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)
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment