Turbo-torture

Training is difficult at the moment with snow outside and temperatures have been as low as -14 centigrade round here so the dynamic duo need a few motivational quotes to inspire them. Try these for size, in the unlikely event that anyone is reading this blog please send in better ones if you have them.
 
Bradley Wiggins said, "Mental toughness is not something you can train at, it comes with experience. I have got better at it over the years but you seriously need it for the Tour. The length of it is mind blowing, I mean, if you look at it as a whole before you start - you will just give up"

How about this one from Bernard Hinault who won the real Tour de France five times.  "An amateur should think long and hard before attempting one of these stages, 2 would probably necessitate a visit to a doctor, 3 would require a psychiatrist - any more and you should be checking that person has written a will"

Unbelievable! Matt really has started training with over 5 months still to go …. After doing Lands end to John O’Groats with about 2 weeks preparation, spent mainly in a bike shop he actually got on the turbotrainer for the second time  in a very cold and untidy garage today (see picture). The motivation stuff has worked ….. for him. Nick is clearly having second thoughts but anyway you definitely would not want to see a picture of him on the turbotrainer!

 

 

The first session - the worst so far!

We've started. Between Christmas and New Year Nick and Matt both did a turbo session. One-quarter of a fully fledged plan has emerged. Over the next 2 months we are going to aim at getting in plenty of winter miles by doing three, two-hour training sessions every week! The intensity should aim to raise our heart rate to 70% of the predicted maximum heart rate (this is intended to improve our cardiovascular fitness and to improve our endurance by encouraging our muscles to use fat as a substrate rather than glucose). Once a week we will do a power training session in the highest seven gears on the bike, we will rest between each transition, initially each week we will increase the duration of both the pedaling and the rests, later we will decrease the rest periods, eventually, (when we are really strong) eliminating rests completely.

At some stage we expect to spend couple of months doing altitude training with Bradley Wiggins in Tenerife but we have not had the invitation or an offer of sponsorship from Sky yet!  Meanwhile, surprisingly there is such a lot of stuff to do and to organise, as well as all this the training. We need to find time to; select our equipment and test it, get hold of some soft bike bags for the bikes and then arrange transport for them to the start. I guess we will also need some form of insurance for us and for the bikes and we will need to get ourselves to the start too. It doesn't end there either, we need to get cracking finding more sponsors and to keep them informed with our blog.

No panic ...