Thursday, 13 October 2016

Not sure how that happened...

I've gone and entered the Outlaw Triathlon next year. One minute I'm merely looking at the website and the next I have a congratulatory e-mail confirming my entry. I genuinely don't know what came over me but I'm quite excited. My basic plan is this:

Bike; lots, especially on trainerroad.
Run; a bit. Keep ticking over, enjoying PArkrun and think about some longer miles in March.
Swim; meh. That's cheating.

Sunday, 9 October 2016

All the nineteens

It was my 19th Bushy parkrun yesterday and I ran 19:19! Spooky. Even more spooky was the fact that I ran 20:20 the week before, but I guess I should aim to run that next week. I started much nearer  the front so didn't get too hindered and had a clear run. My main motivation was chasing down the man dressed in a carrot costume and I managed to overhaul him in the last 400metres. Running a solid sub-20 time and being beaten by a fancy dress vegetable would be just too hard to bear. Anyway, second fastest ever time on fairly minimal training. Having a lovely break from the turbo and already feeling quite refreshed. Onwards.

Sunday, 2 October 2016

2017

So it was my last tt today with a 25 mile effort on the lumpy G25/56 course. It was frankly a bit rubbish as I developed a cold earlier on in the week and I just couldn't get much power through the cranks. The first half was ok but a 4 minute negative split showed the fact I bombed pretty badly over the second half. 1:05:20, almost a full 10 minutes slower than my pb three and a half months ago, which in fact seems like almost a lifetime ago. So a crap end to the season but not entirely unexpected.

However it's been my most successful season ever. Taking over 5 minutes off my 25 mile pb and almost 2 minutes off my 10 mile time, as well as setting a course pb on the club G10/42 course by over a minute. That's all something I am super chuffed with and beyond my expectations before the season started and I believe that there could still be more to come next year. My 21:58 10 was on a pretty slow day and I had not done as much VO2 max work in the build up so I think that a sub 21 is achievable and a target for next year. I think that a sub 53 25 m tt could also be achieved and I am going to see if I can set a fast enough time to enter the National 25. So, that's the two main targets for next year and I need to get a decent 50 under my belt. My pb is still around 2:06 which is well below where it really should be.

How to achieve all this though? Well, a bit more of the same, in the sense that I'm going to hit the turbo hard again this winter, but as I said above, I'm going to do more VO2 max sessions and really try to boost my ftp over the winter. If time allows I would like to get a monthly long ride in of around 70-80 miles to aid the fat burning and aerobic efficiency. I think that's where I have lost out when competing over the longer distances. The first half of my season was way better than the second so I need to think about how I can not lose focus from June onwards. I'm going to need to lose a few more kgs too. Too many biscuits and crisps are slowing me down and that's where a little bit of running and some Parkruns come in.

All that said, I'm looking forward to a bit of a break over the next 4 weeks. The plan is to have no plan except to keep doing a little bit of running and some very unstructured cycling before getting back on it at the beginning of November. Then it's time to get it on like Donkey Kong.