Exercise induced amnesia

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BY: Sally Bigham

Published: 17th May, 2011

Life is a bit of whirlwind at the moment, but I love it! I wrote my last blog two weeks ago and the day before the Rocky Mountain Bike Marathon in Riva Del Garda, Italy. Since then I've had a week at home training and a week training in Sicily where I also raced in the Etna Marathon. Today, I was asked for my postcode and I gave the one for an address that I haven't lived at for 9 years!!! I'm holding my crazy schedule entirely responsible for this and other similarly embarrassing memory failures. Fortunately I haven't forgotten how to ride a bike…if I could only remember where I put it ;)

I finished in 2^nd place in the Rocky Mountain Bike Marathon in Riva at the end of April and I won the Etna Marathon in Sicily last weekend. The Etna Marathon was really good fun and the Mongibello MTB team were excellent hosts who worked tirelessly to organise a great event. There were some brilliant descents, and the long, steep, loose forest singletrack sections back down to the finish never failed to make me whoop! The views of snow-capped Etna, which was still smoking after it erupted last Wednesday, were pretty spectacular. However, it was a bit unnerving to be lying in bed at the base of a rumbling volcano, which was blasting red lava into the night sky!

I'm really pleased with the shape that I'm in at the moment and the plan now is to build on this so that I peak in 5 weeks time for the World Marathon Championships in Montebelluna, Italy. I'm clocking up the miles with some long endurance rides, but I'm also doing interval sessions. After two weeks of high load training in Italy I had a lower load week that looked like this:

Monday: 1 hour spinning easy on the rollers; 30 minutes core exercises; and 1 hour of yoga (never thought that I'd get into yoga but I really love it now and feel the benefit!)

Tuesday: 6 hour endurance road ride (heart rate 127 to 141 bpm)

Wednesday: same as Monday

Thursday: 10 minute hill intervals x 6 (heart rate >169bpm)

Friday:  4 hour mixed pace off-road ride

Saturday: 6 hour endurance road ride

Sunday: Rest!!!! It's not often that I get a Sunday off….luxury!!!!

 

Last week looked like this:

Monday: 1 hour spinning easy on the rollers; 30 minutes core exercises; and yoga

Tuesday: 3 minute intervals x 8 and 1 minute intervals x 6 (heart rate >169bpm)

Wednesday: Travel to Sicily

Thursday: 3 hours endurance off-road ride

Friday: 30 minute pre-race (easy riding with a few intervals at race pace)

Saturday: Etna Marathon

Sunday: 4 hours endurance off-road ride

Monday: 4 hours endurance off-road ride

I'm at home for almost two weeks now and I'll have a reasonably high training load before heading off to compete in the Trans Germany, European Marathon Champs (Austria) and then the big one - the World Marathon Champs.

Happy training and racing,

Sally :)