Post 20 - Event phase starts

I’ve come to a somewhat disjointed phase in the journey to the start line at Ironman UK 2014. I have a couple of upcoming 100-mile time trials in May and June, and these will dictate that I taper for and rest/recover from each of them. One race is the North Norfolk 100 and one is the Icknield 100. These races are what I would consider to be essential Ironman preparation – I did them both last year and it will be interesting to compare my times this year with last year. I’d hope I’ve made improvements. So, until the second week in June, my training will be "compromised" by these events and I will tone down the intensity and durations of my training sessions. It looks like I will have a further interruption with a work trip to Italy at the end of May, so this is something else I will have to plan around.

From 9^th June, I will have four more tough and hopefully uninterrupted weeks before a 2-week taper for the Ironman. I’m currently not in bad shape and not too dissatisfied with how things have gone so far, and all I can do is keep at it for the next 11 weeks, and manage and control everything as tightly as possible. 11 more weeks… 77 days… It’s not long and yet it’s so far away…

I’ve ordered two new pairs of running shoes, two new pairs of swimming goggles, a new high-capacity aero bottle, what seems like an infinite supply of gels and bars, and I’ve booked the bike in for a service prior to the time trials. I’ve also got a fortune’s worth of aerodynamic clothing in a range of different sizes in my room, and will be trying everything on and choosing my race gear in the next couple of days, then sending the rest of it back.

Lots of gels and bars

The new aero bottle hasn’t arrived yet, but I hope it fits between my aero bars. I’ve decided this year to take off the two bottles mounted on my frame, to improve aerodynamics. My reasoning is that there’s not much point in having a highly aerodynamic bike and wheelset, only to completely spoil the airflow by having two bottles on the frame. I will mount two bottles behind the saddle where they are hidden from the wind by my back side, and I will also have my aero bottle mounted between my tri bars. The new aero bottle will hold about half a litre more than the old one, and I think this is a gain worth having. The new bigger aero bottle I have ordered is shown below, compared with the smaller one also pictured. 

The image below isn't my bike, but it shows how the bottle mounts on a bracket between the tri bars. The new bottle is longer and wider, and I also need to make sure that my bike computer will also fit.

I originally planned this week to be an easy week, but this plan changed halfway through the week. I needed to rent a car to take the bike to the bike shop for servicing, and I wanted to do it this weekend, combining it with an easy week of training. It’s over an hour to drive to the bike shop, and they need the bike overnight. I want to take it to my formerly local bike shop (Yellow Jersey Cycles in Billericay) because they have a great mechanic in there who is worth his weight in gold, and it’s good to know that when he services the bike, the bike will be as good as it can possibly be. Because this is a Bank Holiday weekend, car rental prices were grossly inflated, so I’ll have to wait until next weekend. This means that my training plan has been compromised (yet again), and so I have trained hard for most of this week instead of having an easier week as planned. I was at the osteopath again earlier in the week, and for the first time he managed to loosen off my lower back, so the treatment seems to be slowly moving in the right direction.

It has been tough to train hard for a 3^rd week in a row, coming off such an intense 2-week training block as I had done. My legs started to painfully protest in the pool on Friday. I was doing 3 x 600m, aiming for each 600 in 9 minutes. The first two sets weren’t too far away, in 9:04 and 9:08, but my legs cramped horribly during the final set, which took 9:27. It was agony to push off the wall, and tough to kick, my legs hanging painfully and uselessly behind me. So bad was the pain that I couldn’t get out of the pool like I normally would, instead I had to wade to the kiddy steps and railings at the far side of the pool and use them to limp out. I got home and got straight into the shower to give my legs the cold water treatment, and they seem to have eased a bit.

I didn’t feel like I had good legs on Saturday and I had to really force myself onto the turbo. Once I got going it didn’t feel too bad, and I ended up pushing harder than I thought I had the energy to, spinning at up to 100rpm at a heart rate of up to 170bpm. The short 30-minute run afterwards wasn’t a pretty sight, and it’s clear that I’m in need of some serious recovery. I decided not to do a tough run this evening, I will run tomorrow after work instead, which will give my legs a bit more recovery time. Instead of the tough run today, I’ve been sitting down, resting, watching the snooker and playing my guitar, something I don’t often have time to do. 

Essential turbo training gear: a towel to cover the bike, a fan to combat sweat
and a screen to provide mental stimulation

Training this week was as follows:

Monday 28^th April 2014: Rest
Tuesday 29^th April 2014: 30 minute turbo, 20 minute run
Wed 30^th April 2014: Rest
Thursday 1^st May 2014: 1:30 turbo (4 x 10 minutes hard, 10 minutes easy), 20 minute run
Friday 2^nd May 2014: Swim 3km (3 x 600m: 9:04, 9:08, 9:27, 1 minute recovery), 1:10 turbo (single leg drills: 20 x 1 minute left, 1 right, 1 both)
Saturday 3^rd May 2014: 2 hour turbo, 30 minute run
Sunday 4^th May 2014: Swim 3.3km (paddle drills)

Totals: Swim 6.3km, Bike 115 miles, Run 11 miles

It wasn’t quite a full tough week, but it certainly wasn’t an easy week either. Somewhere in between. Next week will also be an "in between" week, then an easy week before the North Norfolk 100.