Post 80 - A better metric

I was at a low ebb at the end of last week. 2 weeks in Italy had been very disruptive to training, and to my body’s equilibrium in terms of good sleep, good nutrition, good hydration, good training and good recovery. This had manifested itself in a terrible attempt at a metric Ironman bike/run distance (3 and a half hours on the bike and 2 hours of running), which began to fail after 2 and a half hours on the bike, and which came to a pathetic zero-energy halt after not much more than a few minutes of running. I had no idea how I would recover after this, but I didn’t want to waste another week getting over it, so I planned to do a tough training week, see how the first couple of days would go, and take it from there.

On Monday I made proper food for the week – piles and piles of wholemeal pasta and sauce, with heaps and heaps of raw peppers, onions, garlic, ginger, turmeric, broccoli, carrots, mixed beans, chillies, and turkey breast. Exactly what I need. My lunches got back to normal – sardines, mackerel, raw vegetables and quinoa. My breakfasts got back to normal – porridge with raisins, brazil nuts, almonds, chia seeds, flax seeds, honey, peanut butter and protein powder. My hydrating got back to normal – a 700ml bottle of water per hour, all day. My sleep got back to normal. And all of this helped to properly fuel my body and allow it to train and recover properly.

On Tuesday I got on the turbo trainer and planned for a warm-up, a tough hour, and a cool-down. I had no idea how this would go, coming only two days after the failed metric Ironman. But I warmed up well and I got through an hour with good output. Not bad. My legs felt like two bags of worms afterwards, twitching crazily. A cold shower and compression socks helped to calm the legs down. I got through Wednesday’s fartlek run without any problem, but despite my working week being almost over by Thursday, my training week only starts to get tough on Thursday. Not the easiest of situations to grasp mentally.

I knew that I had some cardiac testing on Friday after work which would mean I wouldn’t be able to swim as usual on Friday. So I went on Thursday at lunchtime to the freezing cold 30m pool close to work. I hate swimming in there – the pool close to the house is much warmer and easier to get into. But, after wimpishly easing myself very slowly into the (literally freezing) water, and turning blue in the process (turning the air blue under my breath as well), I churned out 2500m, with 10 x 30m of very hard sprinting. That evening I did intervals on the turbo trainer: 20 sets of 2 minutes hard and 2 minutes easy. Again, I felt good, and much better than I would have expected after the disastrous previous two weeks and weekends.

I took delivery of some new running shoes this week. I’ve run in Brooks Adrenaline shoes for the past few seasons, and they have been pretty good. Each year, they are upgraded. So I have run in the 11 series, the 12 series and the 13 series. There hasn’t been much difference in feel between each of these models. Last year, when I ran in the 14 series, they felt completely different. I didn’t like them at all. I returned them straight away, and the retailer told me that he’d had a lot of complaints about the 14 series, but there were still lots of 13 series models available, so I had no problem last year getting the 13 series.

This year was a bit different. Brooks have now released the 15 series, so the 13 series are out of production and are very difficult to find. But, with less than 2 months before the Ironman, I don’t want to be making any changes to anything, so I wanted the 13 series again. I scoured the internet, made numerous phone calls, and eventually found and ordered the last two pairs of 13 series shoes in my size in the UK. I was ridiculously happy when they arrived. Brooks’ shoe box even says “RUN HAPPY” on it. But the elation turned to deflation when I opened them and found that they were narrow width shoes (narrow, regular and wide fits are available, I’m regular width). They didn’t fit. Argh.

Yes I will, if I get the right size...

After more phone calls, and insistence that various retailers checked their storerooms, I had word that a retailer was holding 2 pairs of size 9, regular fit, 13 series Brooks Adrenaline shoes. Perfect. I got the credit card out, ready to buy over the phone. I dictated the number, and the billing address (a Northern Ireland address), and was then told for security reasons they wouldn’t send the shoes to London as the addresses didn’t match. Argh. I was told to buy them online, where he said the software would do some sort of automatic address check, and then they could send them to London. So I kept the guy on the phone while I went to the store’s website. And… no availability for size 9, despite him physically holding 2 pairs… “So what now?” I asked. He said he would get his website guy to fix the website, and assured me he would call back. I told him how important it was that I get these shoes. “Don’t worry, we’ll call straight back…” he said.

He didn’t call back. Argh. I called him back and he fobbed me off with excuses about being busy. Needless to say, the website still had no availability for size 9. But he still had them. So he said I should buy two pairs of whatever size was available online, and when the order came through he would see my name and would know to send the size 9 shoes. Did I trust him? No way… Did I want these shoes? Very much…  What choice did I have? Not much… So I did what he suggested, and thankfully a few days later 2 pairs of the right shoes arrived. I returned the narrow fit shoes. So now I have got a fresh pair of shoes to train in for the next 8 weeks, and a fresh pair to race the Ironman in. Good. One less thing to worry about…

Perseverance brings success. Run Happy...

On Friday after work I headed for the hospital for yet more tests on my heart. I am very aware that Ironman training and racing elevates the heart rate for prolonged periods of time. I’m not sure that in the very long-term that this is a good thing, but I know my competitive Ironman career will be comparatively short. During and after my hospitalisation last year it really hit home to me how I shouldn’t take my body and my health for granted, and that I should really (and I mean really) take care of it, especially with the demands I put on it. I’ve had a barrage of tests done, all of which have been reassuring. However, the tests that analysed my heart have all been done when I have been at rest. This week’s test was to see how it operates under duress. These tests are part of a detailed study sponsored by the British Heart Foundation, looking at the effects of endurance sport on the heart.

Front page of info book/consent form

So I found myself lying down on and being strapped to what looked like some sort of medieval torture device, albeit with pedals attached to one end. It was actually a tilting recumbent bicycle. It had to tilt 45 degrees to open up my chest so the medics could scan my heart while I was pedalling. It was so surreal, riding a recumbent bike while tipped over 45 degrees to the left. But they couldn’t scan my chest using ultrasound probes if I was on a treadmill, or hunched over a normal exercise bike. I had to be lying down, and tilted over, giving them access to my chest and side.

They covered me with slime to allow the probes to couple better and improve the readings, and I pedalled and pedalled, with resistance increasing incrementally. My heart rate got up to about 170 but I was reluctant to go any harder in such a strange position, as I was worried about pinging my knees or hurting my back. The medics got all the readings they needed, and again assured me that everything was fine.

That was my Friday evening, spent on a strange-looking torture bike in a hospital dungeon. It was a bit of a compromise to the usual routine, but worth it. I don’t compromise often. Another compromise this week was accepting an invitation to go to Brands Hatch motor racing track on Sunday to watch classic Formula 1 car racing. This was something I couldn’t turn down. So it meant Sunday was a write-off, from a training point of view. Usually I would do a swim and a long run on Sundays. So I planned to do my swim on Monday (usually my rest/cooking day, but I’d put it down as part of this week’s training block), and combine my long run with a long bike ride on Saturday – I was going to attempt another “metric Ironman”.

My expectations weren’t too high for this training session, as I’d had a tough training week, but regardless, I got on the turbo on Saturday morning and got going. I purposely lowered my output fractionally compared with last week, just a few watts. But I was still outputting comparable figures to what I would like to output on race day. And the bike felt fairly easy. I watched “Touching the Void” – a mountaineering dilemma – you are roped to your climbing partner, who slips, breaks his leg, and falls over a cliff. He can’t climb the rope, and you can’t move because you are on a steep slope with loose snow. You are in a storm, and no help is coming. You are eventually going to slip, and both of you will likely die if you do. Would you cut the rope…?

I got through the bike, and had no idea how a 2-hour run would go. But I ran really well. I was very happy. As dejected as I was last week, I was at the other end of the spectrum this week. Very pleased. I did 17 miles, in 2 hours and 6 minutes, averaging under 7:30 per mile. It felt good, and I could easily have continued. I only need to run at 7:40 per mile in the Ironman to do a marathon that I believe will give me a shot at qualifying for the worlds. I took an hour immediately after the run to do all the immediate recovery stuff – lie down, elevate my legs, drink protein, eat good food, jog, shower (hot and cold alternating), and then spent the rest of the day off my feet. I was in bed by 8pm.

Ideally I’d have spent most of the next day in bed as well, allowing myself to fully recover after the almost-6-hour Saturday training session. But going to Brands Hatch to watch classic Formula 1 cars and lots of other races too, with one of my very esteemed colleagues who I hold in very high regard, in his classic Porsche, is an opportunity that doesn’t come around very often. I took earplugs, a rucksack full of food, and gallons of water. I still had to recover properly and I knew I'd need to eat and drink non-stop through the day, and I didn't want to resort to the burgers, chips and beer from the circuit kiosks...

Brands Hatch was awesome. A real old-school circuit, set in a natural amphitheatre, so it’s possible to see a lot of the circuit from a single vantage point. Turn 1 in particular – Paddock Bend – was fearsome. A fast uphill approach to a blind fast off-camber right hander, with the track dropping away at what must have been a 15% gradient. What a sight (and what a sound) to see racing cars taking this bend. A memorable day, but my legs were sore…

Overall a good week, back on track, and with a positive long run after 3 and a half hours on the bike. That long double training session on Saturday will take a few days to recover from, so the first half of next week will be easy (I have to travel to Worcester for a few days, argh, so I won’t have much choice but to do easy training), then I’ll have the second half of the week to train hard, as well as all of the following week. Then a week to taper off for the Bristol triathlon. Less than 8 weeks until the big one…

Training done this week was as follows:

Mon 18 May: Rest
Tue 19 May: 1:25 turbo (1 hour hard)
Wed 20 May: 30 minute fartlek run
Thu 21 May: Swim 2.5km (10 x 30m hard), 1:25 turbo (20 x 2mins hard, 2mins easy)
Fri 22 May: 20 minute bike (cardiac testing)
Sat 23 May: “Metric Ironman” – 3:30 turbo, 2:06 run (17 miles)
Sun 24 May: Swim 3.1km

Totals: Swim 5.6km, Bike 145 miles, Run 22 miles