Supposedly an easy week of training, after two massive weeks.
Monday 24 June 2019:
A day of rest. Working on the bike, trying to get everything perfect. New cassette, new chain, debating what add-ons to include (aero tool box, how many bottle cages, how many spares), how wide to have the arm pads, sorting the brakes, wheels, everything has to be perfect. The bike is such a pain in the ass. Trip to the physio. He hates me. I hate him. Well, not really, but I lie there and squirm and grunt and hiss and groan and hate the entire hour, and he probably hates treating me. He keeps telling me I’m a wreck. Says he wants to video a treatment and put it on YouTube…
Tuesday:
An easy week, so another day of rest. I seemed to recover quite well from the big weeks. Had more work done on the bike – so handy to know someone who’s happy to come to the flat to do it. But the living room has turned into a complete mess of bike gear, tools, spares, boxes etc. Can’t wait to de-clutter it.
Wednesday:
So apparently now the bike is perfect. It was a nice evening. Over to Arthur’s seat to see how it goes, see how it handles. It’s a horrible bike to manoeuvre and ride along bumpy city roads in traffic. You’re always on edge on it. Not much enjoyment. I did 4 climbs, not 6 or 8 as usual, because it’s an easy week. I usually do this session on the road bike, which is light and nimble and climbs well. My legs felt good. I had my highest ever power average for the climb, on the fourth interval. 371 watts, for a very quick climb time of under 3:30. The bike is going well. My legs are decent. I wonder if I made the road bike as fast and light as possible, how close I could get to the King of the Mountains on Strava for the climb… probably not too far away. Did my core, stretching, squats and feet treatment. All seems to be good.
Thursday:
A moderate run, down at the Meadows and Bruntsfield links hill. Again feeling reasonable. Limited myself to 50 minutes. It’s annoying that my heart rate monitor isn’t working, but a replacement is on the way. Did my weights and core work and feet treatment. Not much more than 2 weeks to go… I’ve been wondering about shaving my legs (I can’t believe I’ve even admitted that). An old study that was always seen as authoritative said there wasn’t much benefit in shaving, but modern specialists dug a bit deeper and found that this study was done in a really primitive wind tunnel with a single false leg. A new study with real people in an accurate wind tunnel shows a minute of gain over an hour. 5-6 minutes in the ironman. I take this with a pinch of salt (particularly as I’ll be doing a slow, twisty, hilly course which isn’t conducive to being super-aerodynamic), but there’s obviously something in it…
Friday:
Worked from home. Went to the podiatrist in the morning, had my feet treated. I cannot be dealing with painful (and I mean agonisingly debilitating pain) feet in the Ironman marathon, so I am doing all I can to make sure my feet are in good condition. Including spending £34 on 10 minutes of treatment at the podiatrist. Went for a lunchtime swim. Stupidly forgot my goggles. Managed to borrow a pair. They were terrible. Really cutting into my nose. But it was only a short swimming session. I did a 1500m time trial, in 24 minutes flat. Not a bad time, given that I’ve not done much speed work in the pool. I came second in the Selkirk standard triathlon last year with a 24:30 1500m swim, so I can’t complain about my swimming right now. Did single-leg drills on the turbo trainer. With the new chain and cassette, it was so quiet – proof that the new parts are making a difference. You don’t notice the deterioration in the old parts until you put new parts on.
Saturday:
I changed my plans for the day. Originally the entire week was meant to be easy, with the following week a bit tougher. But that would leave the tougher sessions with just a week to go until race day. So I decided I’d do the tougher weekend sessions this weekend, and have next weekend a bit easier. My legs felt good and well recovered from the two massive weeks. The weather looked OK. I wanted to do a continuous consistent bike effort. I’ve been training a lot on the hills, which means the efforts are on the uphill and you get recovery on the downhill. This time out, I wanted a flatter but more continuous effort. So I did nearly 80 miles in 4 hours flat on undulating roads (3600 feet of climbing). It felt good. My legs felt strong until the end. They had more to give. Key has been and will be making an easy start (160 watts for the first 5 miles, compared with 217 watts for the whole thing). If I’d done 217 for the first 5 miles, I’d have blown up.
I hadn’t planned to run off this bike, but I felt so good that I thought I’d go out and do one more run session off a tough bike. A 20 minute hilly run at sub-6 minute miling followed. I am feeling pretty good to be honest. I followed this with stretching, core work and weights.
Lean and light after another big day, 61kg
Sunday:
Usually long run day, but with 2 weeks to go there’s no point in risking anything with a 20-miler. I thought an hour and 40 minutes would do, something like 13 miles, not too tough. I did a full dress rehearsal. I got out my leg compression tubes as well, thinking if I used them on the bike they would cover most of my hairy legs and mean I didn’t have to shave. It would be very risky to shave my legs at this stage, risking skin irritation or infection or such like. So I wanted to see how they’d feel on the run. They felt warm, but you can pull them down, this worked OK. So maybe that’s what I’ll do.
The run went well. Deirdre came with me on the bike, nice to have some company as the long runs can be tedious. It was windy but I felt good. I have trained a lot on the hills and I actually feel better running up and down hills than I do on the flat. Which is good, as the ironman marathon will be hilly. I did 14 miles in 101 minutes, 7:15 per mile and was just cruising. I got home and forced myself to finish another week with the weights and stretching and squats and feet treatment.
Had a terrible haircut during the week,
far too short on the back and sides.
Don't want to get sunburned...
I’m in as good a position as I could have hoped with 2 weeks left. I just need to keep it all together for 2 more weeks. No injuries. No illness. And crossing fingers for good weather and a good day at IMUK.
Training done was as follows:
Swim 2.2km, Bike 115 miles, Run 24 miles
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