Here comes some form??????

Since my last post, as the Euro pros say, "I have good sensations" in my legs. Pretty happy with last Sunday's training on the velodrome. We had warm conditions, which is a bit of a contrast to the usually cool mornings when I've been doing most of my training on the track, so that certainly would have helped my speed on the day.

After a 15min warm up, I rode 3 x Flying 1km reps with long 15+min recoveries, followed by 2 x Flying 500m and a Standing Start 500m.

Haven't been using my Power Tap on the track bike, just hand timing everything. Because I'm often on my own on the track in the mornings, I've taped a stop watch to my aero extensions to record each interval. Usually works OK ......except when I don't press hard enough or accidentally double press the buttons and get a time of 0.16sec for a kilometer :0

So after buggering up the timing of my first two reps, I saw a 1min 15sec for the third kilometer.
Now that's not going to make anyone nervous, but it's about as good as I ever see in training, so I'm happy, especially as I know the first two were definitely faster. At least according to the speeds I was carrying throughout each of them.

My 500's were 35.0 and 34.7, but the most satisfying was my final effort of the day, my Standing Start 500m, in which I went through first lap in 22.3 and the 500m in 40.3 ...both PB's for me. All the work was done on my expected race gearing of 52/15, and it's the first day I've had where I felt like I was finally getting on top of that gear. Probably the warmer conditions were responsible, but it still left me feeling much more content.

On Monday I rode a very easy 90min but included 5 x Standing Starts of about 10 seconds duration. Saw two new PB's here.....1034watts Peak Power, and 971watts Peak 5 second power.
Again, not earth shattering, but they are PB's nonetheless, and at around 65kg, they're edging closer to my pre-preparation targets.

Back on the track today (Tuesday) for 2 x Standing Start 1 km, 1 x SS 750m and one SS 500m.
I planned 3 x 1 km but speed was dropping away dramatically on the second kilometer, so I shortened up the next reps so I could sustain as close to race pace as possible.

Because I couldn't time the start lap, I just recorded the subsequent laps for each rep and got 57.4 for the last 750m of the first rep, 58.5 for the second, 38.4 for the final 500m of the SS 750 and 18.9 for the last lap of the SS 500m. A bit off the pace, but sort of ok after the last two days.

While at the track today, I dropped in to the Cycling Australia offices and picked up my International license and my Australian Team skinsuit which I'm entitled to wear after making the podium at the National Championships in April. Gotta say I feel quite proud to have the opportunity to wear the Aussie colours in competition.

Mike