High cardio - high carb

's how it works.  Shame it also seems to mean sodall fruit & veg.

That's 566kcals under maintenance for today (I'm set to 0.5kg loss per week which means WLR gives me 500kcals less than maintenance value each day - I've got 2-3kg to lose to race weight).  Makes up for the lardass meal on Thursday.  Or not.  Still, no harm in being under on some days as long as it's not -all- the time.  But just look at the carbs!

Weight Loss Giveaway - VItality Show Bundle #1

Don't forget to enter  (<- click on the link and comment on that post, like it says :o)) - by 10pm tomorrow to be in with a chance of winning the goodies below:-

• The 'Calorie, Carb, Fat Bible 2011' - seriously handy book, choc-full of nutritional info!
• KitKat Caramel snack sample
• Alpen Light snack sample
• Raisin Oats sample
• Oaty Bakes 'caramelised onion' snack sample
• Tropical Wholefoods flyer with promo code
• Half Spoon sample

Trashed bike (probably) and helmet

On my way in to work this morning, I was about 12 minutes into my ride, maybe 15 and was flying up CS7 alongside the traffic jam of cars.  I was just at the junction of Oldridge Road and Balham High Road with a large van stationary just in front to the right of me, when a car going the other way suddenly appeared across the front of me, turning right into Oldridge Road.  I was doing about 25kph, maybe a bit more; the car was probably doing around 10kph.  I only found out about it when my front wheel was taken out by the front of the car and a second or so later I felt myself land and the back of my head hit the road.

[Yellow box is me on my bicycle travelling North in the massively wide cycle lane.  Purple boxes are stationary cars trying to go North.  Red box is large, stationary van trying to go North.  Blue box is blue car going South, turning right at the same time as I'm passing the side road.]

I screamed.  For the first time in my entire life, I screamed.  Twice.  Maybe three times.  My eyes were shut and I didn't dare open them.  There were people around me asking me to open my eyes, so I did.  I could hear a female voice saying "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.  Is she OK?" over and over.  My knees hurt, my head felt a bit funny and I didn't want to move.  They were all asking me was I OK, then one guy seemed to have some medical training and asked me my name, looked at my eyes, checked my grip, spine, hips and shoulders and then decided it was OK to get me moved.  I was keen to get out of the way of the traffic, but people kept telling me not to worry about it.

My bike was moved for me, I have no idea where it ended up first of all; I think it went over the car.  The car that hit me was behind me, so I must have gone right over the bonnet.  My shoes unclipped totally from the pedals pretty much immediately the impact happened, which is a relief.  With all the adrenaline bubbling about, I told everyone I was fine and totally intended to carry on in to work and that no, I didn't need any of the three ambulances that had been called for me.  No really, I'm fine.  The guy who checked my back and brain were mostly OK advised me to get me bike checked out before riding it again in case the headset was damaged which I thought, mm I'll do that on the way home tonight.

The woman that hit me took me for a cup of tea and I really did intend just to get on my bike and carry on in to work.  As we got up to leave the cafe, I looked down at my right knee and saw two huge lumps on it as well as the graze.  The woman was advising me to go home and have a hot bath, which was sounding more and more inviting by the minute.  My neck was starting to get sore and my jaw hurt as I opened it, so I thought I'll just check my bike in to the bike shop over the road for a check-over and head to a walk-in clinic to get myself checked over.

As I walked my bike to wait for the bike shop to open, I noticed something catching every revolution of the wheels.  So I lifted up the back and spun the back wheel - tiiiiiiiny bit wobbly but not catching on the brakes.  Did the same with the front... not so good.  Bent.  And looking at the right side of the front forks for the first time, I saw that they were broken.  Feeling a bit sick and headachey by this point I decided to go to St. Georges A&E to get properly checked out.

Then the shock finally started to wear off a bit and I was in floods of tears all the way to the hospital.  Snotty and sniffling, tears streaking down my cheeks.  By this point I couldn't turn my head to check for traffic coming in roads to the right of me, so had to turn my whole body to do that.

I locked my bike up outside the hospital and went in to A&E to register.  Only to get totally told off by the triage nurse for not coming in an ambulance, bumped to the front of the queue and told I was being treated as 'trauma' as I -should- have come in an ambulance especially given I went over the bonnet of the car.  I'm terrible.  I don't like making a fuss.  I don't like going to the doctor unless something is pretty much hanging off.  I really need to get over that.  That said, while I was in A & E waiting to be seen by a doctor, I heard a call come in for another accident - 20 minutes away in the ambulance; pedestrian vs. cyclist at 30mph.  Brain bleeding, BP very high, other internal injuries, suspected probably won't survive the ambulance journey.  I don't know if that was the pedestrian or the cyclist, but I'd suspect the pedestrian at that speed.  I didn't find out in the end.

At this point, I felt very lucky.

The doctor came and... long story short, my BP and heart rate were very high (I still had my heart rate monitor on and it didn't drop below 100 even after sitting down for 20 minutes).  Spine, hips, shoulders and brain checked out OK.  Knees and calves just badly bruised, scraped and a bit lumpy.  Neck and jaw minor injuries that would need ice packs for a few days and Ibuprofen to treat.  No work for at least 2 days, no gym or cycling for 2 weeks.  Immediate treatment with diclofenac (and some bread and butter and tea to help make it easier on the stomach) and 2 hours observation before being discharged with a letter sent to my GP detailing the injuries.

Home now and my bike is in for  a safety check with a definite broken front fork, very likely needing replacement front wheel, maybe replacement back wheel (might be fixable, might not).  They're going to check the frame to see if/how much it is bent and the brakes, gears, crank etc.  It's going to be a toss up whether it's a write-off or not, but given the cost of the safety check, replacement front fork, replacement front wheel, replacement or trueing of rear wheel and labour as a definite cost to fix it up safe to ride... it's sailing close to the original cost of the bike anyway.  If it is going to cost loads to fix it up, I'll get the pedals and a few other bits off it and scrap the rest.

Annoyingly, my camera is out of battery and I'm too tired/sore to go find the charger, so here's a list of the injuries:-

• Left knee - bruised on top and both sides, grazed on the top and left side
• Left calf - large bruise 
• Right knee - tangerine-sized lump on the left with a graze, egg-sized lump on top with a graze, large scrape down the right side of the calf behind the knee
• Left side of jaw - sore to open
• Left side of back of neck, very very sore
• Bottom of neck, both sides and spreading out across the back of my shoulders - very very sore
• Right side of back of head - bruised/sore

My bicycle helmet - bent plastic and compressed polystyrene at the middle on the back and cracked polystyrene right through on the back, left side (where it hit the road).  That has to be replaced.  Anybody that ever tells me that people shouldn't wear cycling helmets will get an unpleasant response from me.  I always thought it's better to wear one than not and now... well, given how hard my head hit the road I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be sitting here back at home by now if I hadn't been wearing a helmet.  I'm pretty sure I would have been in an ambulance earlier and not telling people I was fine.  I'm pretty sure I'd have more than a slightly sore bit on the back of my head.

Bicycle - front fork cracked right through (not fixable), front wheel buckled (not fixable), back wheel a bit bent (may be fixable), frame and crank etc. being checked out.

I need to go and find Ibuprofen now.  And sort out more ice for the rest of the day.  Everything aches.  My neck and shoulders hurt a lot unless I slouch in a bad way and I'm feeling washed out and tired.  I've already eaten 4 slices of bread (two in the hospital with butter on and two toasted with Marmite when I got home) 'cause I'm starving hungry but I don't care what I eat today as long as I do eat.   I want to nap, but that's a bad idea unsupervised at the moment, so I'll try not to do that for at least a few more hours if not normal bed-time.

Time to count my blessings and drink tea with kittens cuddled up.

Letting out the leash a little

Good ride yesterday; 38 minutes in to the office and 42 minutes or so back (I forgot to turn off my HRM when I got back so I'm guessing there).  Thighs were still a bit sore so decided not to gym today after all.  So this week has been only 2x weights sessions, which I'd normally fix by going to the gym at the weekend to top it up to 3x, but given there's about 140km cycling to do, I'm not gymming.

I've been being quite lax with food and drink this week - nothing really bad, all under maintenance until today.  Today has, so far, included a shop-bought lunch for the first time in months and a cupcake (strawberry one from EAT, see dodgy photo:o))... there's dinner out later and a couple of beers (not too many as it's an earlyish start in the morning and a lot of miles to cover) so I'll be well over maintenance today, but then I'm calling it carb loading for the long ride :o)  It'll be interesting to see how many kcals I earn on the trip; I'm guessing 1,500-1,800 each way depending on how long it takes.

There are planned pit-stops on the way and I fully expect to be in excess on balance by the end of the week.  Oh, and it's taper week next week:-

Monday - rest & recover from cycling
Tuesday - rest or cycle
Wednesday - PT session "fun" session (i.e. not doing routine)
Thursday - rest
Friday - rest or cycle
Saturday - rest or gentle run
Sunday - rest
Monday - final TTT

04:50 shouldn't exist

...but it did this morning.  I woke up 10 minutes before the radio came on and that was it.  Up, breakfast, pack the car and out.

We got to the pool early so there was no registration queue, but it was -cold-.  6°C and a biting wind.  Shivering and prepared we waited to start, I was race number 50; nice and low and as it turned out exactly in the right place for my swim time.  I overtook the swimmer in front and that was it for the swim.  My transition time was, however, shockingly bad.  I glanced at my watch and it said 00:08:4x so I thought I was doing OK, but apparently there was some kind of time warp and by the time I hit the bike start timer I was at 00:12:17 (how!?)   And then there was the cycle.  I got overtaken.  A lot.  By much MUCH nicer bikes than mine.  And then there was the headwind.  Urgh!  But still, headwind on the way out on the bike stage meant tailwind on the way back.  Right?  Hah.  No.  The headwind on the way back was -worse-!  And the ruts and potholes!  I won't be able to sit -or- walk tomorrow!  Still, I actually overtook someone (#28 on a rubbish bike pretty much like mine :o)).  The last few km of the ride and the clouds decided to open and re-wet all of us who'd almost dried out by now.

Back in from the bike stage (passing poor Mr TOTKat who hadn't even started his swim yet, being in the "second fast wave", who cheered me on and yelled encouragement xxx) and I looked at my watch again; 01:11:xx  Argh!  NO -way- was I going to hit 01:45:xx at this rate (or so I thought).  I was a bit wobbly and weak such that I had real trouble lifting my bike back onto the rack.  Bleh!  Anyway!  Off out for the run and I felt like the whole front my my body was rigid; every single muscle tense and I couldn't un-tense them.  And my legs weren't mine and I couldn't really feel my muscles like I normally can.  My stride was phenomenally short and I was pretty sure I was staring a 40 minute 5km run in the face at that point.  The good point was that my feet felt suddenly a lot warmer and the sun had peeped out from behind the clouds.  And then I saw #53, who I'd overtaken and been overtaken by a few times on the ride... and that was it; I wanted to catch her.

Thankfully, with the run being flat, being a bit knackered already from swimming and cycling was less of a problem than it could have been (all of my runs near home usually have a hill or two in them so a flat run is pure luxury).  2km into the run and I saw #28 ahead of me!  How?  Eh, quite clearly her bike to run transition was -much- faster than mine.  Still, she looked catchable and by 3km I had passed her.  Yay!  4km passed and the final bends ahead and I wasn't feeling -too- awful.  A wave and a "nice shades!" from a tiny marshall was all I needed to throw myself across the line, stop my watch timer and inwardly be very very pleased for a moment that it said 01:41:17 -including- the (up to) 7 minutes "free" transition from bike to run.

Thereafter it was a cold trot back to transition to grab the tea flask and some clothes and then wait for Mr. TOTKat to finish.  Every single person who came over the line as I was waiting commented on the wind during the ride.  "That wind!"  "How could it be a headwind in both directions?"  "Very very sapping!"  Cuddles, quick chat with a Thames Turbo friend and then back home for tea and bacon sarnies.

And the provisional results are up (thanks to Mr Thames Turbo for pointing it out and well done on a super speedy PB!) and my official finish was in 01:35:02.  Which is incredible, given my huge lack of training; 1 bike ride in the last 12 months, 4 runs since January 1st, 6 swims (including Swimathon); and my heavy, cheap bike.  I am, despite appearance, quite pleased.  Carb loading worked well, there was no "bonk" and I felt, more or less, fine all the way 'round.

Carb loading really did work

Not even the slightest of bonks this morning! (more on that later)

Yesterday was carb-tastic (though not all the right kind of carbs, but still):-

Potato salad with cucumber, lettuce, sweet potato, chorizo and mayonnaise.  Followed by:-

Broken meringue nests with apricot compote *dribble*.  So, lots of carbs and carbs in excess of my maintenance calories, so it should get laid down at least some as glycogen (which does seem to have worked).  Potatoes with skins on and wholewheat pasta so complex mixed in with simple and some fats right at the end of the day in the chocolate to help slow down metabolisation of the carbs.

B - toasted fruity bread with honey
S - rice cakes with Marmite and grated gruyere
L - potato salad with lettuce, spring onion, cucumber, chorizo, sweet pepper and mayonnaise
S - Salt and Balsamic Vinegar Kettle Chips (NOM!)
S - rice cakes with Bovril
S - meringue nests with apricot compote
D - wholewheat pasta with sweetcorn and cheese sauce
S - Lindt 70% chocolate

Exercise - rest day

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	2120 1796]
Protein (g)	73.1 (14.2%)
Carbohydrate (g)	293.5 (53.6%)
Fat (g)	73.6 (32.2%)
Fruit & Veg	4.7

Carb loading (well, tried to)

The day before the huge swim, I decided to try to carbo load, seeing as it was going to be well over an hour of continuous high-output effort.  The tricky part was that we were having friends over for dinner on Saturday... still, I didn't hit the wall, bonk or otherwise have a fuelling problem during the swim, so I must've done -something- right.

And this is what Mr TOTKat cooked for dinner - pork shoulder with sage, rosemary, garlic, bay leaves, a sprinkle of sugar, honey, mustard, dried cranberries and beer:-

So this is how Saturday went, I got the carb bit very right but the fat was a bit high and protein a bit low:-

B - porridge with raisins, chopped banana and a splash of milk
S - carrot and caramelised onion houmous
L - toasted bagel with ham and lettuce
S - Vegetable Crisps
S - Pistachios and Kettle Chips
D - baguette with houmous, pork shoulder, cousous with apricots, courgette and onion with pine nuts, baby carrots
S - Eton Mess (strawberries, whipped cream and meringue)

Exercise - rest day

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	3003 1779]
Protein (g)	89.0 (12.2%)
Carbohydrate (g)	328.9 (42.3%)
Fat (g)	147.6 (45.5%)
Fruit & Veg	11.1

And the day of the 5km swim itself was a teeeeensy bit carb heavy too:-

B - porridge with raisins and chopped banana with a splash of milk
*swim*
S - bottle of Lucozade Body Fuel (Orange)
L - ciabatta with 2 slices of bacon and ketchup, large chocolate chip cookie
L - leftover shredded pork with mayonnaise, mango chutney and lettuce in a toasted pitta bread
S - banana, mango and passion fruit puree
S - cottage cheese with pomegranate seeds
D - stew; leftover shredded pork, carrots, new potatoes, baby carrots, chick peas, tinned tomatoes and a toasted pitta bread and wine
S - 6x leftover Divine mini eggs

Exercise - about 2 hours swimming

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	2970 2871]
Protein (g)	108.6 (15.1%)
Carbohydrate (g)	334.5 (43.7%)
Fat (g)	70.6 (22.1%)
Alcohol (g)	78 (19.0%)
Fruit & Veg	6.8

Eating crow now alright

Having been so pleased with my lack of weight/fat gain over Christmas, I've just managed to weigh in 2.5kg heavier than 3 weeks ago. Way to go! AND I've done 3 really hard weights sessions this week where I've increased the weights quite significantly (for me - e.g. bicep curls which are new in this routine, I've upped from 5kg dumbbells to 7kg dumbbells in 3 sessions - 40% increase!) on some exercises and increased a bit on most. I ache like a bugger and my belly is wobbling; nice contrast there! I don't fit into shirts I fitted into nicely 3 weeks ago. It's all down to bad eating and too much drinking. I know that. I had a huge pile of bread yesterday for the first time in a very very long time and my stomach was phenomenally uncomfortable afterwards - I'm just not used to eating bread much any more.

So. Never has it been a better time to get a grip on food and drink and get back to doing things properly, and in fact take things up a notch:-

• I will complete 3 weights sessions per week (not a feeble 2; but work commitments may torpedo this sometimes) of 40+ minutes.
• I will complete 1-3 cardio sessions a week of 30+ minutes hard effort.
• I will take part in at least 2 of the 4 Thames Turbo sprint triathlon series.
• I will increase my protein intake overall as a proportion of my daily nutrition - by using protein supplements where/if necessary.
  
• I will significantly decrease my intake of simple carbohydrates; bread (eat that maybe once a week anyway), potatoes, pasta (almost never eat that anyway)
• I will not cut out couscous (I like it a lot and it's a great complex carbohydrate)
• I will have no more than 1/2 bottle of wine per week (or 2x cans of lower alcohol beer) and it will count as a cheat/free meal in itself.
• I will post my food and exercise plan/results every day (90% of the time averaged over a month)
  

And the lesser ones:-

• I will try yogurt with fruit in/on and maybe some nuts for breakfast at least 4 times before giving up if I don't like it.
• I will make lunches up in bulk a couple of days in advance to make things easier.
• I will try to fear nuts less as a snack - yes they're very calorific for their weight/bulk but they -are- good for me in small amounts.
• I will eat bananas as a snack before exercise only (or within 2 hours either side of it, but at no other times)

Wish me luck; it's going to take a bit more discipline than I've been maintaining the last few months.

I've got a skiing holiday in March which may mess things up a bit due to "Sno Camp" being on a Thursday for six weeks which means no weights on Wednesday or Friday as it looks like there will be at least some strength training in those sessions. Not quite worked out how to work around that and keep up the cardio and have 2 rest days in the week, so we're thinking maybe that it'd be better not to do "Sno Camp" at all; it's bound to be targetted at people who have done bugger all exercise all year anyway - and... have you -seen- my thighs?