Tuesday 31 May 2011

Key Sessions

I managed to get my key sessions done this weekend but the extra bits that I had planned were scrapped. On Friday I arrived home from work after taking my now customary long route home via Boxhill, only to arrive and I just felt completely wiped out again. I then spent the next 24 hours with a scratchy throat which I know is usually the first sign that I'm trying to fight something off. I woke the next day feeling lethargic and very tired despite a solid 9 hours sleep, still with itchy eyes and throat, so instead of the 50 miler I had planned I took to the sofa, played with little wheezy and had some down time. By the evening, following an industrial amount of Vitamin C I was feeling a bit better so did  a gentle hour on the turbo just to spin my legs out and then in bed by 9.30.

The next morning was to be the first of my key sessions for the weekend; my first open water swim since the Little Woody, last year. Many triathletes prefer open water training and racing to a pool; I don't. I am not sure what it is, whether it's the cold, the sighting, the wetsuit or the smell of ducks##t, but give me a chlorine pool, a blue line to follow and a load of old ladies in frilly hats clogging the lanes anytime. I went to Heron lake with Simon and the plane was to do a longer swim of around 3 kms. I have to say I actually enjoyed it for a change. The first 20 minutes were not good; it all just felt so alien again and as usual my stroke disintegrated as I thought about all the negatives, but gradually it started to come back. I think the thing that really clicked was achieving a good body rotation which I began to really think about. In the past I have got really tired or weary towards the end of the HIM swims I have done and thinking about it now it's like I was fighting the wetsuit because I was not rolling enough to allow my arm to recover and get a high elbow. As soon as I did this everything just felt....better. On the first two laps Simon and I had been swapping at the front and I got some really good drafting practice on his feet. The third lap was my best. I got my sighting right and my RPE felt pretty low. It was a very encouraging session.

The day after was to be our next key session, a long bike on the Forestman bike course with a run off. Thankfully I woke up feeling pretty good, despite spending 10 hours on my feet after the swim, at London Zoo with my 2 favourite girls. (Useless fact of the day; the collective noun for a group of Otters is a romp).
We found a place to park up near Sandy Balls, where T2 will be on race day, and headed off with a map and directions. The first lap was done at a pretty slow average speed because we had to keep checking our position and we took a couple of wrong turns, so it was really nice to stick the instructions away for lap 2 and just get our heads down. It was a very pretty course with a good mix of technical stuff, long open roads across the plains and on the A35 and pretty wooded roads but it drizzled on us all day and by the end we were quite cold and wet through. The course itself is not hilly at all, with only 2 short, sharp climbs to negotiate and the vast majority of it was spent on the tri-bars. Simon has found long bike rides hard in the past but he was looking much stronger yesterday. Usually, on the rolling hills I have the slight edge while he can climb much better than me when the gradient gets sharper but he's developed a lot more ME so he was pulling at the front really effectively. We were out for 6 hours of which 5hrs 40 was actually moving, the other 20 minutes were spent asking other people (who were also lost) where we thought we were. We ere both very cold and wet when we arrived back so scrapped the run recce in favour of getting back home. With 95 miles on the clock we had done enough.

The really good thing is that I feel relatively fresh today. I had a tinker with my bike position this week and raised my saddle by 3 mm's and it feels like it's made quite a difference. My hamstrings have been very tight and this has been compounded by spending a lot of time in a TT position but by opening my hip angle it's taken quite a lot of pressure off them. I am so pleased that I bought my Euros last year; a long 6 hour ride does not feel long at all.

Friday 27 May 2011

Trials and Tribulations

After the 100 mile bike at the weekend I spent the early part of the week suffering for it with my body finding it hard to cope with the training stress. In the last 4 weeks I had only had 2 days off and this had rather caught up with me as I was not recovering enough. So I took a rest day on Monday with Tuesday being a bike to work with my longer route taken home, spinning gently up Boxhill to try to flush out my legs ready for a swim set in the evening to determine my critical swim speed. After a steady warm up I did the 400m effort in 6.34 but I had paced it badly, going through 200 in 3.12. After more steady swimming I then did the follow up 200tt and was really struggling, finishing that in 3.24, well down on pace. Putting those numbers into the Swimsmooth calculator that gave a 100m pace of 1.35/100 which I knew wasn't right and after some helpful advice from Tritalk I readjusted it to 1.41, which I know was more likely. Apparently, the CSS maths doesn't work if the 200 is slower than the 200 splits of the 400tt.

The next day I tried a gentle run at lunchtime and I got through it but it was a real struggle and I could tell that I was not firing on all cylinders. Everything ached, my calves were really sore again and I just felt generally beat up. So, the perfect opportunity to go out and batter myself at the Phoenix evening 10 on the G10/42 TT course then? Doh.... I probably should have knocked it on the head but hey, it's only 10 miles. ;-) Within the first 30 seconds I knew it was going to be ugly. As you join the A24 there's a very small rise and normally I can get my head down and pull up it in a relatively large gear (for me) but straight away I found myself snicking down through the gears with my legs burning brightly. uuugh. I actually had a better second half, I presume because I had warmed up a bit but I was not surprised to see a new, slowest time in what were not too bad conditions (27.12).

Last night I got back into the pool and did a 3km swim as;
10x100 as 25 full stroke, 25 finger drag, 25 full stroke, 25 catch up.
10x100 on 2 minutes at css pace (1.39, 40,40,41,40,40,40,40,42,42,) really tough but just about held it together.
1000m straight focusing on body roll and catch.
I felt much better and refreshed and hopefully over my 48 hour dip.

A busy few days are planned. A bike commute home tonight then tomorrow I need to fit in a 50 miler, preferably with a run off. Sunday I'm aiming to get to a lake to do a long swim in the wettie and then on Monday Simon and I are heading off to recce the Forestman bike and run course, so hopefully that will be another 100 miles with a 10 mile or so run off.

Replies
Cheers Hodge. I am very much just looking to get round, learn from the experience and then build on it. My aim is to work towards having a go at another IM next year but I will want to really do it justice and achieve a time. I know what I would like to aim for (not saying publicly though  ;-) but I will need to be consistent , which, unfortunately, is my weakness. Having said that, I've learnt a lot in the last 6 weeks and feel that I CAN do it. Also means that the DW will need a bit of a rethink. I just don't think it's possible to do both well. Oh, and I STILL want to do a sub 5 half IM; that's probably the thing that I will be working on over the rest of the season.

Monday 23 May 2011

Another long one in the bank.

I am really pleased with how last week went and I currently have that achy tiredness you get from a sustained period of training. For me, last week included some pretty big numbers, mainly in the saddle. In fact I cycled every day and on four days, twice in a day. It's rather shocked my body but I have to say I already feel fitter, stronger and more comfortable on the bike, which bearing in mind I am going to be spending a lot of time on it during the Forestman, is a good thing. It culminated in two weekend bike sessions, the first being a one hour turbo in the garage followed by a long bike on Sunday. The turbo session was conducted while it was a balmy 22 degrees outside, light winds and broken cloud; the long bike, unfortunately was not.

I was up at 4.30am to get some breakfast in me (big bowl of cereal / banana / tea) and on the road by 5. I was dressed lightly for a sunny ride but within minutes of me stepping outside the door the grey clouds dumped on me and I stopped while I pondered whether to turn round and put more layers on. I decided against it hoping that it would perk up and also assumed that I wouldn't race with a waterproof on, so why train in one? Hmmm....

I took the long way round to Simon's house to meet him and had 40 minutes or so on the clock by the time I got there and then we set out on the A24 to Ditchling Beacon and back. It was pretty grim at first and I was cold and wet, in particular my feet were blocks of ice and I was having trouble shifting the gear levers because my fingers had started to numb up. Oh well, no one said it would be easy. Towards West Grinstead the sun started to make an appearance and my top half began to warm up but my legs felt like wood; I just couldn't get them warmed up, mainly because of my sodden feet and once again, on every slight incline I'd find it hard to maintain my cadence and have to downshift, trying to get my legs to revolve. It seemed that I was going to have a pretty grim day ahead of me. It was however, really good to be cycling on new roads and in new countryside and once we were off the A24 everything became very pretty and it helped to take my mind off how I was feeling. We approached Ditchling and as soon as we hit the bottom, Simon was off and before I knew it I was in the granny gear, pulling myself up. I normally like to sit in the saddle when climbing but I really needed to get out and stretch my legs and I was changing my position constantly; a sure sign that I was not very happy. Simon was waiting for me at the top and we had some food (Elevenses bar; food of Champions;-) and some PSP before turning around and heading back.

Although there was a stiff wind, I felt much better almost straight away. I had been feeding properly on the outward leg but I was just much warmer now and the short rest combined with now dry feet and warmer muscles meant that I was able to maintain my cadence much better. As we made our way home I was really enjoying the fact that I was not now feeling particularly fatigued and even had that nice feeling a couple of times on a rolling road where even though the road is going up it doesn't halt your cadence or speed and there's no need to change down gear. It doesn't happen often, but it's nice when it does.  :-)

Simon and I swapped being at the front as we time trialled back home (no drafting btw) and by the time I got back home I had exactly 100 miles on the clock in 5.47.xx including a couple of stops. Not earth shattering, but not too bad either.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been getting to grips with Training Peaks and the really useful that I have found with it is how it can tell you quickly the ratios of how much you're doing in the different disciplines. I have had a big bike focus over the last 3 weeks that has begun to pay dividends but I need to put some more time into some swim sessions in order that I can arrive at T1 not feeling completely wiped out.

Wednesday 18 May 2011

I should be worried, shouldn't I?

Last couple of weeks have been quite strange. I have been quite relaxed and relatively unfazed by the thought of doing the Forestman in a few weeks. I should point out that I am not saying that in a 'look at me, I'm so blase / aren't I cool'  kind of way, but, shouldn't I be freaking out a bit? On a number of occasions and in a number of different contexts I have heard or read  people saying 'respect the distance'. It's a phrase that has just kept popping up while I have been listening to podcasts and reading a few blogs and every time I hear it I think to myself,  'You're being too calm, you 're not respecting what you are trying to do'. But no matter what I don't seem to be rising to the bait. I am going to take that as a good thing.

It's taken a while but I'm really enjoying being back on the bike and in the pool and I think a big part of that is because I am genuinely not worried about pace / HR etc. Everything is on feel, RPE and duration of effort and it's liberating to just be out there enjoying a swim, bike or run. I really do feel that I can do the Forestman and most importantly enjoy it. I want to finish it and feel that I want to go and do another one, but only better.

Anyway, what's been going on? Lots of cycling. Commuting to work and then taking a longer route home with a Boxhill ascent has been a real pleasure and gives me a nice 1hr 20 ride home. On Sunday I was up at 5am to meet Simon for us to do a long ride. Simon had already done a 75 mile ride the day before and was remarkably strong as we completed approximately 80 miles. I kept a cork in it and let him skip up the hills ahead of me and towards the end of the ride he was feeling it and I was really pleased that my economy of effort saw me finish the ride strongly. A massive boost. This Sunday we're heading off to Ditchling Beacon and back. Might have to stop for an ice cream. ;-) The next day I went out for a long run to try a 9/1 run walk strategy. I am very much in the camp that says ' run the run' when it comes to the marathon leg of an Ironman but common sense has to prevail. It's a tough course anyway and I do not have the volume to  run 26 miles so this seems like it could be a reasonable compromise. With a well paced bike leg (read slow) I am hoping that I can put in a pretty good run. I was quite surprised at how long 9 minutes felt and of course how short 1 minute is, but it gave me enough time to stretch my hamstrings (jeez they get tight) and powermince for a bit before getting going again.

Swimming is improving and while my technique gets ropey very quickly (my catch no longer exists) endurance is coming back and the bad cramps I was suffering have all but gone. I'm stroke counting again and just trying to keep it loose, relaxed and long, but the fact that I am on 21-22 strokes per length highlights my lack of technique and fitness.

I have discovered Training Peaks. It looks pretty good and I have started using it to log my sessions and can see that it could be a really useful tool. Something to tinker with anyway.

Saturday 14 May 2011

Too little too late?

Not surprisingly the couple of weeks after the DW saw me doing very little as regards training. I had that typical post event blues which was compounded by not finishing the race. The massive upside was that we managed to raise almost £900 for 'Born too Soon', a charity particularly close to Adam's heart, so that made it all very much worthwhile. Immediately afterwards I really didn't fancy doing the DW ever again but within a couple of days I had changed my mind and this race is still unfinished business, so over the next year the focus will be with us losing as much weight as possible, both off of us and the boat and really nailing our technique. It's those two factors I feel that really killed our race this year. Adam took a few days, but again he really wants to nail it, so he's going to focus on some running at the moment and he's aiming to run a half marathon in the autumn, which is just great.

But, I now have the not inconsiderable hurdle of a long course triathlon to get through. It's fairly obvious to anyone that knows me or has read this blog that I have constantly been putting this race on the backburner, but with less than 7 weeks to go I obviously have had to start thinking about doing some effective training. My expectations for the race are low; VERY low. All I want to do is to get around safely and enjoy the day. I really am just trying to treat it as a long training day and if it goes relatively well and I don't hurt myself (a constant worry) then I will probably enter another Ironman towards the end of the season.

So last week I headed off to the pool and in an effort to keep things simple I just wanted to cover an IM distance swim over the course of the evening, so it was 8 x 400m reps with 90 seconds recovery. It was truly horrific, not surprising after the best part of a 6 month layoff from any structured swim training. My form and aerobic fitness where non-existent and after the first 3 reps I found myself propped up against the side of the pool with the other swimmers looking on in bemused fascination as I took large, heaving breaths. I plugged on, my 'stroke' slowy deteriorating and then the second half of the swim was effectively ruined as cramp in my calves began to get more frequent and more painful. I went back on tuesday night and it was better, it really could not have been much worse. I was not able to complete the 3.2km swim I had planned due to cramp coming on again but the 2.5km that I did do felt easier and I was able to maintain my form a little.

On wednesday I did the Kingston Phoenix evening 10 and managed a long 26 which is a fair way down on my best ime from last year and the conditions were perfect. As I freewheeled to the Holmwood roundabout I had the usual metallic taste in my mouth and some dry heaving, all signs that I had at least given it a good go. The next one's in two weeks and I must remember to take my HRM along and collect a bit of data. Simon and I drove over to Dorking pool afterwards and attended a masters' swim session. Very tough with lots of fly and breastroke, funnily enough, not my best disciplines. :-/  I came out feeling like I had had a good workout though.

This morning I had a 25 minute warm up by cycling over to Richmond Park and then did 3 flying laps. Well, 'flying' about as well as a penguin, but I laid down a time with even splits and was within myself so again, it'll give me a session that I can do to give me a marker. Tomorrow is a long bike session, hopefully up around 100 miles and then a longish run in the evening.

I'm really trying to spend as much time on the bike as possible and even though it's been a while coming the mojo is returning. I'd forgotten how much I like riding my bike. My main worry is not the distances as such or the aerobic requirements, but my lack of body conditioning. Earlier on this week everything ached even though I was only completing a relatively modest training volume and some of my muscle groups are extremely weak. Tight hamstrings seem particularly bad and are having some serious stretching sessions to alleviate the tightness. Strong heart, weak legs. It'll all be fine.....