Temptation

Posted by Matt Moran on Jan 24, 2012

I'm now 4 weeks into the London-Paris Training Plan and I'm starting to notice a few changes.  Christmas was a time of eating, sleeping, eating, sleeping, repeat ad nauseam.  This would have been fine had it only lasted a week, but I'd also done the same thing when I took off to somewhere a little warmer the week before Christmas.

So, two weeks of almost no physical activity left me feeling a little rough around the edges when it comes to riding a bike.  From a motivation point of view I like to follow plans; If I can see what is coming up then I almost look forward to the sessions, even the painful ones.

Eddie spent quite a bit of time carefully constructing the London-Paris Training Plan so I'm following it diligiently.  All of the sessions so far have been in Zone 1 and 2, fairly low level stuff at 65%-75% of maximum heart rate and as I've started to get some feeling back into my legs I'm finding it really hard to resist the temptation to look ahead to Week 8 and do one of the harder sessions.

Eddie, I know you read this, and you'll be glad to know I've stuck to the plan.

It's even harder to stick to the plan when you are out riding in a group.  Phil Jones, of www.race-pace.net, wrote a nice blog on keeping within specific training zones on group rides.  The Plan I'm following features a mix of Wattbike and outdoor rides, it fits nicely with the time of year as I can get the single outdoor session in at the weekend and do the two or three Wattbike sessions during weekday evenings.  (I experimented with a 07:30 Wattbike session and suprisingly felt OK for the rest of the day).

I've only been out on one group ride this year and purposely avoided using a heart rate monitor as I felt it would spoil the ride with friends; it's been my only deviation from the training plan but I didn't overstretch myself and enjoyed chatting with other riders.

It's back on the Wattbike again today for another Zone 2 session.

I want to go faster and harder but, for now, I'll resist the tempation.

FInd out more about using Heart Rate and Power Training Zones.