With a 10k running race coming up in Aberdeen, and having finished a two-week training block at the end of last week, my cycle of two tough weeks and one easy week is a bit disrupted at the minute. I decided that for this week, instead of having a full easy week, I’d have half a week easy, with the weekend to train hard. Then next week, I’ll have a full easy week, tapering down into the race in Aberdeen. I’m in Italy during the week with work anyway, so the timings work well.
I took Monday and Tuesday as complete rest days. On Wednesday I did an easy 30-minute spin on the turbo trainer, followed by an even easier 20-minute run. On Thursday I had another day of complete rest. The lack of training meant that I had a bit more free time, so I made sure to use it by going to bed early during the week– sleep really is a good medicine.
This week I finally managed to get my Chartered Engineer application finished, signed off, and posted to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. I’ve put a lot of work into my Chartership over the years, on an ongoing basis, and I’m glad to have completed everything. The next stage is to wait for the institution to review the application, and call me for a professional chartership interview, before they decide if I am worthy of the title “Chartered Engineer”.
I also took delivery of quite a few food bits and pieces this week, having done a quite a bit of expensive online shopping. Piles and piles of energy gels, bars, chia seeds, protein powder, echinacea, sardines, electrolytes, glucosamine, chocolate rice cakes… my room is just overflowing. This year I am trying to keep my gels and bars as natural as possible, which will hopefully be easier on the stomach. After some research, I found that Mule bars, Trek bars and Mule gels are all totally natural and taste good, so hopefully they will agree with my system. I’m still also using the MaxiFuel Viper berry flavoured gels which seem to be quite easy on the stomach. I’ve booked a couple of car rentals for upcoming events, my bike insurance is due (an obscene amount), and I still have to pay my Ironman UK entry fee before the end of the month. An expensive business, but hopefully worth it…
During the week I had been reading up about power meters, and Functional Threshold Power (FTP) testing. An FTP test provides a measure of the maximum power you can sustain on the bike for one hour, and this number can then be used as a basis to set training levels. The idea is that you can then really effectively plan your training, and make sure it’s tough enough to be beneficial but also not so tough that it’s detrimental. Also, periodic re-testing should show an improvement in FTP over time, which is a good gauge of progress, particularly given that I don’t do much racing on the bike, or cycling on the road – all my work is done on the turbo trainer.
It’s important to do the FTP test when you are fresh and recovered, to get an accurate result. It seemed that Friday this week, would be a good time to do the test, after having had 4 days of little or no training. A 60-minute test can be done, but as I can attest to, a 60-minute flat-out blast on the turbo takes some time to recover from. So a 20-minute test can also be done, whereby you try to maintain a consistent and as high an average power as possible for a 20-minute period, and then multiply this 20-minute average by 0.95 to give an approximation of a 60-minute FTP. A 20-minute blast on the turbo is much easier to recover from, and I wanted to get in some quality training on Saturday and Sunday as well. I was even eyeing up a ride on the roads on Sunday morning with my housemate Steve.
I got home from work on Friday, did my stretching, and spent 20 minutes on the turbo warming up. I did some nice easy spinning, some pedalling at high cadence, and also did a few repeats at high power output, to make sure I was well warmed up. Based on previous training sessions with my power meter, I guessed that my FTP would be around 280-290 watts for the hour, and I thought I’d be able to hold around 300 watts for 20 minutes.
It’s a tricky call to decide how hard to start. Too hard and you’ll fade. Too easy and the result won’t be as high as it potentially could have been. Judgement becomes easier after having done a few of these tests. Anyway, I cranked up the power to a level I thought I could maintain, and started the clock.
Within 30 seconds, my power output had stabilised at 326 watts. 326! Far higher than I had anticipated I could hold, but it didn’t feel impossibly hard just yet, so I decided to stick with it. My heart rate shot up to over 170bpm within a minute or two. It was going to be a long 20 minutes… I took some confidence from having ridden up Alpe d’Huez last summer, where I maintained a heart rate of 170+ for almost 50 minutes.
The first ten minutes passed. My wattage stayed constant. But as time ticked by, time began to distort horribly. 10 seconds felt like 10 minutes. The heart rate crept further upwards, towards 180. My average power dropped by a watt, to 325. Then by another, to 324. What seemed like ages passed. But the clock only read 15 minutes. Five to go. I was pushing hard to keep the cadence over 90rpm. So tough. I dropped to 323W. With 2 minutes to go, I tried to lift it. One final push. I brought the average power back to 324W, with the heart rate spiking at over 180bpm. Maximal effort. And finally I hit 20 minutes, stopped the clock, and rattled down into a much easier gear. I was hanging off the bike.
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After I’d got my breath back, I did some mental arithmetic. My FTP was 307 watts. Higher than I thought it would be. A good result, I was happy with that. Following a 20-minute cool-down on the turbo, I went for a jog in the park. The daffodils were out in force. Nice to see. Hopefully warmer temperatures are on the way. My empty weight is down at 66kg, and combined with the still-cold temperatures, I sometimes feel chilly at night.
On Saturday I did 4km in the pool, mostly with hand paddles. I felt good throughout. I followed this with a 40-minute hard run, with 30 minutes at 5:30-5:45 per mile pace. Again this felt reasonably good. On Saturday night we checked the forecast and it wasn’t good, so we decided against going out in the lashing rain on Sunday morning. Instead I slept late and got on the turbo. I did 3 hours, with 2:40 at 220 watts. Going by my FTP of 308 watts, my Ironman wattage should be around 220. I was pleased to see that my average heart rate for the two hours and forty minutes was only 137bpm. I followed this with a short run at Ironman pace. It all felt good.
Then I did some weights and core work, and after a shower, I was feeling tired. What happened next was like an advertisement for Carlsberg beer: “Carlsberg don’t do housemates, but if they did, they’d probably be the best housemates in the world…” I went to the kitchen to sort myself out with a bite to eat. I was tired. I was very hungry. I didn’t have a lot of energy. I ate a bowl of porridge with peanut butter and protein powder mixed in. My housemates had been cooking. I got handed a tray full of potato wedges and vegetables, a pot full of pulled pork, bread rolls, coleslaw, and a bowl of sticky toffee pudding with custard. It just could not have been any better.
While I was making myself a pulled pork burger, things then managed to get even better: the cycling came on the TV. I had read that the day’s stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico race in Italy had finished atop a mountain, in a crazy blizzard, and I had thought, “Wow, I’d love to see that…” and now it was on the TV, and I had all this awesome food in front of me… I think I did it justice… I really am very lucky…
A few hours later I had another meal: quinoa, turkey breast, peppers, onions and ginger. With that, another week ended. I’m off to Italy (again) with work next week. Hopefully I’ll get through it, hopefully I’ll not get sick, hopefully I’ll be able to eat well, and then it’s off to Aberdeen next weekend for the 10K road race. It’s the tenth anniversary of the Garioch 10K in Inverurie, just outside Aberdeen. I won the race in 2006 and 2007 and was invited back this year for the tenth anniversary. It will be great to get back to Aberdeen, if only for a weekend. I intend to run hard, and if conditions are good, I’d like to think I’m in shape to run under 33 minutes. Hopefully it won’t take too big a toll on my body and hopefully my legs will recover quickly, but I expect that my legs will be sore and that I’ll need a week afterwards to fully recover.
Training done this week was as follows:
Mon 9 March: Rest
Tue 10 March: Rest
Wed 11 March: 30 min turbo, 20 min run
Thu 12 March: Rest
Fri 13 March: 1 hour turbo (20 min FTP test: 20 mins at 324W, 173bpm), 25 min run
Sat 11 March: Swim 4km (500m paddle drills), 40 min run (30 mins hard)
Sun 12 March: 3 hour turbo (2:40 at 220W, 137bpm), 25 min run
Totals: Swim 4km, Bike 105 miles, Run 16 miles
I took Monday and Tuesday as complete rest days. On Wednesday I did an easy 30-minute spin on the turbo trainer, followed by an even easier 20-minute run. On Thursday I had another day of complete rest. The lack of training meant that I had a bit more free time, so I made sure to use it by going to bed early during the week– sleep really is a good medicine.
This week I finally managed to get my Chartered Engineer application finished, signed off, and posted to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. I’ve put a lot of work into my Chartership over the years, on an ongoing basis, and I’m glad to have completed everything. The next stage is to wait for the institution to review the application, and call me for a professional chartership interview, before they decide if I am worthy of the title “Chartered Engineer”.
I also took delivery of quite a few food bits and pieces this week, having done a quite a bit of expensive online shopping. Piles and piles of energy gels, bars, chia seeds, protein powder, echinacea, sardines, electrolytes, glucosamine, chocolate rice cakes… my room is just overflowing. This year I am trying to keep my gels and bars as natural as possible, which will hopefully be easier on the stomach. After some research, I found that Mule bars, Trek bars and Mule gels are all totally natural and taste good, so hopefully they will agree with my system. I’m still also using the MaxiFuel Viper berry flavoured gels which seem to be quite easy on the stomach. I’ve booked a couple of car rentals for upcoming events, my bike insurance is due (an obscene amount), and I still have to pay my Ironman UK entry fee before the end of the month. An expensive business, but hopefully worth it…
Less than half of the box-loads that were delivered
During the week I had been reading up about power meters, and Functional Threshold Power (FTP) testing. An FTP test provides a measure of the maximum power you can sustain on the bike for one hour, and this number can then be used as a basis to set training levels. The idea is that you can then really effectively plan your training, and make sure it’s tough enough to be beneficial but also not so tough that it’s detrimental. Also, periodic re-testing should show an improvement in FTP over time, which is a good gauge of progress, particularly given that I don’t do much racing on the bike, or cycling on the road – all my work is done on the turbo trainer.
It’s important to do the FTP test when you are fresh and recovered, to get an accurate result. It seemed that Friday this week, would be a good time to do the test, after having had 4 days of little or no training. A 60-minute test can be done, but as I can attest to, a 60-minute flat-out blast on the turbo takes some time to recover from. So a 20-minute test can also be done, whereby you try to maintain a consistent and as high an average power as possible for a 20-minute period, and then multiply this 20-minute average by 0.95 to give an approximation of a 60-minute FTP. A 20-minute blast on the turbo is much easier to recover from, and I wanted to get in some quality training on Saturday and Sunday as well. I was even eyeing up a ride on the roads on Sunday morning with my housemate Steve.
I got home from work on Friday, did my stretching, and spent 20 minutes on the turbo warming up. I did some nice easy spinning, some pedalling at high cadence, and also did a few repeats at high power output, to make sure I was well warmed up. Based on previous training sessions with my power meter, I guessed that my FTP would be around 280-290 watts for the hour, and I thought I’d be able to hold around 300 watts for 20 minutes.
It’s a tricky call to decide how hard to start. Too hard and you’ll fade. Too easy and the result won’t be as high as it potentially could have been. Judgement becomes easier after having done a few of these tests. Anyway, I cranked up the power to a level I thought I could maintain, and started the clock.
Within 30 seconds, my power output had stabilised at 326 watts. 326! Far higher than I had anticipated I could hold, but it didn’t feel impossibly hard just yet, so I decided to stick with it. My heart rate shot up to over 170bpm within a minute or two. It was going to be a long 20 minutes… I took some confidence from having ridden up Alpe d’Huez last summer, where I maintained a heart rate of 170+ for almost 50 minutes.
The first ten minutes passed. My wattage stayed constant. But as time ticked by, time began to distort horribly. 10 seconds felt like 10 minutes. The heart rate crept further upwards, towards 180. My average power dropped by a watt, to 325. Then by another, to 324. What seemed like ages passed. But the clock only read 15 minutes. Five to go. I was pushing hard to keep the cadence over 90rpm. So tough. I dropped to 323W. With 2 minutes to go, I tried to lift it. One final push. I brought the average power back to 324W, with the heart rate spiking at over 180bpm. Maximal effort. And finally I hit 20 minutes, stopped the clock, and rattled down into a much easier gear. I was hanging off the bike.
FTP test results...
After I’d got my breath back, I did some mental arithmetic. My FTP was 307 watts. Higher than I thought it would be. A good result, I was happy with that. Following a 20-minute cool-down on the turbo, I went for a jog in the park. The daffodils were out in force. Nice to see. Hopefully warmer temperatures are on the way. My empty weight is down at 66kg, and combined with the still-cold temperatures, I sometimes feel chilly at night.
Power zones based on my FTP test
Heart rate zones based on my FTP test
On Saturday I did 4km in the pool, mostly with hand paddles. I felt good throughout. I followed this with a 40-minute hard run, with 30 minutes at 5:30-5:45 per mile pace. Again this felt reasonably good. On Saturday night we checked the forecast and it wasn’t good, so we decided against going out in the lashing rain on Sunday morning. Instead I slept late and got on the turbo. I did 3 hours, with 2:40 at 220 watts. Going by my FTP of 308 watts, my Ironman wattage should be around 220. I was pleased to see that my average heart rate for the two hours and forty minutes was only 137bpm. I followed this with a short run at Ironman pace. It all felt good.
Ironman pace... Need to see what happens to the heart rate if I do this for 5 hours...
Then I did some weights and core work, and after a shower, I was feeling tired. What happened next was like an advertisement for Carlsberg beer: “Carlsberg don’t do housemates, but if they did, they’d probably be the best housemates in the world…” I went to the kitchen to sort myself out with a bite to eat. I was tired. I was very hungry. I didn’t have a lot of energy. I ate a bowl of porridge with peanut butter and protein powder mixed in. My housemates had been cooking. I got handed a tray full of potato wedges and vegetables, a pot full of pulled pork, bread rolls, coleslaw, and a bowl of sticky toffee pudding with custard. It just could not have been any better.
While I was making myself a pulled pork burger, things then managed to get even better: the cycling came on the TV. I had read that the day’s stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico race in Italy had finished atop a mountain, in a crazy blizzard, and I had thought, “Wow, I’d love to see that…” and now it was on the TV, and I had all this awesome food in front of me… I think I did it justice… I really am very lucky…
A few hours later I had another meal: quinoa, turkey breast, peppers, onions and ginger. With that, another week ended. I’m off to Italy (again) with work next week. Hopefully I’ll get through it, hopefully I’ll not get sick, hopefully I’ll be able to eat well, and then it’s off to Aberdeen next weekend for the 10K road race. It’s the tenth anniversary of the Garioch 10K in Inverurie, just outside Aberdeen. I won the race in 2006 and 2007 and was invited back this year for the tenth anniversary. It will be great to get back to Aberdeen, if only for a weekend. I intend to run hard, and if conditions are good, I’d like to think I’m in shape to run under 33 minutes. Hopefully it won’t take too big a toll on my body and hopefully my legs will recover quickly, but I expect that my legs will be sore and that I’ll need a week afterwards to fully recover.
Old and new...
Training done this week was as follows:
Mon 9 March: Rest
Tue 10 March: Rest
Wed 11 March: 30 min turbo, 20 min run
Thu 12 March: Rest
Fri 13 March: 1 hour turbo (20 min FTP test: 20 mins at 324W, 173bpm), 25 min run
Sat 11 March: Swim 4km (500m paddle drills), 40 min run (30 mins hard)
Sun 12 March: 3 hour turbo (2:40 at 220W, 137bpm), 25 min run
Totals: Swim 4km, Bike 105 miles, Run 16 miles
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