18 carat...Kilometres

Took a differnt route that I'd spotted when we were out looking at potential new houses the other night. It's a road I've cycled before on my mountain bike and its hilly at the start for first 4K then flat for 7K then down againt for 4K then flat home. I thought it looked good for a long running session.

Very cool here today with a cold westerly wind so long sleeve shirt and training top underneath. Saw quite a few people out running.

Finished in 1:52:12 and although I was very tired in the legs and shoulders I could have ran on and certainly no issues with respiration. Quite pleased that after only 2 weeks of training I've clocked off an 18K run.

Consolidation

I've been on a training course all day. So essentially stuck in front of a PC and reading a big manual, spending most of the day static on my backside isn't the best preparation for a running session. I'd eaten enough but was probably short on fluids as I'd just been cramming down expresso coffee and fruit smoothies and they both make you need more water. Despite knowing all this and understanding what it meant I still went out without taking any extra fluid on.

I'd set my watch speed alarm to keep me between 6:00 min per km and 4:15min per km. This is a wide enough band that should mean it rarely triggers even on hills and on the fast side it keeps me to within 15 seconds per km of my fastest 10K average speed.

I set out with an easy 18K in mind and specifically said to Team Kennedy manager "no new Personal Best tonight". The first 5K flashed by in 24 minutes so a bit quicker than my PB from earlier in the week.

After the drop into Ohain there is an uphill section about 400m long, I took this on at quite a quick pace and at the end it drops through the village and takes you to about the 6K mark. I overcooked this part by going too fast and lost some of my rhythm as a result. I'd confused my thinking a bit by getting caught between my original plan of easy 18K and then seeing 5k come off quick and feeling alright. I pulled back the pace a bit and seemed to lose my concentration for about 10 minutes. I felt my foot again getting sore and my legs felt very heavy. I knew that I was hurting myself at this point with little or no likelihood of any benefit to my race next week. I decided then to cut it short and take a differnt route back. I walked for a couple of minutes to reset everything then started running again.

Getting going again was hard but after 5 minutes I'd warmed back up and was in a bit of a routine, hardly 'In the zone' but at least moving. I climbed a hilly section mostly through mud and sand on a small track that had recently been washed away and is still awaiting repair. This made for uneven pace setting but probably good for my balance.

I got back for just over 12K in 1:04. I certainly noticed that as I was running a slow pace effort wise just to get home that on my watch it wasn't too bad a speed wise around the 5:00 to 5:15 per km mark. I think my recent faster paced runs have upped my perception and capabilities to keep a higher average pace.

I need to see how I feel but I think just one more pacy 18K run this weekend and a few shorter faster runs either side and I think I'm finished. I'll stop running on Wednesday or Thursday depending on how I feel. Anything towards the end of the week will be short leg stretchers rather than looking to add to my fitness. I know I get a good bit of reserve strength by taking a few days off training after I've been doing a lot of miles.

10k lunchtime

46:03.03 with a 22:58 5K split time. I was pretty OK at the end so definately sandbagged it a bit regarding pace.Its a minute slower than my previous Personal best 10K. Conditions were good and I had high hopes....not lack of fitness just a pacing error I think. I'm certainly not bursting 40 minutes anytime soon or probably in this life.

Back in the Saddle

First bike training since the big race, nice sunny day and only a moderate wind. I was going to just do a 20KM time trial but there is a village fete in Lasne today and so I thought passage through the main street might be slow. I'm only just ducking under the 40 minute mark on that route by 20-30 seconds so I can't afford setbacks due to big queues of people buying Barba Papa(Candy Floss).

I did a mixed loop round the area of 47km in 1:38 so 28kmph average. Climb total was 1108ft so not flat but not quite Switzerland either. The first 10K were fine but the next 10K were hard hard work and my legs felt tired. I did manage a second wind about the 26km mark and this held out till I was finished. Amazingly I've actually forgotten how hard it was last week and can't really remember anything about the cycle leg apart from snippets and certainly nothing about how my legs felt.

I'm still looking at what to do next challenge wise but will definately take in a marathon before the season is out and also maybe another 70.3 triathlon race(same distance I did last week(1.9km swim,90km bike and 21.1km run).

I'll look to up my swim length outdoors to 4km before the end of the year and so I'll hopefully have marathon distance run and a 4km swim in my armoury before the winter starts to kill off my big training opportunities. I'll of course keep up the bike rides but I need to look at how I do this without boring myself to death on endless loops of the area I live in. I might take my bike on holiday.

Pre Match Nerves

I spent the night dreaming I was bike racing, it was so real I could feel that I had sore legs when I woke up this morning. Its a mix of nerves and the fact I'm currently devouring bike racing books to fill in the gaps due to training less.

I'm starting to get terrors about not training enough now as I'm tapering down my activity to conserve and build up energy for race day. I have expected this as I'd read about it in a few books but since I was aware of it then I thought I would not suffer from it. I was wrong. Its quite a surreal experience, I know its all mental but I still can't shift the worry that I'm wasting away. Surely you can't lose 6 months of training effort in 12 days...

I've been training 6 days out of 7 for the last 8-12 weeks and doing double sessions on some of those days. The last 4-5 weeks I've been training up to 12 hours solid per week. The last week excepted where I've dropped down to a single short session every second day. In most normal people's lives keeping fit with 3 x 1hour long sessions of mixed sport a week would be more than enough. I spent most of my teenage years thinking a 90 minute game on a Sunday and an hours football training on a Tuesday night made me superman.

I did a 20K time trial today round the usual route. I needed to bed in/test the new tyres and chase away my training demons. The tyres were pretty deflated when I checked them this morning, I suspect this is due to using pure CO2 rather than just pumping with air. I know that racing cars use pure nitrogen in their tyres as the molecules are bigger and so don't escape so quickly though the natural gaps in the rubber. As any party animal knows , when you wake up on the couch in the morning the balloons have always deflated overnight as the air escapes through the wall of the balloon. Its the same principal for tyres and tubes , especially at such high pressure of 8bars. I'm assuming C02 escapes easier than Nitrogen as the molecules are smaller than pure Nitrogen and therefore its not as good at keeping the pressure up as a normal air mix which is 80% nitrogen naturally and only 1-2% of CO2(dependent on your proximity to Al Gore).

It was quite blustery so I didn't think I'd be breakng any world records. The new tyres felt very smooth on the good road sections. The gear changes were better but still not 100% perfect and it even slipped off the big chainset to the small at one point. I think maybe more lubricant as I just cleaned it up yesterday.

I finished in 39:29 which is I think is just 15 seconds slower than my previous personal best, its certainly under the magical 40 minute mark which shows me I'm still as fit as I was and am not quite wasting away yet. My heart rate was pretty high throughout and averaged 159 but I did have two double expresso's before heading out. A short sharp session was all I needed to keep my mind at rest and I recovered very quickly apart from feeling a bit sick at the end but that was due to me having drank coffee and eating two croissants shortly before I set off.

Inspiration at lunchtime

Lunchtime run, I've been inspired by Stuart's fantastic 44 minute Polaroid 10K in Helensburgh. I set out for a flat out 10K. My previous best for 10K is 47:38 . My plan is to blast out the 10K and I'll walk the rest(1.8K) to the house.

Its pretty warm and just a light-medium breeze so not bad conditions. First 3K and I'm feeling the pace as I finish the first long hill. I knock off 5K in 21:28 but I'm absolutely dying on my feet at the effort so I know thats as good as it gets and I'll be well over 43 minutes. I get to 7K and I almost stop twice on a long hill I'm so burned out. I've decided that I'm definately not built for speed. However I somehow keep going.

If I thought I was tired at 7K I was absolutely wiped out at 8K and then at 9K it was just the fact it was mostly downhill and I could smell the finish that kept me going..I know where the 10K line is but I must have checked my watch 6 or 7 times wishing the distance to magically get shorter.

I end the 10K in a new personal best of 45:00,08. Its as hard as run I have done and certainly the fastest training session. Sadly I didn't have my Heart Rate belt with me to see how much cardio effort I put in but I've attached the speed,time and altitude stats above.

Thanks to Stu for the inspiration. I'm just leaving you enough of a gap to get to the bar first and get the beers in, so nothing new in that. I look forward to the results from the Clydebank race, let me say now, a sub 40min 10K will be an absolutely huge achievement. Get in there.

Beep Beep

14.26km run at lunchtime with Philippe. A bit more energetic than my usual training run as we know he is ultra competitive and likes to lead from the front. However its a lot closer in the running than it is on the bike so I'm not as easy to drop on the run, especially on the up hills :O). It was a nice pace and we had 10K clocked off in 47:32 and the full 14.26K in 1hr 09min. We had a couple of brief stops for Philippe's dodgy knee but I suspect its not going to stop him on the big day. Its time to let go of the liferaft :O). I'd say at the current pace he will be looking for around a 6hr finish. Which will be more than enough time for him to finish,recover, pick up his medal, get a table and order me lunch and a beer.

Todays HRM image attached, you can see I was working a bit harder than usual and that my heart rate was a little higher(159 average) than the last image(155 average) but the course I was on today has more hills and my pace varied much more than I'd normally have on a training run. The sprints were good fun as its not normally something I do, especially not the last km.

Lunchtime Swim

Did 1 km or maybe a little more. Used my new paddles for half the session to try and build up some strength in my arms. I bought new Speedo competition goggles(€25) and they were really a big improvement on the old Arena ones I had. The Speedo ones were clear the whole session and not a drop leaked in.

I got some good tips from Philippe on my swim stroke and that seemed to be both easier and faster, which is a double bonus. It felt a little strange at first as I needed to shorten my arm stroke quite drastically and bring my arms up parallel with my body. I could describe my previous stroke as a windmill type technique.

I'll have another go later this week maybe at the 50m pool and see if i can get some timing improvement. As ever my eternal optimism is overcoming the mental pain of the swim on Sunday and the negativity is fading and my confidence is coming back.......There might be treatment I can get for this somewhere.

I did a 5k run with the dog and Wallis on her bike, she got the all clear from the hospital today to resume sports following her leg break in Feb whilst ski-ing. She was very pleased after the hospital, I'm not so sure now though as she is currently half asleep on the couch....

Lunchtime Run

A quick leg stretcher at lunchtime on Monday after the race. 10K in 49:06 and a gentle finsh to around 11.4k. OK on the run but after I finished the calf was stiff same place as I had cramp at the weekend. I attach my heart rate, speed, climb,VO2 stats etc, please remember I'm 42 soon and apart from the last 12 months I haven't seriously exercised since The Jam were at number 1.....make sure you watch that video....

Can I not pay someone else to do the training

Up at 4:45am on Thursday for flight to Munich and home around 9pm...Really hard to get up this morning and I'm glad its Friday. however the Triathlon Devil doesn't allow more than 2 days with no exercise. This means tonight I needed a session. Left work around 17:30 and just could not be less inclined to go to the gym, torrential rain, turning to sleet, dark already, bad drivers and 0 Degree Celsius. Got home , packed my swimming and gym gear. Smiling through gritted teeth.

I didn't have a plan before I left, however on journey to the gym I decide on a fast swim and and fast bike ride just to get it over with. Short speedy training does add to fitness(remember the art of lying to yourself)..... 1km swim in 22mins the pool all to myself, 10km bike ride 20 mins, can I really cycle 10 times faster than I can swim....

I was told today that the average swim time for the 2km in last years Rapperswill Triathlon was 38 minutes...a long long way for me to go then....

Time stands still

Hit the gym at opening time, well actually 10 minutes later as I forgot my wallet and had to go back home and get it to get my card to get into the gym.

This meant by the time I got in that my favorite 2 bikes were being used as a couple of props to chat on by two ladies . I'm sure they must just go to the gym , do nothing and then go home and say hey "I've just been at the gym for an hour" but in reality they only exercised their tongues the whole time.

Legs still very stiff and sore from Sunday's run, did 10 minutes on stepping machine to sort out my calfs. After that and 100 bench situps(plenty of rests in there and yes that is my diaphram I can feel aching) the ladies decide to move their chatting to another part of the gym. No need to clean the bike ladies you've not spun the wheels never mind broke sweat.

Anyway to quote the late great Tom Simpson, "Get me back on the bike"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Simpson


Program was 55 minutes, mountains program level 7...what distance can I do. I fantasize its the Ventoux I'm tackling...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Ventoux


10K in and its going well...legs are good, breathing fine. I average 82RPM and I need to up the pace a bit as I'm coasting, so I push to 90RPM...first few minutes are hard but I soon settle into the rhythm..another 5k drops off and I'm getting hot but not bothered. Not sure what all the fuss is about.....

I decide to up to 95RPM...again a little early discomfort but it goes by the time I hit 18K...I am just watching the distance ticking off now, racing to get to 20k mark and then check how long it took me.

I up the RPM above 100, its all getting a litle noisy and a little ragged...just 2K to go, my head tells my legs I'll stop at 20K regardless of the time....so they keep going...My head is of course lying to my legs.

I get to 20K and still have 9 minutes left, I keep going and try to think of nice things and thrive on the fact I'm in single figures time wise now...you can actually block a fair bit of discomfort out but you need to get your mind to work and think of other stuff...if you don't manage it then the time drags on and on. I manage to rattle off 3.4 KM in 9 minutes and I'm done. I get off the bike and my legs are a bit shaky..my breathing returns to normal in about 2 minutes.

The last 5K was messy and noisy but I was just happy to be able to just keep going and push myself....I achieved my furthest distance yet at 23.4KM

It was of course less fun that it all sounded...legs are a bit sore tonight, tomorrow will be interesting...time for a paracetamol or two.