Weekending 03 June 07

Monday: Restday
Tuesday: Work followed by the time trial starting at Brimstage. 24 minutes 22 seconds gives me something to aim for next week.
Wednesday: Lifestyle and Weight management Course followup class followed by at trip to the gym. Ran the proverbial mile in 9 minutes @ 11.1 km/hr, weights.
Thursday:  Louises spinning class at Europa pools. Now I’m ramping up things for next Tuesdays TimeTrial. It was hot tonight as it has been for the last three weeks but this was something else sweat was pouring out of me. Two of the girls had already done Louise,s 5:30 class so this was their second and they have only been doing them a couple of weeks, respect is due. Anyway I tried not to let up for a second on this class, kept resistance or cadence  up when I could have slacked off.
Anyway 825 Calories burnt and that was when I turned the HRM off. Max was 179 BPM and I’m looking to see 150 BPM as a working average for a session. Hovering just seems to kill my knees and I no like it. Ok it stresses the class out, me included but I can’t see the benefit of it. Now I don’t do any leg presses anymore it’s just a case of getting out the saddle on a hill. I use my body weight to my advantage. There used to be a time when I would push an incredibly high load but not so much now. I’d rather increase my cadence than have the machine stall and have to back off the resistance a few turns.
You’d swear I’d been under a shower wearing my kit.
Friday: Steve Cummings Training ride by the looks of it.
Steve Cummings Training ride it was, I’m having a ball New personal best of 18.2 mph Average. 3:52 for 70.47 miles Average heartrate 139 BPM Max 173 and 5014 calories burnt. Bumped into 3 chaps at Delamere Station Cafe, we were all on carbon fibre bikes. Spent a good 1 1/2 hours chatting about various things including how many calories you burn up on a ride. There is a diversion by Cotebrook that I choose to ignor but ended up retracing my path. The road is totally impassable. I rode this ride by Doing a Course and not Navigating a Route. It is a track of my last ride and the virtual partner comes into play. Somewhere around Waverton I can see I am behind schedule so I up my pace a bit, slowly clawing it back and then I am in front and I know I’m going to set a good time. A great day, on my own to my own devices, traffic free. Took a couple of pictures with the new camera, hopefully the quality of the pictures will improve.

Sheila,s spinning class. No heartrate monitor on as I don’t want to frighten myself. This is another hot class and bearing in mind that I’d just ridden 70 miles I’m trying to take things easy. I still go through 750ml of water. Class is full. I was glad of a shower at the end of it, The Discovery Channel kit was soaking you’d think I was wearing it in the shower. Another great day, just me living the dream.

Saturday: Change of plan, maybe early morning ride. Cash machines spat out my card so I was ridding to the Eureka with just enough money for a breakfast and some tea. Before that I bumped into Danny in Willaston. We hadn’t seen each other since I left Octel 8 years ago and a lot has changed. We served our apprenticeships together in 1975 spent over an hour catching up on things. Eureka Cafe for a late breakfast, Pinarello Kev was there, Kev that I rode out to the Ice cream farm was there too. Weightloss was one of the subjects covered. My weights been fairly static for the last few months @ 82 kilos. Rode back with Carroline and her brother through Puddington, Ness and Neston to the Chester High Road then it was up through Heswall to see my mum and dad (yes I do have parents). It was then back home to see the Giro on Eurosport. Then out to buy some clothes now my size has stabilised.  Primark and Tesco getting hit this time. I used to have big problems with clothes, just getting anything that fitted was hard work when your past a 44 inch waist size.

I’ve got a beef with Tesco, they have dropped my favorite pizza (these days) It was a Tesco Finest Buffalo Mozzarella Cheese and pesto with sun dried tomatoes on a Tuscan base. It was perfect for me, less than 750 cals, the right food group composition. The right size, as I ate the whole thing even though the food label quoted  the portion sizes for 1/2 the pizza.
It has been replaced by something similar but smaller in size, that means less calories and it still a good product but it’s not the one I favoured.
The healthy living option that I used to eat would taste like cardboard if it was overcooked for a minute as the base was that thin. They seem to cut down on the cheese to lower the calorie count and the fat content. Not a bad thing, but when put alongside pepparami and cheese monster pizza,s for less money it’s no wonder most of us have a weight problem. Stuff like this should be for treats only and not part of your diet. On that point, I’ll  expand the diet section and do a few more posts. I’m no expert but I’ll post what has worked for me. I won’t reccomend anything but there are certain things I won’t entertain like CRISPS . More later when I can think of how to structure the thing so as not to cause too much offence to those that need help.
Sunday: No ride up till now. Start back on my old shift pattern Monday so the routine is going to change. The commitment doesn’t.
Ride out to the Eureka for breakfast, my second of the week.Rode home via the missing link, plenty riding  out in that direction, plenty of women runners on route 56 for some reason. This is Race for Life  Sunday and is one of the highlights  of some peoples year. The rain held off for them and me.