In the past I have always trained by just doing whatever I felt like whenever, which was not necessarily the best approach. Although I am starting to learn more about training with power, I still predominantly ride on feel. But I now keep a much closer eye on my power meter and with the help of my coach started more structured training sessions this year, both on the turbo and on the road.

It took me a little while to adjust and learn to trust my coach and his approach, but I have now fully embraced more focused training on the turbo and enjoy exploring the encouraging power data with him. I also start to understand more of the general direction he is leading me in. I appreciate being held back when I want to do too much at once, yet he also sets sufficient challenges to push my boundaries. Importantly, he helps me to work my training around a full-time job, which involves overseas travel and the ebbs and flows of project deadlines. I am also happy that he understands I am not one of those cyclists keen to use part of their commutes as training. I train when I train and I commute when I commute, nice and slowly, safety first. Some may see those commuting hours (8-10 hours per week) as junk miles, but I frankly couldn’t afford to take the train every day and, providing I leave early enough, I actually quite enjoy those slow commutes on my old ALAN.

Much of the long distance cycling challenge is in the power of the mind. I already know that my mind is strong and stubborn enough, now I need to work on holding more physical power for longer, sufficient power to ultimately hold an average of 23 miles per hour for 12 hours…