Well, its been a quiet and rainy few days… So not a lot going down. But, this has given me a chance to get busy with iMovie and Vimeo to finally get together what everyone loves… A motherfu*king MONTAGE… Here is the Hawk tour of Niseko (best watched in HD – If it won’t play below, click on the ‘Vimeo’ on the bottom right to watch on their site):

I have tried to keep each clip short and sweet, variety is key… Hence its a bit of a mash up of all sorts of riding and some photos thrown in. Am I wishing that I tried a few different camera angles? Absolutely… But its a good lesson for the next mission, in the mean time, enjoy 6 minutes of hawk derrière. If this doesn’t make you want to go to Japan (the scenery, not the ass), then clearly you are still plugged into the Matrix.

What else is up? Well, Intervals… That’s what. So how does this work? Well, I have been riding around for weeks now, but you can’t really count most of that as proper structured training (which is what made it SO nice), so, with the sniff of some more races on the horizon, it was time to start getting some interval sessions in.

For me, Intervals are a massively Love Hate relationship – I love what they do for my form and riding, but man I hate doing them. I will generally look for any excuse to get out of doing them, such as:

  • My legs are too tired
  • My HR monitor is not working
  • This piece of road isn’t consistent enough to get a proper session in
  • Its too windy
  • Its too dark
  • Its too hot
  • I have too much gas
  • “Isn’t it too soon to be doing these?”
  • I’m tapering
  • The group is too big/small

Anyway, at some stage I have to suck it up and DO IT… which has been the theme of the last two days. If we can graph pain, here is what it looks like… Chart 1, from Rifle Range Road yesterday:

It... really... hurts...

It… really… hurts…

The idea yesterday was to go FULL GAS (best said with a Euro Germanic accent) for the Northbound segment, those three little mountains to the right show me banging the rev limiter in the 180 BPM range… Panting like Mr R P after a heavy couch session.

Chart 2, from LCK today:

Look at those beautiful blips of training goodness...

Look at those beautiful blips of training goodness…

Today was a different set up, 4 x 8 minute intervals trying to stay at my lactate threshold (WTF that is), which is around 172 BPM… Easier said than done as the legs and heart don’t always co-operate to get into the right zone, while the head just wants to pack it in and drink coke. But, the 4 mountains in the middle show success this morning. The big straight line at the end? That’s me sitting at Baker & Cook stuffing my face with coffee and a mixed berry danish (massively awesome) and undoing all the training value…

So, now that I have bored you all to bits with training BS, how about some creativity and inspiration? First, the creativity coming out of the Niseko studio as we develop the brand:

I see a T Shirt coming on...

I see a T Shirt coming on…

And, some inspiration, well, it will make you think of course… Insightful, or possibly depressing if you just got home for work and think your boss is a cock:

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2 Responses

    • dirtynomad

      Excellent Herr Doktor… Excellent… I shall put you down for a Large with XXL arms. Assume you will want matching singlet as well?

      Reply

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