Featured Post

Live tracking: see how I am doing it!

1,330 kms | 36 K vertical meters Tomorrow, August 10, start my sport challenge of the year. You can read all the details about it here .  Fo...

FIRST THOUSAND KILOMETERS



Thursday last week I've reached the 1.000 kilometers riden mark. It is always a nice milestone to check how the training is going and if needs a bit more push or not. I'm glad to see that comparing to last year I've reach this mark 4 weeks in advance. A lot of riding done in March.


Quinta-feira da semana passada eu atingi a marca dos 1.000 quilômetros treinados. É sempre uma marca importante para checar como o treino está indo e se necessita mais pressão ou está indo bem. Estou contente em ver que comparando com o ano passado, eu estou adiantado 4 semanas. Resultado de um treino bem forte em Março.





DISTANCES - As you can see from the distance graph I've done more or less the same in January and February in 2011 and 2012. This year January was stronger and February had less riding due to the rain. Last year my January rides were all in Brazil and you can see the results in the Altitude graph: more then 1.4 kms climbed (more of that later). March was a very good month training. Close to 500 kilometers riden in several hours on the road and on the Mountain bike as well. That adds up to the endurance. April was a bit less riding then last because I was sick during the long weekend of easter, where I was expecting at least 2 mid lenght rides. But we will still add around 150 kms before Sunday 29th (with a good ride in the Limburgse Ardennes = climbs after climbs). Looking at the training schedule, I believe I will finish the training year close to the 3.000 kms riden, a full 1.000 more then 2011.


ALTITUDE - Talking about climbs, the trend is going to be difficult to keep. Last year was very much a climbing training year. It was lots of kilometers uphill. Staring in the north of Brazil during January vacation. Also I've done much more rides towards the hills in Holland in February, while this year it stayed more in the flat areas around my house. Looking at March and April I'm a bit surprised. At the end of March last year I went to Brazil again for 3 months and the training there was rolling hills all the time. So I expected April to be much stronger then this year. Reality is, even in Holland, if you chose well and do hill repeats, you can reach the same altitude. The difference, that the graphs don't show, is the intensity of the climbs. While in Holland they don't go above 10%, in Brazil they are all above 8% and going regularly to 13 and 18%. And this year might even bit the Brazil training in altitude again, as a long weekend in the French Alpes in Mid May will bring thousand of kilometers immediatelly. Especially if we do the climbs we are planning: Glandon, Colombiere, Alpe D'Huez and D'Ornon!!!


TIME AND RIDES - Looking the the time and number of rides, no suprises there. January and March are very much aligned with a big difference in traininig in march. Again, those graphs show the amount of time in the bike riding. Not the overall time I've put in the gym in January and February. This year, the amount of hours in the gym was considerable higher as I didn't go to the winter vacation to Brazil but stayed in Holland.  So far, I've already put 52 hours of training in the gym, what counts for more then 30 thousands kcalories. This is already 20% then the whole gym training last year. All heading to a very good year.







No comments:

Post a Comment