That wasn't so bad

I've not been cycling on the road more than up to the common for Parkrun in... around 2.5 months.  I lost the love.  That and the miserable state of the traffic on the route to work; so many other bikes, so many of them being assholes (running red lights, cutting people up, being wobbly etc.), it just meant I really didn't want to get to work that way.

I finally found enough love to get back on the commuter bike and do it this morning.  And it was great!  Because we're getting up early anyway at the moment, leaving the house at 06:45 wasn't hard.  The traffic on CS7 is not too bad at all at that time and, more importantly, there are far fewer cyclists and those that are out are the more confident and experienced ones (easy way to determine that is to do a cleat count at traffic lights, 4/16 at the last set were not wearing clips of some sort).  45 minutes in, which is pretty zippy for a first time in ages and not putting in masses of effort, and no rage at all.  Score one!

(the down side was that my wash bag as work was 1/2 full of shampoo where the bottle cap had been leaking for weeks...)

Not very articulate at the moment

I've added a little diagram to try to explain the picture a bit better.  Thing is, the cycle lane on the A24 is almost as wide as a bus lane at that point and cyclists get to go at a fair old whack on it while there's nothing parked in it. As in, it's totally normal to be travelling at 20+kph on that bit of road and not stop at every single side road to check if anyone wants to turn in to it.

It shouldn't be that a cyclist travelling on a main road has to behave differently from other traffic; we shouldn't have to stop at or slow right down at each side road that joins in case someone turns into or out of it onto the main road.  Bicycles are road traffic.  Bicycles have the same rights and the same rules as cars on the road.  It makes me angry when I see cyclists going through red traffic lights because it erodes the cause that all road users have to be treated equally and obey the rules equally.  It makes me angry when motorised vehicle road users think that bicycles (and horses in some cases) have no right to be on the road, should get out of the way of everything else and give way to everyone else and should never be anywhere other than in the gutter.

Right now, I'm too tired to be properly angry.  I need to rest up, treat my neck, shoulders and knees properly and wait to see how my bike is.

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.

But the whole things does seem to be working

I don't know.  It's all pretty expensive just to be a nod to the cyclist.  Maybe it's up there with electric cars; you have to get it visible and make mistakes and get it mostly wrong but it's a heck of a lot better than doing nothing and not raising visibility and awareness.

It -does- seem to be working though.  As "Cyclists in the City" says, more bicycles than cars cross bridges in London in the morning peak hours and that's been increasing at incredible rates for the last couple of years.  It may not be much safer, but there are a buttload more cyclists out there and the numbers keep going up.

Cycle Superhighways - sort of pointless

"Barclays Cycle Superhighways are new cycle routes that run into central London from outer London to provide cyclists with safer, faster and more direct journeys into the city. The new routes are clearly marked and easy to follow. There are new signs and road markings, as well as information about journey times and links to other cycle routes. Brand new cycle lanes and bold road markings will increase awareness among other road users, and make it clear that the route is used by many cyclists." (see here for more information from TfL)

So, right, there are no actual rules.  It's not like a bus lane where there are times when other vehicles aren't allowed on the blue bit, it's just there for "awareness" and route finding.  WTF?  So we're just lucky that other road users seem to mostly stay out of it.  Mostly.  When it suits them.  And it seems to sort of mostly work in the morning, and earlyish in the evening, but in the middle of the day or after about 6pm, it utterly does not work in the slightest.  Delivery vans, parked cars etc. park in the lane and either simply obstruct it completely or open doors into traffic without checking for oncoming vehicles regardless of the amount of flashing, bright lights, fluorescent clothing, reflectors...  Oi!  Boris!  Sort it out!

What CS7?

This week I've been cycling home really rather later than usual and it's a real surprise what a huge difference it makes to the journey. There are So Many cars and vans parked in the cycle lane that it isn't possible to cycle in it. I'd come across this one weekend on the way back from the North and I'd assumed it was a weekend thing, but apparently it's an evening thing too. Which really sucks. A lot. It did take "only" 44 minutes to get home tonight, including a stop to chat with someone and lend them my lights (well, give, I'm not expecting to get them back) but if I'd been able to cycle in the cycle lane it could have been quicker and a heck of a lot safer.

I don't know what the rules are about the cycle lanes, who isn't allowed to be in them and if there are time rules. I need to find out. And I need to be able to leave work at a time which means I can be a bit more protected from a reasonable proportion of traffic.

Ick!

But at least it wasn't ow.  We cycled in this morning, via the gym to pick up my bike lock, and took it really easy.  The roads were almost completely empty even through we set of at normal tubing to work time, rather than cycling to work time.  My thumb held up nicely with the trigger downshift on the chain ring so that was good.  Then when I went for my shower at work, the bit of nail pinged off, taking a bit of skin with it.  Not too bad actually, clean, very little blood and it's a bit tender as the skin under the nail is exposed, but overall OK.

Feeling good!  Small party later.  Bit of prep to do as soon as I get home.  Bye bye 2010!

One of -those- weeks

Don't forget the giveaway! Comment on that post before the end of 12th November to be in the running to win.

I've been a bit quiet this week. This is mostly because it's been one of -those- weeks. Up at 6am every day, cycled in and out to work Monday and Tuesday, in on Wednesday for a full day offsite meeting on Wednesday followed by not cycling home, then cycling home Thursday and in and out on Friday. Gymmed on Monday, missed the Wednesday session due to being away, no replacement session on Thursday due to a lack of towels at the gym so took a towel on Friday to get a second session in - which was fabulous!(*) Meanwhile I've been in the office/work 8am to at least 6pm every day this week. Needless to say, I'm a bit tired and I've not had much chance to do anything except commute and work.

So, food has suffered a little in the evenings. Though we've not succumbed to a takeaway so far, Thursday night's dinner was a couple of toasted bagels with poached eggs, chorizo, cream cheese and Marmite (not all on the same bagel!) because I'm a bit sick of cooking at the moment and I'd not got anything out in the morning as we'd planned to go out and changed our minds during the day.

I did have some fun with the Star Chef again this week. This week's experiment was baked potatoes...

6 hours on the "soup/stew" setting, having cut into them, stuffed the cuts with sliced garlic, rubbed the skins with olive oil and salt, and they were soft all the way through without being mushy. I do want to see if I can find a way to get the skins a bit drier though. Maybe a different setting? It'd help if I knew what temperatures the different settings related to as I'd like to try the "bake" setting but I'm not sure how hot that gets. Worth another go next week I think.  But again, it's the convenience of being able to set the timer and actually have baked potatoes that's just brilliant.  We've not had them in ages 'cause they just take too long to cook in the evening.


* - not only did I do 3 unassisted chin-ups in a row, I did 5 in total with some rest in between.  Also, my trainer was doing his training session at the same time with some of the same exercises, so we ended up doing them pretty much together.  My 3 sets of 10 each side one-arm, squat clean and jerk with 12kg, 14kg, 14kg vs. his at 24kg, 26kg, 30kg... that one was -fun-!

Feeling lovely... just lovely

Not cycling since Friday appears to be agreeing with me.  Also the new bed linen :o)  The extra hour in bed due to taking the tube and not needing to beat the rush on the roads is a huge plus too.  I think that maybe I should just bite the bullet and try cycling in later to see how bad the traffic really is at 8am vs. 7am.  Walking to the tube this morning, the traffic looked pretty OK, but that's only a very small sample of the whole route.

I gymmed yesterday, increased some of the weights since I started with this routine (up to 45kg on the Smith machine for squats, from 30kg, for example) and it's going quite nicely.  I'm not bothering with any cardio at the end as with all this cycling there's no point really thrashing myself to bits even more with that.  That said, the overhead swing and lunge with ViPR gets my heart rate up to 185 (dropping to 135 within 1 minute), so that's cardio enough for me.

Also, not having the MP Max Total Breakfast is nicer too.  "Eating" that every morning was getting a bit much, it's quite sickly, thick and difficult after 3 mornings of it on the trot, so I'm quite pleased to be back to Total Greek yoghurt (2% - which is really really nice for the extra couple of kcals per portion vs 0%) with MP Max True Whey, Cookies and Cream flavour, and a good dollop of fruit compote.  Lovely, sweet, fruity, proteiny, creamy... just blimmin' nice!

Catching up with me?

I should throw away the bathroom scales... 2kg heavier than this time last week -isn't- real, but it's got me in a sulk.  I worry that it is real, or at least a bit real and that I am very slowly gaining weight.  Every time I think that, it goes down again after a couple of days.

Having a total rest day today, same as yesterday.  And I'm not cycling next week at all.  2x gyms is the size of it.  It's a short week for us, so.

Something that might be interesting to investigate when we come back from hols is cycle commuting and what other people do.  My gut feel is that I should be able to get 120km tidied away every week as a background level of activity rather than special and extra - it's commuting, not exercise.  But Mr TOTKat reckons that most cycle commuters don't do 30km a day round trips and that actually it's quite a lot.  I can see both sides of that argument, but surely it would become a background thing with time?

Commuting by bike in London

So one of the things that you have to contend with in London, as a commuter on the roads, is the high number of traffic lights compared with the distance travelled. My route in to the office is 15km and mostly on one main road.  In that 15km there are 75, yes, seventy-five, sets of traffic lights.  Some are in clusters of two, three or even four within a few metres of each other.  e.g. a cross roads with lights, followed by a set of pedestrian lights and then maybe a T-junction all within 100m section of road.

So, on my pretty typical ride home, 24 sets of those 75 were at a red signal when I got to them, resulting in almost exactly 9 minutes of being completely at a stop vs 39 minutes on the move (including speeding up away from lights and slowing down to them) in a 48 minute total journey time.  Now, that was a slow trip home for a combination of reasons; tiredness, weak legs, gusty wind and some reasonable traffic.  But that's an awful lot of actual stopped time, plus a lot of related slowing down and speeding up.  I can see why some people jump red lights.  If I could save at the very least 9 minutes off my journey, that'd make a huge difference (and that's not even taking into account the loss of speed to get to a stop and the ramping back up to speed again).

But.  The law, and common sense in very many cases, says stopping at red lights is what you do.

For comparison, the ride up to Hertfordshire the other week took 03:20 to cover 76km vs. 00:47 to cover 15km.  So, if I'd hit the same average speed for the long ride as for my commute, it would have taken 03:58 to get up to Herts.  Or, if I'd managed the same average speed for my commute as I did on the long ride, I'd take 39 minutes to get home.  (looking at my ride in, I've managed that in 38 minutes once, including 6 or so minutes stopped at lights... the ride home is never that quick)

Metoo with the sloppy :o)

I have had rather a sloppy day today, but I just needed it, so.

Breakfast of Total Breakfast with fruit and skimmed milk is getting a bit tedious, but that's what I have when I cycle in the morning as it's the fastest way to get enough releasable energy in place for my commute in the morning.  So, that's what I had.  Then I had second breakfast when I got into the office, showered and changed, of Greek yoghurt, strawberries, banana and honey.  Nom!  Lunch of the usual roasted chicken in a salad of various things like lettuce, celery, sweet pepper etc..  Then, the afternoon just went pear-shaped and I cracked at 4pm and went to the coffee shop across the lane from the office, where I'd had a meeting in the morning and coveted the cakes on offer, and bought a slice of treacle tart.  But for once I was brave and I asked them to tell me how much it weighed.  So they got out some scales and weighed it for me!  They were totally understanding!  I'd checked on WLR before I went for a rough idea of how many kcals it might cost (I had loads to spare at that point.  Like... loads!) and hoped it was around 130g of average to heavy treacle tart.  And lo!  It was 137g!  So, that way 500-600 kcals of refined sugars and fat in an incredible dense delivery mechanism.  And it tasted -amazing-.  I think I can honestly say that it was the nicest treacle tart I have ever eaten.  And it meant that instead of eating my fruit&nut bar, I donated it to my boss, who'd not managed to have any lunch by 5pm and I relied on the treacle tart to get me home.

Now, either the treacle tart had worn off, or I was a teensy bit fatigued from the quite extensive cycling this week, but I had no legs pretty quickly on the way home and it was really hard work.  It took 47 minutes and felt quite difficult.  I did have a nice chat with a Welsh guy on a motorbike at a set of lights though, so that was nice.

Dinner started out as chilli with couscous, peas and sweetcorn.   Which turned into chilli with pitta bread as I'd run out of steam by dinner time.  And then I was still hungry after that.  So I had another pitta bread with chorizo and cheddar with mustard.  And a couple of glasses of wine to finish off a bottle that was in the fridge.

But... you know what?  I've put in 4,400-odd kcals of exercise this week, so *raspberry* to it all.  I'm under maintenance and there's plenty of room for a nice dinner out tomorrow night as well.

Sorry...

Not really feeling it at the moment.

Random thoughts...

• At an average of 1500kcals over maintenance per week vs. calorific output including exercise, I'm slowly losing a little weight
• Lots of cycling during the week is getting easier (even with the frustrations of a gazillion extra cyclists and cars on the road today due to the tube strike)
• My core strength has come on hugely (I did some reverse crunches at the gym yesterday and they were -phenomenally- easy, so I did them for a count of 5 per crunch at 3x15 reps and it was still easy!)
• I've really enjoyed playing about with Greek yoghurt recipes, adding it into porridge for an extra kick of creaminess and there's still a couple more to come - the ice-cream was a HUGE hit with me - it tastes like it's been made with clotted cream
• I'm really enjoying making curries from scratch without using pre-made pastes, never mind sauces from jars
• I'm very much looking forward to Mr TOTKat coming home on Saturday (huge understatement!)
• This week is going to be possibly the biggest week for routine exercise, with the exception of the week we went skiing
• I'm really not keeping up with reading blogs at the moment... it's not you, it's me.  (honestly!)

And so, almost time to bed.  With tea.  And a kitty.  Or two.

I almost called this a rest day...

Cycling to work has become so normal already that I almost entitled this post something related to having a rest day. But hey, I cycled 30km. I didn't go to the gym, but I did cycle 30km. It is a taper week, so I don't feel -so- bad about not doing any weight training, but I'll maybe give in and go tomorrow. It depends if I can fit it in.

Today, I still have that background nausea I get with throat infections, but no sign of an actual infection. Yes my throat is sore (less sore than yesterday, thankfully) and my eyes and ears feel hot (and I have a temperature that's about 0.8C higher than my usual), but there are no typical white sores on my throat, so...

Dinner tonight was my first foray into using quinoa (and yes, that's a slightly exploded poached egg on top of the salmon in the photo *ahem*). I can't say I'm all that impressed. It takes ages to cook, so is less convenient than couscous. It's not easy to cook - you need to simmer it until it absorbs all of the water, the same way you do with some styles of rice and is also a method for couscous on the hob, but it takes 20 minutes! It doesn't even taste great. It's not horrible, but there's none of the nuttiness of couscous. Yeah, I keep comparing it with couscous, but that's where I'm coming from as an alternative. Hey ho. Maybe it'll be good in stews when it gets cold.

It was bound to happen at some point

I came off my bike this morning.  Or, rather, my bike fell over reasonably slowly with me still on it.  Coming up to some red traffic lights, I was slowing for them and I must have blinked slowly or something because suddenly, while still a bit away from the lights, the bike in front of me was almost stopped and I was still going a lot faster than that.  Yelling "shiiIIIIIII-i-I-i-I-iIIiiit!" I pulled on the brakes and, realising that wasn't going to be enough not to hit the other bike, swerved to the right of it, pulled myself off balance at about 5mph and toppled my bike to one side into the middle of the road with me still on it.  Meanwhile, the lights had changed to green and there was a bus bearing down on me.  The driver was great and rather than being a total twat, like a lot of bus drivers are it seems, he stopped well away from me rather than looming up close, and gave me the time to pick myself and my bike up and get out of the way a bit.  No horn honking, or engine revving at all.

I was a bit wobbly for a few minutes and needed a rest while the pain in my finger started to make itself known and I checked over for any cuts.  No bleeding, just a bit of scuffing on one elbow and a skinned, bruised and swollen finger, which still looks a bit on the deformed side 12 hours later.  My bike time to work was a healthy 42 minutes even including falling off and dusting down for a bit, so no worries there either.

It was bound to happen at some point, and in the grand scheme of things it was pretty innocuous.  Yes, I'm a bit tired after the extra adrenaline rush and following wobbliness and ohboy did I need lots of tea when I got to work, but a bumped finger and lightly scraped elbow is a good get-away.  Oh and my bike seat got knocked out of alignment, which took 15 seconds and a couple of twists with an Allen key to fix.  No harm done at all.

I'd like to thank the bus driver for being a gentleman and Mr TOTKat for dusting me down and making sure I was OK.

Otherwise, today was pretty uneventful so I decided to tack an extra 5km onto the journey home as the weather was nice...

B - MP Total Breakfast with frozen blueberries and skimmed milk
*cycle*
S - greek yogurt with strawberries and Dorset Cereals muesli
S - banana
L - lettuce, sweet pepper, cherry tomatoes, celery, chicken breast and avocado with lemon juice and black pepper
S -Starbucks skinny Caramel Macchiato
S - cottage cheese with Dr Karg crispbread
D - beef chilli with baked beans and a couple of glasses of wine

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	2250 2634]
Protein (g)	175.7 (32.9%)
Carbohydrate (g)	214.4 (37.7%)
Fat (g)	44.8 (18.9%)
Fibre (g)	27.8
Fruit & Veg	13.2

How to tackle this?

A couple of weeks ago, I threw myself into cycling into work.  I ended up 800kcals under maintenance for the week and putting on 1kg (well, probably not really, but that's what the scales said).  Yes, I get that when I eat more, it weighs more and thus I will weigh more on balance the first week I eat lots more.  So, ignoring that effect when I'm doing it this time, I still have problems around eating.

Today I cycle into work and home again.  I will not be going to the gym.  The cycling gives me an extra 700-800kcals or so for the day.  I -should- eat at least half of those kcals, but I -think- that I actually need to eat all of them and not aim for any loss target kcals as my body doesn't deal with that very well and starts to retain water etc.  I'll be cycling at least 3 times this week, so it's not mad extra work (90km in total, oh arse, and an extra 21-49km on Saturday) but I feel I need to pretty much ignore this week as it's straight after an event, so I'm a bit heavy anyway and there's lots of extra exercise which will throw my body out as well.  I'll aim for "on or under maintenance kcals" each day this week, but definitely not "at or below loss kcals".  Then re-assess next week when things should have settled down a bit.  Of course, then I have only 1 week of normal exercise (3x weights and 2-4x cycling and 0-1 swims) before I have to taper for the final Thames Turbo Triathlon, so it may not be a fair trial or learning.

Anyone else gone through a significant increase in exercise output?  How did you manage your nutrition and what effects did you see?

Weekly roundup and sensible planning

This week was a complete mess, as you can see.  If I'm going to cycle this much, I have to work out how to sort out my nutrition to match it properly.

Last week:-
Exercise count: 10
Exercise time: 07:41
Exercise kcals: 4,408
Kcals difference from loss for the week: +2594
Kcals difference from maintenance for the week: -906
(+ is excess vs. quota, - is deficit below quota)

Day		Quota	Exercise	Total	Consumed	Difference	Difference for Week
Mon		1285	1214	2499	2890	391	391
Tue		1289		1289	1564	275	666
Wed		1296	1155	2451	2147	-304	362
Thu		1295	733	2028	2018	-10	352
Fri		1292	762	2054	1959	-94	258
Sat		1285		1285	3318	2033	2291
Sun		1296		1296	1599	303	2594
Total		9038	3864	12902	15496	2594

Since 15th June 2009:-
Exercise count: 312
Exercise time: 212h
Exercise kcals: 115,881

What's weird is that my lovely blue M&S silk&linen dress was pretty loose yesterday even though the scales are saying "umm... you're eating less than you're expending are you? really?".  I can't do a body fat measurement to see if there's something else going on because I'm retaining water like a so-and-so today.  Everything is just totally in flux, too many changes at once, I need to look after myself in order to take part in the Thames swim next Sunday, and I need to re-think how I approach the next 5 weeks.

So.

Next week I'm focussing on the Thames swim on Sunday.  This means the following:-

• winding back the cycling to probably zero (over 100km in a week is a bit much right now)
• -IF- my groin feels OK on Monday I'll do a weights session
• on Tuesday, I shall take the 3rd open water training session
• -IF- my groin feels OK on Wednesday, I'll do a weights session
• I have a deep tissue massage on Thursday at which I shall ask for focus on my thighs
• -IF- my groin feels OK on Friday, I'll do a weights session
• I will aim for roughly maintenance kcals throughout the week
• I will carb load on Saturday, which -will- involve going over maintenance kcals for that day
• I will enjoy late lunch out on Sunday after the Nokia Thames swim in the morning
• I will be 1lb heavier on Sunday and Monday than I am on Friday, mostly due to carb loading

 Then from the week after, I will wind up the cycling again, keep the weight training in place, but aim for roughly maintenance kcals over the week for the following 4 weeks, trying to keep it even throughout the week rather than bulges and holes.  The 4th week, I will taper exercise down for the final Thames Turbo Triathlon of the year.  Once that's over I can start to re-focus on fat loss.

Tired

Really very tired.  I'm getting an hour less sleep on the nights before I cycle to work (I have to get up at 06:15 to miss the worst of the traffic on the way in) and have tripled the expended energy due to exercise compared with a previous "normal" week.  So, no wonder I'm tired, I'm not used to it.   I've put in 120km cycling this week, up from pretty much zero, for crying out loud!

Thankfully I have the whole weekend off and it's enforced.  Also, thankfully, I've got only two sessions of my current weights routine left.  I don't like it.  Really.  There aren't enough compound exercises so whilst it's hard, I don't get as much benefit as I'd like.  And as it's legs-hard it's the worst thing while I'm starting out with cycling commuting.

Hopefully I'll be back to journalling more regularly next week.  We'll see.

Having a bit of a relax

My god I needed a rest today.  That run on Sunday was nice, but a bit of a mistake if I'm honest; 8 days in a row with no rest from exercise is the most I've ever done and my body was telling me to take a break now please.  It was lovely to run with Mr TOTKat while we're both roughly at the same pace level - he'll start running training again soon and be back to being a lot faster than me so I can't keep up any more.  So anyway, rest day very much needed and to round it off, I decided to finish off the chocolate ice-cream that's been lurking in the freezer for weeks.  Mmmm :o) - Available from Ocado for home delivery enjoyment!  It's made with really good ingredients and is by far the nicest chocolate ice-cream I've ever had.

I'm pretty tired due to lack of sleep last night.  It was so hot and humid.  Ick.  So, early to bed tonight and up bright and early for the cycle in to work.

The new southern cycle Superhighway is turning out to be a lot better than the impression the media is giving.  It -isn't- pointless at all!  There are huge swathes of the A3 now that you can sail along through the traffic like a bus on a bus lane.  It -is- better than it was before.  The road surface is so much nicer.  The lane is wide enough for two cyclists abreast easily so overtaking is possible even in heavy traffic and the cars pretty much stay out of the cycle lane as much as they obey traffic lights, which is no more than you can ask and makes a huge difference to the perception of safety.  I have no idea how many cyclists were using that route before, but there are loads using it now and for the most part, people seem confident and happy with the route.  The really great part is being able to avoid Elephant and Castle roundabout going south in the evening rush hour.  That was the only part of the journey I was apprehensive about before I tried the CS7 by-pass of that junction.  8 journeys on the Superhighway so far (including a trip in and back at the weekend) and I'm enjoying it.  Being back on the tube on the way home today was a far less pleasant experience than cycling.  The only thing about cycling in the morning is that it has to be early as my route starts beyond CS7 and that part gets very blocked up beyond about 07:15, so I have to leave by 7am - which gets me in to the office at 07:40, 5 minutes to put my bike away, 10 minutes to shower and change and I'm logged on and ready at 8am.  40-42 minutes to cycle in, 48-50 to get home.  Same route both ways just in different directions.  Go figure.

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop MP Max, Yeo Valley fruit compote and flaked almonds
S - banana
L - cold beef chilli with fresh sweet peppers
S - greek yogurt with fresh mango
S -beef jerky
D - prawnychilligarliclimething with couscous, followed by chocolate ice-cream

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1564 1798]
Protein (g)	142.0 (37.5%)
Carbohydrate (g)	161.1 (39.9%)
Fat (g)	37.9 (22.5%)
Fibre (g)	21.1
Fruit & Veg	11.6

Deviation

I did have a sneaky run on Sunday and then yesterday cycled into work, had a weights session during the day and cycled home again.  So, after 8 consecutive days of exercise, I've decided it's a good idea to rest today rather than cycle in, do open water training and cycle home again.  My body is complaining at me.  It doesn't help that Mr TOTKat and I spontaneously went for dinner at our local Italian last night and the 1/2 bottle of wine (or less, I just didn't seem to be able to drink much of it) hit me quite hard again.  I really enjoyed the evening, but made a bad choice with my main course of lasagne.  Nothing wrong with lasagne per se, it was just mostly pasta and not a lot of filling so it was stodgy and heavy.  The scales have been surprisingly kind this morning!

B - MP Total Breakfast with skimmed milk and blueberries
*cycle*
S - greek yogurt with mango and Dorset Cereals fruity muesli
*gym*
S - 1 scoop MP Max in skimmed milk
L - lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, celery and chicken breast
S - cottage cheese on 2 oat cakes
S - banana and strawberries
S - fruit, nut and seed bar
*cycle*
D - calamari, lasagne, white wine and a latte

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	2890 2999]
Protein (g)	169.0 (24.4%)
Carbohydrate (g)	291.4 (39.5%)
Fat (g)	88.8 (28.8%)
Fibre (g)	22.5
Fruit & Veg	9.7