Introduction

Firstly id better introduce myself, my name is Simon. Ive been cycling around 3 years and it all started due to me becoming a couch potatoe after many failed years trying to be a footballer. Im 29 (30 feb) but at the age of 20 I gave up football and all forms of exercise apart from walking to the local and back. My weight shot up to 17stone and my fitness was non existant. Along came cycling and my first outing was on a halfords special full mtb machine, little did I realise the bike weighed more than me and the first hill I went up (cannock chase) I nearly passed out and thought id be getting a lift back on a air ambulance. Ive come a long way since then, ive taken up road cycling helped by my local club (shire oak leisure riders) and im now training for a season of road racing. My weight has dropped to 81kg and my fitness is good (I think). Mid 2017 I had a go at a british cycling go-race at my local circuit curborough. I came a respectable 2nd......... out of 5 guys. It was a good experience but it made me want to try 4th cat racing. Ive been trawling through the internet at the stories about people who have written blogs about there racing and found them thrilling so I thought id have a bash. So here goes!
WEEK 1 3rd Jan 2017
What im going to try and do is a weekly blog maybe fortnightly if theres not a lot happened.
This week ive signed up to a 8week training set up the local bike shop are doing (run&ride).
Its a 1 hour turbo session using some top of the range direct drive trainers. I was on a tacx flux this week to do a short f.t.p. workout. If you dont know what an f.t.p test is then ill try to explain it but im no expert. Its a 20min block where you ride until you turn inside out, we used the zwift programme (I use zwift for all my indoor training), it then gives you a number which is your f.t.p. I use this number to see if after 5 weeks if there is any improvements. So after 5 weeks you retest to see if there is any improvement. First session didnt go to plan ive had a cold over the last few days and it complety drained me and with 6 minutes left I had to sit up. Devastating id spent 14min full blast but my lungs just wasnt there so I had to spin out the last 6 minutes and my ftp was recorded as 257w. Its not bad but should of been better. I dont have a power meter at home so these turbo nights are the only way to track my power. Ill be jumping on zwift friday on my home trainer, its a cheap elite from halfords but as long as it gets the heart rate going it should help my training. I dont have mega money so im unable to hire a coach so ill be using the workouts on zwift so ill try to capture some screen grabs so you can see some pics. Ive also booked myself two races at the woolly mamil series in stourport, 20th Jan and 3rd Feb I think. Hopefully they will be confirmed by the organiser and I can report back on how I get on. Its a cat 4 only race and people keep telling me it will be a crash fest, we will see. For the rest of this week, most of my riding will be on zwift as im on call at work and it makes it hard to get out on bike.
Next week ill talk about the bike im using and the cost of racing and if you have any questions drop them on the comments and ill try to answer them as best of I can.
Ill leave you with a link to my strava and give me a follow on twitter.
STRAVA  my strava account
Oh and heres a before and after of me quite funny.