I grew up in a family dominated by the internal combustion engine. My father raced motorbikes as a young man and once lay for dead in a ditch for several hours after a crash. He was lucky. Eventually somebody spotted him and pulled him out, and his skull was patched up with some nifty metalwork. This fact alone is enough to remind everyone in the Knackered Family of the low probability of us being alive at all.

This 1951 Norton ES2 (courtesy of Michel 67 on Flickr) is identical to one owned by Knackered Père. By the way, Che Guevara set off across Latin America the following year with Alberto Granado on a 1939 model called ‘La Poderosa II’, or ‘The Mighty One’. See the 2004 film dramatization, The Motorcycle Diaries.

Though my childhood was spent in close proximity to the motor industry, I wasn’t always interested in it. And it is not entirely surprising that only a few days after my father passed away I missed the moment when a major milestone Continue reading ‘a robot is for life, not just for christmas (lego version)’

“It doesn’t hurt me.
Do you want to feel how it feels?
Do you want to know, know that it doesn’t hurt me?”

Kate Bush clearly has never run up any of the hills in Bath. In fact, finding a hill with a gradual enough slope within jogging distance is a labour of Hercules itself.

But I did find one not too bad, except for the last 100 to 200 yards. On the third repetition, I’d developed a kind of athletic tourette’s, cursing the marathon. It was dark, and I still had not figured out how to programme the Polar RS800sd for such interval training, so there was no helpful beep to tell me when my heart rate had shot through the 170 bpm ceiling for the exercise and that I should slow down.

It was hill training I think that destroyed me when I last trained for the marathon in 2004-5.  I did too much, did not understand the process, and probably was wearing the wrong shoes. I overtrained and exhausted myself. And yet, it is probably one of the more valuable training exercises, because by pushing your heart-rate way up they say you start to experience neurological adaptation. That does interest me. At the end of the day though, it also is resulting in a crashing tiredness. We’ll see if tomorrow morning the Polar computer thinks I’m “Normal”. It was kind enough to wake me with those words of comfort the past two days.

Resting Heart Rate 46 bpm

Weight 71.5 kg

Mood

Excercise energy consumed 514 kcal (10 mins, bike 36 mins hills 4 x 3 mins)

In terms of recovery, the birth of a child must rank among the biggest of body traumas requiring adequate rest. It was reported this week that Paula Radcliffe has already resumed running just over two weeks since the birth of her first child.

This might not be so bad, but in continuing the theme of a bias to overtrain and under-recover, this article notes the experience of 1987 10,000m World Champion and serial marathon winner Ingrid Kristensen, from whom Paula reportedly sought advice:-

“Speaking earlier this year, Kristiansen admitted that she had done too much, too soon. She added: ‘I think Paula can come back in really good shape for the Beijing Olympics but she has to be patient. I did a little bit too much.’”

My own recovery seems to be going just fine. A virus is not a baby, after all. I ran intervals today, for the first time pushing the pace element to one-minute. I did this four times, then a four minute break, then another four times. As for recovery between intervals, instead of measuring by time, which I have done in the past, I followed the Bath University Human Performance Centre advice and waited until my heart rate had fallen to the recovery zone. Interestingly, the first several recoveries took a full minute, but thereafter the recovery rate improved to about 40-50 seconds.

Having pushed my heart-rate up to over 170 bpm, albeit briefly several times, it has left me tired, although with a sense of neurological adaptation. The post-run recovery feels quite different, more uplifting than a normal run.

Resting Heart Rate 46

Weight 71 kg

Mood

Exercise Energy Consumed 575 kcal (35 mins interval/fartlek run, 10 mins bike)

The use of computer generated imagery by the BBC in its Truth about Food programme reminded me of an amazing IMAX film called Wired to Win documentary made about the 2003 Tour de France.

There is no better to way to understand some of the crucial aspects of elite athleticism, both from a neurological and physiological point of view. CGI is used to show how the process of repetitive exercise gradually builds synaptic connections until they are finally and fully established. Then it is as if there is a neurological explosion. In real life this is revealed through a progression of a four-man team descending mountainous hair-pin bends time after time at high speed until they are riding in tight formation, almost tyres touching. This neurological adaptation, because it goes unseen, is perhaps much less well understood than the physical adaptations that take place in sport. Repetitive practice in most activities is boring and easily puts off the less motivated. But Wired to Win makes it plain why the repetition is necessary, and why submission to the boring routine will eventually yield extraordinary results. The film also shows how the body adapts to injury as one of the riders tries to continue after serious fall in the Tour’s infamous pile-up.

It is said that the difference between a virtuoso musician and the less gifted is not so much innate talent, but the ability to sustain a high level of work. Studies have shown that work rate rather than IQ or perfect pitch is what matters. A decade’s work consisting of 10,000 hours of practice is the estimate of what it takes to be a virtuoso performer. Is there any similar study that can quantify the same for athletes? Because we delight in the example of the prodigy like Wayne Rooney, or Boris Becker, perhaps we overlook that what most talent needs is a volume of quality support to sustain that practice over an extended period of time. Sometimes longer than we are prepared to wait.

Sally Edwards the heart rate monitor advocate and leading author on the subject of training with heart rate monitors identifies that neurological adapation also takes place when the body is exercised close to or at its VO2 max, or lactate threshold. This is at or near when the body starts to go into oxygen debt and respire anaerobically. Most amateurs will steer clear of the hard interval training to achieve this. It involves running sprints with rests between, and running up and down hills. But marathon experts reckon this kind of training is priceless, because it makes you faster and stronger, ultimately making the marathon experience relatively less arduous because you complete the race after much less time on your legs.

When you do even a little bit of this kind of workout you feel much more co-ordinated. My typing improves immeasurably. Imagine what it does for a Lance Armstrong? The Wired to Win film features the moment where Armstrong is catapulted from his bike at speed while climbing a mountain. His brake lever catches the fastening clasp of a baseball hat being waved by a fan. Miraculously he recovers, seemingly unscathed, and with extra adrenalin pumping through his veins takes off even faster than before.

Resting heart rate 50

Weight 73 kg

Mood

Exercise

Virus lifting

Exercise Easy run 40 mins, 10 mins bike 667 kcal burned