I’ve decided that my training for next year’s Haute Pyrenees will have a little more transparency this time around, so without further ado, I give you my first Monthly Report.

November was the beginning of training proper, which took the form of my ‘maintenance phase’. I used to know what this meant, but for this year I’ve determined that it’s ‘not too hard’ and ‘not too long’. You can see a visual representation of the latter below. If I do the 1.5 hours tomorrow it’ll bring me up to a whopping 9.75 hours for the week. Still, it feels good to be on the bike 5 or so days a week and after a month I’m just now starting to feel a little mojo back in the legs.

For training sessions I’ve been on the trainer in front of my monitor a lot, watching old cycling races. I’ve alternated between ‘step’ intervals, ‘pyramids’ and ‘sweet spot’. When I watched the last two hours of the Tour of Flanders I simply went hard when the peloton hit the bergs. It was surprisingly effective.

Note: I’m off to Japan in a week and a half so decided not to do a recovery week. This year I’ll be doing them after every 3rd week. 

More distressing is my body’s refusal to lose weight. You can see from below that not only my age is stable across my first 4 weeks. The weight is in lbs but I’m actually losing exactly 200 grams a week. This will take time, so I’m not worried for now.

As for food and booze, I’m not drinking every single day, which is a step in the right direction. I have, however, found a new bakery in town that has the best cheesecakes I think I’ve ever eaten….oh and it has an artisanal brew pub next door. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

The 4 measurements below are the results of my pinchy calipers. You’ll see the inconsistency across the board, which I think is normal with these things; it’s just too hard to get the same pinch each time. Over time, though, it works. My body fat goal is 10% to 12%, which is where I was at in 2013. I can hear you chuckling from here…

I’ve got one more week of training before I head for Japan, but the good news is that I’ll be taking my bike with me and have a few rides planned. If you hear from me again it means I remembered to ride on the left side of the road.