Rest Day - 30-10-17

After waking up and not being able to walk I have decided to take the day off to rest up my legs.

I has to use a load of Voltarol cream this morning after my show just to walk the 5 minutes into work!

I am going to buy some ibuprofen in a bit and start taking it for the next couple of days to get rid of the Doms faster as tomorrow is going to be even worse than today if I don't!!!

Bit of a pain but the good thing is that the Basketball is building my lege up which will help with the BMX anyway so I am kind of cross-training which is good and the muscle built doing basketball will all be fast twitch so it will all help racing.

I am going to leave sprints until next week now so that my legs can recover from the shock of Basketball. Also I have a basketball match on Wednesday night that I want to be ready for.

This week I am going to focus on Manuals and bunny hops as I should be OK to do this even with sore legs.

Busy day

Had a really busy day today. Got up early and went to Bath track and played on the 3rd and 4th straights as they are being rebuilt Tomorrow so wanted to ride them as they are before they are changed. I am sure that they will be changed for the better but it is sad that they are changing as I have been riding them pretty much every day for the last year and a half.

This evening I played basketball for an hour and a half which was good but my legs are hanging now 😂

I have just had to put some Voltarol cream on to take some of the pain away so that I can sleep tonight.

I am going to sleep in tomorrow morning and rest up and then do sprints tomorrow night instead as I don't think sprints would be very productive tomorrow morning.

My son is going to do the sprints with me so that will be more fun than doing them on my own.

We will also do some manuals and bunny hop training too after the sprints.

Gate Broke - 28/10/17

Went to gates in Bath today but the gate Broke before anyone could get any gates so I did a few pump laps and a few first straights and then went home as we were going out in the afternoon.

Will go to the track tomorrow morning and do some laps to make up for the lack of training g today.

Sprint Training

I have been looking online and found this article about box sprint training:

https://bmxtalk.com/news/get-box-sprints.html

It basically says to do 2 sets of 5 sprints with 2-3 minutes rest between reps and 10 minutes between sets and a length of 12 peddles. They say to do this 2-3 times a week.

I am going to try and start doing this tomorrow to see how it goes and then start for real on Monday night. I can use the space in between reps and sets to practice Manuals as well.

We have an office block behind our house that has a flat car park that is empty at night so I will use this as it means that there is no traffic and there is also undercover areas for when it is really raining.

Tomorrow I am planning to go to Bristol Track to do laps so I can do the sprints at the track.

I also found another article on the same site about endurance training:

https://bmxtalk.com/news/thurs-training-tips-pedals-2-medals.html

This article says that you should take 2 days and do 1/4 mile sprints which is basically sprinting as hard as you can for 400m then take 5-7 minutes rest while peddling in a sitting position and repeat until you can't do any more. He says to expect to only be able to do 2 or 3 at first and to be prepared to throw up which is a good sign that you are working hard.

These will be perfect to do in the mornings when I can go to the 2 tunnels and sprint through the tunnels a few times before work. I am going to try and do these sprints on Tuesday and Thursdays to see if I can get some stamina back.

These sprints will also help me to shift all of the extra weight that I am carrying really quickly. Fitness has been my weakness for most of the season until maybe the last couple of races where I was actually fit enough to race the whole length of the track so it would be good to start next season fit enough to race the whole track at full speed.

I am now planning to do the following:

Monday - Box Sprints
Tuesdays - 400m Sprints
Wednesdays - Downhill Sprints
Thursdays - 400m Sprints
Fridays - Box Sprints
Saturdays - Gates
Sundays - Track Session

On top of the Sprints I need to work my manuals and bunny hops as well as track skills such as pumping, manuals and jumping.

When I am working Nights I will do the following track training:

Mondays - 5 pump laps followed by 6 full speed laps with 3 minutes rest.
Tuesdays - 10 pump laps followed by Jumping and manual practice.
Wednesdays - 5 pump laps followed by 6 full speed laps with 3 minutes rest.
Thursdays - 10 pump laps followed by Jumping and manual practice.
Fridays - Rest
Saturdays - Gates
Sunday - Track Session or Bristol Winter Series.

When I am working Days I want to try and do:

Tuesdays - Gates at Burnham
Thursdays - Gates at Burnham
Saturdays - Gates Bath
Sundays - Track Session or Bristol Winter Series.

While I am at the Bristol track tomorrow I am going to time a couple of full laps so that I can get a baseline measurement ready to log the progress of my training over the next couple of months to see by how much I improve. Hopefully this will help me to stay motivated over the winter to keep focussed on my training so that I get maximum gains before the start of next season.

One More Rest Day - 26/10/17

Took one more rest day before I start training again for the weekend.

The rest has meant that my ribs are feeling good now so hopefully I can start pushing a little more to try and get some sort of fitness back for next months race.

This weekend I am going to focus on skills still and then next week I want to start doing circuits and manual training in the mornings before I go to work and then sprints in the evenings as it will be too dark in the evenings now to ride on the track after work. The other option is to go to the track in my lunch time to get the laps in still. Also next week I am going to try and go to Burnham on Tuesday and Thursday nights to get laps in on the track there and do gates as well.

Another Rest Day - 25/10/17.

Had another rest day today as I was still feeling sick.

I did get up and wash my bikes but that was all I did all day today.

Rest Day and Ill - 24/10/17

Had to take a rest day today as my left knee was sore and I was really tired. As the day wore on my stomach felt bad and I got Diarrhoea so I am glad that I didn't ride today.

I will see how I feel in the morning and make a decision if I take tomorrow off as well or not.

Matt Eaton Half Term Training - 23/10/17

Had training this afternoon with the Bath club coach Matt Eaton.

I used my Cruiser for most of the training and I found that I am really bad out of the gate on flats now :-) I kept lifting my feet off of the peddles all of the time!!!

It was a really good session and I have learnt that I really need to work on my manuals so I am going to spend a month focusing on manuals and then once I am better at them I will start with sprints and the other skills. We did a really good practice where we went half speed and tryed to manual the long tabletop on the 3rd straight and I was really really bad at it even though I can manual it at full speed. This showed that my technique is really off. For the rest of this week I am going to to pump laps followed by lots and lots of manual training on this tabletop followed by flat manuals in the carpark before I go home.

I am going to put flats on my 20" to use it to practice on as I am feeling more comfortable on it than the cruiser at the moment. I am going to take the Yess Cruiser to my parents house again tomorrow as I am not going to use it until next year.

This will also give me time to heal my ribs as they are obviously not totally healed yet before I start going hard with the sprints to get faster again.

Bristol Winter Series round one. 22/10/17

Went to Bristol track today to race in the first round of the Bristol Winter series.

Started off OK and I did a few laps to warm up then did gates. This is where it went wrong. I hit the gate on the first gate and went over the bars. Luckily all I did was graze my knee. I did 4 more gates at hit the gate every time!!!

In my first moto I hit the gate again but managed to stay on and finished second although my ribs were sore and I was knackered. The second moto I managed to gate well and won the race although I really hurt my ribs and was really tired and decided to call it a day so that I didn't agitate my ribs any more.

I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't race all the races as there were 2 national riders racing today and I finished just behind one hitting the gate in my first moto and I beat the other in my second moto. All made better by the fact that I was riding my 20" that I had only ridden for 3 days before racing.

I am resting up now as I have training tomorrow as long as my ribs are better.

In hind site it may have been better to have not raced today but you live and learn.

Ryan Stack training. 21/10/17

Went to Bath track this afternoon and did 3/4 of the Ryan Stack training before my ribs started to hurt and I had to stop riding before I hurt myself again.

I did the training on my 20" which is feeling really good and I can't wait to race it tomorrow. The new cranks, bars bottom bracket, stem and tyres have made the bike ride even better than it did before. It's a shame that it was so windy so it limited what we could do I the training.

I have just washed down the bike ready to race tomorrow a day I will put on the plate ready to race later today.

I am still deciding if I will race 30+ or f1 but at the moment I am leaning towards 30+ as my fitness is so bad.

Rest Day - 20/10/17

I a going to rest today as I have a really busy weekend of riding ahead and I woke up a bit sore so figured it was better to rest today than ruin the weekend.

Night time training 19/10/17

Got up really early and went to Bristol track with the 20" Yess. It was too dark to ride when I got there so I had to wait a bit before starting to ride.

After about 30 minutes it was light enough to do pump laps to warm up although depth perception was a bit iffy for the first couple as it was still a little dark.

I did 5 pump laps in total to warm up the  I did 5 full speed last straights followed by 5 full speed 1st and second straights, 5 4th straights and then 3 full speed 4th and last straights to finish.

This training took me just over 2 hours with brakes. I am getting stronger and fitter every time I ride but I am still not sure that I will be able to do a full lap by Sunday!

Rest Day 18/10/17

Decided to have a rest day today as I have a busy weekend of riding ahead.

Tomorrow I am off so I am going to Bristol track early to get some full laps in and then in the afternoon/evening I am going to Burnham to do gates.

Friday I am going to Bristol again to do laps in the morning and then maybe again in the afternoon or I may go to another track in the afternoon.

Saturday I have gates at Bath and then Ryan Stack Training in the afternoon.

Sunday I have the first Winter Series Races at Bristol.

Monday I have training at Bath with Matt Eaton and then I will probably rest on Tuesday and then start training again on Wednesday.

First Straights - 17/10/17

Didn't get much sleep last night thanks to national rail doing maintenance on the tracks near our house from 1am until about 5am.

I still managed to get to the track after work although I was a really tired. I did 3 pump laps followed by 25 first straights. I used my clip less peddles today to get used to clipping on on the 20".

I am really loving riding the 20" yess and I am definitely going to swap over the bits from the dialled onto it. I plan to take the parts off of the dialled tomorrow night ready to take them along with the Yess to Crucial Thursday morning to be built up.

Changed up training

Had to change up my training as I was really sore this morning so I had an extra hour in bed to recover.

I then went to the track tonight after work from just after 4pm until 18:30 ish. I took my Yess type O that I picked up yesterday. I pumped the tyres up from 20psi to just over 80psi which made it much better to ride compared to yesterday.

I did 10 pump laps followed by 10 start hill and manual the first jump to practice manualling on the 20".

I then did a few more pump laps as the wind had picked up.

14/10/17 - Bristol Track Day

Got to the track at 11am and left at 14:30.

Played around playing bike for a bit and the did flat out first and second straights jumping the second jump. I have now got the first jump dialled again and was getting much more speed into the second jump which meant that I was over jumping the second a bit which was good.

Base Lines

Next week I want to get baselines of my weight and body measurements and also times for each track that train on so that I can measure my progress over the winter to see how much my body changes.

I have also bought a couple of log books to record my times in and I am looking to find a Rennan Smart Sprint to use when sprinting and practising first straights.

I have a stopwatch that attaches to the handlebar to time my laps so hopefully the timings will be pretty accurate.I have 2 log books to store the result is and I have created a google sheet to record the data and share on this blog.

Last Year I used Strava but I found that it was really inconsistent so I needed something a little more accurate. I will however use Strava to measure how far I go on my 30 minute rides as they do not have to be so accurate.

Also next week I want to compare lap times on my 2 cruisers to see which bike I am faster on so that I can make a decision on whether to sell on or not. 

Training Focus

The main focus of my training for the next 3 months is to drop weight and get into shape ready to work on my secondary focus of improving my bike skills such as Manuals, Bunny Hops, Sprinting and Jumping at the beginning of next Year.

As I have been pretty much bed ridden for the past 2 months I have put on weight to be just over 100KGs (100.2kgs on 09/10/17). I also need to work on my flexibility as my hamstrings are really tight at the moment.

The main problem that I have is that I work shift patterns so I can not get into a routing and stick to it.

I plan to loose weight and get in shape by doing body resistance exercises combined with riding my BMX. As I work shifts swapping from early (7-15:30) and lates (17:30-2:00) every week it is difficult to train consistently.

When I am on earlies it is difficult to get to the track as it is getting dark early now and will continue to get darker for the next month or so. When I am on lates I can get to the track every day so I can increase the amount of exercise that I do and work on BMX specific skills at the same time.

I plan to do a simple body weight program 5 days  during the week resting during the weekend. This will help with my conditioning and help shaping up. I will also do my stretching after the exercises.

When I am on earlies I intend to wake up at 5am and go for a 30 minute ride to get warmed up and then come back and my exercises and stretching before going to work. Then in the evening I intend to do Sprints and manual and Bunny hop practice on Monday and Fridays. I play basketball on Wednesday nights so I will take Wednesday night off from BMX. On Tuesday and Thursday night I want to start going to Burnham BMX track to do gates and track work as they are open and have flood lights.

When I am on Lates I have to do all of my training during the day so I plan to do my 30 minutes of cycling and then go to the track and do my sprints on Wednesdays and Fridays followed by Pump laps on the track. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I plan to do Full Speed laps and on Wednesdays I want to do Track skill training (Jump and Manual training on the track). On Monday's when I am working lates I like to go to Bristol at around 6am and do Full speed laps as the traffic is better and parking is much easier.

After the track sessions I plan to go home and do the exercises and stretching.

At the weekends we do gates on a Saturday and usually go somewhere to ride for a couple of hours on a Sunday as well.

The third Sunday of every month I am going to race in the Bristol Winter Series which is a great way of building up track fitness and also stamina and recovery as they fly through the races so you don't have the same amount of rest between races that you have at regional s.

I have not decided if I am going to race both 20" and Cruiser at these races but I have the opportunity to do this by racing F1 on my cruiser and 30+ on the 20". This would be really useful to get used to switching bikes ready for next season.

I want to get my weight down to below 90kg's by the start of next year so that I can start to focus more on the bike skills that I need to improve over the winter.

I need to really improve my manuals and also my jumping as these are 2 areas that are slowing me down a lot and I need to improve them to close the gap between me and the really fast guys.

My goal for next year is to Make at least one A final at regional level as the best I did last season was win the B final once.

I also plan to race both 20" and Cruiser next year so I need to drop as much weight as possible by the start of next season to help with recovery between races and conserving energy. I hope to get down to around 80kgs by the start of next season (Around the middle of March usually).

Next week I am going to start doing the 30 minutes bike ride and stretching every morning but not start the exercise program as I have the first Bristol Winter Series on Sunday the 22nd so I do not want to be too tired for the race. I also have Thursday 19th and Friday 20th off to practice at the track before the race. On these 2 days I am going to go early to the track to do full speed laps to get used to the exertion before the racing. Next Tuesday and Thursday I plan to go to Burnham to do gates as well. I am not going to so the sprints or skill sessions in the evenings as I will need to rest and get used to the 30 minutes of cycling.

I plan to Start doing the exercise program starting from the week of 23/10/17 and add the sprints and skills the week starting 30/10/17 to ease into the training a bit.

My ribs are also not 100% healed so I want to give them another couple of weeks to heal before I start doing pushups and stuff that may aggravate them.