Hello everyone,
Sorry I am late by a lot this week been very busy on the bike this weekend and trying to fit everything else around it. Training for the Ireland ride. This week saw a number of really good training days and I’m going to include today in that also (Monday 19th) Hit a good ride on Tuesday up around Partington then out to Lymm, Altrincham and back into town via Oxford Road. It was my best ride of the week for consistency of speed and I felt good all the way around. Wednesday saw the Wattbike Wednesday session and a bit of banter on Twitter with @wattbike and @markoreilly before the session added some spice. A few sprint intervals later and a maximum effort where I was over 1100watts and Mark was over 10watts we called it a draw! This weekend saw both Mark O’Reilly and myself head out for three days of training for the Ireland adventure. Saturday saw a repeat of the Tuesday route and a revelation revealed itself in Mark’s great climbing (hills on a cycle) ability. Very impressed. He does weigh in at 62kg and is a fit guy so if I had put together this I should have expected him to climb well, none the less very nice. Like I have said before I am hoping to get better at this aspect of cycling over the next few months and that can only come through training and weight loss. I do enjoy climbing but not seeing people disappearing at the first sight of a hill. Saying that on Sunday we took a trip up to The Old Brickworks again in Macclesfield and it wasn’t to bad. Legs where tired and I am struggling with the gears on me bike still it does not want to go into the low gears so I’m going to have to take that to get looked at again. Not sure if it’s me mistreating the bike or just a mechanical fault. So Monday we decided to try and go some way into the route up to Blackpool using my near faultless memory and directional sense…needless to say after about an hour and a half we got lost ended up in Wigan did a big circuit and headed back to Manchester with a puncture thrown in on the way back for good measure. We didn’t just go home though and took in the Partington > Lymm > Alty > Town route again. My legs where not responding very well on the ride today and I am still not getting the water/food balance correct I don’t think. One thing I have found is that Jam butties are great for energy food!
I have had a new cycling app recommended to me. It is called Strava and it is a GPS tracker with a difference. The difference is it allows you to set up an account and try to beat others segments. A point from A to B is measured and a leaderboard produced. It obviously creates some competition. The other thing it does is allows you to see where you are improving by having an achievements section. It does use a lot of battery power nearly 100% over 5 hours.
This coming week will see a couple of gym sessions thrown in and a Wattbike Wednesday. This is so I can start to work on muscles, which are being recruited but are not the primary’s for cycling. This will help with muscle fatigue and also help to increase aerobic capacity. Also I need some variation as the bike is where I have been living for a while and a change is as good as a rest. Not that I won’t be cycling at all mind!
On the charity front I am going to sit down this week and see what day my cameraman and Mrs can come and film the great tiger cycle ride to Partington. So watch this space for some entertaining video and pics! Should hopefully be done by mid April!
You can donate here at www.charitygiving.co.uk/jamescrossland and if you are feeling really generous you can also donate to www.charitygiving.co.uk/markoreilly if you want to split a donation between the two of us that would be most awesome!
This week we raised a great £44.00 so thanks to all who donated to the cause and keep the donations coming. This leaves me on 55% of the total I need to raise and £825.00 to the good.
Cheers all and catch you this week hopefully!
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