attacking multiple times in the hope of breaking things up. Did it work? Well, you’ll have to read yesterday’s blog to find that out.

Chaos is probably overstating the scenario I found myself in during today’s run. My dislike of an out and back course is well-known to any regular readers of this blog, but I decided to try to combat this by giving myself a goal. I knew that it would take me roughly 50 minutes to reach my planned turning point, and I would then try to get back home in 40 minutes. On a good day that would have been a stretch but definitely possible, but although the legs felt okay after yesterday’s crit race, the thought of trying to significantly increase my pace over the second half of my run was not remotely appealing. Which in turn meant that the prospect of an out and back course was also not remotely appealing.

So it took the same decision I have taken on almost every long run this year, scrapping my planned out and back in favour of a loop. The only difference being that those other loops took me on familiar running routes, so I knew exactly where I was going and had a decent idea about how far the route would become too. Today though I took a turn out of Balsall Common towards Kenilworth. That sounds like a safe move, and indeed the road I took was one which I have driven on many times. But I had never run along it before and knew that the pavement would eventually disappear, and be replaced by a verge which didn’t look suitable for running. Given the road is fairly busy and the speed limit is 50mph, running on the road wasn’t an option either.

I was gambling on there being a side road or footpath which would allow me to get back to Kenilworth via a quieter, safer route. That gamble wasn’t a big one, since I always had the option to turn back if I didn’t find anything. That would have left me with the prospect of a longer run than I had planned, but I had a safe route home. Therefore it probably can’t be described as chaos, but the more accurate descriptions wouldn’t make for as catchy a title for a blog post.

Pleasingly though, I didn’t have to turn back. My first exploration down a side road resulted in nothing more than a lap around a retirement home, however just at the point where the pavement disappeared, I found a footpath off to the left. After a couple of hundred metres, I found signs for the Millennium Way, and was immediately very happy, since not only was this a route home I knew, it was a route which gives you some really good views of Kenilworth Castle towards the end.

Embracing chaos in terms of route planning is about taking a “I wonder what’s down there?” approach, rather than either sticking to what you know or meticulously planning out new routes. I would never have spotted the footpath I took which led me to the Millennium Way on a map, yet by being spontaneous, I’ve now found a new way back from Balsall Common which opens up several options from the routes I already know, yet alone the routes I don’t know yet.

When chaos arrives, I like to try to embrace it. Of course there are times when you want to avoid any possibility of chaos, and as I get closer and closer to my next Marathon, I will be sticking to what I know. But that is still 9 weeks away, so a little chaos at this stage is no bad thing. It challenges you in ways you cannot predict and gives you opportunities to learn. If you roll the dice, it might land as a 6.

Going On The Attack

I did my first Crit race on Zwift back in January, and whilst it was a lot of fun, I was frustrated by how I rode the race. Before the race, I told myself that if there was an opportunity to attack then I should take it. Twice the opportunity arose, twice I decided against attacking, instead deciding to bide my time. Ultimately that time never came. I was able to finish with the front group for the first time in a category C race which lasted more than 10 minutes, but I still had regrets that I hadn’t gambled and tested what would happen if I attacked.

Those regrets were twofold. Firstly, I enjoy following the ‘No guts, no glory’ approach to individual sport. I would far rather fail spectacularly than succeed through cautious, joyless tactics. But whilst in a lot of sports that is just a reflection of my mindset, in Zwift races being attacking is my only chance to succeed. There are category C racers who have a max power in excess of 1000W, whilst my max power is around 600W. The only way I’m going to beat riders who are so superior in the sprint is either to drop them before the sprint, or ensure that the race is so hard that they have nothing left for the sprint.

Today I was not going to die wondering. The race was on the Glasgow Crit circuit which will be used in the final race of the eSports World Championships tonight, and also a circuit I was able to ride earlier this week. We were doing 5 laps of the 3.3km circuit, which features a relatively steep climb. I found myself in first place at the foot of the first ascent and thought about attacking, though knowing that I was up against some lighter riders, I knew it was unlikely I’d be able to get a gap, especially with everyone being fresh.

I didn’t wait long though. As we were coming across the line at the end of the first full lap, I made my move. I managed to get a couple of seconds gap, but nobody came with me and I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it stick on my own. I was caught before we reached the climb and almost went out the back on that ascent, but managed to recover across the rest of the lap and launched my second attack as we completed the second lap.

The result was identical to the first attack. I got a small gap, no one came with me, I almost got dropped on the climb but was back with the group and recovered in time to launch an attack going through the line to complete the third lap. This time someone did come with me and I thought we might tempt a few more to join us, but sadly that didn’t happen and we were brought back. I wasn’t too disappointed as I knew that even if I hadn’t been able to make the break stick, the racing was still harder than it would otherwise have been and people would be close to their limits.

And so it proved on the next lap. The race completely broke apart on the climb, though unfortunately I found myself on the wrong side of the break. I tried my best to get back to the group, but only succeeded in getting stuck in no man’s land. The rider behind was over 10 seconds down so I had no one to work with, so once it got beyond a 3 second gap my chances of getting back were over. I fought hard to try to keep the small group behind over the final lap, but they caught me on the final straight, meaning that I slipped a couple of places to 24th out of 87.

Nevertheless, I’m pleased I gave it a go. Things could easily have gone differently. Had a couple more riders joined me on my final attack, that could have been the decisive moment, where even if we were brought back, it would have been to a reduced sprint. My chances of success with those tactics weren’t high, but they were still higher than waiting for a sprint I have no prospect of winning.

I might not have too many more opportunities to use these tactics for a while though. With my FTP increasing to 254W and my weight dropping to 78kg, my FTP/kg is now within the category B band and it is only my historic power curve keeping me in category C. But Zwift Power now lists my category as ‘Almost B’, so one or two more races may push me into that category. Once I’m there, I’ll need to use all of my strength and endurance just to stay with the group for as long as possible. Those will be the occasions to think about conserving energy, maintaining a consistent power output and all of the other boring stuff. But whilst I still can, I’m going to keep going on the attack.

The False Plateau

Given that January was a month when I enjoyed great progress in terms of health and fitness, the first two weeks of February have felt a little frustrating. On 28th January my weight was 78.8kg. Today my weight is 78.9kg, and my weight hasn’t been below 78.8kg at any stage this year. From a position of great optimism a couple of weeks ago, I now find myself asking the question, have I reached a plateau already?

The answer is definitively no. Firstly, comparing weights on specific dates is a waste of time. The reason my weight was so low comparatively on the morning of the 28th was that the previous night I had gone to the pub and skipped dinner, other than my share of a chicken platter. It is more useful to look at average weekly weights, and from 23rd-29th January, my average weight was 79.3kg. So far this week it is 78.9kg. A weight loss of 0.4kg might not be much, but slow progress is still progress, not a plateau.

My overall weight is only one indicator of my health and fitness too. Another is my body fat mass. I suspect that my scales are not the most accurate when it comes to this metric, though I suspect it might be similar to the VO2 Max figure on my watch, where the actual number might not be entirely accurate but it does reflect trends of improvement or decline fairly well. If that is the case, then my average body fat mass from 23rd-29th January was 16.2kg, where as it is 15.5kg this week. Therefore I’m still losing body fat at a good rate, at least provided I can trust the data.

Speaking of VO2 Max, that has increased from 54 to 55 on my runs and from 57 to 58 on the bike. Again, how reliable those numbers are is debatable, but there are some running metrics which are definitely still improving. My time at Warwick Racecourse parkrun on 4th February was 56 seconds faster than on 21st January. On my most recent long run, I was able to spend over 2 hours in zone 3 or below, where as on 22nd January that was around 1 hour 40 minutes. Therefore even if my weight loss had completely stalled, that is just a single metric to consider health and fitness and most of the other metrics have displayed a continuation of January’s progress.

Even if every metric was flat over the past two weeks, it would be too soon to say I had reached a plateau. Back at the start of the first COVID lockdown, I started a 100 day run streak which included a regular hard 5k effort. My first time was 24:33. This dropped to 23:19, then 23:00. It rose to 23:31, then rose again to 23:48. On that run I did note that it had been particularly hot which partly explained the time, but my time for the next run was only 23:04. Somewhat dismayed, I took a few weeks off from the timed 5k, but otherwise didn’t make any major changes. My diet and weight was fairly constant, as was my weekly mileage and the variety of sessions I was doing each week. When I tried again about 6 weeks later, my time was 22:21.

The lesson to be learnt here is that the body goes through a series of adaptations when you introduce a new health or fitness regime. There’s a period of adjustment, and then your new routine becomes the norm. Only this is a new norm. You might have improved your ability to train harder, or for longer, or lost weight, or improved muscle strength, or refined your technique, or indeed made various other improvements, often at the same time. There’s a slight pause where your mind needs convincing about what your body can now do, and once your mind is in gear, you can use the improvements in your body to push harder, faster and longer, therefore entering the next period of adjustment.

Tomorrow I’m going to do hill sprints. I last did this precise session on 12th January. I could only manage 6 reps that day, the fastest of which was 52 seconds, 12 seconds slower than my segment PB. Tomorrow I’m planning for 8 reps, and the challenge will not be to improve on 52 seconds, but to see how many of the reps I can do in less than 52 seconds. Because there is nothing like running up a hill multiple times to convince yourself that you aren’t on a plateau.

Revisiting Leamington parkrun

Since parkrun returned in 2021, the events I’ve attended have fallen into two categories. I have either attended my local event, Warwick Racecourse, or I’ve visited an event for the first time. This has been a great way to see new places, and there are still plenty courses I haven’t visited, including a few that are within a 30 minute drive. However, today I decided to revisit Leamington parkrun for the first time since February 2020.

My first visit to Leamington parkrun was in April 2019, and until Warwick Racecourse parkrun started later that year, it was my local parkrun, albeit only marginally closer than Stratford. I clocked up 7 runs between April 2019 and February 2020, and those dates are significant in terms of the context behind my previous times. In 2019 I challenged myself to run a Marathon every month, which meant that some of those parkruns were not raced. A couple were, but the challenge had a huge negative impact on my speed, meaning that my course PB before today stood at 25:42. For some further context, my final parkrun prior to lockdown was at Warwick Racecourse, which I raced in a time of 23:40. My first parkrun back was also at Warwick Racecourse, and I was exactly 4 minutes faster. I’m not quite in that shape currently, with my time last week being 42 seconds slower, but nevertheless a course PB was virtually guaranteed today.

Nevertheless, partly to get an idea of what sort of time I can aim for on this course in the future, but also to aid my efforts to get my 5k times back below 20 minutes. That was always unlikely today as almost all of the second mile is uphill, some of it being quite steep. Conditions were pretty good though. The grass was quite soft but that makes up a relatively small amount of the course and the weather was close to perfect for a fast 5k, meaning that I knew I would be able to push hard.

Previous knowledge of a course is always handy. This starts with the warm up. Knowing where everything is makes it much easier to plan where you need to be and when, making it easier to do a high quality warm up. The difference for me between a good warm up and no warm up is at least 30 seconds over 5k, and I felt like today’s went pretty well.

I have run on the Leamington parkrun course several times since February 2020, though that has been either as part of a slow, steady run, or as part of an interval session. I also did the Regency 10k last year which incorporates almost the entire course, though in the opposite direction. Therefore whilst I knew exactly what to expect, I was also aware that I was out of practice pacing a 5k effort on this course.

Leamington parkrun is not the easiest course to pace either. There is a really wide starting zone, however after less than 200 metres the course narrows and turns 90° right, meaning that there is always a mad sprint to get into a good position for the first corner. The smart thing to do is to avoid this sprint which I did, though you do need to start briskly. The steep section of the hill comes just over a mile in, and the path is only wide enough to run two abreast. You therefore have to make sure you get ahead of any slower runners before that point, otherwise you can lose a lot of time waiting for an opportunity to pass. After a mile I was at the back of a group of about 5 runners, so put in a small effort to get to the front before the hill, and then just focused as much as possible on my technique until I got to the top of the hill, which for the unprepared comes a lot later than you might expect.

You are rewarded with a good downhill section after you’ve crested the hill, and it’s here that the most time can be gained. You can take it as an opportunity to have a rest, but if you can sustain your effort levels, you can carry a good amount of speed into the flat final kilometre. All the way down the hill, I was aware of runners behind me. Part of me was expecting them to fly past me once we reached the flat, but I took encouragement from the fact that didn’t happen. I knew I was fairly close to my limit, but seemingly so was everyone immediately behind me, so I could still retain hope of maintaining my position.

I managed that until about 50 metres to go, when I was overtaken on the grass and unable to find the grip or energy to respond. I did manage to avoid anyone else overtaking me, and was surprised to be given the number 14 finishing token. I thought there were at least 20 people ahead of me, though unlike Warwick Racecourse, where you see everyone due to the fact it is an out and back, it can be difficult to get a sense of where you are relative to others at Leamington. My time was 20:49, which I was pleased with as it was closer to my time last week than I thought would be possible on this course.

It was also a course PB by almost 5 minutes. Yes, there is context behind that stat, but given there have been plenty of times over the past few months where I have been frustrated by how far off my peak I have been, this was a nice reminder that I’m still a lot fitter and faster than I have been at many periods during my adult life. In two weeks I’ll be doing Coventry parkrun for the first time since January 2020, and since my course PB there is 25:04, if I can get under 20 that would be an improvement of more than 5 minutes. So as I strive for improvement, these markers are a nice reminder of the improvement already made.

Time To Game The Game?

Last week I completed the 12 week ‘Back to Fitness’training plan on Zwift. It is only the second time I’ve tried to follow a training plan session by session, having done a faster 5k run training plan back in 2021, and I enjoyed it a lot. The fact it was only two sessions per week, with each session lasting 30-50 minutes meant it was pretty easy to fit into my general training plan, and the difficulty of each session felt perfect for what I was looking for. Each one was tough, but I got through each one and only doubted my ability to do so on the days when I started the session with very heavy legs. It felt more like an intermediate training plan than a beginner one, though given every session is adjusted around your individual FTP, the sessions should be ones that almost any cyclist could complete and seek improvement from, particularly if you are able to supplement with some long, easy rides during the rest of each week.

Speaking of FTP, on every ride I’ve completed recently it has felt like my FTP has increased. I did a ramp test on 17th December having completed week 5 of the training plan, so just before the mid-point. Since then there have been plenty of indicators of progress, most recently achieving an average 1 minute power of 5.0 W/kg, 0.5 W/kg better than my previous best. I’m therefore really keen to do another ramp test and see how long I can last.

Or at least part of me is keen. There is another part of me which definitely isn’t, though that isn’t due to any trepidation about the ramp test. No, it is because I was already at the upper limit of my category for racing on Zwift. I’ve done some calculations and it looks like even a 5W improvement in my FTP would push me out of category C. So would it be better to game the system to remain in category C?

Gaming the system is fairly simple to do on Zwift, if you are so inclined. Zwift will only calculate your FTP following an FTP test or a ramp test, or if you do an event or free ride which is at least 20 minutes long. With the events and free rides, I think Zwift will only ever adjust your FTP upwards – it can detect improvements, but if you put out lower power during your ride, it cannot determine whether it was an all-out effort, and therefore won’t reduce your FTP if you do a long, easy ride. So, if you avoid the FTP tests, avoid any events that will last more than 20 minutes and you avoid any hard free rides over 20 minutes, you can keep your FTP lower than it truly is, and continue to race in a lower category.

I’m pretty sure there are people doing this, and it is understandable to a point. Firstly, it makes winning a race more likely, but even if you don’t win, you can practice your race strategy if you are towards the front of the race. If it is a constant battle to stay in the group or you get dropped early on, then any tactics go out of the window. I was starting to feel like I could test out which tactics work for me as a rider who doesn’t have a huge peak power, but is able to both sustain longer efforts and recover fairly quickly from shorter efforts. If I get pushed up a category, such thoughts will likely need to be shelved for a while.

Nevertheless, I’ve decided I’m not going to game the system and will give it my all when I do the ramp test tomorrow. I’m really curious to see how I get on, and if I do get promoted in terms of my race category, then that is just further incentive to continue to improve and eventually be in a position where I can compete at the front end of those races too.

Celebrating January’s Successes

I’m not usually one to write a post singing my own praises. Self-deprecation comes to me easier than self-promotion, but there are times when I am proud of something I’ve achieved and want to share the story on this blog. January 2023 is definitely a month I’m proud of. 2022 was at various times a bit of a struggle for different reasons, and the only way I could see to arrest the slide that I felt like I was on was to make a lot of changes.

Those changes have largely paid off. I’ll start with the numbers. In terms of exercise, I did 17 days of running, totalling 164km. I did 15 days of cycling on Zwift, totalling 357km. 12 days contained a yoga session, with a few more containing yoga as part of the warm up and cool down either side of my run, and I also had one rest day. In terms of my diet, I only had meat in a main course once, barely consumed any dairy and completely avoided things like chocolate bars and crisps. I’ve managed to lose 3.4kg, whilst my scales estimate that 2.3kg of that loss has been body fat, meaning that my body fat percentage has dropped too.

Yet the numbers only tell part of the story. The more important side of the story is how I’m feeling. Thankfully the changes have paid off there too. I’ve been sleeping well, my immune system feels a bit more robust, I’ve got more energy and it also feels like there are more hours in the day because my work-life balance is better. Some of my clothes are fitting a little better, and running feels easier. It also feels more enjoyable, and that’s possibly the best thing about the whole month. Running has given me so much over the past 7 years, so to rediscover my enjoyment of the sport is a huge relief. Finding time for yoga again had also been a blessing, partly from a physical perspective but also in terms of mindfulness. I’ve even enjoyed going food shopping and looking down at my basket to see healthy and tasty ingredients.

The obvious question is whether all of these changes are sustainable? Time will tell, but I think a lot of them are. Logging how I sleep for example is one of those things I can’t imagine not doing now. Obviously there’s nothing you can do which guarantees you always sleep well, but by learning from the causes of bad nights, you should at least be able to reduce how often they occur. With something like my diet, there will always be temptations to make bad choices, but there really isn’t a temptation to make bad choices in regards to my sleep because the ‘sacrifices’, like switching my phone off a little earlier, are so minimal compared to the many benefits of good sleep.

Those temptations with my diet will always be there. So far I’ve taken what I feel is a sensible approach in terms of not completely denying myself anything. I had meat when I went for Sunday lunch, and I’ve had meat in my sandwiches too. I’ve gone to the pub a couple of times and had a pint of Guinness at the Rugby too. The key is that none of these are things I’ll do every week, so they don’t become a habit or disrupt my training. Where my biggest success has come however has been the fact that I’m enjoying what I’m eating, and that’s thanks to variety. With my lunch for example, I’ve swapped crisps and a chocolate bar for vegetables, but there’s been a variety which has kept things interesting. Some days it will be carrots, other days celery, other days cucumbers, other days peppers. The variety is a lot bigger than simply picking a different flavour of crisps, and that variety is not only more interesting for the taste buds, it is contributing towards a healthier diet too.

Not everything is sustainable, but nor would I want it to be. My weight loss will eventually slow and the plateau, especially given most of the weight I’ve lost so far was the weight I put on in December. I’ve also got an idea from previous experience what weight is too light to be beneficial to my health or athletic performance, so even if the weight loss wasn’t slowing, I’d try to make it plateau before I reached that point.

The number of days I’ve trained also isn’t sustainable, but it was never supposed to be. January was about kick-starting my fitness. I wanted to lose enough weight to make training easier, and I wanted to build enough of a fitness base to be able to then start building towards more specific goals. With that now in place, I can start to look towards longer weekend runs or more intensive interval sessions, the type of sessions which demand extra rest. I only had one rest day in the whole of January, but in February I’m planning for one rest day per week as a minimum.