Post 127 - A busy week with a 50 mile time trial

This was a very busy and fairly intense week this week, culminating with a 50 mile bike time trial around Essex and topped off with a 10K run straight afterwards…

I had the usual rest day at the start of the week on Monday to allow my body to recover from the previous weekend’s training exertions. The “rest day” involved getting up at 6:20am, going to work, getting home, making enough food for the week, putting it in Tupperware boxes in the fridge, eating, and going to bed. Very restful indeed…

I decided to do an FTP (functional threshold power) bike test on Tuesday evening, on the turbo trainer. FTP tests are not fun things to do. You warm up, then you go as hard as possible for 20 minutes without fading, then you slump over the bike, gasping for breath and flooded with lactic acid, muscles and lungs screaming, then when the gasping and screaming has subsided, you pick up the pieces, and do a cool down. I’d like to get to a level where I can maintain 330 watts for 20 minutes, which would give me an FTP of over 310 watts (over 4.5 watts per kilogram). That would be acceptable going into the Ironman.

The best thing to do when training is not to think about doing it, and not to wish there was an easier way (there isn’t) but just to get on with it, so I did my stretching, got on the bike, and did my warm up. Then I got into the FTP test. 20 minutes doesn’t sound like too long. I tend to break the 20 minutes down into three sections. 3 sets of 6:40. The first 6:40 is OK. The second section gets really tough. And the third section is excruciatingly painful and slow. For the first 6:40, I was pushing close to 330 watts. Not bad. For the second 6:40, I dropped fractionally. Ideally you want a consistent output for the whole 20 minutes. You don’t want to fade. Too much of a fade and you may as well abandon the session, because it won’t give a representative FTP value, and you won’t get any benefit from the session. A fractional fade is just about OK. But would I continue to fade, and blow up?

I managed to up it again slightly for the final 6:40. Time went so slow. You look at the timer, then look around, look down at the gears, look out the window, count to 10, watch your sweat drip, watch your legs pump, look at your power numbers, look at your heart rate (which is through the roof), then look back at the timer and, lo and behold, only 10 seconds have passed. Time distorts. It’s a nightmare. 20 minutes finally passed and I hit the stop button. 325 watts average. Not bad. Multiply this by 0.95 and you get 308 watts for an FTP value. That's over 4.5W/kg. For comparison, elite cyclists would probably be able to hold 6-7W/kg for a similar length of time. Hmmmm, work to do... After the FTP test I did some weights and core work. My legs were twitching all night. It’s quite a maximal session.

On Wednesday I had a rest day as I was out for dinner, then I was back at it on Thursday – a trip to the osteopath for some cracking and loosening, followed by a 40-minute fartlek run around the park, followed my core work and weights. My new helmet arrived too – a green Rudy Project Wingspan. It looks great. I wanted a shorter-tailed helmet than my current Bell Meteor – my body position on the bike means that a shorter tail is more aerodynamic. I also wanted a helmet with earflaps that didn’t compress my ears as much as my current Bell Meteor helmet, giving me a splitting headache after a couple of hours. I also decided against a fully integrated visor, thinking that ventilation would be better without a visor and just using sunglasses. So far so good, the helmet looks and fits great…

I also got hold of some Zone3 gear. Their Lava shorts are great, they are what I’ll race in this season. I’ve decided against a triathlon-specific top. I want a sleeved top, with a full-length zip, and good pockets at the rear, and not a flimsy top – I’m racing in the UK and I’m skinny, so I would like a little insulation and warmth, and a lot of the triathlon-specific tops are really thin and offer no warmth. I also don’t want mesh material on the rear because I don’t want to get sunburned. It seems that such tops are tough to come by. I have decided to buy an aero cycling top rather than a specific triathlon top, and use that for the Ironman bike. I’ve ordered a few Castelli tops – they have sleeves, thicker material than a tri top so more warmth and more sun protection, good pockets at the rear, and still a tight aero fit. I won’t be wearing it under my wetsuit at the Ironman anyway so it doesn’t need to be flimsy, super-thin and quick drying, I’ll just whip it on in transition and start the bike nice and dry. Plus I can pre-fill the pockets with gels.

On Friday I went to the pool and blasted out a 1500m time trial. This was a bit like the FTP bike test on Tuesday night. You go as hard as you can, try to pace it evenly, and hope you don’t fade or blow up towards the end. Swimming pace is quite tough to judge as there’s little pace feedback, and no heart rate or power feedback, so it’s mostly judged by perceived exertion. I probably went a bit too hard initially and tailed off towards the end. I did 23:24 for the 1500. A little slower than I would have liked, but not a disaster. My best ever 1500 in a pool was just under 23 minutes – I wonder if I’ll get back to that level before the Ironman…? I still don’t tumble turn when swimming at speed, but when cooling down I try to practice a few. I’ll get there… Then it was back home and onto the turbo trainer for single leg drills. Pedalling round and round with one leg is a bit tedious, but it’s beneficial, so it gets done.

Up to this point, it had been quite an intense training week, so I took Saturday off to ensure I gave myself some opportunity to rest and recover before Sunday’s 50 mile time trial. I wasn’t treating this time-trial as an A-event and so I didn’t taper down like I usually would, I kept training right through the whole of the week leading up to it.

I was dying for a lie-in on Saturday morning, but I knew I had to be up at 4am on Sunday to get to the time trial venue before my 7:26am start time. Lying in until 11am on Saturday morning would mean I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep early on Saturday night, and I wouldn’t be well rested for Sunday. So I dragged myself out of bed at 8am on Saturday morning. I had no training to do, so instead I kept checking the weather forecast (and kept cursing it). I got fed up looking at a wet forecast and so I got my bike prepared (it looks great with the new wheel decals if I do say so myself), and dealt with “life admin” – washing, ironing, cleaning, paperwork, sorting, tidying, planning and so on. Then I went to pick up my road bike which had been in for a service this week, and went to the car rental place to get the car.

Looking good

Another twist was receiving an email which stated: “IMPORTANT NOTICE – Traffic lights in Tillingham South Street:  As you enter Tillingham from the Dengie straight (hard left corner) there are traffic lights for a road works. The roadworks are 50 metres long and there is clear sight to the far end of them. These road works will be marshalled. Any rider riding discourteously or dangerously will be liable to disqualification.” Interpret that how you will… It didn’t explicitly say that jumping the lights if they were red would result in disqualification…

I prepared and packed my gear, and with a final look at the weather forecast, I went to bed at 8pm. I set the alarm for 4am… It was to rain all night, and the rain was to fizzle out by around 8am the next day. My start time was 7:26am… I really didn’t want rain and wet, but it was going to be wet… wet is bad, the risk of crashing is higher, and your bike gets messed up and filthy in the wet, and the course was to be a very twisty and technical course, which is not good in wet conditions. But, it would be what it would be, and hopefully it would warm up and dry out as the time trial progressed.

Start at the green dot, go anticlockwise, do two full laps,
then two-thirds of lap three and finish at the red dot/chequered flag.
So many tight turns...

I went to sleep. Next thing, the alarm went off. 4am. Argh. I looked out the window. It was already getting bright. With only a few weeks until midsummer’s day, you could say it was “the height of summer”, and yet it was soaking wet outside. At least it wasn’t raining. I got ready, ate breakfast, loaded the car up, and got on the road. After a couple of wrong turns, I made it to the event HQ at the village hall in Steeple in eastern Essex, and registered. There were around 80 riders entered, starting at one-minute intervals from 7am.

It was good to be back in Essex – I lived in Billericay for part of 2013-2014 and did quite a bit of cycling in Essex. I got to know the roads quite well, and the time trial would be on some of the same roads I used to cycle on. Nice, quiet, scenic roads. I wouldn’t describe them as fast or open roads, and I learned that the time trial was classed as a “SpoCo” or a “Sporting Course” – a more technical and “difficult” course than some typical faster time trial courses which go up and down flat and featureless dual carriageways at 4am…

I wondered what sort of time I would do. I knew I had done a 100 mile time trial in just under 4 hours in 2014. I’d like to think I’d be at a similar level of fitness this year. So this would mean going under 2 hours for a 50. But, having seen the course map and the conditions, under 2 hours would be a hell of an effort. Realistically, maybe 2:05? 2:10? Surely not as slow as 2:10? I just wanted to put in a decent effort and (literally) get round in one piece. No crashing please and thank you…

I got chatting to a guy named Terry, from Southend, as I was unloading my bike and getting ready. He told me it wasn’t a particularly fast course, and talked me through some of it. Some of the small villages were to be treated with caution, with lots of parked cars and hidden entrances. One of the villages at the far end had roadworks and the damned temporary traffic lights, as well as a lot of parked cars and side entrances. Terry also mentioned a really steep climb, up to 12%, just after the start. We’d go up it three times in the 50 miles.

Ready to roll... wet roads...

I decided on wearing two tight tops, arm warmers, gloves and toe covers under my aero shoe covers, as it was still very early and quite cold and wet. I rode the four miles down to the start with Terry and it was really cold. We were just cruising and I wasn’t generating any heat. I needed to warm up properly. Terry was off 10 minutes before me and I had 10 minutes to get warm and get ready, so I cycled off quite hard in the opposite direction to warm up. I went down a side road to pee before the start and ended up having to hammer it back to the start area – a time-trial start time waits for no-one. I made it with a minute to spare and was a bit too much out of breath for my liking, but the start time is set in stone, you can’t ask to delay, so I got into position, the starter grabbed my bike and held me upright, I clipped into my pedals, ready to go. I got “30 seconds”, “20”, “10” and a countdown from 5. Away I went, down in the aero position, 50 miles ahead of me.

Straight away I noticed a whooshing noise – the air channelling between the helmet ear flaps and my head. If I “turtled” my head and really got down low, it stopped as the helmet position changed and the earflaps were less exposed to the airflow. Whooshing = bad and not aero, quiet = aero. Spray was going everywhere. I quickly realised I wouldn’t be going under 2 hours (I hadn’t really expected to anyway). The course was slow, my legs weren’t completely fresh as I hadn’t tapered, and I wasn’t quite averaging 25mph.

There were a lot of 90-degree turns and I was tip-toeing round them. I really didn’t need to crash. But on one of the first few turns, a right-hander, despite my tip-toeing, my back wheel stepped out of line and skidded. I managed to just catch it, but in doing so, I was heading for the verge. I didn’t need to somersault into the bushes and I just about kept it on the black stuff. Heartstopping. So for the rest of the course, I was cautious on the corners…

I got through the traffic lights no problem on the first lap, and settled into the ride. My heart rate was just over 160bpm and I was confident I could sustain this for 2 hours, but I did think that my average of well over 290 watts was a bit high. The first lap passed quite quickly and no-one overtook me. I started the second lap. Riders were still queuing up to start. I went up the steep hill for the second time. I wasn’t as strong this time. But still not bad. I was chasing one of the “big boys” with a disc wheel and a skinsuit who had just started his 50 – I was a lap up on him. I overtook him going up the hill – being 68kg has its benefits sometimes. Then shortly afterwards, he passed me again, but we were pretty much going at the same speed. I didn’t want to be towed by him, I wanted my effort to be honest, so I dropped back a little and carried on, and throughout the second lap, he was in my sights, pulling away ever so slightly. I kept battering on. Things were drying out but I was still wary of taking the turns too fast.

I hit the traffic lights for the second time. They were just after a left-hander, so you couldn’t see them in advance. I rounded the left-hander, and they were red. Feck! Split-second decision… there was nothing coming… there was no danger… I’m not stopping… Through I went, with some sort of grunt to the marshals – half “hmmm yes I know I shouldn’t go through a red light” and half “please have sympathy because there’s no danger…”

I did thank all of the marshals and timekeepers as I passed them, I make a point of doing this at every event. But at this time trial, the red light was the only time I didn’t. Saying that, it was a 3-lap course and the traffic light marshals got my thanks on lap one and lap three when the lights were green… I hope they knew my grunt wasn’t badly-intended…

Coming towards the end of my second lap, a slow-moving peloton up ahead, not involved with the time trial, was leading a slow-moving convoy of maybe 6 or 7 cars that couldn’t get past on the narrow winding roads. This didn’t look good… There was no way I could overtake or undertake the cars, it would have been far too dangerous, so I had no option but to sit up, slow down, try to contain my frustration and try not to rage too much. It could have continued for miles, but fortunately the road opened up and we passed a few junctions, clearing the way. I zoomed past the peloton and cracked on.

By the end of the second lap, with 12 or 13 miles left to go, I was starting to struggle. It was warming up, the sun was out, I was sweating a lot, my heart rate was up at 170bpm and my power was down from the 290s to the 270s. My legs felt hot and chunky, the lactic acid was building, and despite my head ordering my legs to kick out 20 more watts, there was no response from my legs, they were doing all they could to hang on. I glugged on my energy drink, got a gel or two down, and gritted my teeth. Time to tough it out and hang on. The final time up the steep climb was tough going and I growled and grunted my way up, refusing to change from the big chainring to the small chainring. The lights were thankfully green on the third lap up at the far end of the course. I turned onto the “home straight” with maybe 6 miles left to ride, at one of the higher points on the course, and had my third and final nice view of the Blackwater inlet. 6 miles left. 15 minutes or so? I knew it would be a long 6 miles…

My Garmin bike computer beeps every 5 miles, and tells me what my 5-mile split times are. I had done a few 11-minute splits, but mostly the splits were in the 12s. I knew I was flagging in the final 5 miles but my motivation was to keep the final 5-mile split under 13 minutes. It was a long 12 minutes and 52 seconds gutting it out to the finish line, but I’d kept it under 13 minutes. 2:03:35 for the 50 miles. 24.3mph average speed, 284 average watts, 164bpm average heart rate. Not bad, on such a day. My maximums were 32.5mph, 173bpm, 121rpm, and 544 watts.

The breakdown of each of my 5-mile sections is as follows:

12:14. 24.5mph, 87rpm, 156bpm, 289W
12:27, 24.1mph, 88rpm, 161bpm, 288W
12:22, 24.2mph, 93rpm, 165bpm, 297W
12:40, 23.7mph, 94rpm, 166bpm, 298W
11:47, 25.5mph, 93rpm, 164bpm, 290W
12:24, 24.2mph, 91rpm, 163bpm, 285W
12:09, 24.7mph, 92rpm, 166bpm, 288Ws
11:51, 25.3mph, 91rpm, 166bpm, 280W
12:45, 23.5mph, 91rpm, 166bpm, 265W
12:52, 23.3mph, 91rpm, 168bpm, 262W

It’s clear that I probably started a little too hard and built a little too hard, leaving me fading a bit towards the end. I wouldn’t call it a massive bonk or a disaster, but my pacing could have been a bit better. I should also have oiled my chain beforehand, because it was very squeaky and I probably lost a bit of time there. I also didn’t taper for the event at all, treating it more as training. But even if I had oiled the chain, and tapered, and if it had been dry, I’m not sure I would have cracked 2 hours. Maybe if it had been flat and straight I would have been under 2 hours, but nevertheless, I’d got a good workout. I was pleased with my variability index of 1.01, which basically means that I didn’t surge or spike anything too hard, and kept consistent. Exactly how I want to ride in the Ironman. No surging and burning out my legs. I cruised back to the village hall, spinning easily.

Then it was time to run. I loaded the bike into the car, ran into the village hall to use the loos, then started my run. I wasn’t sure how far or how fast I’d run, but I wanted to do at least 25 minutes. It was pretty warm by this stage. I ran out along the road that time triallists were coming back towards the finish and it was cool to watch them zooming towards the end of their 50s. Terry was finishing off and he gave me a shout. I felt surprisingly good when running, and was comfortably doing 6:30/mile without even really trying. I decided I’d do 10K, that would be a decent run. I took a left turn towards the Blackwater and it was exactly 5K when I reached the water. I wouldn’t have minded packing it in at this point and jumping in to cool off, I was really warm now.

But I turned and headed back, still maintaining my pace. I could have done with a drink or a gel to give me a little kick and get me back, but I hadn’t anticipated running for 40 minutes. I scrolled through my Garmin watch, looking at my data and numbers, and had to do a double take when I saw 9:58am… that can’t be right?! But yes, it really was still that early… I ploughed on, trying to maintain my pace, and finally got back to the village hall. 10K done in 40 minutes, reasonably comfortably. A good day’s work, and it wasn’t even half 10 in the morning… still night time really, I might well still have been in bed at this time on a Sunday morning in previous training years…!

My run data was as follows:

6.23 miles, 40:40, 6:31/mile, 161bpm. 6:44/144, 6:35/155, 6:26/162, 6:33/165, 6:27/168, 6:28/172.

Fortunately I had planned well and I had brought a lot of food and drink with me – plenty of water, coconut juice, bananas, flapjacks, and sandwiches. It all disappeared very quickly. I went inside where the results were being posted – I was already on the board, 2:03:35. I’d have settled for that before I started, and I’d had a good run too. But I was a bit annoyed for forgetting to lubricate my chain beforehand and wondered how much time it would have cost me. A minute or two?

On stage in the village hall

Results, aftermath and data

I got chatting to a few people afterwards about cycling and time trialling and racing and stuff, and it all seemed very friendly. One guy told me of the dark places you end up in mentally when doing a 12-hour time trial. I can’t imagine doing that. I also tried on his helmet – a fully enclosed thing with a full frontal visor. It felt very different to mine, and was strangely quiet inside. I had been pleased with my one though, so no complaints there. My new shorts had been really good too. I also got chatting to the winner, who had done 1:56. That’s pretty quick on such a course. I was interested to learn that he didn’t carry any bottles on his bike, but instead wore a CamelBack drinks bladder under his skinsuit. That’s not really an option for triathlon though… I had really enjoyed the whole thing and look forward to getting involved in a club again when Ironman is over and when I leave London.

Then I headed back for home. I knew I had to get the rental car dropped off by 4pm and had to go food shopping, and get all my gear sorted, washed, dried and put away. I later found out on the internet that I had won a tenner at the time trial as second place in Group D, whatever that means. I’ve won a few quid through running races in the past, but have never won anything by cycling. Then a day or two later, I received a letter in the post:

This really made my day and typified the friendly and thorough event organisation. I’ll use the money to buy a couple of pints of the black stuff (maybe)… And frame the letter (maybe)... A few photos of the time trial appeared on Facebook. I hadn’t noticed any photographers when I was riding, and so I wasn’t surprised to find that there were none of me – a bit of a pity as I’d have liked to have seen how aero the helmet looked when I was in action.

By late afternoon I was absolutely shattered and had a sore head (probably dehydration) and sore legs. I had a very early night and unsurprisingly slept really well. I planned to take a couple of days off training – I’d had a good few weeks and was in need of some rest and recuperation. So, on Monday night, I went to a burger restaurant called "Hello Burger" with my housemates and ate burgers and chips, and drank chocolate flavoured porter (think chocolate Guinness…) Then the dessert menus came round, and I couldn’t decide between pecan pie and vanilla cheesecake… what to do? There was nothing else for it but to order both… there’s no harm in having a little mental and physical break…

Hello beautiful...

From Wednesday, I will get back to training, and I will train hard through until the following Wednesday or Thursday, and then I will have a mini-taper before the Bristol Olympic distance triathlon on 5th June. 8 weeks until the Ironman…

Training done this week was as follows:

Mon 16 May: Rest
Tue 17 May: 45 minute turbo (20 minute FTP test: 325W,169bpm = 308W FTP)
Wed 18 May: Rest
Thu 19 May: 40 minute fartlek run
Fri 20 May: Swim 2k (1500m in 23:24), 30 minute turbo (single leg drills, 3 x 3mins R/L/B)
Sat 21 May: Rest
Sun 22 May: 60 mile bike (50 mile TT, 2:03:35, 284W, 164bpm), 10K run (40:37, 161bpm)
Mon 23 May:
Tue 24 May: Rest

Totals: Swim 2k, Bike 88 miles, Run 12 miles.

Post 126 - Training continues

Another tough week done… I do feel that things are slowly moving in the right direction and that the fitness, endurance and strength is coming, although I’m still not where I want and need to be, and I still have a lot of work to do. But I also have a lot of work done, so this means I have a lot to lose if things go wrong. I need to balance training hard with recovering well – but I can hopefully manage this and I have experience of this (and also how not to do it). So far, it has been going well.

I did 2 x 20 minutes hard on the turbo on Tuesday evening. I held 285 watts at 160bpm for the first 20 minutes, and after a short 4-minute recovery I held 290 watts at 169bpm for the second 20 minutes. I was never horribly uncomfortable doing this session, I felt strong, and I felt I was within my limits. I’d like to be able to hold over 300 watts for both sets of 20 minutes, and I think my heart rates would indicate that I’m not too far away from being able to do that. I’ll try to do a full-on 20 minute FTP test soon, and see where my FTP is. This would be a single 20-minute blast, as hard as possible. I’d like to be able to hold 330 watts for the 20 minutes. We’ll see…

On Wednesday evening I did a long run, for one hour and 50 minutes, at roughly Ironman pace. I averaged 7:43/mile and 138bpm. It wasn’t too bad, but I do hate long runs! They knacker me more than any other session I do, and I need to have good recovery planned – I need to know that immediately afterwards I can get some good food and protein down, get rehydrated, get straight into the shower, and not get cold. Then rest up, stay off my feet, and have a good night’s sleep. My housemate is training for a mountain marathon and ran 18 miles at the weekend. He then went out and drank 5 or 6 pints, didn’t get much sleep, and wondered why he had a nosebleed and felt awful and dehydrated in the morning… I gave him some friendly advice/a lecture in long run planning – it’s not just about the running, it’s about going into it feeling fresh and coming off it well, able to eat and drink as needed, immediately, and being able to sleep well too.

I’m a bit disappointed with my new running shoes. I have always used Brooks Adrenaline 13 series shoes over the past couple of seasons. I must own about 6 pairs of these shoes. They are great, and fit perfectly. But because they are an old model, it’s impossible to buy them any more. The latest model is the 16 series. So I am now running in a different model than usual. And even though they are the same size as the previous model that I used, the new model seems to be a fraction too small. And so my big toes are hitting against the front of the shoe. I get away with it in shorter and easier runs, but in the longer and faster runs it’s causing problems. This means I will need new shoes…

I bought new running socks this week. I threw out some of my old ones recently, as they had become awful to wear. All shrunken and stiff. On the recommendation of people on the TriTalk internet forum, I went for Hilly Off-Road Merino socks and Innov8 Race Elite socks. Both seem to be large-fitting, so I will downsize from large to medium, but they seem good. Also inspired by people on TriTalk, I’ve recently started using Vaseline on and between my toes while running. I can’t believe I didn’t do this years ago. It’s great stuff. No rubbing, not even a hint of a blister. It’s a definite for the Ironman, and for all future training and racing.

In case of uncertainty, here are socks and vaseline

I ordered some more stuff off the internet too. I bought a new Rudy Project helmet, with a shorter tail, which will hopefully be more aerodynamic and suit my head and body position better than my current helmet. I also hope it will fit my head better and not compress my ears as much as my current helmet, after a few hours on my head it is agony! I bought some new SiS energy bars after deciding that my PowerBars were too difficult to unwrap and eat while cycling. And I bought some maltodextrin powder, which I will mix with water to make an energy drink and which I hope will be easier on the stomach and guts than the standard PowerBar powder energy mix. I’ll need new shoes too. I’m all in, with a couple of months to go before the Ironman. The last crack. No excuses. I just need to sort out a horizontally-mounted front bottle and get the new running shoes and then there’s no more kit to buy. Hopefully I can sell a lot of it when I’m done.

I was in a shop the other day and saw this. 

Since when did sugary drinks, alcoholic drinks, and sugary alcoholic drinks become “essential”?!

Then I went and bought 2.5kg of maltodextrin (sugar).

I hope it will be easier on the stomach and guts than conventional energy drinks...

I had my rest day on Thursday. I struggle to imagine doing a tough bike interval session on Thursdays now, but this is what I did last year. I must have been absolutely destroying myself. On Friday I hit the pool as usual, and did some very fast swimming: sets of 50m sprints in 40 seconds, followed by 50m slower in 60 seconds, followed by 20 seconds of recovery. I did 20 of these, then went and spent a fortune in the shop on food. I usually get my shopping home delivered, and the delivery was 2 hours late. I didn’t mind at all, and I minded even less when the delivery man handed me a 4-pack of Guinness by way of an apology… To be fair, I am probably their best customer, and I spend a fortune in there every week. On Friday evening, I entertained myself with the usual 30 minutes of single-leg drills on the turbo trainer, but I made the intervals tougher than previously. I didn’t hear any clunking, signifying dead spots in the pedal revolution, so it was good.

My road bike is in getting serviced at the minute, so on Saturday I got on the turbo. I did a 15-minute warm-up (and a 15 minute cool down at the end) with 3 hours of Ironman-intensity riding in between, averaging 217 watts at 143bpm. I mixed things up a bit, and broke the three hours into separate 1-hour blocks. In the first block I did 15-minute sub-blocks, increasing from 200 watts up to 270 watts by the end. In the second hour block, I did leg strength/speed intervals: repetitions of 4 minutes at very high resistance and low cadence (50rpm) to build strength, followed by 4 minutes of very fast spinning at 110-120rpm, followed by 2 minutes of normal pedalling at 90rpm. For the third hour block, I hovered at and above Ironman intensity, at 215-230 watts. I followed this with a run and felt good.

On Sunday I went to the pool and battered out an endurance swim at what I thought was Ironman intensity. I did 4000m and had a look at my time after 2000m, so I was able to get an idea of how well I’d paced it. How well? Not very. My first 2000m were done in 33:05 and my second 2000m were done in 34:36, totalling 67:41 for the 4000. This works out at a 64:15 Ironman-length swim (3800m). That’s not great to be honest, I swam a faster 4000m a couple of weeks ago, but I wasn’t pushing super-hard this time around. I got back to the house (after going to the shop and spending yet more money on food) and debated heading straight out for my 60-minute hilly tempo run. I was tired though, and the Formula 1 had just come on , and the Giro d’Italia time trial was just coming on, and it was very sunny and warm and if I went out I’d have got sunburned, so I decided to eat, drink and recover, while watching the sport on TV.

Then, later that evening I headed out for the run. I wasn’t looking forward to an hour of pushing myself up and down hills. In the end, the run passed quite quickly (maybe the warm and sunny evening had something to do with it) and I felt strong. I was much stronger than the same run a few weeks ago, and significantly faster, for the same average heart rate. A good sign. I averaged 6:04/mile and 163bpm. I had a very sore left big toe afterwards. Damn fractionally-too-small shoes…

I was glad that another week was done. I’ve got a whole day off on Monday to look forward to. I’ve got an event next weekend (a 50 mile time trial in Essex) and then I can have a whole 2 or 3 days off! What a luxury. What a thing to be looking forward to, so much. Here’s hoping the next 9 weeks go well…

Training done this week was as follows:

Mon 9 May: Rest
Tue 10 May: 1 hour turbo (2 x 20 mins, 4 min recovery: 285W/160bpm/96rpm, 290W/169bpm/92rpm)
Wed 11 May: 110 minute run (7:43/mile, 138bpm)
Thu 12 May: Rest
Fri 13 May: Swim 2.5k (20 x 2 x 50m: 40/60sec off 2 minutes), 30 minute turbo (3 x 3mins R/L/B)
Sat 14 May: 3:30 turbo (3 hours at 217W average, 143bpm), 25min run (7:02/mile, 151bpm)
Sun 15 May: Swim 4.1k (4k in 67:41: 33:05/34:36), 10 mile hilly run: 60:50, 6:04/mile, 163bpm: (6:07/146, 6:03/160, 6:04/160, 6:09/160, 6:09/162, 6:10/166, 5:57/169, 6:05/167, 5:56/169, 6:02/170)

Totals: Swim 6.6km, Bike 110 miles, Run 28 miles

Post 125 - A hard easy week

This was a planned easy week. But I realised I don’t actually have that many weeks left, and that I have a lot of training that I want to get done. Here are the remaining weekends, with my planned events:

7 May: The weekend just past, 108 mile bike done.
14 May: “Free”
21 May: 50 mile bike time trial, Essex
28 May: “Free”
4 June: Bristol Olympic distance triathlon
11 June: “Free”
18 June: 100 mile bike time trial, Cambridgeshire
25 June: “Free”
2 July: “Free” / taper
9 July: Taper
16 July: Ironman UK

I also want to do the following sessions, which are only possible on the weekends: 4 x 100 mile bike rides, 2 x back-to-back 4 hour rides, 1 x “metric Ironman” (i.e. a 112km bike and 26km run) and 1 x 200+km bike. This is in addition to building up my long runs to 20+ miles and doing the mid-week speed/strength sessions, as well as my swimming. I’ve begun to realise I am running out of time to fit all these in… Fitting the sessions into the calendar could look something like this:

7 May: The weekend just past, 108 mile bike done.
14 May: “Free”
21 May: 50 mile bike time trial, Essex
28 May: 100 mile bike
4 June: Bristol Olympic distance triathlon
11 June: 200km bike
18 June: 100 mile bike time trial, Cambridgeshire
25 June: Back-to-back 4 hour and 100 mile rides
2 July: Metric Ironman (112km bike, 26.2km run)
9 July: Taper
16 July: Ironman UK

So I should be able to squeeze everything in, but the weekends are going to be busy, and with the racing schedule, the whole planned 2-tough-weeks-followed-by-1-tough-week schedule might be difficult. Training might become “tough weekends and recovering the rest of the time”, but as long as I can get the training done and as long as I ensure that I keep myself fresh with plenty of recovery, I should be OK. Not burning out will be important.

This week I took the first part of the week off, and I had two complete days of rest. I needed them. Two whole days where I could just come home and flop down and not have to worry about training. I did a few foam rolling sessions, and these were tough. It’s funny how it always hurts more when a physio does it, even though I foam roll myself just as hard as a physio would massage. Then on Thursday I did a short turbo (30 minutes) and a short run (20 minutes), with a few bursts of speed, nothing too intense, it was more just to get the legs turning over, keeping the muscle memory and getting the blood flowing. The turbo went fine, then on the run, coming towards the end, heading out of the park, instead of running up the short path that loops around one side of a big tree, I bounded up 4 or 5 steps which are on the other side of the tree. No big deal. Or so I thought…

I felt a minor tweak in my right calf immediately. Feck it. I really can’t afford an injury. I got back to the house and wondered what I could do. I gave it the hot and cold shower treatment, repeatedly, and ate lots of ginger (it has good anti-inflammatory properties) and hoped for the best. But you can imagine the thoughts running through my head – what if this gets worse? What if it inflames? What if it’s bad? How long will it take? When all the eggs are in one basket, things like this can be very difficult to deal with, to the point where I don’t want to live like this any more, permanently on a knife-edge. It’s bloody hard. Oh well. A few more months to keep things together… Later that evening, Steve was on his turbo trainer trying out a new saddle. I got on and had a go, and my right calf was really painful. Urgh. There was nothing for it but to hope that a good sleep would help.

I went to the pool on Friday (my local pool is still closed, which is still a pain in the ass, as I have to make a bit of a trek to the next-nearest pool). I did no leg work whatsoever, to try to rest my right calf. I even pushed off the wall with my left leg only. I did mostly arm work – single arm drills, with a hand paddle to increase the resistance, with my legs tied together and a pull buoy between my legs. Tough session. My arms were burning afterwards. I didn’t bother with my single-leg drills on the bike that evening, thinking they wouldn’t do my calf any good.

Apart from the calf and the burning arms, I felt reasonably good. I’ve managed to get my head around getting up early on Saturdays now. Although I don’t get a lie-in, my sleep patterns are less disrupted if I get up at the roughly same time every day, including weekends. So instead of getting up after 10am on the weekend, I get up at just before 7am. This still gives me a half-hour lie-in, and I still get 9 hours of sleep, but it means that I find it easier to get to sleep on Saturday and Sunday nights if I haven’t slept in until 11am. Another benefit is that the roads aren’t busy at that unholy hour on Saturday morning, so I can actually take my road bike out into the countryside. Much better than sitting inside on the turbo trainer for 5 hours, watching rubbish on YouTube.

So, I decided that I’d like to try to get out on the road on Saturday morning, maybe for 3 or 4 hours, if my right calf would allow it. OK, it would be going against the planned “easy week”, but I’d had an easy 4 days and I didn’t feel too fatigued. So immediately before I went to bed on Friday night, I did a 2-minute turbo to see how my calf was. It seemed OK. I’d try to ride in the morning.

So it was that I was heading out into Kent on the hottest day of the year at 7:30am on Saturday morning. I purposely paced the ride and tried to keep my heart rate at 140 for the first couple of hours, not spiking anything and keeping things nice and consistent. This is exactly as I want to ride in the Ironman. I had all my new gels, bars and drinks to trial. I had checked the map and knew roughly where I wanted to head. I just needed my right calf to play ball, and it seemed to be OK. I ended up doing 108 miles, with only a couple of very short stops to check a map, to pee, and to nip into a petrol station to buy more water. I felt good and reasonably strong for the whole 108 miles, although it did start to drag a bit between 70-90 miles.

I rode out into the North Downs and High Weald “areas of outstanding natural beauty”. It wasn’t quite as good as cycling around the north coast of Northern Ireland, but it was probably the most scenic bike ride I’ve ever done since moving to south-east England. It was very undulating (unlike Essex which is pretty flat, where I rode in 2013). I found a few good loops with good quiet roads, and good scenery, and enjoyed the ride. I alternated between eating one-third of a PowerBar and a gel every 25-30 minutes, and alternated drinking water and sports drink every 15 minutes. It seemed to work OK, although when I took my final gel after 6 hours, I felt a little pukey for the first time all day.

PowerBars are terrible for eating on the bike. The wrappers are very difficult and sticky to get off, they come off in small shreds, and the bars are tough and chewy. I had cut the bars into thirds before I set off, to try to make it easier to unwrap and eat them, but it didn’t make much difference. You’d really need to stop and eat every time you wanted to have a PowerBar. Not good. I recently bought a box of about 30 of them. What a waste of money. I’ll need to get new bars.

My pacing on the ride seemed good. Going up one long hill, I settled into a sensible pace at 150bpm. (I wish I had a power meter on my road bike, I’ve got one on my triathlon bike which is on the turbo trainer in my room, but it’s not really a good idea to take this machine out on the country roads of Kent. So I pace my road biking by heart rate). I could easily have gone harder up all of the hills, and spiked away up to over 170bpm. On this one particular long hill, I was sorely tempted to go hard when a few other cyclists overtook me. I could have hammered them. But I let them go, swallowed my pride, and rode my own pace. At the top of the hill, the road flattened out. I maintained my output at 150bpm and ended up flying past the same cyclists, who were absolutely dead after the hill. The benefits of good pacing!

It had been a good day in the saddle, perhaps a bit too long for my current level of fitness, as my legs were sore for a day or two afterwards. Thankfully my right calf seemed to have held out OK. I need to get my road bike serviced as it’s not running very smoothly or quietly. I was obviously a bit dehydrated as I didn’t sleep too well that night. But I was pleased, it was some good miles put into the legs and some good scenery seen.

The next day I went to the pool and did more arm drills. I haven’t been able to do any fast swimming for a week or two now because my local pool is closed and the other pool always seems to be busy. So I have to do the slow strength-based swimming drills instead. Hopefully the local pool will open soon and I’ll be able to see some benefit from the strength drills I’ve been doing. On Sunday afternoon I dragged myself out for a 40-minute jog to round off the week. This was a tough slog as my legs were still tired from the 108 miles the previous day. Another week ticked off… 10 weeks to go…

I try and drink this a few times a week - squeezed lemon, lime and orange juice.
So bitter it makes your eyes roll back in your head, but good for you...

I’m trying to work out whether I can justify spending more money on more equipment that I will literally only be used in anger once, at Ironman UK. Ideally I’d like to buy a new aero helmet. The ear flaps on my current one squeeze my ears really tight. This is not too much of a problem for shorter events, but after 4 or 5 hours of an Ironman bike, my head gets really sore. I could do with being comfortable (for the same reason, I will no longer be swimming with my swimming hat over my ears, as this pushes my earplugs into my ears and it hurts after a short while). My current aero helmet has a long tail, and it sits quite high due to my body shape in the aero position. A shorter-tailed helmet (with wider ear flaps) would be better, more comfortable and more aerodynamic. But is it worth £150-£250? 

I’d also like to have a horizontal-mounted front bottle. My current one is vertical. Horizontal would be more aerodynamic. Is it worth £90? Finally, I’d like new shorts and a new top as my existing ones are a bit knackered, and my current aero top is very thing and not particularly warm. Would a new top be worth £100? Would new shorts be worth £70? Another reason why I can’t wait to retire from triathlons. The notion of “buying speed” means that the playing field isn’t entirely level…

Training done this week was as follows:

Mon 2 May: Swim 2.6km (part of previous week's training block)
Tue 3 May: Rest
Wed 4 May: Rest
Thu 5 May: 30 minute turbo, 20 minute run
Fri 6 May: Swim 2.5km (250m drills)
Sat 7 May: 108 mile bike (146bpm)
Sun 8 May: Swim 2km (250m drills), 40 minute run

Totals: Swim 4.6km, Bike 120 miles, Run 9 miles.

Post 124 - A pretty social week of Ironman training

This was the second week of a tough two-week block of training. And yes, it was tough. I’m glad it’s over, and I can look forward to an easier recovery week. It was made a bit easier by the fact that it was probably the most social week of Ironman training that I’ve ever done. I look forward to exercising for fun, with people, on a regular basis, in nice surroundings, when I finally call it a day on my “competitive” Ironman “career”.

I had the rest/cooking day as usual on Monday, to make piles of food to put in the fridge and fuel me through the week. I did bike intervals on the turbo trainer on Tuesday evening. 13 sets of 3 minute intervals, with 3 easier minutes in between each tougher interval. I kept up good strength and power for 80 minutes, and could do no more. It wasn’t a bad session, getting up to 350 watts. Some traditionalists or superstitionists would say never do an odd number of intervals as it’s bad luck, and never do 13 intervals, as it’s bad luck. I seemed to survive. Normalised power was 260 watts, average power was 222 watts and average heart rate was 139bpm, although it was pushing 180 by the end of the final interval.

I had some food delivered, lots of gels and bars

On Wednesday I did a long run. 100 minutes. I was joined for almost an hour by Ian, who is training for a mountain marathon. I was just cruising, trying to take as little out of myself as possible, the purpose being that I would just get miles in the legs and time on my feet, increasing my endurance rather than running to increase top-end fitness. I did 20 minutes, then Ian joined me, we ran around all the local parks, he hacked the pace pretty well, around 7:30 per mile, but started to drop off after 50 minutes and because I had to maintain the pace, he peeled off after an hour. But the company was great and it made the miles go a lot faster. I did 13.6 miles, averaging 7:23 per mile and 144bpm.

I got new running shoes this week. I need two identical pairs to get me through to the Ironman: a pair to train in (which will be worn out by the time the Ironman comes around), and a fresh pair to race in. I need the same pair, because I want to race in the same shoes that I train in. For the past couple of seasons I have been racing in Brooks Adrenaline GTS 13 shoes. But this season, the 13 model is not available, as they have moved on to 15 and 16 series models. The 15 series is on sale and is cheaper than the newer 16 series, so I went for the 15 series.

I had found in my drawer an old voucher for Run-4-It, the running shop in Aberdeen. I won this voucher at the Garioch 10K in Aberdeenshire last year, but it had just recently expired. I contacted the shop to ask if I could still use the voucher, and was surprised and pleased to get a reply from one of the “old boys” I used to run with in Aberdeen back in 2003-2006. It was good to chat to him and to ask him how things were and how various different people were doing. He ended up putting me in touch with one of the first people in Aberdeen who encouraged my running. I was really pleased about this. Ah the good old days, I miss them. I ended up getting a pair of shoes for £40 that would have retailed for over £100. And got a good bit of chat with some old clubmates. Good result. I have already run in the shoes and they feel great, so I will be buying a second pair soon, and that’ll be all the shoe purchases for this season.

Arrival of these new shoes inspired me to put together some of the shoes I own, and I created some shoe art:

I had a rest day on Thursday, but went to be wrestled and cracked by the osteopath after work. So it wasn’t really a rest. I didn’t look forward to it, and I didn’t enjoy it, and I felt battered after it. But hopefully it is benefitting me and helping to make me looser, even if I don’t feel any obvious differences yet.

On Friday after work I went to the pool. The leisure centre looked suspiciously quiet. I discovered that the pool was to be shut indefinitely, due to a problem with the plant room. This was a massive pain in the ass, as the pool is close to the house and beside a supermarket, and I’ve worked out exactly when to go to ensure it’s not busy so I can get a good, fast swim.

Not swimming was out of the question though, so I took two trains to a different pool, thinking that my planned session would now be impossible. I wanted to do very fast 50m sprint intervals, but there’s no way I could do them if it was in any way busy. I got there and there were too many people in the water to consider swimming fast. My solution in this case was to borrow a float and do some drills – swimming in this was is much slower and therefore I’m not swimming fast to annoy other swimmers, and they are not annoying me by being in the way when I am trying to swim fast and “on the clock”.

I found the big box of floats, and I asked the lifeguard if I could borrow one. “No, sorry…” I was a bit miffed. “But there’s a big box of floats there and no-one is using them, why can I not borrow one?” “Sorry, but we don’t give out floats…” “Well, why are they there then?” She huffed and puffed. I persisted. “What harm is it going to do if I use a float?” “Sorry, for health and safety reasons we don’t give out floats…” Fecking health and safety. Surely a float is a health and safety device?! “Health and safety?! What do you think is going to happen? Is the float going to strangle me or something?!” “Maybe it is, I don’t know…” At this point I was starting to get a bit exasperated to say the least. I thought better of turning the situation into a full-blown argument and walked away floatless.

The pool was warm and I decided on a continuous long swim, of Ironman distance. 3800m. It was so warm that I took a break after 2000m to have a drink and pour some cold water on my head. Then I did another 2000m, and finished off with a short warm-down. That’s the first time I have swam such a distance for a long time. I got some splits on my swim. For the first 1500m I took 24:27. For the next 500m I took 8:20. So for the first 2000m I took 32:47. I had a short break of less than a minute and then did a second 2000m. The first 1500m of this took 25:05, the next 500m took8:34, and the overall second 2000m took 33:39. So my pace dropped slightly, but for an Ironman distance pool swim I’d be looking at bang on 63 minutes at this stage of the season, but hopefully my swim times will come down a bit between now and the summer.

Then it was two trains and a trip to the shop to buy lots of food before I got home, which meant it was a lot later than usual, but I still went and did my 30 minutes of single-leg turbo drills on the bike. By the time this was done, and by the time I had showered and eaten, it was bed time.

On Saturday, it was an early start for a 100 mile bike with Steve and a few of his friends. The forecast was good, so I put on some suncream, which was a smart move. I knew it wouldn’t be a particularly fast ride, but all I wanted from it was to put 100 miles in my legs and to put some long hours in on the saddle. I will work my way up to doing much tougher and faster 100 mile rides. There ended up being 8 of us in the group, and we had two flat tyres within the first 15 miles. While waiting for one of the flat tyres to be fixed, I happened to look round just as two of the guys were appearing around a corner about 50 metres back. My rearward look also happened to coincide with one of them letting rip with a massive fart that could easily have come from an elephant. I think he thought that I was looking back in disgust and alarm, and apologised. I had to tell him not to worry. It’s not like I’ve never farted…

The old problem (well, I say old problem, it was only my third group ride) arose of what to do when riding in a group if you need to stop and go. In the space of an hour, I went from sort of needing to go, to really needing to go, to wondering if I should just piss myself but then realising that everyone would notice and it would spray all over whoever was behind me and I’d end up stinking of piss, to bladder-bursting-I-really-need-to-go-now-or-else-I’ll-do-myself-long-term-harm… so I had to peel off from the back of the group, water the flowers at high pressure and speed, and get back on the bike to catch the group again. Cycling is much simpler solo or with one other…

I knew that the plan was to cycle about 50 miles out to a pub and have a quick stop, I assumed for a Mars bar and a quick refill of the bottles. Ho wrong was I? We ended up spending about an hour and a half, eating what could easily have passed for a Sunday dinner and dessert. It was great, sitting outside in the sun, eating and drinking. The peace was interrupted when one of the bikes, which was pretty expensive-looking, and propped up against a railing on a slight downhill incline, suddenly started rolling off down the incline. Had it continued to roll, it would have fallen over and probably been damaged. But like a flash, its owner had spotted it and had literally dived off his chair, sending the chair and drinks flying, he had somehow got his arm through the railing and had somehow managed to grab the rear fork of his bike, stopping it from merrily rolling down the hill and merrily crashing in a heap. Football fans will understand that Gordon Banks’s save is widely regarded as the greatest save in history. But I think I’ve just seen something even more spectacular. How he got to that bike and kept it upright, I do not know.

Sunday ride snack/dinner/dessert venue

The time came to leave the pub and we got on our bikes and burped and farted our way back towards home. The apple and blueberry crumble had been the choice of many in the group for dessert, and the noises that we were producing as a result of its excessive consumption were quickly christened the “crumble rumbles…” When Steve and I peeled off from the group to head for the house, I felt like a bit of hard riding, so poor Steve was hanging onto my rear wheel for dear life, trying to keep in the slipstream. I don’t think he was best pleased when I insisted that we lap around the block until our Garmins read 100 miles… And, given the redness of Steve’s nose, I was glad I’d used suncream…

Mentally, that was the two-week training block over, even though I still had to swim the next day. The next day was a bank holiday and I was off work and it was only a swim. I’d survive. I allowed myself a couple of pints of Guinness, and we were out for dinner that evening. Burger, chips and more drink. A bit of a release. Well, why not? I can put it down to strategy. I have noticed that my weight has come down to 68kg over the past couple of weeks and so I need to make sure I keep up my weight and strength.

Strategic food and drink. And the second time in the space of about 6 hours I had eaten out...

The next day I had a good long sleep in, and went to the swimming pool with Elise. Again it was great to have a bit of company, and thankfully the pool wasn’t busy so we had the whole fast lane pretty much to ourselves. I did 2.6km of drills with the hand paddles, leg/arm floats and rubber band. The pool had starter blocks at the deep end. I haven’t dived off a starting block for ages. Elise dived. Looked pretty good. Looked easy. I tried. Standing up on the blocks, you are pretty high above the water. I dived in, thinking it would be fine. Flop. Not good. It hurt. Ouch. Elise makes tumble turning look easy too. I’ve half-heartedly tried to learn how to tumble turn, but have never really committed to doing it well. I tried a few after my flop off the block. They were pitiful. But thankfully this is not a skill I need for triathlons.

And that was a tough two-week block done. 11 more weeks and it will all be over.

Training done this week was as follows:

Mon 25 April: Rest
Tue 26 April: 1:20 turbo (13 x 3mins hard/3mins easy)
Wed 27 April: 100 minute run
Thu 28 April: Rest
Fri 29 April: Swim 4.1k, 30 minute turbo (single leg drills, 3 x 3mins R/L/B)
Sat 30 April: 40 minute fartlek run
Sun 1 May: 100 mile bike
Mon 2 May: Swim 2.6km (250m drills)

Totals: Swim 6.7k, Bike 140 miles, Run 19 miles.

I hate London so much. I can't wait to leave. I will never go back. Don't go to London. Ever.