Sunday 27 March 2011

What a nice weekend.

So last weeks blog turned into an epic essay, much like writing a chapter for my thesis again. Don't have the time for that this weekend so going to attempt to keep things short and sweet. It has been an awesome weekend, the sun has been out and it felt like summer. Just what I needed to spur me on the spend most of the weekend outside.

The week kicked off with swimming on Tuesdsy night, after blistering my instep last weekend my foot was causing some issues in the early part of the week. Needless to say I am not a fan of Compeed and don't intend to buy more anytime soon. Sainsbury's blister plasters are perfectly good thank you. Anyway, the swim session, well it felt horrible, I had absolutely no energy and the 100-200m sets took there toll. Swimming 15 hours after getting up for work isn't always the best idea.

Wednesday was the first of the gorgeous days. Due to the sodding blister I decided a turbo set was in order. Local Hero it was going to be, I had to find out if I would be a hero in the hearts of the Sufferlandrians. After last weeks learning experience I was better prepared, lights off, window open, heating off 1.5 litres of fluid and 2 sweat rags. It actually felt easier. Average and max heart rates were a bit lower, but distance covered in the session was more. Hmm, maybe I'm starting to get fit. Of course with the window open the outside was calling and I thought I'd turn it into a brick session. Not the best decision to make 60 minutes after starting a workout. After a 10 minute transition (25% of which was waiting for the 310XT to get a GPS lock) I was off. Still had jelly legs but ran a good first km, the fastest in fact. Got a nice large loop of The Common in clocking up 6km for my efforts, at a respectable pace of 4m54 s/km. Off course when I got in the shower the impromptu nature of this brick session came and bit me in the behind, quite literally! Should have bodyglided the chamois in the tri shorts, apparently there is a seam that doesn't like me.

Thursday and there was to be no after work turbo, had planned on Revolver, forgetting I was going to stay at work for a webinar. Oh well. Arrived home to find two cards from Royal Fail on the doormat and a courier packet. My new Bluesenty swim gloves and Element goggles. Wohoo! Was looking forward to trying swimming in them. They didn't disappoint. The Thursday swim session was a killer. Loads of fly and IM. Main set kicked off with 12x25m of fly, of course it should have been 8x25m but the person leading didn't see it get revised down. Oh well. I was pretty dead by the end.

Friday brought another good day. After work run with some guys from work at lunch. Intervals on a section of The Common. A nice little corner with a 400m tarmac section then a 500m trail section back to the start. needless to say I tried to anhilate the intervals. Went out hard on the first one managing 1:38 for the 400m, a little easier on the second with a 1:41, a 1:37 next and they were starting to hurt, by the 4th Dave was starting to catch me at 200m and I was left to pace off him for a second 1:37, then a 1:38. I was seriously hurting on the last one, pushed myself to the limit and banged out a 1:36. Pretty chuffed with that. 5 intervals all within +/- 1s, and the whole lot with 5s. Consistency.

Of course not wanting to leave it there I went swimming in the evening, there was still and Endomondo challenge to have a go at, fastest 1000m done anyway, I chose 10x100m. Two hard interval sets in a day, bad idea? Well maybe not. Although I could still feel the run in my legs. scraped through the intervals on 01:29, 01:28, 01:31, 01:33, 01:33, 01:31, 01:33, 01:31, 01:35, 01:36. Again fairly consistent. They were hard efforts though no question, not having people to draft off made it brutal, not helped by my legs hurting still.

Saturday and it was bike time. BBC weather said the morning was going to be best, so up early, usual breakfast routine then got the bike ready for a 9:30 start. Major dilemas over what to wear. in the end I went for short bibs & top with long socks and arm warmers. Almost a good choice, the arm waremers were too warm. I'd lined up an extended route going out to the north east, up through Cheriton towards Arlesford then cutting back to the roads I am now getting to know around Bishop's Waltham. The weather of course didn't do what the beeb said it would. It was hot and sunny, gorgeous weather for spending outdoors on roads I pretty much had to myself for a lot of the time. Lovely ride and even the couple of bad driver incidents have blurred into oblivion.

Today was a repeat of one of my epic days from a month ago. Answering a call for crew I agreed to go sailing today, and frankly I would have been stupid not to with the weather. What I hadn't banked on was there only being 4 of us, and being the bowman as well as the #1 trimmer half the time. Well long story short, 4 hours on the water, 2 spent racing, couple of clusters but recovered well, a first and a second place in the 2 races. Got back to the bar and felt absolutely shagged. By the time I got home I have to say I was in no mood to go for a 20km run. Ironamn is not for quitters though and I had to MTFU and get out there, and I did. I was still a gorgeous afternoon so Camelbak loaded with water and energy foods I embarked on a trip around The Common and sports ground. Well it was actually not a bad run. Rather uneventful. Not exactly painless, but no injuries. I had a good go at choking myself at 14k when I decided to eat 2 shot bloks at once. D'oh. Then at 17k I sucked on the Camelbak and got nothing, I was out of water. Double D'oh. Also turns out the little 1k I added between 16-17 wasn't needed. My 20k run became 21k. Building a little fast, the original plan had today as 18k, but after going long last weekend I revised it. The hard day was good in the end, I think the sail primed me much like the bike leg would, little solid food and physically demnding work.

Well seems I've made it a long one again. Weekly roundup time, Swim 3 hours (7350m), Bike 4 hours 50m (83km + 1hr25m Turbo), Run 3 hours 19m (36km) for a total of 11 hours 10 minutes.

Mon - Rest
Tue pm - 1 hour swim (2650m)
Wed pm - 1hr25m turbo session
Wed pm - 30m brick run (6km)
Thur pm - 1 hour swim (2200m)
Fri pm - 52min run (9km)
Fri pm - 1 hour 2m swim (2500m)
Sat am - 3 hour 24m bike (83km)
Sun am - 4 hour sail (not fully logged, counting as 2 hours)
Sun pm - 1 hour 57m run (21km)

Next week is a tricky one. Will be away for work so the session depend on what the gym facilites are like. I know it has a 10m pool, pretty useless but might be good for tumble turn practice. Next weekend should be a 20km run and 90km bike. Might do a 22km run, and may even consider the 58 mile Ride It sportive in Woking on Sunday.

Sunday 20 March 2011

A painful return to training

Following on from last weekend half marathon training resumed on Tuesday. The week has been a rather painful one though, the effort of the HM has remained in my legs throughout the week.

Tuesday kicked off with a 0545 alarm call so I had time to do some stretches and foam rollering before work. 20 minutes of lower leg stretches and foam roller action wasn't pretty, but it did the job and I had the use of my legs again. Tuesday evening kicked off the weeks proper training, a 2500m Masters set, finally done without the aid of a pull buoy (well almost - first couple of 200's done with just to check ankle was OK). Seemed to be keeping pace OK, in fact I think a couple of weeks of just pull may have even improved my times, felt much more powerful on the front crawl max effort stuff. The only slight issue was my legs, well my hamstrings really, from about 1500m into the set they were on the verge of cramping. Somehow I dodged a bullet and got through unscathed though.

Wednesday, I set the alarm early again to get up and do some stretching, but, well, umm, I was tired and went back to sleep for 20 minutes. Of course this wasn't to go unpunished. To make up for my very poor show I did Sufferfest's "Local Hero". Eighty five minutes of pure hell. Sufferfest makes Coach Troy look like the coach of an under 12's girls team. I knew it would be hard work, anticpating this I set up two bottles of fluids, 1500ml worth. After 70 minutes I had drunk all of this, my turbo towel was so sodden it wasn't drying the sweat off me, I had to wring it out, twice. The 3x6 minute pyramid efforts were unpleasant, but just bearable, managing to get my heart rate to just under predicted lacate threshold. The 5x3 minute road race efforts were horrible. The sprints at the end, were well, whatever word is a lot worse than horrible. The high cadence stuff was not nice, maxing out at 130. needless to say getting off the turbo came as a relief. What was more shocking was the fact that I weighed less than when I got on, even having drunk 1.5 litres of fluid!

Thursday, didn't bother setting an early alarm, I was only going to snooze anyway. Standard evening Masters session for training. Lots of short stuff, mostly front crawl but some fly and medley. The short stuff wasn't too bad, although the pacing made life very tough as it meant almost no rest.

Friday was a run with some people from work. I had hoped this would be an easier run, normally they are quite short. The session turned into a bit of a fartlek style one, with some hard intervals of varying length. On the way out we had a long interval down by the new OS building, where we did 1/2 mile intervals a couple of months ago. Then on the way out to Testwood lakes we did some further 1 minute intervals. Of course all this was being done in the rain, just to make things a tad unpleasant.  When we got out to the lakes there were of course plenty of puddles. These made quite a nice other game, bounding over the puddles. It was actually quite fun when there were a few strung together. On the way back we did some more intervals, starting off with some shorter intervals then we had some intervals of unknown length. Things got quite painful in those intervals. My quads and hamstrings hadn't recovered, man they hurt like something else. I ended up losing the last couple of intervals.

Saturday was to be my epic day, kicked off with an early morning run. Fridays run was a lot further than I'd counted on, and in fact only a few K of what Saturdays run was scheduled to be, still I was going to do it. Having been labelled an 'under achiever' earlier in the week I have to prove I can hit my 33 hour target for training this month. With a stag party to go to for most of the day my long run was going to have to be an early one. Hence the 0615 wake up call, on a Saturday. An hour and a half later after feeding and watering  it was time to commence the faff involved in seeing me out the door for a run. What to wear? Sunnies? Where are my sunnies? Camelbak or waist pack? Which bottle in the waist pack? What flavour gels to take? Ankle brace? Needless to say I left a few minutes late, but thankfully dressed appropriately. The start of the run was nice and uneventful, off out to the Common, a snake around it then out up to the sports centre to take in Golf Course Road. Approaching the sports centre and there was obviously something going on as there were coaches everywhere and lots of college/uni girls, netball tournament or something like that. First gel at 5K, lucky dip moment in back pocket, Vanilla! I like vanilla, sort of makes me think of coffee though, not sure why. Everything was going well and I even managed to get up Golf Course Road in one piece, without having to walk. Then back to the Common for a loop of that to finish. Then there was the decision, left right or straight over at the cross? Which way is going to get me to 16K? Lets try right, nice downhill and time for the second gel, Green Apple. Yuk, how foul, I just wanted to be sick. It was horrible and sour, but sugary and sweet at the same time. Urgh, how to get the taste out of my mouth? Sips of water and it was better but urgh. I shall not be having any of those during IM, Vanilla and Strawberry/Banana for me. Onto the final loop and what had been a really pleasant run started to go south. Starting of with do incident number 1. Two dogs that decided to have a fight around my feet why the owner(s) just stood by and chatted idly. Needless to say I was not best pleased.A few hundred metres later and my got much better again. A nice MEDSOC runner to follow, seems my pace picked up a little too much and I inevitably had to pass, shame. Only to spoilt a few hundred metres later by dog incident number 2. This one really hacked me off. If you have a large dog that needs to wear a muzzle in public places why the hell do you let it run a round a busy park off the lead? The flipping dog jumped up at me, paws on chest and nearly pushed me over. There were a couple of dog owners sat on a park bench that found it funny, don't know if it was their dog as no one seemed to want to control the f****** animal. I they had then they would have got a rather unpleasant string of words I think. The anger fuelled me up the hill and soon I was on the way back. 17K done, with 90 minutes to get ready for the stag do. Perfect.

Today was of course long ride day. I was a good boy on the stag do, drinking softs in the pub during the rugby, a few glasses of wine in the restaurant with dinner, softs again at the next bar and only a double in the club, not that we stayed that long anyway. Having go to bed at 2am waking up a 8am wasn't unwelcome. What wasn't welcome was the pain that greeted me as I put my right foot on the floor. It had hurt all afternoon evening, but the blister on my instep had gotten impressive. A glance out of the curtains and it didn't look like it had rained. Might be a nice day for a ride after all. Usual pre ride routine followed and the obligatory what to wear? A trip to the bins confirmed it was chilly but not cold. Club jersey, vest, arm warmers and bib longs then. Of course my blister chose this opportunity to burst, such a good feeling, but really not a good thing. Oh well. Having faffed around way too much I set off at 1030. Surprisingly I sailed across town and soon I was out on Alington lane on my way to Winchester. The plan was to do the Winchester/Hillier Gardens/Upper Sombourne/Ampfield figure 8 loop, around 75K from memory, longer than the plan but perfectly doable. The ride was actually pretty uneventful. Good speed out to Winchester, not so good down in Hurlsey, managed to refuel on the move on the Sombourne loop, swapping bottles and opening Cliff Shot blocks. I'd forgotten how good they tasted. They hills weren't wonderful, my legs are obviously still a touch tired, but no cramping. What wasn't nice was the pain in my right foot every time I climbed out the saddle. A quick pause as I got into Ampfield for the second time to get a gel down. My legs felt great as I set off, almost like new. So heading back and decisions as to which way home, I opted for the route I thought would make 75K rather than the longer or shorter options. Off course all these options would take in the uphill section I hate; North Baddesley to Chilworth. Doesn't look to bad, but it just drags on then goes around a corner and kicks up a bit. I've tamed it, but it is always at a point in the ride when my legs are shot. I managed to get up it with one gear to spare, but I am running a triple so it is a pretty poor show. Just over 3 hours for 76km, not the best speed, but given the week of training a respectable effort I think.

I discovered why it hurt so much when I got out the saddle on the climbs tough, I have blistered under my blister. A trip to the shops and I am now the owner of a pack of Compeed blister plasters, so hopefully the problem will be resolved soon. Weekly roundup, Swim 2 hours (5050m), Bike 4 hours 34 min (76km + 1hr25m turbo), Run 2 hours 50 min (30km) for a total of  9hr25m training.

Mon - Rest
Tues am - 20 min stretching
Tues pm - 1 hour swim (2500m)
Wed pm - 1hr25 min turbo session
Thur pm - 1 hour swim (2550m)
Fri pm - 1hr17 min run (13km)
Sat am - 1hr33m run (17km)
Sun am - 3hr09m bike (76km)

Next week is meant to be another build week. I think with my foot midweek training sessions will be turbo based, hopefully with shift working I can get some sessions in before Masters too. Next weekend should be an 18km run and a 80km bike. Will have to see how things are, but may be able to push them a little more given my over distances this weekend.

Sunday 13 March 2011

A better week with a tough finish

So on the back of my ankle injury last week this weeks training was a little lighter than planned, and nowhere near what it needed to be to get me near to PB fitness for today's half marathon.

Monday was a complete rest day, thought I'd try and consolidate what training I managed last weekend. Tuesday was swimming time, another pull buoy session. Managing to keep up with people using just my arms though. Thankfully it was another session that could be done quite well as pull with some 'long' (200m) sets and shorter stuff, done as front crawl and #1 stroke, which is conveniently front crawl.

Wednesday I managed to fit in a turbo session, did Sufferfest: Revolver again. It really is a brutal turbo session and put that 'about to vomit' lump in the back of my throat. Hoping it will work it's magic and get me bike fit though, what doesn't kill you can only make you stronger.

Thursday and I was back in the pool again. More pull, this time it wasn't as pull buoy friendly with some IM and IMO thrown in, along with some kick (didn't do). Still made it through and even managed some pull buoy less swimming during the sprints at the end. It even felt like I managed a proper dive, my arms definitely went in the water first.

Friday was another rest day whilst I drove back to the parents in preparation for the half. I managed to fit in a little training on Saturday though. After mowing the lawns I went the gym with dad for a swim. Managed to fit in 8 lots of 200m doing various drills and strokes. Even managed to fit in 200m without the aid of a pull buoy.

I suffered for that I think though. Woke up this morning and the ankle hurt quite a bit. Not a promising start to the day. Which brings me to the event of the week (and the month really). Today was the Milton Keynes Half Marathon. We arrived in plenty of time, so spent it walking around Xscape, with everything but the coffee shops and fast food outlets shut, but it was warm and dry inside. There was of course the security guards walking around, that informed a group of runners stretching on the floor out the way that sitting on the floor wasn't allowed. Get a life dude! The time came for the 10K start, Dad was doing this so we headed out. I needed the loo so decided to jog down to the loos. It didn't feel good, I wasn't sure if it was wise to continue. The 10K start came and went and I spotted a few others from the BCTTT so headed over and said hi before dropping of my hoodie with Mum just before the start. Then we were allowed out to the start line. What a cluster this was going to be. No pace groupings. Uh Oh, I was worried I was too far forward but went with it.  Turns out I wasn't really and the first couple of miles was a bit of a 'dodge the person in front' game. The road surface was terrible too. I was getting pretty afraid that I was going to roll my ankle, which was complaining slightly. I was also way off target pace. I was aiming to do 4:44 kilometres. I ran the first K in 4:11, next in 4:18, way way too fast. Coming up to 10K it looked like I was on course for a 10K PB (I still need to check the Garmin data, it still might be). By kilometre 14 the wheels were starting to come off the cart. km 13-14 was my first over 5 minute, I pulled it back over the next one, but looking at the limited HR data to hand it appears I was running well over where my lactate threshold should be, not a good thing to do with 6K still to run. That when my quads gave in. They hurt, a lot. every uphill section became a major chore, running was no longer 'fun' it was a matter of survival. Things got worse as the number of underpasses increased. The pain in my left quad started to radiate around my hip into my glutes. 15km in I had looked at my watch and thought, 6K to go, 30 minutes left for a PB, 5 minute kilometres, seemed doable. With 4km to go I could see the snow dome again, it seemed very far away, surely more than 4 kilometres again. The pain kept getting worse and I was now walking up every slope from the underpasses. Playing leapfrog with green jersey guy that was also struggling, I could run slightly faster, but he could walk faster. Then came the bridge. It was so unpleasant. I was so close to crying as I walked up to the top of it. Finally came the signs I had been waiting for 500m to go, 200m to go, people were sprinting past me left right and centre, but I had left everything on the course. I crossed the line 1:42:58 after crossing the start line. A few minutes away from a PB, but all things considered a very good performance. My ankle didn't cause me trouble, and is still fine. Post race wasn't fun, I staggered around the finishing chute, past some poor person that had left everything on the course judging by the ambulance staff. I had to sit down to take my chip off as my legs wouldn't let me bend down. After grabbing a bottle of water and my medal I proceeded to a clear section of car park, to go and sit in. After a few minutes my support team arrived, offered me warm clothes then I tried to walk back to the car. OMG it hurt, my brother, who we always need to wait for looked frustrated I was walking so slow.

Will post Garmin data tomorrow.

Weekly roundup, Swim 2 hours 40 minutes (6330m), 48 minute turbo, 1hour 43 minute run (21.1km)

Mon - rest
Tue pm - Swim 1 hour (2450m)
Wed pm - 48 minute turbo
Thur pm - Swim 1 hour (2280m)
Fri - rest
Sat pm - Swim 40 minutes (1600m)
Sun am - Run 1:42:58 (Half marathon)

Next week is going to be a recovery week of swimming and turboing, plus I need to fit the weekends training around a stag party, could prove challenging.

Sunday 6 March 2011

Not the week I had planned

As the title says, this week didn't exactly go according to the master plan. In trying to maintain the volume of last week a momentary lapse of concentration almost bought the week, and the near term goals to a crashing end.

Monday was my rest day, and was rather enjoyable really. The day at work seemed like nothing compared to Sunday's efforts. In an attempt to stay fit I did 20 minutes of stretches to loosen up in the evening. Using Christopher Norris' "Stretching for Runners" I worked through the stretches in part 1 and through some extra in at the end. All was going well until I tried Conehead's special hamstring stretch. Having stopped doing this for a while it reduced me to the point of tears. My hammys are pretty tight again. D'Oh.

Since I wasn't earlies I decided to fit a run in on Tuesday morning before work. Alarm goes off at 5am, out the door for 5:15 and off around the streets of Southampton. F*** me it hurt, my heart rate was stupidly high for such an abysmal pace. I eventually settled into 5:30ish km's, should be aiming for more 5:10ish really. After about 2.5k I had a lapse of concentration. Rounding a corner I didn't notice a kerb stone wasn't dropped as I landed on it, cue my left foot giving way slightly. Didn't really hurt so carried on. Turns out it should have hurt, only the pain came later. Yes I'd sprained my left ankle again. Thankfully it is only a very light sprain, barely a grade 1, probably just stretched the anterior talofibular ligament. Having happened a few times before it was on with the deep freeze spray and compression bandage. Standing up at work all day didn't help it, but it never really complained so Tuesday evening brought Masters. Another opportunity to assess the severity of it, after 50m I know it will be better for MK half on the 13th, but the rest of the swim would be just pull. The set wasn't too bad for pull in the end. The only stumbling block was the last 300m. 12 25's done as a swim to the deep end, out, and dive back in on a 1:00 for the next 25. Pull without a pull buoy isn't quite as fun.

Wednesday, well given the state of my flat the turbo was out, and there was no way I was running on my ankle, so an enforced rest day.

Thursday and back to Masters, did pull form the outset, no point risking my ankle. The only time I didn't was on the few breaststroke lengths, it is only really flutter kick that hurts it. Again another set that was suitable for pull. I was lucky. The end of the set bought some relay takeover practice. 25m efforts starting from the blocks that were set up, tumbling mid pool. My inability to dive hampered things here with some pathetic belly flop starts. So I got a bit of extra dive practice at the end. Taking James' push off advice I set about improving, completely soaking him in the process as my feeble belly flop turned into a far more powerful chest/belly flop. Oops.

Friday, well like Wednesday I decided this would be a rest day again. I probably could have run on my ankle, but it would have been screwed by Friday evening.

Saturday's planned 16K run was never going to be a good idea, so I opted to do Sunday's 60K ride, taking it a bit easier so I didn't have to climb out of the saddle on any hills. It was quite a pleasant ride. Followed the same route as last weekend, but came back into Southampton a more traffic friendly way. The weather was much nicer and the roads dry. Felt a bit of a cross wind at the top of the loop, but the sun was shining so everything was good. Managed to go slightly faster, for less perceived effort, with a higher average heart rate. I'm sure some of those are mutually exclusive, but it doesn't look like the Garmin is lying.

Today was an odd one, I had decided to go for a 70K ride after yesterday, but I kept rolling over in my sleep and causing pain in my ankle so decided against it. Instead I did housework. That horrible thing I have been neglecting. So I spent the morning, and a large part of the afternoon polishing, hoovering, cleaning glass, wiping floors. All done barefoot without my ankle support. This has convinced me my ankle will be good, no pain you see. The bonus of all this housework is there is space to set the turbo up once again. So having read all the post about sufferfest I thought I'd give it a go. Having looked through them Revolver looked like it my suit me, 15x1 minute intervals. Feck me it was hard. I've done spinervals, but they just make me sweat and give me tired legs. Trying to do these intervals was brutal. By the tenth interval I had a lump in my throat, by the twelfth I was praying I would make it through without making a bee line for the bathroom. Then I got to interval 15, I was so pleased when it was over. Except it wasn't. The helpful on screen prompt informed me the women still had a minute to go, and that if I wasn't "weak and pathetic" then I was doing one more. Cue the start and "You're not going to let these women spank you are you?" Well if your going to wave a red rag in my face... I was soooo glad when it was over. Have to say I really like sufferfest. It's nice watching the structured cycling clips, and the soundtrack is alright too. I've got "Local Hero" to try next. At around £7 each they are pretty good value too, far better than Spinervals.

You can see my pain and suffering here:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/71602664

Weekly roundup, Swim 2 hours (4750m), Bike 60K + 47min Turbo, Run 8.4K for a total of 6hours 23 minutes.

Mon pm - 20 min Stretching+Flexibility
Tues pm - 1 hour swim (2250m)
Wed - Rest
Thur pm - 1 hour swim (2500m)
Fri - Rest
Sat am - 60km bike
Sun pm - 47 minute turbo

Next week is going to involve turbo sessions and swimming, might try an exploratory run on Wednesday before my half marathon on Sunday. The sub 1:40 goal has disappeared, finishing in one piece is now the goal.