End of Week 13

Not a bad weekend in training terms. Took Friday off as I was generally knackered from the week. So stayed home and had a curry with Bronson, which was cool.

Saturday
Swim – 1 hr
2 laps of Liquid Lake
Run – 25:06
BPTT

Not a great swim by my standards but as this was the first openwater swim of the season and the water temp was a chilly 15 degrees (or there abouts) I’m pretty happy with that. It took me the first lap to get warm, but the second lap felt great, probably did it in around 20 mins, including a few stops to sort out my cap. I think I’ll wear ear plugs next time….. Have decided to live with my wet suit. As long as I take some time to put it on, and fasten it correctly, then I think it will be ok!!! Also don’t want to risk not getting it back from Cornwall in time for the race.

I then headed to Bush Park to do the 5km TT. Was really hoping to improve on my PB…but instead, I did worse!!! Not good. Was feeling very negative after that…all this training and I’m going slower!!!

Sunday
Bike – 80km in 3hr 9 mins.

I really didn’t feel like doing this ride, mainly because of my BPTT disappointment and also because I was riding on my own. I putted along to Esher, feeling sorry for myself, but then a group of three guys came past me, so decided to see if I could stay with them for a bit. We made up a little foreign contingent, one Italian, 2 americans and myself. I managed to stay with them just fine to the top of Staples Lane, I even managed to drop the Italian on Staples. Yippee for me, we then got chatting and they paid me a few compliments about my cycling saying I was a tough cookie…so this made me feel a bit better!!! I then ambled over to the top of Box hill, mainly on my own. I then met up with a few club mates and decided to head back with them. Again I felt pretty good and was able to keep with the pace no problem. After some more complements, I headed home feeling everything wasn’t lost after all!!!

And so begins week 14…getting close to race day now!!! All bookings for the trip are made and am awaiting our visas for France….all good to go!!!

Week 13 - plodding along

Tuesday
Swim - 1,5 hours. Have no idea how far...lost track a bit...

Thursday
Run
1hr20min
Have no idea how far...lost track a bit...having real runners trots issues. Killing me at the moment. Think I may try running in the morning rather then the evenings.

Week 13

Ok, last week was my biggest week ever, 10,5 hours of training. Yippee for me!!! We’ll just ignore the fact that it was supposed to be a recovery week!

Friday
Run
50mins, around 9km

Had a bit of a sore tum, so had to cut the run short!!

Saturday
Bike
110km in 4hrs45mins, with just over 1300m of climbing!
Followed by a 25 min run. (or plod to be accurate)

Went out with Pip, was a great day for riding. The bluebells were flowering in the hills and it was a lovely warm day...what a cracker. I was really tired after the bike, the trip home really hurt. The run felt better then my last disastrous attempt, so happy with that.

Sunday
Run
10,2 km in 1hr.

Week 13

Hard to believe I only have 4 more weeks of serious training left...makes me very nervous.

Monday
Turbo
1hr - with speed session.
Run
19 mins

Did my first speedwork turbo session, it really hurt. Don't know how I'm going to do the next 3 weeks... the run felt great after the Turbo, starting to feel a little happier about being able to run after the bike. I have four more weeks to get the legs used to this pain thing! They are not going to be happy, especially when they get wind of those stairs!

And so it begins

Great, so now that I have confirmed that I am actually in week 12, I can have another look at the schedule and plan the last few weeks of training.

Basically I should be doing some speedwork, and some recovery sessions.

Yeah right...what I am going to do is, the speed sessions for the run and the bike. I'll do the bike ones on my turbo at home, and I'll do the club track sessions. I do enough swimming speedwork so not worried about that.

Then I'll be doing some brick sessions to get the legs used to running after the cycle. My first attempt at this was rubish but this will improve with a bit of luck.

Recovery sessions, I plain and simply do not have time for this....so, no can do!!!

I haven't tried swimming in the wetsuite yet...maybe next week....

I did however do the club track session, I was not looking forward to this as a) I'm a crap runner, b) I turn into an even crappier runner on a track, c) I thought I'd be really stiff afterwards.

Wednesday
Run
Track session
warmup, cool down - 4laps = 1,6km
8X400m = 3,2km slowest 1:45, fastest 1:30

And it went really well. My target was 7 x 400m on 1:54, and I managed 8 x 400m on around 1:36. My heart rate rocketed to 176 as expected on a hard sprint, but I was able to bang 'em all out without too much trouble. I usually hate track sessions and am constantly wishing for the clock to spend the hour. But Wednesday went fine, I wasn't the slowest, and I could manage the whole set, usually I have to sit some out. Also yesterday, no stiffness. My calves felt a bit tight, but no more then after my usual runs. So very happy with that. So maybe all this base business is paying off....yippee for me!!!

Where am I???

Well, I seem to have completely lost track of where I am in the bigger scheme of things....thanks to two weekends away, lots of work, having to make some travel and visa plans for the trip to Switzerland (a huge pain!!!), etc etc. So today I sat down and had a long hard look at where I am...Only to discover that I'm in a recovery week and didn't even know. I'm not going to actually do the recovery week as I had two bad weeks thanks to travel's, so an update on what I've done since last post:

Saturday
Bike: 90km - 03:41:00
Did the Surrey hills...on my own, mental toughness bla bla. Staples, Ranmore, Box hill and back the same way. I went really early, so quite nice being on my way home when everyone else was heading out. The hills were tough and killed my legs. I was pretty much useless on Saturday night, could barely get off the couch.

Sunday
Bike: 31km - 01:15:00
This was supposed to be a brick session, but I barely left home when I realised the legs were just too tired from the day before. This made me really miserable as I wondered how the heck I was going to do this on race day. Think it's time to lower those expectations a bit....

Tuesday
Run: 10,2km in 58 mins
Swim: 3400m in 1hr30min
This was really tough as I haven’t done much swimming in a while thanx to the pools being closed over Easter break and me doing that SwimForTri thing. Going to have to get my butt to a few more swim sessions.

I also have to decide on my wet suite, i.e. what to do….I had a Snugg made-to-measure, but when it arrived, it was to big in parts. I left it as it was soon after that I fell pregnant with The Little Man, so the wet suite being too big worked in my favour, but I need to swim with it and decide if I’m going to send it in to be made smaller or if I’m going to leave it as is. The swim is quite short so not sure if it’s worth all the effort of sending it to Cornwall. I’ll need to decide soon if I have any hope of getting it back in time for the race.

Last week ended up being a pretty good week, I managed 9.5 hours of training. Result!!!

Week 10, or is it 11???

Feels like I haven’t posted in ages….very rubbish of me…

Well let’s seee know…

After Wednesday’s run, I didn’t do much, which is very bad. I was hoping on having a big catch up weekend over Easter as we were holidaying on the Isle of Wight. It didn’t go exactly to plan. I did no running and only two bike rides. But I can’t complain!!!



Saturday - Bike

90km in 3hr 40

http://www.sanoodi.com/route/plodder/isle-of-wight-90km/2007-04-07/00-00-00/


I set of early on Saturday morning and managed to cycle the whole way around the IOW, I went Clockwise from Bembridge towards Freshwater, then back via Yarmouth to Newport, then on to Ryde, then back to Bembridge. 90km in 3hr 40, which doesn’t sound great but considering all the climbing I did, I’m quite happy. IOW is anything but flat. There were no really terrible hills, I could get up all of them ok, but there were just a lot of them, so the legs felt really tired by halfway.




These pics where taken from the top of the highest climb... a nasty hill just outside on Ventnor.

Monday I did a shorter ride, 37km in around 1hr 30 min, just from Bembridge to the Ferry at East Cowes. I also had one of those stupid falls…i.e. can’t manage-to-unclip-in-time type ones. So have 3 bruises to show for it…nice!!!

Since returning from IOW, I’ve been doing lots of running, to catch up, and also because there has been no swimming this week. Runs look like this:

Tuesday
7km in 46 mins
Wednesday
12,8km in 1hr 20
Thursday
7,6km in 48 mins

I had a bit of a rude awakening on Wednesday, I took a closer look at the run course for the half Ironman and discovered that the short sharp elevation on the run route is in fact a staircase… that we have to do 3 times…dammit. My knees don’t do stairs very well. So on my long run, I went over every staircase I could find. And I’m happy to report it wasn’t as bad as I thought. My HR does go up, but as long as I take one stair at a time, my knees hold, so very happy with that!!!


Lots of cycling planned for the weekend…I hope!!!

Week 10 – A bit rubbish

Monday I woke up with a bit of a cold, so no training. I did manage to shake the cold by taking loads of vitamins and some cold tabs from boots. Thankfully by Tuesday I was ok.

Not that it helped, as I was missing the swim because I was doing a SwimforTri session orgainsed by our club. About 10 minutes of swimming so not even going on the log.

Wednesday – Run, 10km in 1hr1min.

Log looks really crap for this week. Just the run then….oh well, could be worse!!!

We are going to the Isle of Wight for the weekend, so lots of training planned. Hopefully I’ll have loads to post next week.

For the record, below is a summary of the swim for tri session, just me analysis. When I figure out how to upload the clip, I’ll post a link….it’s in DVD format at the moment so I need to convert it.

“My BAD and UGLY: I’m kicking a bit deep.

My left arm is lazier then my right.

It doesn’t catch as well, goes wide to the left and collapses near the end.

Catch could be a bit sooner and a bit stronger.

In general I need to work on the finish of my stroke.

I could glide a bit longer, i.e closer to catch-up.

The coach wasn’t too concerned with wide-arms, unless it was really ugly. But from me watching myself, I’d like to get more of a gap there.

I found seeing my stroke very useful and will be getting the coaches to watch for my bad points. “

The last of week 9

Thursday – Turbo, 25,5km in 01:00:00 – Horrid again, man I hate the Turbo…but gotta do it for mental toughness etc etc. There was track cycling on the telly, so this was a bit of motivation.

Saturday – Bike, 76,5km in 2hr 55 min. I did this ride on my own, for mental toughness etc etc (talk about a recurring theme)!!! I headed to Windsor, via a few small hills, then through The Great Park before getting into Windsor proper. The back the flat fast route via Runnymede. It was an ok ride really, bit all over the place in the beginning, I couldn’t get into a comfortable pace, my heart rate was all over the show so had to keep slowing down and speeding up and changing gear till I found some sort of a rhythm. Then things went much better. Coming back, I was going great guns till I hit a headwind about 15km from home, the last bit was tough, but I managed. I need to have my bike setup checked as my right knee hurt a little, must be my cleat or shoe or something!!!

Sunday – Run, 13,2km in 01:21:05, with a 15 minute warm-up run. Race went great, decided to race at what I thought will be my half marathon pace, i.e. at a heart rate of 145-147 bpm. Decided to go till 7 miles at this rate, then speed up for the last mile and a bit to the finish. All went well, at 7 miles I felt like I could go another 6 miles if I had to. My time was way off my PB, but hey ho…might not see any of my PB’s for a while!!!