Christmas training

As usual I've gone into Christmas week with an eye on the club's New Years Day '10'. Also as usual, the travelling and generally trying to be sociable, has disrupted things along with not sleeping too well. The NYD '10' was one of the events that I set in Athletica.ai training plan as a target event, and it'll be the first real test of my fitness. I am still funneling workouts into TrainerRoad, and my AI estimated FTP has jumped a whapping 2W to 251W since I started with Athletica.ai. That might reflect better progress than it seems since having an increasing FTP in one's mid-60s could be rather good.

In other news, I added a second A race to my schedule, the Duo Normand, reinstated to the calendar for the first time since Covid did away with the 2020 edition. At least this event is on a Sunday and can be properly entered in the Athletica.ai calemdar, unlike events not on a weekend (almost all of the North Bucks Club events are on Wednesdays). This is actually pretty poor feature of Athletica.ai, but I suppose only a few mid-week events are likely to be key events in my season.

The CTT should make it's calendar available quite soon, and I'll probably identify some open time trials to add to the schedule. I do know that the Port Talbot Wheelers 2-up '25' is on the 9th March in 2025, and is back on the 'cheaty course' which includes the massive descent of the Neath Valley, without having to race back up the hill. I can remember some years ago belting down that hill on my old Cougar steel TT bike in a 57x12 gear at 120+rpm with hailstones bouncing off my aero helmet. It can be rather alarming in a stiff cross wind, especially in a 2-up. Here's a picture of Team Grumpy in last year's event. We finished quite far down the field as a consequence of my rear wheel puncture.