-The thing with a training plan
is that it's not always straightforward.
You don't always make regular improvements
and sometimes you need to work harder for them than others.
Plus, regardless of the amount of effort you put in,
it doesn't always go quite as you'd hoped.
My race is over.
Now, I trust you're fairing better,
but on this week's four weeks of fitness isolation challenge update,
or frankly, now I'm having a tough time with it.
That took so much more effort and the result suggested.
To be honest, I'm struggling a little bit this morning
for motivation to jump on the bike.
It's often said that the hardest bit
of training is getting out of the front door.
Now, I don't have that problem at the moment
because I don't have to get out of the front door
so perhaps it's this bit.
Sticking shoes on.
Anyway, I got to do this session.
I'm on the start line.
There's a load of people joining me.
I guess this is the inescapably good thing
about having a plan is that you go to stick to it
so I'm going to do it.
I will, honestly, definitely will.
Let's do this.
Crocky, that's not a good sign.
The guns do work.
Term rubbish fan.
Lineup rubbish fan.
I finally found my GCN towel.
I can sweat as much as I want, I can actually mop it up.
Grumbling aside, this is session five then.
We're over the midpoint.
Plenty of company this morning, which is great.
At the minute, we've got 360 on the start line,
and it's going up pretty fast, which is cool.
Just gettin in the spirit of things really.
Right, here we go.
Ready? Two, one, boom.
[music]
I don't want to moan but I do feel a little bit
like I'm pedaling squares this morning.
I just can't get comfy.
I was whooping at only 40% or something this morning.
That's not because of physical fatigue.
I had to film the GCN show yesterday we downloaded.
There's only so many [?] test team stories you can listen to,
and there are literally three in this show.
This is another Kevin Poulton's clever little sessions
where he's basically getting us to generate a little lactate
so that when we then go back and sit at sub-threshold
we're getting a lot more work done than we would do otherwise.
It's quite cool.
He's got to commit to these little sprints early on.
We've got 20 seconds to go.
I think the group's ready.
Ready, let's go.
Last block now.
That concludes two 15-minute climbs.
Low cadence with some sprints into that long.
That's a lot of hard work in a short space of time.
I've got to say I'm loving these sessions,
I really am even though mentally that was tough this morning.
We have good days and bad days.
Actually, I've now got six minutes to get ready
for my first work all the day.
GCN presenters and creators.
I'll let you into a secret, there's been some weird stuff going on.
I'm going to try and find out exactly what Hank
and Connor have been doing in their respective houses.
It sounds dodgy.
I don't use that dodgy and if it is, I don't want to know about it.
You get the gist.
Well, I'm not sure whether you could tell
but I definitely struggled yesterday morning.
Despite having actually a really good session,
I felt knackered for the rest of the day like properly knackered.
I don't think I should be riding my bike today kind of knacking.
Fortunately, I had a good night's sleep
and I've woken up feeling a lot better.
I'm not entirely sure I'm massively up for a super hard race tonight
but I think I'm going to do it anyway.
[music]
Now, one job I do need to do actually,
to the bike is investigate and re-grease the top of my headset.
That's that bit there,
because well there's a lot of you who have been pointing out
in the comments there's a lot of pretty salty water dripping on it.
I don't think it's doing it much good,
so this is going to be a gross job, but it should be quite fun.
[music]
Okay, you're ready for this? The moment of truth.
That's not so bad.
I'll give that a little re-grease, how about that?
I might replace that when lockdown ends, but still for the moment.
[music]
[?] ready to roll, sweat-proof.
It's weird how much difference a day can make.
I don't feel like it's going to put me in a box,
which is great.
I feel like I'm on top of things.
I've got to cook the kids dinner, and then I get to race,
but all set up.
Ready to roll.
That's my towel keeping the bike warm,
so it's ready to roll, then race time.
It is warm this evening, really warm,
and unfortunately, can you see that?
My washing, it's going to spoil the draft.
I did have a comment from a viewer last week
to suggest that with my sash windows,
I can open top and bottom to create some kind of airflow vortex,
so I'm going to do that.
Then last, but not least, come on, all four and a half watts.
Right, this is Yorkshire, Harrogate, to be precise.
Fun fact, I used to work in an outdoor shop
in Harrogate many years ago.
This is the first time I have Zwifted there.
I'm back at the Swedish Zwift Racing Cup,
it was mega last week.
Admittedly, I did take a bit of a pacing,
less of a pacing than the week before
where I lasted 16 minutes in the main group.
Last week I lasted 34 minutes in the main group,
so fingers crossed, that means that this week
I will just survive with the main group.
However it's not quite that simple,
although it is seven kilometres shorter this week.
There is double the amount of climbing in there,
and if it's anything like the real world and I suspect it is,
then, well, those are quite grippy little climbs.
We'll see how it goes, I'll keep my fingers crossed.
I'm still waiting on whether I've got any team support tonight,
so far Conor and James have not proven their weight.
Ollie has said that he's in a time trial instead,
which we can do that.
Not long to go now.
250 people in the group.
I'm actually feeling a little bit calmer this week,
I'm not quite sure why.
I think maybe is because I've got slightly lower expectations than before.
Yes, let's go for it.
Let's do this, yes.
Final countdown now.
20 seconds to go.
I'll tell you when I get below 500 watts.
Here we go.
[music]
Wow, it's fast again.
Only 470 watts at the minute.
Two minutes in, it's 1140 watts.
[music]
It's splitting [?] to get back on, not nearly good.
[music]
I've just been dropped from the second group.
To be fair, they're going pretty briskly.
I was doing 370 watts in the wheels,
which I can't do after that initial first lap [?]
of now I've just got to sit in and do what I can for the next 10k.
I've actually been caught by a bit of a bunch.
I can't hold any wheels I'll admit.
They're going to come straight past.
Here they come.
I'll try and keep up.
[music]
Finally manged to stick with the group.
Man, these guys are still racing.
460 watts to get this little ramp.
That took so much more effort than the result suggested.
Trying to hang with the sharp end made me go massively
into the red and then after that,
obviously, you just can't even hold threshold.
It's not the best week of all time, this.
On the positive side, I can still say goodnight to the kids
and I don't have to drive home from some random
motor racing circuits/disused airfield, and it's definitely done me some good
in one way shape or form.
Right, that's me done for the night.
Just the cleanup operation.
[music]
I thought I'd do a little bit of a debrief.
I didn't want to leave you on a downer
so I had a quick look at my data and actually looking at the power curve,
the best power I've set for a certain period of time,
there's actually some PB's on there today.
PB's not just for the last few weeks
but for the whole of this year which is cool.
I don't feel quite so demoralized,
I think it is just actually quite a hard race for me at the moment.
I think it was the best power I've done
between about 10 minutes and about 25 minutes
which is definitely something to be pleased about because,
obviously, the Epic KOM time should be around 19 and half minutes, hopefully.
The fact that I've set a PB for that duration is a positive thing.
That is good.
I'm pleased, actually.
I do feel pretty tired, though.
I'm not going to lie, definitely an easy day tomorrow
and then I'll get that session done on Friday.
By the time you watch this, I'll have done it.
Then I'm probably going to try and have an easy weekend,
if I'm honest, and then get to last quality training sessions done
in the final week and another race, which I'm going to absolutely smash.
I'll also, all being well, have a secret weapon up my sleeve.
Oh, yes, bringing out the big guns, almost literally.
Now, I'd love to know how you're getting on
with the Four Weeks of Fitness
so do make sure you stick it in the comments down below.
It's been great.
All the support, everyone being out on the Virtual Road joining me
for group workouts and stuff, it's wicked fun.
Actually, this week it's been super important as well
for my morale to have everyone out there on the road as well.
Thank you very much for taking part too.
Remember, we've got Tuesday and Friday mornings at 8:00 AM
for the final week of Four Weeks of Fitness,
before then freshening up and smashing our PB's of the Epic KOM.
We're nearly there.