12th May 2009 - Dunsfold Park Series #4

Specialisation - Week 16 - Block 4

06:45am - Wakeup

• 8.5 Hrs sleep
• Sleep quality 8
• Heart rate 42 / 57
• Mood 5
• Weight not measured

Felt really tired this morning, think its more stress than physical as I went to bed at 9pm last night. Yesterday evening road the masi around brighton looking for locations for doing some drawing, prob about an hour riding fixed at low effort. Had a couple of steep hills to tackle so jumped off an walked instead of standing on the pedals.

Have my first race at Dunsfold since August last year this evening. Will take it easy and just try and finish on this occassion!

07:00pm - Surrey League Dunsfold Park Series #4 - 27 Miles - 1 Hr 10 Mins

Brief report:

Definately the best race I've ridden so far strength and recovery wise. Missed out on any prime points by not catching the first group of 4V's that started with a couple minute head start. Got dropped from my group of 4ths through working too long on the front with 2 other guys trying to catch the 4V's. But what the hell, was there to train and do some work so it felt good to be actually working with other riders to catch the next group. Spent a couple of laps at 98-99% HR.

Wind was horrendous there as usual and riding on my own I struggled to recover whilst focusing on catching other riders who'd been dropped. Eventually was caught by Mick with the 2/3 cat group chasing the lead breakaway. Recovered after a lap and felt the strongest for the whole race, even able to stay in the front 4-5 of the 2/3 group doing some work. Stayed with them for the rest of the race and on the last lap put in 4 maximum efforts to get away with another Mitre rider. Felt the strongest on the bike I ever have done so far. Caught and dropped after the 3rd and longest all out effort but had enough left for a sprint across the line. Finished one lap down.

Heart rate average for the whole race was 175 or 94% of maximum. If I can recover in time am feeling good about Hove Park 4th's race on Friday.

Preparation wise, had a big feast last night over 2 sittings, followed by a big breakfast and 2 lunches today, a power bar and a nana. Drank a couple of litres of water and layed off the coffee. Before the race drank a bottle of psp energy about an hour before and ate an energy bar about 2 hours before. Was feeling like utter shite before the race, tired, stressed, lethargic. First lap soon sorted that out, getting stuck in chasing down the 4V's. Was exactly what I needed.