Control, Cadence, Cuisine and Celebration

Last weekend's Sunday morning ride was all about the 4 Cs: control, cadence, cuisine and celebration.

Coach Dave had set me a 3 hour ride to do and the focus is now on simulating and practising actual race conditions.  And this is where the Cs came in...

Control was all about maintaining a steady pace.  I needed to find a pace that I will be able to maintain for 6 hours without trashing my legs or the rest of the body.  I've traditionally focused on maintaining a particular speed and, in particular, look to aim for a pace as close as possible to 30km/hr.  What happens, though, is that if you are on a slight slope, or if you hit a head wind, then you tend to trash yourself while you focus on maintaining your desired speed.  So I have to get out of that habit and ignore my speed. 

Dave suggested that a better measure would be maintaining a consistent heart rate range.  If I work out the heart rate range where I'm comfortable at then I'll be able to maintain that consistent effort all day and then come off the bike still in good enough shape to run.  I'm thinking at the moment that the optimal range for me is about 145-147 beats per minute, so the first focus of Sunday's ride was a controlled ride, keeping my heartrate in that "green" zone.

The cadence aspect had a similar goal.  Again, my habit has been to have a low cadence and this just loads up the legs too much.  So, again, the instruction was to forget about what speed I'm doing and focus on maintaining a light, high cadence of around 95 rpm.

Cuisine sounds like some sort of Michelin 3 star meal, but in reality this is simply nutrition on the bike!  (Just trying to keep to the "C" theme!) One of the big mistakes you can make in ironman is not eating enough or eating something that you haven't tried during training.  These long solo bike rides, then, also provide the opportunity to practice your nutrition on the bike.  It's important to trial different foods and make sure they agree with you and to get into the habit of knowing how much and how frequently to eat in order to maintain optimum performance on the bike.

My favourite cuisine on the bike has been One Square Meals (chopped into bite sized cubes), Gu Chomps and cheese and marmite sandwiches.  The One Square Meals are a Christchurch product (bonus to be supporting a local business!) and are easily cut up and eaten on the bike.  The Gu Chomps are like oversized wine gums, but chewier and stickier. 



And the cheese and marmite sandwich?  I came across that idea last year from another blog and while it sounds like an odd thing to have, it provides a great alternative to all the sweet stuff you usually end up having.  It is made with white sandwich bread, crusts cut off and cut into four bite sized squares.  I don't know what it is about it but I always feel noticeably better after I've had a couple of bites of the sandwich.

And then there's the liquid cuisine...  I have two bottles on the bike - a Profile Design aero bottle that sits between the aero bars right in front of me and one below in a cage on the frame.  The aero bottle has a straw sticking out of it so I can slurp up some water without getting off the aero bars.  In the bottom bottle I put some hydration fluid so I get some extra sustenance rather than just water.  The first couple of times I tried it I used Powerade and that seemed to work really well.  What I'm doing now, though, is moving to the isotonic sports mix that will be provided at the support stations in Ironman, and that is Horley's Replace.  Again, the key is to get used to it so that when you get given it on the course it doesn't upset the intestines...!

So I had control, cadence and cuisine all sorted out and headed out early Sunday morning for a solo jaunt around the Sefton block.  It was a gorgeous day - sunny, virtually no wind and not too much traffic.  As I headed back into town the fourth C came into play....celebration.

Andi is due to celebrate a significant birthday soon and so a social coffee ride was organised for the bike crew and I duly met up with them and we all headed out to sumner, via South Brighton, for a social coffee and muffin.

By the time I got back home I was pretty stuffed but very happy with the effort.  My solo ride, focusing on control, cadence and cuisine had produced the following stats:

Time: 2 hours 44 minutes
Distance: 77.4 km
Av cadence: 82 rpm
Av heartrate: 148 bpm
Av speed: 28.3 km/h

The coffee ride was another 55 km so my total distance for the day was 132km.  Fab ride and the lazy-boy nap was well deserved....and enjoyed!

My favourite spot after a big ride!