July 15th - August 4th weeks of mixed stuff

I've been a bit remiss over the last few weeks, I guess the initial enthusiasm of writing a blog has worn off.

That said, it gives me plenty to write about and a chance to look back at what I have been doing.

w/c 15th July
The Buxton Tri had been tough on the bike, but on the Monday I felt pretty good and could have trained, but we all know rest is important for recovery so I did take a day off.  The rest of the week was a solid effort in all three disciplines, particularly Saturday which included an open water swim session at Pennington Flash and in the afternoon a multiple brick session.  This consisted of 5k bike followed by a 1k run around the village;  this was repeated 4 times, all of which were consistent for time, and a great way of practising running of the bike.
Totals for the week
9:34 hours training
Swimming  4:44     12000m
Cycling      3:27     86km
Running     1:23     14.4 km

w/c 22nd July
In all honesty not a lot went on this week that is worth reporting about, there was some swimming, biking and running.  Sunday was a ride out with the Warrington tri club, it was a steady ride out and spent most of it spinning in the small ring to help with aerobic capacity.  When I got back I did a 20min run straight off the bike, which I did as 5min hard, 5 min easy and repeated.  It was a short session but good way of adding some brick work to the week.
Totals for the week
9:26 hours training
Swimming  4:00    10000m
Cycling      4:39    112km
Run           0:47    8.63km

w/c 29th July
This was a full on week, training every day.  Tuesday night was a club meet at Preston on the Hill, a nice easy potter for 5 miles, followed by 2 laps at Time Trial effort.  Final time was 32:08 min which aint great, but it's a starting point.  I also signed up for the software offered by
www.trainerroad.com  this uses the Ant+ usb stick and Garmin 910 to send live data to the computer whilst you ride and convert speed into watts through some fancy calculations.  I did one of their FTP (functional threshold power) tests which has given me a starting point of 208.  I'm going to re-do it again in a few weeks to see if things have improved.  Friday I had planned to do a recovery spin and record the wattage but only in a few minutes into the session I managed to break the left STI.  I jerry rigged a bar end shifter into aero bars for the planned weekend ride.
Saturday I did a steady 10k run, in a time of 55:43 which is only a minute off my time from the Warrington 10k so definitely improving.
Sunday was a nice long ride of 30m, all spinning and on the aero bars and in the afternoon a trip down to Boundry Water Park for an open water swim session; it's a nice body of water, though a bit on the weedy side.
Totals for the week
10:09 hours training
Swimming  4:11    11095m
Cycling      3:56    103km
Run           2:01    21.6km

Next week the plan is to start to incorporate some core work, starting with the below