Wednesday 28 September 2011

Stalled training

As I came out of the tri season I was looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into some big run miles in the lead up to the Luton Marathon, but unfortunately, injury and illness have put paid to that. The injury came, not during a gnarly tempo run or a blistering swim set, but instead during a rather stupid dance move that no 40 year old should attempt. I woke up the next morning to find an enormous purple bruise running almost 9 inches along the path of my now over-extended hip flexor. It was painful to walk and with a very busy family weekend in store it seemed sensible to take the entire weekend off; the first time that's happened in a very long time. The following week I was able to get on the bike to and from work, doing a few 80 minute rides on the way home along my Boxhill route, but as the week wore on I started to feel more and more lethargic and by Friday I had a full-on cold. Que another weekend off and more vitally, another long run not in the bag. Grrrrrr.......
By this Monday I was feeling a lot better so went for a gentle 30 minute run. I felt great. Then, 20 minutes later, I felt rubbish. Grrrrrr...... Another day off yesterday although I did a gentle and short commute to work and back. I am now almost over my bug and hopefully I will be able to plod for a long slow run on Sunday, hopefully around 18 miles or so.
While all this has been going on Adam did his first half marathon on Sunday, completing the New Forest run. A brilliant effort from Boy Wonder. The other thing that has been keeping me amused has been my decision to build my own mountain bike to do some off road cycling over the winter. The idea was that I would build myself a fleabay special, but so far I have managed to spend a King's ransom. When Mrs Wheezy sees the credit card bill I am going to be in one whole heap of trouble.......

Tuesday 13 September 2011

Hilly 12

I needed last week's rest week. I was pooped. During the week I commuted on the bike every day but took it very easy. The long route home from work that I had enjoyed so much when training for the Forestman seemed particularly difficult and I weaved and wheezed my way up Boxhill before descending back home. My long run was cut back to 67 minutes and most of it was laborious, my muscles and joints not enjoying being forced to run so early on a Saturday morning.

On Sunday I did my last time trial of the season. It was an unusual one in that it involved hills rather than the usual blast up and down a dual carriageway. The roads were quite greasy so the first couple of miles that involved a descent down to the bottom of Boxhill were a bit tentative and throw in game birds in the middle of the road and D of E walkers with their heads buried in maps and not where they were going it made for a couple of heart stopping moments. As I climbed Boxhill I got into a pretty good rhythm and started to reel in the 4 competitors ahead of me and by the time I had gone over the top there was only one other rider in front of me on the road. I followed her down the next descent, not wanting to overtake on such a tricky bit of road before pushing on up the last climb. At the top at the finish the usual dry heaves came up (muesli taste; nice) before a slow few hundred metres back to the car park. Being a new course to me it was always going to be a pb, but it was a bit gutting being beaten into second place by 1 second. Next year.

In other news....
Ad and I are trying to get a boat sorted and we have not had much luck, having an offer on a decent looking boat accepted and then turned down. Grrrr.... Ad's Bonkers busy at work at the moment so we have not been out in the last couple of weeks but I had a really nice paddle with Dad on Sunday night, his first paddle in a K2. I always said I would never get back into a Discovery; I was lying. ;-) It was a bit windy but we took it steady and had no major wobbles. All good.

Monday 5 September 2011

Trying to pace it right.

My summer running campaign came to an end last week and I am delighted how it has invigorated my running. Cool I have started doing some long runs in preparation for the Luton Marathon in November. The last 2 weekends I have gone out and run for 16 miles, but the main difference to my long runs in the past is that I have run to heart rate. The first 9-10 miles I have capped my HR at 140, which is well at the bottom end of zone 2. I find it hard to do this as I find that my run form seems stilted but there's no doubt that it will help me improve my endurance. Over the last 4-5 miles I then allow my HR to drift out to 150-55 which gives me a comfortable negative split. I am intending to try to negative split in the race as I think this will force me to control myself at the start when I am likely to get carried away. The upshot of this was that both runs were at approximately 3.10 pace which is significantly faster than I thought I would achieve. Early days though. let's see how those 20 milers go, eh?

Swimming has hit the rocks, as has cycling, mainly due to the summer holidays. Seven weeks off is great but actually I find it a lot harder to train then, as our family routine is completely thrown up in the air, which of course is fantastic. Cool Now that I am back at work I can start commuting to work on the bike again which was so effective for me in the run up to the Forestman. Very Happy

Race wise, I have my last TT of the season on Sunday and then the Cabbage Patch 10 in October where ideally I would like to comfortably get under 65 minutes. Let's see... Smile

In other news...


Adam and I are in the process of buying a boat, but I'm not sure whether it's going to happen or not. Fingers crossed we'll have our own K2 to train in the winter.