Week 9 - First Race

Monday - Run
6,7km in 40min

Not a great run, knees were killing me. Think it's time for new trainers. But I'm also going to try doing more stretching, hopefully that helps too.

Tuesday - Swim
3500m in 1hr30

There are 2 swimming sessions on Tuesday's one at 7:30 and the next at 8:30. I usually make it there for the second half of the first session and then stay for the second session. I am really enjoying the second session these days. It's a lot quieter, there are usually just 2 or 3 of us in my lane, and we are of similar speeds so the going is good and we usually get through the whole set. The first session is usually quite crowded, with up to 8 or 10 in a lane, and the difference between the fastest and the slowest is quite noticeable.

Last night I wore my heart rate monitor to the swim session. The aim really to figure out what my swim heart rate will be on race day, I need it to be similar to my bike heart rate, found this gem of information in my training plan (I've actually started reading the notes at the bottom of the plan...finally). And to quote:

'For athletes in their late twenties to mid thirties, try to keep it closer to 150. The idea behind this method of training is to prepare your heart rate for the bike ride upon exiting the water during a race. The closer your heart rate is to your bike training rate, the better the outcome of your entire race.'

Great...well, we did some speed sets yesterday which pushed the HR up to over 150, so I think 150 will be a sustainable target for the swim. Great!!!