Really hard to motivate myself to do it, but since I’ve gained a lb a week for that month, its rather necessary. Totally knackered now but its a good knackered. Here’s my current regime:

• 12 mins warm up (to 70% HR)
• 6 all-out 45 second intervals, separated by 4 min spins.
• 10 mins medium page (72% HR)
• 6-8 min hill climb depending how I feel, to 94% HR.
• warm down to 60 mins, sometimes a bit over.

Its amazing how fast the hour flies by, not onerous at all – I have a favourite playlist filling the garage which helps.
Hope to do this twice a week all winter, with some peaks and troughs around some winter events. Famous last words! Currently wondering about Chieveley again, or the Harp Hilly. In the end I signed up for Chieveley.

Completed in 5:21 and was 45th out of 123, not that anyone’s checking apart from me! Its not a race .

Super weather, good organisation and great food, especially the soup, at the end. Deffo for next year.

I maintain its the same bike but maybe I’m stretching it. Everything has moved off the 631 frame to this Trek Madone 4.5 frame I won on Fleabay. Bit of a risk but a big saving over a new bike. Has reduced the bike weight by about 1Kg, so its now just under 9. There is quite a bit of weight I will lose as I slowly replace the ancient kit.

Rides as smooth as steel, but the steering is both sharper and more stable. Only 1 club ride so far, not too fast as I was still getting used to the handlebars. Opted for decent cabling and a professional transfer of the bits – so much more ‘tight’ than my previous DIY efforts. Here’s to more PB breakages!

Rourkie ride up next (The Cat and Fiddle) then looks like I’m going to work up to the Severn Bridge Sportive.

- The ITB band issue went away in April, luckily. Regular stretching now!

- Rode the Princes Risborough Sportive managing 4:46, just within the Gold standard for the youngsters. Thats about 17.1 mph average so I am not too disappointed given the lack of training in March. Was hoping for 18. Winner managed 21… I have a long way to go.

- Managed to find some real Cinelli Spinacis to replace the cheapo jobs. These are pretty rare, but I much prefer them to drops.

- May 7: beat my personal best at 10 miles: 21.8 mph

- May 8: beat my personal best at 60 miles: 18.9 mph (Group ride though!)

- May 12: won some Mavic Ksyrium SL wheels on Ebay. Boy do they make a difference, especially uphill. I think those personal bests are in some considerable danger.

- June 10: bottom bracket grumbing so swapped in a new Ultegra BB and a second hand 39/53 chainset from flEabay. A lot smoother now. Bike below 10Kg! 9.98…

- June 19: rode the Great Western Sportive, managing 6:17, Gold standard for oldfarts, about 16.9 mph. Again, not as good as I hoped but not too shoddy. Lots of hills, serious cramp at one point and a mechanical that meant I had to get off 3 times going up Blowing Stone Hill. Winner’s average speed was 19.3. Wow.

- June 21: seem to have strained a calf muscle maybe during the Sportive, but it only became apparent on the Monday after the ride, during my commute. Ow. Healed reasonably quickly

- July 3: beat my personal best at 60 miles: 19.8 mph (Group ride with some racers!) Quite a flat ride but I’m pretty pleased with it!

- July 3: sorted my Justgiving page for the Brompton World Championships. Sponsor me please!

- July 17: The Anthony Maynard Sportive. Did the short (70 mile) ride. On the bike average was Gold (17.4), but I punctured and was with a group who stuck together (mostly!) and everyone punctured, so we spent about half an hour off the bikes. Enjoyable social ride though, apart from the torrential rain. Next up BWC! The founder of my club, Flavio Zappi ‘won’ the long (195 Km) route at an average if 19.8 mph. *Sigh*

- July 31: first chaingang with a ‘fast group’. Reached 30 mph on the flat and over 20 average over about 30 miles. I was dropped eventually, but it was a lot of fun while I kept up.

- Aug 21: Rode the Brompton World Championship. Came 59th in 25:57. Perhaps I should have trained?! Not too shabby though.

Firstly the magnets:

Neodymium magnets

Let them attach themselves to the cover hinge:

hinge and bracket

Line the cover up on the ipad and mark the magnet positions with a pencil.

Superglue the magnets to the ipad edge. Be careful to offset the bottom one slightly to avoid the SIM slot:

superglue!

Job done.  Lay the cover over the iPad 1 and hear the satisfying click as the hnge attaches. It as strong as the iPad2 mount:

cover attached

Best of luck with yours!

Super easy to do – its worked a treat. Will post some pics tomorrow.

Looks a bit Heath Robinson I know, but it works and is simple in use. I used this on the Princes Risborough sportive. While the power was fine, the Phone lost GPS for about a third of the route. Big old fail. Oh well.

GPS does work up the Cotswolds and I have managed one great ride planned on Everytrail and followed in Cyclemeter. Slow though as I was recovering from the ITB:

600 miles in the first 3 months of this year. 2 sportives, 8 club rides and 46 commutes. Went out this morning, got 15 miles before my right knee started to twinge again.

Gave up, came home and Googled knee problems. ITBS. Ergh. It all seems to add up – too much intensity, low cadence in cold weather, slight bow leggedness, some pronation. There’s no magic cure for this it seems and it looks like I’ll miss Princes Risborough at least.

I don’t think I’ve overdone it this year, (plenty of proper racers have trained far harder) – maybe not from a low starting point though – and with no proper recovery. Stretching was something I was aware of but didn’t practice. So far this year, it went well until about 3 weeks ago, when I started getting severe knee pain either after some miles, or sometimes just moving my leg at a certain angle. I rested it for a solid week before yesterday, to no avail.

So far two professionals have looked at it. A Physio who thought it was a cartilage issue, and an Osteopath who thought it was IT band. I think the Physio might have been distracted as I was getting a lot of ‘joint’ pain at first (now I think referred). She gave me half a dozen stretches to do, which is a good start. Off back to for a second session now I can feel exactly where the pain is coming from, so I should soon know one way or the other.

A couple of good articles amongst the web chaff have helped http://www.aafp.org/…0415/p1545.htmlhttp://alexreisner.com/itband, but neither have simple answers.

So, feeling pretty shitty right now (sportive plans all blown out etc) but Hey, I’m still over a stone lighter than in June and a _lot_ fitter than I’ve been for years, and everyday life is not affected (its a very cycling/hillrunning specific injury apparently). Just hope I can find a way through this. To be a decently competitive cyclist was not something I even considered until this new year, so this setback is against a very new set of personal targets.