Post 130 - High mileages and high stress

I took a few days off after the Bristol triathlon. It had been a big effort and I needed to make sure I was properly recovered before getting back into heavy training.

Three days after Bristol, I decided I’d go for an easy swim, to ease back into training. I went to a pool on the way home from work, paid for a swim, got changed, went through, and the pool was literally jam-packed. There was nowhere to swim. Even the lifeguard agreed there was no point in me getting in to try and swim. The pool was full, literally full, of people just messing about. So I got changed and went to reception and asked for a refund, got repeatedly fobbed off, and ended up being given the email address of a manager. What a farce. Four days after Bristol, I felt I was ready to get back into proper training.

I bought a few of the official photographs from Bristol – I doubt I’ll ever win a triathlon again and I may as well have a few photos from it. The bike photos are decent, but the run finish line photos are not pretty. I didn’t think they would be, but they are worse than I thought. It looks like I am screaming and roaring across the line, but this definitely wasn’t the case, I didn’t make any noise, it’s just a face of pure pain. Plus, it’s interesting that despite the tunnel vision and pain and everything, I’m stopping my watch at the line – it has become instinct for me that on completion of an effort, I’ll reach for my watch to stop the timer or to “split” a lap time or interval time or whatever. I’m sure if I didn’t wear a watch, I would still reach for my wrist instinctively. I've uploaded these photos to the Bristol triathlon post from last week. 

I’d heard about an “under-over” bike session that I wanted to do. It is one of professional cyclist/time-triallist Alex Dowsett’s “favourite” sessions, and a session that is apparently good for boosting your functional threshold power (FTP). You warm up, and then it’s a 20-minute session, and then you cool down. The main 20-minute session involves 2 minutes at 95% of FTP, and 2 minutes at 105% of FTP, repeated for the 20 minutes.

My FTP is around 310 watts at the minute, so I’d be doing intervals at 295 watts and 325 watts. It was a tough session but I seemed able to hold in the region of 330-340 watts for the “over” intervals, which would indicate that my FTP is higher than I think. I’ll have to do another FTP test soon to find out where I’m at. Anyway, I was pleased with the session and followed it with an easy 20-minute run.

This “under-over” session had done the rounds on Facebook, that’s where I heard about it. I finished the session, got back after my run, and Steve said “I’ve got a really good session for you to try…” I said, “I’ve probably just done it!” We’d both seen it on Facebook…

On Friday I went to the pool and did a Critical Swim Speed session. After a warm-up, I did 3 x 600m, with 1 minute of recovery between each. The first two were OK, in 6:13 and 6:16, but I struggled with the third one, and did 6:26. A bit slower, but still a good swim workout. I was pleased to swim the 1500m in Bristol in under 22 minutes, and so my swimming should hopefully be OK for the Ironman. I went home and did 30 minutes of single-leg drills on the turbo trainer, and then got my bike and my nutrition ready for the following morning.

On Saturday and Sunday I planned to do back-to-back 100 mile rides. This meant I wouldn’t get any weekend swimming done, but Ironman training and racing is an exercise in compromise and in seeing the bigger picture. My swimming is acceptable. I could put a lot of time and effort into improving my swimming, and maybe gain another minute or two at best, but this wouldn’t be time well spent. I can focus more on bike (and run) training and gain more time that way.

Broadly speaking, I should be swimming the Ironman UK swim in 60 minutes, doing the bike in 5:30 (330 minutes) and doing the run in something like 3:20 (200 minutes). If I can become a 3% better swimmer, I will save just under 2 minutes. If I become 3% better on the bike, I will save almost 10 minutes, and if I gain 3% on the run, that’s 6 minutes, so it’s clear where a lot of my training time should be dedicated. I felt that back-to-back 100 mile bike rides would be of benefit, and would help my endurance and leg strength, and this would also transfer to running. I was happy to sacrifice a weekend swim session to do the back-to-back rides.

So I headed off early on Saturday morning, with lots of maltodextrin powder in my water bottles, and battered out 104 miles. I didn’t feel as good as I hoped I would, and I think that I still had some residual fatigue left over from Bristol, plus I had trained hard on Thursday and Friday. The maltodextrin wasn’t going down as well as I hoped it would. And on the way back, with about 5 miles left to ride, the sky darkened. It looked pretty ominous. Then with 2 miles left, it started to spit with rain. Literally as I was getting back to the house, it really started to rain heavily, with thunder and lightning too. Had I been even a few minutes later, my bike and I would have been soaked.

I had planned to go out and do a short run after the ride. It was pouring. To run or not to run…? No pain, no gain. I pulled on a waterproof, and went out and got drenched, but it was still quite warm and I didn’t get cold. I got straight in the shower and got to bed as early as possible. Same again the next day…

Where I went on the bike...

I decided that Sunday’s 100 miles would be done on the turbo trainer as the forecast wasn’t great, and I could do some very specific and precise leg strength work on the turbo. I did over 5 hours, and it was fairly tedious. No pain, no gain. I did quite a lot of low cadence, high-gear leg work, trying to build strength. In the final couple of hours, I was getting very tired and my legs were getting very heavy. I was glad when it was over, and I went out again for a short run. I was pleased to have gotten through the weekend and I had clocked up a lot of miles.

I had Monday off to try to recover, and thought about what I’d do for the rest of the week. I knew that at the end of the week, on Sunday 19th June, I would be doing a 100-mile time trial, so I knew the latter part of the week would be spent taking it easy. I planned to do a full-on bike interval session on Tuesday evening, but felt tired, so I settled for a 45-minute turbo with 8 sets of one-minute intervals at over 400 watts. I needed to do a long run too this week, which I planned for Wednesday, and I told myself if I got through this long run, there would be no more hard training before the 100 mile time trial.

So I headed out on Wednesday night and ran for two hours and twenty minutes, covering over 18 miles, at an average heart rate of 134bpm. Ian joined me for 6 or 7 miles of it and the company made it a lot more enjoyable and the miles seemed to pass a lot faster. It wasn’t a particularly fast run, but I took in lots of hills. Ironman UK is hilly, so training on hills is a good idea.

Long runs knacker me more than any other training I do, leaving my body feeling pretty wrecked. This two hour and twenty minute run was no exception, and as soon as I finished, I did everything I could to try to recover well. I made sure I got some protein on board, took a shower, gave my legs the alternating hot and cold shower treatment, ate lots of ginger (it has anti-inflammatory properties) and went to bed as soon as possible, but I didn’t sleep well. When people talk about feeling like they’ve been “hit by a bus”, I guess this is how they feel.

That’s some tough training done in the last week and a lot of miles under the belt. I was very tired on Wednesday night after the long run. In the last week I’d done an intense turbo session, a tough swim, single-leg bike drills, two long bike rides followed by runs, high-power bike intervals and a long run, in addition to all the weights, core work and stretching. I was feeling it.

I’m approaching a good level of fitness, and with this comes the “knife edge”, or the “tightrope”, where it’s really easy to get sick as the body and immune system is stressed by the demands of heavy training. It’s a tough, tough time of year, when you’ve invested a lot (time, effort, money etc), and you’re so near and yet so far from race day. It’s been the same story year after year – the final month before race day is always very, very difficult and stressful, trying to keep everything together.

I have another month to get through. It’s never easy, but I’ve pretty much gone through hell this year to get myself fit, in the face of a lot of uncertainty at work. As usual I have given up a lot and controlled everything possible to give myself the best chance of doing well. I find it very difficult and stressful when there are things that I can’t control which cause problems or threaten to derail things.

Mainly, my biggest threat or risk is being around people who are sick. I can’t stand being around people who are coughing, sneezing, spluttering and ill. It’s very easy for me to pick up any bugs at this stage, being on the knife edge. And with having to commute on packed trains and work in an air-conditioned office with people who have lifestyles that are very far removed from mine, it’s difficult to avoid being around people, germs, bugs and illnesses. And this causes me huge stress. Really, what I need to do is take the next month off and avoid all this.

People at work are currently ill, with colds, coughs, and what seems like the flu. There also seems to be a lot of coughing and sneezing on the trains at the minute too. It's agonising to sit among it, and it looks like I’m getting sick too. It absolutely cracks me up. I am actually feeling pretty rough. My eyes are bloodshot, my throat is sore, I can’t speak properly, and I am coughing. Urgh.

I have really fought and fought so hard this year to get myself to a good level of fitness, it has been hugely stressful with work and redundancies and uncertainty, never mind hating living and working in London, and yet somehow I have managed, and here I am now, about a month before race day, having just won the Bristol triathlon and with a 100 mile time trial in 4 days, I was finally starting to feel like things were going well, and I feel terrible. Needless to say, I am absolutely not in a good mood right now, and I hope things will improve quickly.

Thu 9 June:  45 minute turbo (10 x 2mins 290W/335W), 20 minute run
Fri 10 June: Swim 2.3k (3 x 600m, 1 min recovery), 30 minute turbo (single leg drills)
Sat 11 June: 104 mile bike, 20 minute run
Sun 12 June: 5:05 turbo, 25 minute run
Mon 13 June: Rest
Tue 14 June: 45 turbo (8 x 1 minute at 400+W)
Wed 15 June: 2:20 run (18.25 miles, 7:40/mile, 134bpm)

Totals: Swim 2.3km, Bike 245 miles, Run 28 miles