113. Feel the burn

There's a fantastic line in the RideLondon training plan, as follows: "exercising fasted is a means of encouraging the use of more stored fat as fuel". Basically, this means that you should try to do some of the cycling in the morning without having eaten beforehand. And you burn off fat. Woo-hoo! Sign me up!

Except for the fact that I can't fit in an hour-long cycle before going to work in the morning... Although the proposed "cycle to work" plan would sort that... Next week, maybe...

Anyway, today was the first morning that I managed to do an hour-long cycle without food first. It was OK. Although I did become ravenous shortly after finishing the cycle (which was inconvenient because I had to head off to Bodybalance. And once home from Bodybalance I could have eaten my body-weight in chocolate (which is why I avoid having such an amount of chocolate in the house nowadays). Note to self - obtain healthy snacks which can be consumed quickly to restore equilibrium post morning cycle. And then hide them so that they are only eaten in that circumstance.

There are other words of wisdom, but I understand them far less... ""at moderate Zone 1 effort" and "Stay in Zone 1 for more than 75% of ride time.". No idea what they're on about. There is a description, but it doesn't really help. I'm back in the "how am I supposed to know that?" world - unless you have a trainer riding alongside you, and a heart rate monitor that you're watching all the time, how are you supposed to know that you're spending 75% of the time at 60-80% of your max heart rate?!

When I'm running or cycling, I'm mostly just about the "keeping going". I don't have the time or energy for complicated mathematics. I'm pretty much ignoring the Zone thing (as well as 50% of the training plan, currently.... Hmm...) and hoping that this won't work against me in the long, uh, cycle.

:o)

Today's stats
Cycling (in gym) - 1 hour, 12.5 miles [Level 5]
Bodybalance - 1 hour
Walking - 43 mins, 2.43 [off to have my hair cut - an up-hill trudge in the lovely seasonal rain...] 
Walking - 37 mins, 2.11 miles [home after coffee with ZG]