Post 177 - Ironman training week 6

Another tough training week has finished, and even better, it is the end of a tough 2-week block, so I can switch off a little bit mentally (and physically) for the easier week to come. The training has been relentless. Get home from work, get the training done, finish training, force yourself to do the core strength work, stretching and weights, eat the dinner, go to sleep. I don’t know how I did it in London with the longer hours at work and the longer commute. Anyway. So far so good with training. I have hit all the sessions, I have trained well (or at least I think I know what I think I need to do and I think what I have done has met this thinking).

Monday 27th May 2019:Rest day. Nothing. No training, no stretching, no core work, no strength, and trying not to even think about anything to do with it. Went to the podiatrist to get the callouses on my feet treated again. I need my feet to be in good condition and not to give me any pain in the Ironman marathon. It’s an expensive 15 minutes, and I have to spend 15 minutes per evening filing and moisturising my feet, but hopefully worth it.

Tried on a pair of shorts in the charity shop - 

legs now undergoing their summer rip

Veins don't look too pretty on closer inspection...

Tuesday:Cycled over to Arthur’s Seat with Kev, who’s turning into a good training buddy, for bike interval training. On the way over I still wasn’t sure what I’d do. Only the uphill intervals (about 3:10)? The uphill intervals plus a little bit of flat at the top (about 3:30)? Or the uphill intervals plus the entire flat at the top (about 5:50)? And how many?

In the end I did 6 of the longest ones, working on the hills but also working on getting my speed up after the hills on the flat. I got to 6, could easily have continued, but decided to trust that 6 was enough. No point in overcooking the legs when I had an entire week of training ahead. Plus it was getting cold and late and sleep is important, so I saved about half an hour of sleep time by being happy with 6.

Times and power outputs were reasonably consistent. Being very critical, the sixth one had started to drop away by a few seconds and was maybe 10 watts down (316 watts average instead of 325-330 watts), so six was a good number to finish on, as a seventh might have faded a bit more badly. Also did my stretching and core work.

Wednesday:The Ironman UK run course is hilly (as is the bike). So I need to train on hills. Over the past few weeks I’d been doing fairly punishing long runs and tempo runs. Tonight I wanted to do some hill run intervals. I wouldn’t run them as hard as I’d run them if I was doing my normal running training for pure running speed, but I’d run more of them. The “Bruntsfield West” hill – usually I’d do 10 or 12 or 14 repeats of just under a minute. I thought I’d do 20, but I’d see how the sore foot was coping.

I started off at 65 seconds, and gradually the time came down to 60 flat after 14 intervals. The foot felt OK. So far so good. The times continued to fall to 59 and 58. I got to 20 and felt I had a few more in me. 26 would be a good number (26 miles in a marathon), so I got to 25, had strong legs, and hammered the last one in 55 seconds. I was pleased with this, the final 12 intervals were only a tiny bit slower than previous times I’d done this session as an out-and-out runner, when I was only focused on running. Legs and niggles all felt reasonably OK. Went home and did weights and squats.

Thursday:Two tough days were followed by an easier day. 3 hours on the turbo (thanks to poor weather again – May has undoubtedly been poor this year in comparison to last year), without too much intensity. “Only” 160 watts average for 109bpm. Just getting easy bike miles in the legs. No core/strength work this evening. My left knee started to hurt, and my neck and upper back got very sore. Probably in part due to a long drive on Monday with work, and having to frequently use the clutch in the car (putting weight on a bent left knee in the wrong way has always given me problems – horrible stabs of pain), and having to sit in the car for a while didn’t help my back. Physio appointment tomorrow, hopefully he can do something about it.

Friday:A long swim in the morning before work. 4500 yards (4115 metres). Seemed to go well, had the lane to myself for about half of it, had to deal with a couple of slower breaststroke/backstroke swimmers the rest of the time – how can people be so inconsiderate?! Glaned at my watch at half distance, the time was decent, but couldn’t understand why the end time was a bit slower. Maybe I miscounted the lengths…?

Went to the physio after work. “Everything is just horrific” is what he said. I asked him to go easy because I had a big weekend planned and didn’t want to have residual muscle soreness (often a physio session can leave you sore and dehydrated for a day or two). He did what he could to iron out my back and neck, and did some work on my knee. He got into the backs of my knees, which I wasn’t happy about as this was really sore. Got home and did some single-leg drills on the turbo for half an hour, I haven’t done those for a long time, and was pleased that there was no dead spot on any pedal circuit, no “clunk” to signify this, it all seemed fairly smooth. I’ll do a few more of these sessions.

Saturday:Long bike day, and I finally got outside. Debated what to wear. I knew I’d be doing at least 100 miles and wearing a flappy jacket would slow me down. So I wore a base layer vest, a tight cycling top and a tight gilet. Maybe this was too much as I sweated loads and it took ages to reach an equilibrium, then this was ruined after 50 miles when I had to make a quick pit stop to buy more water and realised I was soaking wet with sweat. 

As my water ran out I thought of days in France, in the Alps and Pyrenees, when I was out on the bike and needing to top up the water - usually calling into a restaurant or shop or pub of some sort and asking "est-ce que vous pouvez remplir mes bouteilles s'il vous plait..." and half hoping they would start a bit of a conversation - I'm always keen to speak a bit of French. Or in Tenerife, with my limited Spanish, just a desperate look and "agua por favore..." usually did the trick. Neither would work in Moffat... 

Regardless of being soaked in sweat, it was a great scenic ride on some new roads. It was 50 miles almost due south to Moffat, into a strong headwind. 14mph average speed (really slow), but capped my power output, especially on the 10-mile climb up out of Edinburgh. This paid dividends later. Passed the source of the river Tweed, then the Devil’s Beef Tub (a massive spectacular valley), then descended into Moffat, pit-stopped for more water, then headed towards St Mary’s Loch along a spectacular road, past the Grey Mare’s Tail (a waterfall up on a mountain that looked exactly like its name), on to St Mary’s Loch where I finally hit some flat roads and calm weather, got some speed up, turned over the mountain road to Innerleithen, then Peebles and back to Edinburgh.

Could be the Alps (if 20 degrees warmer, and no clouds)

I needed one more mile to make 112 miles (an ironman distance) so I ripped around the block to get it done – probably stupid in a fatigued state with the risk of traffic and it was also stupid to be torqueing high power out of the corners, risking injury. I won’t do that again.

The legs felt good at the end, I was still able to get good power out. 14 more miles would have seen a 200km distance. I’ve never done 200km, I’d like to, I could easily have done it today, but I’ll leave that for another day.

Funky "helmet hair"

Some negatives too, only some of which I can learn from: My energy drink was too concentrated, I needed to drink a bit more, and supplement the energy drink with a few gels and solids, but all good learning. I used gel-padded cycling gloves for the first time on this ride. It was the longest ride I’ve done for a few years. I was disappointed that my right hand, the one I broke in the crash in south-west Cork, got really sore during the ride, and for a long time afterwards.

Was tired afterwards and it was a big effort to do my hour of stretching and core work. But it’s an important hour to try to keep all the body parts functioning, so it had to be done…

Sunday:Long run day. I really dislike long runs. My running shoes are knackered as well, I need new ones. A job for my easy week next week.

I ran for two and a half hours, the first hour with Kev, which helped the boredom of it all. It was very warm and windy, I was overdressed, I sweated a lot and got dehydrated. I was carrying a small bottle of water and two gels and I’d never have got through it if I hadn’t had these to consume. One thing I am worried about in the ironman is getting too cold – wearing a skimpy triathlon top and in an Ironman you don’t ever go full steam, so you don’t generate as much heat.

I incorporated 4 long hills, each of about a mile and a half. I did just under 20 miles. That’ll probably be the longest run I do in training. It didn’t feel too bad to be honest. Of course it was boring and tedious and fatiguing and the legs were sore, but the pace and strength held well. The sore knee seemed OK. All in all it was decent.

I forced the weights and squats and stretching that evening, and the knee didn’t like the squatting, nor did the backs of my knees feel good after the physio massaged them – he should never have gone in there and I won’t let him do that again… hopefully with a couple of planned days off and an easier week to follow, everything will ease. I wanted a Guinness on Sunday evening, it’s good for you. But alas I had none left and had to settle for a glass of lemon juice…

At the end of my easy week next week I will head to Bolton to ride a couple of laps of the course. Worth doing, as the new bike course has been described in very poor terms – horrendous, dangerous, terrible, dreadful road surfacing and plenty of climbing. I climbed just over 5000 feet on my long ride this week, the Ironman bike will have over 8000 feet…

Training was as follows:

Swim 4.1km, Cycle 210 miles, Run 32 miles