It’s been a while since I posted this blog – this Regional Manager lark doesn’t leave me a lot of spare time. As predicted though, signing up for the Computrainer competition has kept me on track with some training. I’ll post some updates about each week shortly, but because Simon from Computrainer has pointed people here, I need to post an update urgently.

Yesterday I had scheduled an easy 45 minutes on my Computrainer, but partly due to boredom and partly due to feeling that the last few workouts have not felt as intense as I’d expected, I decided to do a 20-minute test instead. So after a good 20-minute warm-up and calibrating the trainer, I set to work.

20 Minutes later I was pretty tired, but to say that I was gobsmacked is to understate the case completely. I’d improved on the 219 watts recorded on 31 December by a massive 47 watts! My twenty minute test result was 266 watts. This is an improvement of over 20% in one month of training, in which I barely exceeded 5 hours total in any week.

Those who know me will know that I’m generally very cynical when companies, coaches etc claim that their product will deliver big gains in performance: I don’t use commercial sports nutrition, I eat food. I don’t obsess about the time gains to be had from the latest equipment, instead, when I train I train hard. I don’t take “legal” stuff before races to try to boost my performance, I trust my training. This has been a hard-learned lesson, because over the years I have spent an awful lot of money on trying to go faster. Lots of the stuff I bought turned out to be junk!

But in this case I am convinced that it’s the fact that the Computrainer allowed me to target my hard work and to get the intensity right, probably combined with my being a little de-trained to start with that has led to this massive gain in performance. I’ve always believed in riding my turbo, but the Computrainer has added another dimension to what I am able to achieve indoors.

My cynical side asks whether I really rode that hard in the initial test, but having needed a bucket after that one, I know I gave it all I had.

Folks, I have no commercial relationship with Computrainer, I bought mine for full price just like anyone else would (more in fact, because I rented it for a few months first). And I’ve always promised that if a product worked I would say so.

This product most definitely works, but you’ve got to be willing to put in the hard work too!

It’s been 10 days since I last posted to this blog, not least because of the sheer amount of work awaiting me on my return. However, doing the Computrainer competition has given me a focus that has helped me to get on track with some regular training. After only 10 days, I feel better already.

It’s not been the best week of training from a perceived effort perspective and I’ve decided to repeat the same week in order at the very least, to aid my belief that I can still train hard.

My training week starts on a Thursday, because it fits in better with my working week and my family life. The only day I do nothing at all is Wednesday, the days when I’m not on my bike I do some variation of kettlebell swings and turkish get-ups to counteract the negative postural effects of cycling, driving and working on a computer.

Here are the sessions I did…

Thursday: I planned to do 65 minutes on my Computrainer, including 3 sets of 8 minutes at just below my 20-minute power. The old time sessions are usually be the ones that get results and I quite like the 2 x 20-minute session much beloved of British time-triallists – probably the only thing on which we agree. The problem is that 2 x 20 minutes is a bit of a stretch at the moment, so I’ve started at 2 x 8 minutes. Unfortunately, despite making this allowance, I was unable to finish the third interval. I got about 4 minutes in before I had to stop. I was disappointed, but realisd that I need to be realistic about my present training status.

Saturday: This was a repeat of the 3 x 8-minute session, but because I was in Manchester and in a hotel, I had to do these on my rollers instead of the Computrainer. [I'll write another post about the setup I used to do this session using power.] The extra demands of riding rollers probably contributed, as did a long day in the office and an hour in the Manchester City Football Club traffic, to my only being able to finish one-and-a-half of the intervals this time. I was not pleased!!

Monday: This was my “weights on a bike” session. It’s not strictly a secret, because the protocol is freely available on the internet if you know what you’re looking for, but I tend to keep it for my coaching clients. Suffice it to say that maxing out twice at over 900 watts while doing 120rpm was a bit of a pleasant surprise.

Tuesday: Long outdoors ride on my favourite hilly loop. I’m a long way behind the sort of speed I’d be at in the summer, but I’m going to be willfully blind and blame the lack of speed on the mudguards on my winter bike!

On the surface, it wasn’t a great first week, but there were positives, including dropping a kilogram in weight and actually starting every session I had planned.