I was recently told by someone that they followed my blog, which instantly brought about some guilt of a recent update. Sorry!
So this is week 17 of being back running. And week 2 of my training for Wokingham Half-marathon. I am loosely following the Furman Institute's FIRST plan. The crux is 3 runs and 2 lots of cross-training (read: cycling). Each of the 3 runs is a quality run; long, track or tempo they're fast and can hurt.
The balance comes in the cross training. It's a risky program and I got injured last time doing something similar. This time I know where I went wrong and I'm listening to my body much more. Common sense really. It's almost obvious that one cannot fit in 5 or 6 quality sessions per week.
I'm enjoying some easy paced cycling in the week and some longer rides at the weekend. They help to offset the training load from the running. Every now and then I'm throwing in a harder turbo as a tester. Tonight was TrainerRoad's Raymond, a 4x5min at 108% FTP.
I'm looking forward to my first duathlon of the season, the Dinton Duathlon. I'll have been back from the US for less than 24 hours by that point so we'll see how it goes.
I've also entered Althorp sprint duathlon in Oct 2014. Far away but I got an early-bird deal as it is the 2015 European sprint qualifier.
Showing posts with label Track. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Track. Show all posts
Tuesday, 29 October 2013
Sunday, 14 April 2013
Lighting the taper, and new trisuit revealed!
It's been another busy week. I got out on the TT bike in the sun last Sunday. It was a pleasure to ride some country routes without wrapping up like an Eskimo.
Monday was going to be busy with work so I went out for an early morning run, in the sun again! I had to pick up a colleague up from the airport and managed to drop in to Blade printing on the way to hand over my Adidas tri-suit for printing, in case the Z3R0D suits were not available. At the same time the team received an email telling us to order the new suits online. After some confusion we were then told to order them direct from the BTF.
Tuesday started at a hotel in Essex where I tested out the gym bike with Audiofuel's Ride Harder#1. 40 minutes of pyramid intervals - good stuff. I washed this breakfast down with a 15 minutes treadmill brick, then went to meet my colleagues for a proper meal. After a couple of busy days I got home late Wednesday, just in time to go to the track. Our club coach had planned 3 reps of the following:
That slipped until Friday lunch time. I rode Sufferfest's The Wretched on TrainerRoad. A good way of keeping true to power.
I also received my Z3R0D GB trisuit at last, all printed up. Very proud!
Saturday was an early run before a wedding. It was my turn to drive as it was a friend of my wife. Next time she can drive! Today was finished off with a good session on the TT bike.
Taper time now. Shorter sessions but just as intense. Heading out to the Netherlands on Thursday.
Monday was going to be busy with work so I went out for an early morning run, in the sun again! I had to pick up a colleague up from the airport and managed to drop in to Blade printing on the way to hand over my Adidas tri-suit for printing, in case the Z3R0D suits were not available. At the same time the team received an email telling us to order the new suits online. After some confusion we were then told to order them direct from the BTF.
Tuesday started at a hotel in Essex where I tested out the gym bike with Audiofuel's Ride Harder#1. 40 minutes of pyramid intervals - good stuff. I washed this breakfast down with a 15 minutes treadmill brick, then went to meet my colleagues for a proper meal. After a couple of busy days I got home late Wednesday, just in time to go to the track. Our club coach had planned 3 reps of the following:
- 1200m at HM pace
- 400m at 10km pace
- 200m at 5km pace
That slipped until Friday lunch time. I rode Sufferfest's The Wretched on TrainerRoad. A good way of keeping true to power.
I also received my Z3R0D GB trisuit at last, all printed up. Very proud!
Saturday was an early run before a wedding. It was my turn to drive as it was a friend of my wife. Next time she can drive! Today was finished off with a good session on the TT bike.
Taper time now. Shorter sessions but just as intense. Heading out to the Netherlands on Thursday.
Monday, 1 April 2013
Quarterly review
2013 - what a year, and we're only 3 months in!
It seems that January was mostly spent indoors though the number show otherwise. A minimal amount of running, most off-road due to ice and snow including a good XC league race at Tadley. Lots of turbo cycling though - great quality and quantity.
February was an improvement in running volume and quality though the biking was reduced due to tapering and racing. Some good duathlon race results at Dorney and Althorp and of course qualifying for the ETU champs.
March was a bigger month all round with some great quality bike (road and MTB) and run sessions. The month was finished nicely with a ~4 hour club ride finishing at the cafe at Dinton Pastures, where I refulled with a sausage roll, chocolate fudge cake and a coffee.
With hindsight I wish I'd had some quick tracker so I can separate turbo and road rides. Perhaps something for me to add to my TrainingPeaks metrics.
April started with an easy 30km road ride, where I took in a lap of the HCC234 time trial course. My TT season starts there this Thursday. Tomorrow morning will be a good threshold TrainerRoad turbo session and Wednesday will be a 30 minute recovery ride to spin the legs out in readiness for Thursday. I'll swim Friday.
No running for me this week. A tight calf has caused my Achilles to become sore. Knocking running on the head for a week will not affect the goal for me. I will also stop my daily hamstring stretched as I have an inkling that the stretches are also contributing to the problem. Shame, as I was enjoying the track sessions. More time on the foam roller needed.
Even though it was a busy training weekend, the extra two days holiday meant some really good family time was had. We didn't do much - visited the in-laws Saturday for more cake, and then back over for Sunday lunch. Friday and today we chilled at home. Daughter leant to play draughts and is already beating me. One day I'll win against my wife too. Here's hoping at least!
It seems that January was mostly spent indoors though the number show otherwise. A minimal amount of running, most off-road due to ice and snow including a good XC league race at Tadley. Lots of turbo cycling though - great quality and quantity.
February was an improvement in running volume and quality though the biking was reduced due to tapering and racing. Some good duathlon race results at Dorney and Althorp and of course qualifying for the ETU champs.
March was a bigger month all round with some great quality bike (road and MTB) and run sessions. The month was finished nicely with a ~4 hour club ride finishing at the cafe at Dinton Pastures, where I refulled with a sausage roll, chocolate fudge cake and a coffee.
With hindsight I wish I'd had some quick tracker so I can separate turbo and road rides. Perhaps something for me to add to my TrainingPeaks metrics.
April started with an easy 30km road ride, where I took in a lap of the HCC234 time trial course. My TT season starts there this Thursday. Tomorrow morning will be a good threshold TrainerRoad turbo session and Wednesday will be a 30 minute recovery ride to spin the legs out in readiness for Thursday. I'll swim Friday.
No running for me this week. A tight calf has caused my Achilles to become sore. Knocking running on the head for a week will not affect the goal for me. I will also stop my daily hamstring stretched as I have an inkling that the stretches are also contributing to the problem. Shame, as I was enjoying the track sessions. More time on the foam roller needed.
Even though it was a busy training weekend, the extra two days holiday meant some really good family time was had. We didn't do much - visited the in-laws Saturday for more cake, and then back over for Sunday lunch. Friday and today we chilled at home. Daughter leant to play draughts and is already beating me. One day I'll win against my wife too. Here's hoping at least!
Thursday, 28 March 2013
A run focus
Last week was bike focused; this week is all about the run.
Monday was a club swim. Tuesday was a tempo run with my running club. A good distance for the tempo section at a good pace. Unfortunately my elastic laces caused my feet to start slipping in the shoes and the day after my feet were really sore.
Each toe has a blister on the end and the underside of my feet are quite sore too. I replaced the elastic laces with normal laces for Wednesday's track session. Another good session with 3 sets of decreasing reps. My left Achilles was a tad tender afterwards too, but nothing the foam roller can't cure!
Tonight saw me back on the turbo, doing a TrainerRoad sweetspot session to get the legs going, and watch some of a Harry Potter film.
Tomorrow I hope to get outside, or I'll hit a threshold session on the turbo.
Monday was a club swim. Tuesday was a tempo run with my running club. A good distance for the tempo section at a good pace. Unfortunately my elastic laces caused my feet to start slipping in the shoes and the day after my feet were really sore.
Each toe has a blister on the end and the underside of my feet are quite sore too. I replaced the elastic laces with normal laces for Wednesday's track session. Another good session with 3 sets of decreasing reps. My left Achilles was a tad tender afterwards too, but nothing the foam roller can't cure!
Tonight saw me back on the turbo, doing a TrainerRoad sweetspot session to get the legs going, and watch some of a Harry Potter film.
Tomorrow I hope to get outside, or I'll hit a threshold session on the turbo.
Sunday, 24 March 2013
Weekly update
It's Sunday evening so time to catch up on the week since my last post.
Wednesday was the start of the tri-club's track-brick sessions. After a good warm up and some drills I did 3 reps of 6 min bike and 800m track. Each bike rep was high cadence and the 3 800m reps were very well paced. Slightly slower than my usual 800m target but taken easier as I'd raced at the weekend.
Thursday saw an hour on the turbo riding Sufferfest's Fight Club on TrainerRoad. A good session especially with the sprint intervals within each interval rep. I'm not a big fan of big-gear low-cadence work, but it must be done to build strength!
Friday was a warm, sunny lunch time easy run, with some added pick-ups to keep me race-pace aware. Some trail, some road and some very muddy XC section. My XC shoes had only just dried after Marlow!
Saturday morning a parcel arrived in the post for me. It was the flag and stickers that Sufferfest had donated to me. Thanks Sufferfest!
My wife and I knew we had a busy weekend ahead of us. Both children had parties to go to plus the usual visit to the in-laws for cake. Normally I'd cycle over with a long detour though the logistics for the children meant that I'd not do it this week. That, and with the weekend weather forecast looking grim I'd planned to ride Sufferfest's new video, Blender. However I thought I should get outside and took the opportunity to ride my rarely-used MTB. I knew that Swinley Forest was being reworked in to a trail centre so I decided to take a snowy look.
Once my daughter had been collected I cycled over to Swinley with a friendand we spend an hour and a half trying out the new trails. The trail work is very impressive with some good surfaces and a noticeable lack of surface water despite the waterlogged forestry all around. A quick cup of Bovril and flapjack in the cafe, then a further hour rolling around Swinley before heading home for a warm cup of tea.
A really enjoyable session and back in the nick of time; we arrived just as my daughter was being dropped home.
This morning I left the family to their lie-in and headed out with a few friends from my running club. We ran deep wet muddy XC trails and climbed a few hills before heading back in to woodland trails and more mud. We parted ways after about an hour and I did another 30 minutes on my own whilst they went of for some longer mileage. Even though it was cold and lightly snowing it was a good run. I'm so lucky to have such a vast amount of running and cycling terrain on my doorstep.
I got home to find that my wife had baked a lovely cake, ideal recovery food from a run. I also found out that my son's couple of red spots had turned in to full blown chicken pox overnight. Unfortunately for him he would not be going to any party today, and had unwittingly jeopardised my daughters own birthday party scheduled for this week. Other than being very itchy he doesn't appear to be suffering and still tore round the house like a barbarian all afternoon.
Another good week of family fun and 9 hours quality training.
Wednesday was the start of the tri-club's track-brick sessions. After a good warm up and some drills I did 3 reps of 6 min bike and 800m track. Each bike rep was high cadence and the 3 800m reps were very well paced. Slightly slower than my usual 800m target but taken easier as I'd raced at the weekend.
Thursday saw an hour on the turbo riding Sufferfest's Fight Club on TrainerRoad. A good session especially with the sprint intervals within each interval rep. I'm not a big fan of big-gear low-cadence work, but it must be done to build strength!
Friday was a warm, sunny lunch time easy run, with some added pick-ups to keep me race-pace aware. Some trail, some road and some very muddy XC section. My XC shoes had only just dried after Marlow!
Saturday morning a parcel arrived in the post for me. It was the flag and stickers that Sufferfest had donated to me. Thanks Sufferfest!
My wife and I knew we had a busy weekend ahead of us. Both children had parties to go to plus the usual visit to the in-laws for cake. Normally I'd cycle over with a long detour though the logistics for the children meant that I'd not do it this week. That, and with the weekend weather forecast looking grim I'd planned to ride Sufferfest's new video, Blender. However I thought I should get outside and took the opportunity to ride my rarely-used MTB. I knew that Swinley Forest was being reworked in to a trail centre so I decided to take a snowy look.
Once my daughter had been collected I cycled over to Swinley with a friendand we spend an hour and a half trying out the new trails. The trail work is very impressive with some good surfaces and a noticeable lack of surface water despite the waterlogged forestry all around. A quick cup of Bovril and flapjack in the cafe, then a further hour rolling around Swinley before heading home for a warm cup of tea.
A really enjoyable session and back in the nick of time; we arrived just as my daughter was being dropped home.
This morning I left the family to their lie-in and headed out with a few friends from my running club. We ran deep wet muddy XC trails and climbed a few hills before heading back in to woodland trails and more mud. We parted ways after about an hour and I did another 30 minutes on my own whilst they went of for some longer mileage. Even though it was cold and lightly snowing it was a good run. I'm so lucky to have such a vast amount of running and cycling terrain on my doorstep.
I got home to find that my wife had baked a lovely cake, ideal recovery food from a run. I also found out that my son's couple of red spots had turned in to full blown chicken pox overnight. Unfortunately for him he would not be going to any party today, and had unwittingly jeopardised my daughters own birthday party scheduled for this week. Other than being very itchy he doesn't appear to be suffering and still tore round the house like a barbarian all afternoon.
Another good week of family fun and 9 hours quality training.
Wednesday, 13 March 2013
What a week...and it's only Wednesday!
Our house has been on the market for a few weeks now. Plenty of viewings but no bites. Today we put a deposit down on a new build near Bracknell and will part-exchange our house for the as-yet un-built house. In fact, today it is still a car park!
Yesterday was also a good day. Firstly I woke up to some good news in my inbox. I had sent out some speculative sponsorship requests to various companies whose products I use.
The Sufferfest have kindly donated me their entire set of training videos, including the latest one, Blender. I already had a few and I am a great fan of them - they were extremely useful over our recent snowy/icy spell and allowed me to continue bike training. They have also offered me a Sufferlandria national flag which I will display at the ETU champs in April.
TrainerRoad have also agreed to sponsor me with access to their indoor training system. TrainerRoad was developed for cyclists and triathletes and offers athletes structured cycling workouts with live ANT+ data based on power, heart rate or VirtualPower™. The TrainerRoad software is both Mac and PC compatible and offers more than 190 workouts scaled to match the current fitness level of each member. TrainerRoad will also be advertised on my trisuit.
Secondly my age-group trisuit arrived, complete with GBR on it. The 2013 kit will hopefully be ready in time though it may be quite close to the race date, so I have bought the older style as an insurance policy. The newer suit has a GB flag on it and whilst I would rather race in that I will be incredibly proud to race in either of them. Go Team GB!
Finally I did a 20 minute power test on TrainerRoad yesterday. This showed a ~5% increase in Functional Threshold Power since January. Good result.
I still have a few sponsorship emails out there with local businesses and I'm hopeful for some more positive responses.
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