London to Brighton Training: Thinking About Food and Weight: Part 3 - Food

This is going to be a short post, because I haven't actually made any huge changes to my diet.

I have, however, been trying to "eat sensibly", so my doughnut count is down from about one a week to about one a month. My muffin count is down from about 3 or 4 a week to about one a week.

I haven't taken sugar in my tea for at least 10 years, so change there!

And I still love cheese and onion sandwiches, but I probably eat a couple less a week than before.
But then again, maybe not.
I still seem to buy a LOT of cheese!

The only thing I have added is sometimes I eat a can of chickpeas, and if I am hungry I mix in a can of garden peas too.
I've been eating peas by the canfull for many years, and it is a phase that comes and goes.
I guess I was in a "low pea" phase before, but now I am not!
I guess I only eat about a can or two a week more than before.
The chickpeas I eat a lot more often, though - at least 3 or 4 cans a week, while before this year I was only eating one or two cans every six months.

So, to put it in simple terms, my biggest dietary changes have been less doughnuts and cakes, and more cans of chickpeas!

So I guess I have had a modest calorie intake reduction to support my increased exercise pattern, and the two of then together are what have contributed to my losing about 10 lbs (4.5 kg) slowly over the last 4 months.

Weight still slowly dropping - Mid-April training and weight loss update.

Three and a half months on the "exercise" diet!

This time I've started with the "raw" data.
No fancy smoothing algorithms or stuff like that.
Just the numbers that I wrote in my weight diary from our domestic scales.
Same scales, same piece of the floor, same (where possible) part of the day - first thing in the morning after my first bathroom visit, but before my morning cuppa and breakfast.
The important point is the consistency - my weight will go up and down during the day, as I sweat out fluid, go to the bathroom, eat, etc. etc., but by using my "first thing in the morning" weights I am deliberately attempting to weigh the same thing each time.

Heart Rate Training Zones again - working through a practical example

This time I thought I would illustrate the differeence between differest "systems" for calculating heart rate training zones using a practical example.
I did a run a bit more than a week ago wearing my new HRM.
It was about 5.8km (about 3.6 miles) in length, and took me about 40 minutes.

Here is the trace for speed and heart rate from Strava:

blue is "pace", red is "heart rate".

So, how does that equate to training zones?

Remember the graphic I showed you last time?
Here it is again:

Comparing "Training Zones" for Strava, the "Cyclosportive" book, and Polar

As mentioned before, I am aged 50, and have a resting heart rate (RHR) of about 48bpm (yes, I know it is a bit on the low side), and a maximum heart rate (HRmax) of 181bpm (yes, I know it is a bit on the high side for a chap of 50!), so I have a "heart rate reserve" (HRR) of 133 bpm.

This year's charity rides.

Right, that's my entry fees paid for this year's charity rides.

This year I am riding for TWO charities
1) Wheelpower - in their "Tour de Vale" on 7th June 2015
2) The BHF -in their main "London to Brighton Bike Ride" on 21st June 2015
AND doing an "extra" solo event - a 200km ride sometime this Summer (details to be confirmed!)
The 200km event may possibly be overlapped with one of the other events, or it may be a separate ride on its own - details haven't been finalised yet!

Regular readers will know that I completed last year's London to Brighton ride on a heavy 3-speed Royal Mail post bike as part of a team.
This year, I'm taking my own bike, Mermaid, which is still a heavy bike, but has 24-speeds :-)
But I'll be "going solo", so no team back-up and transport, etc. etc.
I'll probably drive to central London, then cycle the last half-a-dozen miles to the start, then do the event, get the shuttle bus back (supplementary fee applies!), then cycle half-a-dozen or so miles back to the car, and drive home.
No point trying to park too close to the start - the parking will be restricted and/or crazy, so I am better off parking a tidy distance away.

The British Heart Foundation funds research into Heart Disease, which is still Britain's biggest killer at about 73,000 deaths a year, according to the latest figures (2014), compared with, say, a well-known disease like Breast Cancer with 11,716 deaths a year (2012 figure).
In the USA, heart disease comes in at 611,105 deaths (2013), and is the leading cause of death, while, say, ALL cancers combined comes in at 585,881 deaths (also 2013 figures)

So, for sheer numbers of lives to be saved, it has to be heart research!

The other charity I am riding for is "WheelPower" - a local charity, but with a wide reach.
Some of you may be aware that I live in Aylesbury, and our local hospital is Stoke Mandeville Hospital. And what of it, you might ask?
Well, in 1943, the British government asked the eminent neurologist Ludwig Guttman to establish a National Spinal Injuries Centre at the very same Stoke Mandeville Hospital, and he organised the first "Stoke Mandeville Games" in 1948 for disabled servicemen, which later evolved into the well-known "Paralympic Games" - the "disability" counterpart to the Olympic Games.
So the "Paralympics" started at my local hospital (yes really, and it is recogised by the Olympic authorities as such, and there is a golden mailbox outside and everything!)
And WheelPower?
I will let them speak for themselves:
"At WheelPower we are passionate about sport and dedicated to providing opportunities for disabled people to live healthy active lifestyles."
WheelPower are based at the sports stadium just behind Stoke Mandeville Hospital. The sports stadium is used by a mix of able-bodied and disabled folks, and is also the starting point of the Tour de Vale cycle event I will be riding in. The riders for the cycle event will be mixed, too, with some riders using "hand crank" bikes due to spinal injury - I guess you just can't keep a good rider down!
(If anyone wants to know where to buy a hand-crank bike, there is, of course, a specialist supplier of such stuff in our town!)

So, enough of the intros.
How far am I cycling.
Well, for the Tour de Vale, I am doing the 100km (62 mile) route, which is described as "hilly".
(that hill it doubles back up after Wendover on the way to Chesham has a sign that says 13% gradient at the top of it!)
For the London to Brighton, the route is 54 miles long (about 87 km), and has the infamous Ditchling Beacon )Strava puts it at a 1.4 km climb with an average gradient of 9%!) about 5 miles from the end (Lars Petter Nordhaug, the Team Sky rider, holds the KOM, in case you fancy your chances!).

So. I'd better be good at hills!

And for the 200km ride, I'd better have a cast iron backside :-)

Sponsorship details to follow.
Update 26th April 2015:
Sponsorship details:
Tour de Vale (a 100 km local event) - sponsor me here
London to Brighton (it is what it says!) - sponsor me here
As the sponsorship is split equally between the two charities, you can use either page to sponsor me for either event (or both!)
If you prefer to do it the "old" way, and pledge first, and only pay AFTER I have actually done the event, then you can just make an informal pledge in the comments below or on the comments section of either sponsorship page.

Weightloss milestone :-)

Some of you will be following by "shift the gut" efforts this year.
It is going much better than last year when I only did "cycling" as extra exercise.
This year there is quite a bit of running mixed in too.

But the "proof of the pudding is in the eating" as they say!

So what is the milestone?

For two days running I have weighed in at UNDER 93 kgs! (that's about 205 lbs).
I haven't been that light for ... um, let me think - 15 years ago, I got down to 94kg (about 207 lbs) but no lower, before heading back up to about 97 kg. But I know I was only about 90 kg in the Summer of 1998 (I changed jobs and put a lot of weight on quite quickly!).
So I guess that is the lightest I have been in about 17 years!

Wow.

Ok, so the "weigh-ins" were only just under 93kgs (92.9kg yesterday, and 92.8kg today), but under 93kg, all the same (!)
I'm glad I took up running this year, even though my feet get a bit sore (especially the toes!), and my leg muscles were complaining like carzy for the first few weeks (this is the reality of running after not doing it for so many years!)

What do I put it down to?

Well, mostly the running.
The cycling I was doing last year - indeed I was doing more, but the lowest weight I saw was 93.9 kg, and I'm a whole kilo (about 2.2 lbs) less than that now. Of course, by the end of last year I was back up to my "usual" 97 to 100 kg (213-220 lbs), so it is not a case of "leveraging" last year's efforts - more a case of "starting again"!

I've been trying to eat a few less donuts and a few more cans of chickpeas, too, so there could be a minor calorie reduction going on as well.

But the BIG change is definitely the running!

Update (still today!)
I went out for a 10K run with my new, lighter, weight,
Part of it is my increasing fitness anyway, but having less weight to lug up the slope (it is about 14m a lap on the climb, and I do 6 laps for 10K).
Anyway, I set a new PR for 5 K and 10K, with the 10K time at 1 hr 0 mins and 26 seconds.
So I just need to knock off 26 seconds from my time to hit my 1 hr target!

Another running strategy (actually it applies to cycling as well!) is to set up a long-ish "time trial" segment, My training book suggests about 16K for cycling. I set up one for 1.6K and one for 8.3K for running (the 8.3K is 5 laps of the 1.6K!).
Over time you can see how your progress is moving by looking at a set of times for the same section.
You need to make them longer than the "itsy" little "segments" most folks set up in Strava - 300m isn't going to tell you much about general fitness, and most cycle events are paced at 50Km or more (although a few ones have shorter segments starting at about 15 Km or 10 miles). Running races for charity or pleasure are usually at least 5K or 10K, and tend to be half-marathons (21.1 Km) or full marathons (42.2 Km),
So you'll probably have to set up your own segments.

Using a "custom" Strava segment to track my training progress - this one is 1.6km long.

The 8.3 km "custom" Strava segment tells a clearer story of my improving fitness!

Update 10th April 2015:
Weighed in at a new "low" this morning - 92.6kg :-)

Thinking about running vs. cycling, jogging seems to have three main advantages over cycling:
1) it is "load bearing", which as we get older is important for a variety of reasons - cycling isn't!
2) it is quick and easy to fit in a short session
(although if you have a turbo trainer permanently set up at home and spend most of your time near it, then it is also true for the turbo trainer)
3) it is much easier to maintain a decent cardio-vascular workout while jogging than it is to do it on a bike "on the road" (although, again, a turbo trainer also allows for a consistent effort,) - "Road" cycling results in a very varied effort levelm due to other road users, road design etc, etc,

Weight loss is a calories in/calories out kind of thing.
There is no particular "automatic" advantage to jogging over cycling for weightloss, except the average intensity of the workout tends to be much higher than cycling (point 3, above), and it is quick and easy, and thus more likely to actually happen (point 2, above) - it is the actual increased calorie usage that causes the weightloss, not the method employed.

Another Lidl Bike Day!

Only three weeks after their last "Bike" event, Lidl are holding another!

Different gear, same theme.

• Helmets - a new design, judging by the picture, with a slighly more "rounded" shape
• Panniers - that yellow and black one looks IDENTICAL to the one I got from Aldi (Lidl's main German competitor) last year - it is 5 quid less than I paid for a pair, too! A number of other designs are also available, so I might try one of them! For serious shopping though, I would recommend the Pacific Outdoor pannier or the Bike Bins pannier, both of which Anna adores, and keeps attached to her bike all the time.
• Lights - look like the "no charger version" I bought last year that didn't do very well ...
• Bike baskets - aluminium and fabric designs that I might give a try - be handy for the water bottles for the Summer's upcoming charity events! If you want to do much "proper" shopping on your bike, though, I would recommend something more like this Basil basket (and yes, it does cost a good bit more)
• Mini Tool
• Mini Pump
• Gel Saddle Covers - although my advice, after me and Anna both tried them for an extended period, is to save your money and get a better saddle (!)
• Chain Cleaning Kit - although one should avoid over-enthusiastic cleaning of almost new chains, because one just strips out the grease the manufacturer put in there in the first place!
  Add up the costs of all that cleaning every week, and unless you are running a !high-end" gear set, you could just get another chain and front and rear sprockets for less ...
• Bike Lock - just a cheap "cable lock" - fine for a low-priced bike, but I wouldn't recommend it for bikes worth more than about 250 quid, and I certainly would get a better lock if I had something like a Brompton (!) Having said that, despite all the extra parts I have fitted, it is hard to value my bike at more than about 100 quid ($150) - after all, those "new" parts are no longer "new", and all have some wear on them :-)

Testing the Lidl HRM belt on a 5K circuit.

Hmm.
I tested the Lidl "Medisana" HRM belt again, this time with the LG L50 'phone.
Here is the run, as recorded by Strava.

I started off real slow, down and round and up the first "Cleveland Climb", then picked up the pace to what felt like maybe 140 bpm (I was a bit breathless, but not exactly gasping!), then round like this until the last lap, when I sprinted along the flat at the bottom, and up the hill. I actually stopped before the top of the hill, I was running that hard, just to see how high the hrm numbers would go.

Turns out I set a "Course Record" for that climb (it only goes half-way up the hill!), and knocked 9 seconds off my previous PR.

Just from the "feel", the HRM seemed to be recording 5 to 10 bpm on the "high" side. I even stopped a couple of times to do a manual "pulse" check (the "old" way with a wristwatch), and I didn't quite get such a high number - but then again, by the time I had actually found my pulse and taken the measurement, my pulse had probably dropped a bit anyway!

So, I recorded a "high" of 181bpm on the uphill sprint - I had the familiar "burn" feeling in my chest, and my I was sweating like crazy for a while afterwards.

Conclusions:
Either the HRM belt reads a little high (but it seemed to do alright on the previous tests), or my true Max Heart Rate is a bit higher than I guessed - nearer to the top of the range for a chap of 50 like me.
So given that I got a 181bpm max from the belt (and I was going flat out at the time!), I think I need to revise my HRmax up to 181 and recalculate my training zones from that!

"Emergency Gear" for cycling

When I am going any decent distance out of town, I always carry a few bits and bobs with me.
Not really a "bug out" kit - think of it more as a "wheel out" kit.

• Half-litre (about a pint) of water. Drink it, wash your hands with it, clean an injury with it - whatever.
• First aid kit - these tend to be short on plasters (band-aids) so I add a couple of those. Make sure there is a little pair of scissors in the kit too.
• Gaffer (Duct) tape - a "wonder" material :-) See also the entry for tyre repair spray.