Starting winter

 With the season now over and a couple weeks off towards the end of September after some baseline power testing, I am now in the full swing of things in terms of winter training. The weather, always something to consider in Winter, has been alright so far meaning that I have been able to head out on the road to do my long rides and intervals over this month which is something that I have found really fun. On the rest of the days of the week that I’m not riding outside, except for rest and recovery days, I use the indoor trainer to get my specific intervals done as a lot of riders also do over the Winter months.

     

       Over this past month, a gradual build up in hours and intensities of intervals has been going on, especially over the final week of September so that I didn’t push myself too much too soon, with a long Winter ahead. For about a month now however, my training has been consistent and laying a good base for next season and beyond. The main focus of this first month of training has been endurance and strength building as then the more intense work can be worked on top of this closer to the season so that I am race ready. Over the next month going in to December however I am going to start my local track league again on Tuesday nights at Manchester velodrome to get some high intensity back in to my programme after building up the start of a strong base over October. Next week will be my first return to the boards since January so it should be good to get back and give it a bash.

    

    

    My main event that took place this month was my new team for 2019, HMT Cycling Team, had their first training weekend in my home city of Leeds a couple weeks back. Not all of us riders were present, but 5 of the 7 were and it was a really great weekend with some good mates and some hard intervals in there also. We were based in Garforth for this weekend so the trip across Leeds wasn’t long at all, and we all got stuck in to the weekend with a strength and conditioning assessment and session, and also a nutritional assessment on the Saturday. All of these assessments and sessions were very useful, with the S&C session being very hard but good at the same time. We then in the afternoon had a team trip to the cinema which was also a good time. On the Sunday we went for a 3 hour steady ride on some flat roads around Yorkshire, before a hard block of chain gang for around half an hour at the end of it. The ride was really good and so was the weekend as a whole, spending it with some good mates and having some fun on and off the bike.

      

     Nothing much is planned over November except for the second team training camp in the middle of the month, but this time down in Cardiff to use the Welsh institute of sport facilities which again should be good. Hopefully the weather stays nice for a bit more of Winter to make the long rides less grim!