I have just spent 10 days in Mallorca working with the Great Britain Para-Cycling team. The primary aim was to build endurance before event specialization work on the track at Newport. Weather was lovely, nice and warm and sunny and no ice. Most of the athletes put in over 30 hours on the road with steady state riding, hill repeats, and interval work. They even had a couple of turbo trainers set up on the Hotel Patio, doing kilo repeats looked just as hard in the sunshine as it feels in my garage. Two of the guys on the squad lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were a couple of hand cyclists who were doing 6 hour rides, very humbling and inspirational but they just got on with it. Training involved two sessions a day, perhaps 3- 4 hours on the road in the morning, followed by intervals in the afternoon or efforts on the Turbo. There was no sightseeing or any of that stuff, when the athletes weren’t riding they were relaxing and refueling. That’s the great thing about training camps, being able to concentrate solely on your training. There are none of the little distractions that you get at home, so all you have to do is Train and Rest. This is actually quite hard! There were quite a few Pro Teams on the island including Team Sky; it’s quite funny seeing them all out as a team, especially when they have a little group of club cyclists hanging on the back. Actually it’s quite motivating, a bit like training on the same pitch as Tottenham Hotspur.(insert your team here) In between all the hard work I managed to fit in 10 hours myself - the Spanish were wearing wind stoppers and overshoes the Brits were in shorts a and short sleeves, cold weather is all relative. The weather was nice and sunny and the roads were quiet and what traffic there was, was pretty patient, alas it could not last.
Here’s my key bike work out for the month:
Find a 5km climb, bathed in sunlight
Warm-up- 15mins
Ride hard and controlled to the top, you need to last the distance so do not go off too hard. Time your effort
Descend to the bottom (recovery) Turn and repeat, aim for the same time-ish as first effort - Repeat
Soft Pedal home, preferably through orange groves
Shower, Sip recovery Drink, eat relax in spa before next session!
Meanwhile back in the real world, this session can be done on the turbo in the garage. Have fun!
My daughter joined the RAF last week; all the ladies have to do two weeks extra basic training, working on core stability. Apparently they find it really hard to march in their boots, due to lack of fitness. There is a high incident of pelvic injuries, so she is spending the first two weeks doing Yoga and Stretching! She has signed up as an Air Traffic Controller but will probably come out as a Pilates Instructor! What would Winston say!?
See you up the Road…
ED
Eamonn Deane is a TrainingBible UK specialist in the field of sports massage. To find out more about his work, check out his new website at
www.sportsmassagebournemouth.co.uk
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