July 8th - 14th - more work on the bike needed

The previous week had been quite busy with training and with the Buxton tri at the end of this week I didn't want to arrive tired, as such I aimed to keep intensity up but reduce the volume a little.

Almost sounds like I know what I'm talking about.

On Friday I did my very first interval run session.  Using the Garmin 910 to set up a basic interval session I set off with a 10 minute easy warm up the into 5 x 1 minute hard efforts with 2 minute recoveries.  I had been a little apprehensive of the session, especially first thing in the morning, but I needn't have been.  It went really well, the pace was up and whilst hard I didn't struggle.  This is now going to form part of my weekly training.

On Saturday I also did a little sprint work in the pool, a short session, but 400m comprising of 4x(4x25) hard efforts.  Despite the kids in the pools best efforts to disrupt me it was a good little session.  Who would have thought what was to come the following day.

Sunday started very early at 5:30 to walk Jasper a quick bowl of porridge, load the car and then off to Buxton for a sprint tri.  The venue was the leisure centre at the Pavillion Gardens and a lovely setting for the event.  Weather was blue skies and warm but thankfully the full heat of the day was not to impact the event.

Bike racked, it was off to the poolside for the briefing to find I was once again the first off in a lane of 4, so I was expecting to be passed again (especially looking at the guys in my lane).  Whistle blown I was off, effort started steady but I pushed the pace.  I was surprised to note that at the turn none of the other guys were actually catching me up, a surprise to say the least.  What was an even bigger surprise was when I finished the last of the 16 lengths and hit the lap button to record my time..............7:10.  yes, that is correct.  I knew the pace was high as I was single side breathing, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect to swim that quickly, I haven't come close to that in training, so I was blown away and I wouldn't have believed it if the Garmin hadn't recorded all the lengths.

Transition went fine and out onto the bike (Principia) I was certainly happy, but this was shortlived as a left turn took us up hill and it was a slog, a fast decent to one of the many reservoirs in the Peaks was a short respite before the longest climb of the day and boy did it drag on.  My cycling today definitely let me down as I think I was passed by everyone in my wave on the bike, but I kept grinding and despite wanting to stop a couple of times I wasn't giving in.  One thing I must do is fit a 25 on the back, 23 is just to low.  The turn at the Cat & Fiddle pub brought relief in the that it was downhill all the way back to transition but I kept the legs turning a big gear to try an make up to some time.  Back into Buxton there was a set of lights you have to wait at and the organisers had marshals recording the amount of stopped time so it could be deducted. Now, i'm not sure what happened or why, but as I pushed off I must have missed clipped or something as the next thing that happened was I ended up on the floor smacking my head in the process.  Fortunately no injuries other than to my pride were sustained and I remounted and set off feeling rather stupid.

Back into transition and trainers on, I went for the Newtons, the usually jelly legs were quickly gone and I set a slow but steady pace.  There was a climb on both laps of the run, but a good down section that followed. After mile 2 I picked up the pace to the line and finished in a total time of 1:38:52.

This was a tough event but thoroughly enjoyable and I would certainly recommend it.

Totals for the week
Total training time - 7h40
Swim  8400m, 3h25
Bike 32km, 1h20
Run 14k, 1h16

1st - 7th July - recovery week, well sort of.

Up until the Darwen tri I had done 22 days of training straight.  Now I know that's not the way you normally do things, but to be fair some of those days included light active recovery sessions of high cadence on the turbo or a short swim, so it may sound a lot but the mind and body were both willing.

The descending in the tri had taken it's toll though and I did have a recovery day on Monday, but come Tuesday it was back to it with some shourt sessions to get moving. 

As the legs came back to me I was running on Wednesday and it was none stop then until through to the weekend.  Saturday I went back to Pennington Flash for an open water session, this was thoroughly enjoyable the same as before.  It was all the more pleasant as it was followed by an all you can eat breakfast at the Toby Carvey in Lowton.

Sunday I rode with some of the Warrington tri club, it was a hot day and the pace at times a little enthusiastic but managed to stay the course for a 36 mile ride.  I followed this with a 20 minute run straight off the bike.  It was very hot but completed it.  The rest of the day though I was wasted.

Totals for the week
10 hours training
4 hours swimming - 10500m
4h30 cycling - 108km
1h30 running - 15km

June 24th to 30th - ending on a tri

A fairly quiet week all in all, I was pretty much doing short or easy sessions, with two runs and turbo sessions and four swims.  This was to keep the legs moving but without taking too much out of them so I would arrive at Sunday ready.

Sunday was time for my second tri of the year at Darwen in Lancashire.  A 600m pool swim, 23k bike and 8k run.

The weather for the event was overcast but dry, but it was quite windy as well.  It was also the first trip out for the finally built Sigma.  This was a frame I bought back in 2002 after my last Ironman and never got round to building.  I'd been collecting bits for a while now and only put it on the turbo in the week to see how it felt.

The unusually longer sprint swim of 600m passed ok with no issues, 11:03 which I am really pleased with.  It was a long run round to transition then out onto the bike which started with a short downhill to a set of lights that are triggered by car weight so you had to get off and walk round the pavement onto the main road before setting off.  I was then held up by slow moving traffic, but when this finally cleared it was down onto the aero bars.  It wasn't long however before a left turn off the flat brought the first and toughest climb of the day.  It was a bit of a drag, and with only a 23 on the back I was unsure if I was going to make it in one go but I ground it out and I must admit that out of the saddle the bike accelerates nicely.  A couple of niggles that I encountered on the bike need looking at, at one point I was struggling to get into the big ring so the cables need a bit of tweaking.  I also had an issue with the Speedfil drinking bottle, or more precisely the bite valve on the tube.  In the end I had to remove the rubber end completely so I could get a drink, I also need to look at the positioning  of the tube.The bike was amazing on the flats and downhills and it soon dealt with the course in 52:48.
                                                                         Entering T2

Transition was quick and it was straight out onto the run.  It started on tarmac, but soon moved onto hard pack track, all of it climbing upwards.  The run was more of a fell race than anything else, but conditions underfoot were good so even in racing flats it wasn't a problem.  Once I had reached the tower it was a steep and fast decent and I put my past fell running experience to good use, actually passing someone (who I will add, was drafting on the bike so I took great delight in whooping his ass).  No denying the run was tough, but the best part of the day.

Total time 2:02 and a happy chappy

June 17th - 23rd - busy week

Well it's been a week of all sorts,

Mon through to Wednesday was fairly steady on the training as I didn't wan't to overload myself for what was to come.

Thursday was the the Warrington 10k, held in the evening and starting in the park at Woolston.  Pretty much a flat course, though technical with lots of changes of direction and surface.  In the end a good run, great sprint at the end and a finish time of 53:56; this is an improvement of 6 minutes over my time at the Lymm 10k.

Easy swimming and turbo session on Friday to try and get rid of some of the lactic and ease the muscles.

Saturday I went to Pennington Flash (the venue for the Ironman UK swim), after I managed to pick up a wetsuit for a bargain price from the Bay of E.

This was for my first open water swim in 11 years.  OMG sums it up nicely, it was great, I dropped straight back into it like I had never been away, in the end I had to force myself to stop as I would have been in there all day otherwise.  3 laps of the short course and 1 of the long course in the end and 1.2 miles.  Suit felt really comfortable so makes the price I paid all the better.

In the afternoon it was time for the last round of the North Cheshire 5k Grand Prix series at Lymm.  It had been described as a "cheeky" course and they weren't wrong with a series of descents and climbs to sap the leg strength.  Considering how sore my legs still were from the 10k on Thursday I was pleased to get round in 26:35 on a testing little course.

Sunday was supposed to have been a early group ride, but high winds and driving rain caused it to be called off, so I decided to take on an epic (by my standards anyway) turbo session with one a Spinerval aerobic compilation, 2h10m later there was a bloody big puddle on the floor.

According to the file upload to Training Peaks I had burnt 1800 calories on the ride so treated myself to this, nom, nom nom.

Next Sunday is the the Darwen Triathlon so hopefully all of this training will bring about a good days racing.

June 10th - 16th a fairly ordinary week

The week started off well with a weigh in as I hadn't done one for some time.  I knew I had plateaued at around 16 stone so was pleased to see I had now dropped to 15s9lb thanks to a few small changes I had been making with my food.

Despite the monster bike ride I had done on the Sunday in the Peaks I did an easy run on Monday evening with Amanda, surprisingly my legs felt ok and no detrimental soreness or problems.

The rest of the week saw a mix of the usual swimming and turbo sessions, though on Thursday I was back to Dunham Massey for Round 4 of the North Cheshire Grand Prix series.  This time we ran over the same course but in reverse and it was noticeably quicker.  I was pleased with a new 5k PB of 25:40

Threshold turbo session on Saturday and a hard swim set, Sunday was a long ride around the leafy lanes of Cheshire for a couple of hours, certainly a nice way to start the day.

The week to come has two races, with a 10k on Thursday and the final 5k on Staurday.  Only two weeks to my second sprint tri, getting excited as should be out on the race bike this time.