Ed Laverack journal: the season is (nearly) dead, long live the season

Ed Laverack and three other riders are keeping rider journals for The British Continental this season. Ed rides for the UCI Continental team SwiftCarbon Pro Cycling this season. This is Ed’s 8th journal entry…

We were underrated going into this season, but we were given opportunities to take, and crikey did we take them

The road season is drawing to a close once again. 

Every year there is something different, something to scratch that itch. 

This year is no different. I’ve raced in the UK for 7 years and every July I am startled to see just how young I still am! 

People are surprised when I tell them I’m 25, when they feel like I’ve been around forever! This year has been a good one on reflection. I’ve got to race with some undeniable talent and riders juggling university degrees all in one. The team, SwiftCarbon, has had a rollercoaster year. Personally, we were underrated going into this season, but we were given opportunities to take, and crikey did we take them. As riders, we have gelled together and been highly motivated to get the job done and qualify for the Tour of Britain as well as driving home the message that even when others have low motivation we are still going to drive to the line. 

Missing out on the Tour of Yorkshire, for myself, actually turned out to be a blessing. I was ill leading up to it and for me to be there under the weather would have spelt disaster. Instead, I gave myself the sole focus of targeting the latter stages of the season. The last few years I’ve come good near the end, and that could be a combination of things. My fitness accelerates rapidly when I do ‘double day’ training sessions, and as a result race weight is extremely easy to get down to and maintain because I am on the bike almost every 12 hours on rotation. 

To be honest, that has something that has been on my mind a lot recently. Being clever with balanced sessions and throwing the leg over the bike every 12 hours has allowed me to claim minimum effective dose on a lot of things. The day after the Ryedale Grand Prix (2pm start) I did a hard 4 hour training ride (8am start). So, I managed a near 9 hour training block in 22 hours. I am a firm believer that dipping in to things like this once in a while is what accelerates my condition. I cannot emphasise recovery after that enough though!

Much of my preparation for the Manx International involved double days, and that was handy because one day was a double day! 

I have just come off an 8 day training block at home, the biggest amount of training I have done all year. The idea though is just to bring that conditioning up a little, not massively, as I already have confidence in my own ability so anything too strenuous could tip the balance, and that balance is all too important. The idea is to do enough to stress the body but not too much that you’ll be unable to train the following day. You may have read the recent circulation of material online regarding ‘the limit of human endurance.’ Well, it says that the sweet spot for calorie expenditure is 4500 calories a day, the body may struggle to handle more food intake than that so why burn more than that basically.

With some hyped races coming up and a top secret development in the pipeline before the end of October I have even more reason to get stuck in to whatever comes my way

So, I tested the method. Now, a 3500 calorie burn ride is actually a fairly big ride. We are talking about 4 hours of steady riding or 3 hours with intervals. I bounced back and forth between those 2 variations for around a week of said block and I fuelled the workouts correctly as I saw fit. Aside from general fatigue you’d experience at the end of the week I did actually think I could keep it up for longer than the week. All super interesting stuff.

As of this moment I am very motivated for September and October. It’s rare to hear a roadie say that I know, but with some hyped races coming up and a top secret development in the pipeline before the end of October I have even more reason to get stuck in to whatever comes my way!

Featured photo: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com. HSBC UK National Road Series – Cycle 360 Manx International Stage 4 – Ed Laverack

Read more

Rider journals: Ed Laverack #7: measuring up against the stars of Le Tour

Rider journals: Ed Laverack #6: the feeling of success success

Rider journals: Ed Laverack #5: planes, trains and automobiles

Rider journals: Ed Laverack #4: dealing with setbacks

Rider journals: Ed Laverack #3: gearing up for the Tour de Yorkshire

Rider journals: Ed Laverack #2: winter training, team launch, eRacing

Rider journals: Ed Laverack #1: motivation, transfomation, preparation

Rider journals: introducing Ed Laverack

Interview with Ed Laverack by John Smith

Ed’s vlog.