Week 4 Run Efforts Monday 26th October

The clocks went back an hour yesterday making it brighter this morning, though it will be darker much sooner this afternoon. It's going to be a bit of a shock.
Making the most of the daylight I went out at lunchtime for my scheduled effort session. I was joined by David Archer and Danny Mann. Both work for Aviva and Danny is another TA Member, though he is a member of the original TA, the Terratorial Army, as opposed to Tri-Anglia. Danny is also a bit quick, looks every inch the runner, and was credited with a stage win in the RNR in 2008. He spent the warm up and warm down trying to talk me into entering Marathon des Sables. The answer to that, in one word, "no". Not for 2010 anyway.
The efforts. 3 x 400m aiming at 85-90s with 60 seconds rest, 2 x 800m aiming at 3:05 - 3:10 with 90 seconds rest and 1 x 1200m aiming at 4:45-4:50.
My times were: 400s = 1:27.7, 1:31.6, 1:27.5, 800s = 3:04.7, 3:06.4, 1200 = 4:50.0

Completion of a recovery Week

On Saturday I had a choice between a swim or an easy bike ride. It was wet and a little windy. When the offer came up of lunch in Holt and a trip to a private members club for a swim I took that option. "Private Members" club sounds very grand. I'm refering to Green's Gym. It's a nice enough 3 lane 25m swimming pool. The changing room is better than UEA and the lockers much better but whilst the water in the pool has a nice feel and you get a good purchase and swim well I still prefer the UEA pool. Certainly a good chance of getting an undisturbed swim at Greens.

Sunday the choice was rest or either an easy run or ride. I decided on rest. Went across to Yarmouth to watch the Yarmouth 10k where I knew a far few of the runners. Some who I knew were entered and some that I didn't. My photos are on Facebook.

Swim then Rest wk3 Friday 23rd October

Yippee I managed to get out of bed and upto UEA for a morning swim. Allowed myself the luxury of driving as I was still put off about venturing into the cold and dark on my bike. Downside of which is that I then couldn't go straight to work, but had to go home to drop the car off.
Cut the swim a bit short doing 2km in 37mins. Set comprised:
Warm up: 300m freestyle, 300m pull, 400m drill (as 100m catch up, 100m zip-up, 100m fists, 100m cross over).
Main set: 4x 100m on 1:45 (swam first in 1:25 the remainders sub 1:30) then straight into 6x 50m on 50seconds.
By "on" I mean "repeating on". That involves starting the second effort "on" the time gap. For example my second 100m started 1 minute 45 seconds after the first one, so as I did it in 1:25 I got 20 seconds rest. For the later ones when i was nearer 1:30 I only got 15 seconds rest.
Warm down: 300m which I did as 100m fly drill (1 arm fly alternating arms each 25m), 100m back crawl and 100m freestyle.

In work and just enjoyed a bacon butty. Granary roll with a bit of brown sauce. My reward.

Rest Day wk3 Thursday 22nd October

A rest day though I ran into the office seeing as I'd left clothes and bike there the previous evening. Running up the hill into work was hard work. Legs were stiff and sore. Glad I didn't have to do anything else the rest of the day.
I did get an entry in for March's Ballbuster Duathlon and also had a bit of a look at the course for the upcoming Luton Marathon. I was born quite close to the course, 6-8 miles or something so plotted the route I ran a couple of times as a teenager. Back then that route seemed to be miles and miles long and seemed to take forever. Turns out it was only 2 miles.

Wet and Windy wk3 Wednesday 21st October

Autumn is finally here. I might still be sleeping under my summer duvet but outside it was wet and windy. The single speed winter bike came out for the first time since March.
The schedule today asked for a 12-16 mile run depending upon how I felt. It does seem rather a long way to run in the middle of a recovery week, but I'm not going to argue and at least there wasn't a target pace set.
To fit the run in around work I opted to do the run as my means of getting home. I worked through lunch so as to be able to sneak off a little earlier and started running at 16:50. Was hoping to be able to get the run in before it got dark, but with the days being well and truely drawn in ahead of the end of British Summer Time at the weekend I wasn't too optimistic. It was also drizzling.
I'd plotted a route that google maps reckoned was 17 miles, but that was sending me off route at times because it didn't know of a couple of foot paths but also because it wanted me to run down the Newmarket road passed the slip road down to the Eaton lights that I wanted to head down and continue to a roundabout, turn round it come back up the Newmarket road and then take Colney Road to then get into Eaton. Route turned out to be 14.2miles and took just over 2 hours. As you can see from the profile included on the heart rate trace it wasn't flat. Something like 256m (840ft) of uphill. Legs felt heavy most of the day before the run. Felt good for the first mile or so but still heavy and then whinged a little for the rest of the run.
I was well prepared though for the conditions. I used again the Innov8 bum bag with horizontal drinks system, Ron Hill lycra shorts, Ron Hill long sleeve top, Ron Hill gilet, Ron Hill reflective vest and Pretzl head torch with rear light all sourced from Cotsworld Outdoor and sold to me by Andy Bolden (Roo). On my feet I had a pair of Saucony Grid Rides with foxriver socks that Pete Johnson of the Runners Centre sold me. As the drizzle had become rain there was a lot of standing and flowing water on the roads. I got wet. My main observations were 1) when it's raining hard and when your breath is condensing you actually see better in the dark without the head torch but people can't see you so well 2) without the headtorch you don't see the branches blown into the smaller roads and 3) either with or without the headtorch its amazing how many puddles your feet find.

Recovery Turbo wk3 Tuesday 20th October

Wasn't able to get out for a ride at lunchtime due to the second day of a First Aid at Work Refresher course. Pleased to say I passed with flying colours even though I was a bit slow in calling the dumby an ambulance in one part of the assessment and nearly fainting during the severe bleeds bit. The instructor was talking rather graphically about severed major arteries, the volume of blood loss and the amount of time you'd survive. I was imagining it was me rapidly lossing blood and started to feel a little uncomfortable. I tried to get my mind onto other more pleasent thoughts. To get myself as far away from the class room as possible I imagined myself snowboarding in the alpes. Almost worked but I'd taken the ruptured artery with me and the snow was rapidly going red and figured that was far to far from medical assistance. Then tried to put my mind into a focused bike session with my head down and working hard, but biking on the roads is probably the most high risk thing I do and the place I'm most likely to suffer a serious injury and that made me very queesy. I had to admit to it before slumping in my seat. I was encouraged down to the floor and feet were put up on a chair - the proper way to treat for shock.
Anyway I ramble on and that was actually Monday rather than Tuesday.
Tuesday evening after the course I did a one hour recovery ride on the turbo trainer. Lots of high cadence, 100rpm in the small chain ring alternating the gradient and the rear sprockets. Legs felt a little heavy but not too bad.

Week 2 Review

A harder week on the bike and the second hard week of the first 3 week block. The two rides over the weekend certainly took a lot out of the legs and come the transition run (t-run) after the bike ride on Sunday I was certainly spent.
On the Monday morning I found I'd put another kilo of weight on. 77.4kg really isn't great. Race weight out to be 73 or less. 75kg for my height 174cm (5ft 9) gives me a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 25 which in straight medical terms is over weight. Tuesday morning the weight was at 76.8kg so some of that could have been the large curry Sunday evening.
Had a good massage from Becky Schofield Monday evening. She didn't find any knots in my legs until she got to the last bit, my left calf.

3hr ride with 2x 10mins wk2 Sunday 18th October

Last session of a two week build period and I was beginning to feel tired. No one to help me along on this occasion. No one to hide behind from the wind.
The aim was 3 hours steady at 17-18mph containing two 10minute periods at 85%HRM 40minutes apart. Followed by a 2-3 mile steady run.
I chose a route that took me from Trowse down to Hempnell on the Stoke Road, so not the flatest, then down through Hempnell Green and Aldburgh to Homersfield to do the 10minute effort from Homersfield to Flixton. The effort was hard work. My legs were protesting and just wouldn't work hard enough to get my heart rate up to 85% of Heart Rate Max (HRM). I could get to 81%. Had expected it to take 10mins to get to Flixton but it only took 5. The full 10minute effort took me all the way to Bungay. Rather than doing a loop I opted for an out and back, so did 20minutes of the 40minutes between efforts riding from Bungay to Beccles. That road isn't flat. It's the first half of the Bungay Marathon that is famous for it's undulations. Not sure how smart it was to do that road twice as part of the 40 minutes between the two efforts, but the road from Bungay to Homersfield is really good for a 10minute turn of speed. Good road surface, straight road and not much traffic.
I now had a headwind for the return effort and legs were really hurting. Again couldn't get the pulse to 85%. Only positive was that I was gaining on a scotter that was ahead of me and the most inroads I made into the gap came when I had trees protecting me from the wind.
At the end of the effort and the second hour I was averaging 17.6mph, but I was pretty much spent. By the time I'd got back to Hempnell it had dropped to 17.2mph though managed to get it back to 17.3mph by the time I got back to Trowse.
I'm pleased with that.
Then straight out for a 2.2mile loop round Whitlingham Lane, The Street and Whitlingham Hall. It was nice to be off the bike, but running wasn't what I wanted to be doing, though I'm pleased to find I was running at 8:04mpm pace even with the hill up to the Hall. Managed to overtake someone that was on a bike, though admittedly they were only 4 or 5 years old.
Feel I've earned the curry I'm now heading out for, plus the rest day tomorrow and massage tomorrow evening.

Steady 3 hour ride, Wk2 Saturday 17th October

Jonathan Briggs and Will Hall helped with the ride and route today. A nice route up to Cley from Weston Longville along the coast to Weybourne before heading back. 51 miles in under 3 hours at an average speed of just under 18mph. Steady - not easy, but not too hard either, though some of the lumps stung the legs a little.
As we headed back from the coast we passed Simon Edye, Glen Nelson, Mick Powell and Graham Bainger in a group going the other way fighting against the wind. Guess they were doing the normal 9:30am Tri-Anglia ride from UEA Sportspark.

Long Efforts Thursday wk 2 15th October

5x 1mile efforts with 2:30 rest in between was on the cards today. Ran from the office with Lynn Emmett and Christian Trotter, both fellow Tri-Anglia members down to Whitlingham Lane. A nice 1.25mile warm up. We did odd efforts running East down Whitlingham Lane from the Trowse End to the Lake and even efforts back. Christian and Lynn joined me for the first 4 and helped spur me along. The fifth I did on my own had a 5minute rest then jogged the 2.25 miles back to the office.
Splits were: 6:18.2, 6:21.7, 6:28.0, 6:42.1, 6:35.8
A bit too quick on the first couple, though they did feel comfortable. Slowed on the third. On the fourth I let Christian pull away from me because I figured he was putting in more of an effort in because it was his last. He probably put in a 6:30- 6:35 mile. The last was hard to get myself going. Things were no longer flowing. At least it was quicker than the 4th.
Must learn to go slower on the first one, to ensure that they remain more consistent next time.

Easy Bike Wednesday wk2

Schedule included getting up for an early morning swim and an easy 45-60 minute bike ride at lunchtime to include 2-3 30second sprints.
I failed to get up for the swim. In fact thanks to a headache and unfocused vision I failed to get out of bed until gone 12 noon. So didn't do the swim, didn't go into work and didn't get to do a lunchtime ride.
Come the evening I felt a whole load better and was joined by Angie Thorp for 62minute recovery turbo session. Used the BRR-03 recovery session from the Tacx website for use with the Tacx flow turbo.
Used the Fuerte Bici Time Trial bike (known as Dawn). Now seem to have the bars in a position that doesn't cause back ache, but then again wasn't really putting any power down whilst in the aero position. Just now need to get the seat straight (seat post isn't straight) and want to get a second bottle cage mount onto the frame. Horizontal dropouts and toe overlap I'm never going to be able to fix.

Short Run Efforts Wk 2 Tues 13th Oct

Rest day yesterday. Legs needed that after Sundays run. They were still heavy today when I went out for eight 400m efforts. I was joined today by Mike Kemp who ran the Loch Ness Marathon just over a week ago and thanks to him chasing I got a good split for the fourth effort. I needed the first three as a warm up.
Times were: 1:33, 1:36, 1:35,1:30, 1:32, 1:32, 1:35, 1:28.

Week 1 Review

Legs are tired. Volume down and weight has gone up a kilo. It's nice having a bit more rest and have enjoyed having evenings free for other things (social mainly). Have had 3 runs during the week were I've performed better than expected.

Long Run Wk1 Sun 10th Oct

The schedule said 12-16 miles at 7:45 - 8:15 mpm and managed to clock 16.2miles in 2:06:21. That works out at 7:48mpm.
Used the run to test my "Innovate hydration system" ahead of the Marriotts Way Ultra on 1st November. The innovate system is a bladder within a bumbag with a tube that reaches to the mouth. It worked fairly well, feeling a bit hot round the hips to start with, but it doesn't bounce and isn't uncomfortable . Took a little while to work out how best to attach the tube when running and not drinking and ended up tucking it into the waist band.
Over all pleased with the run. Didn't think I was going to manage that performance.

Long Ride Wk1 Sat 9th Oct

A 3 hour ride with two 10minute efforts was on the cards and with the help of Jonathan Briggs, Jonathan Tyrrell and Will Hall it was successfully completed.
Twice we saw Gary and Jack Wootton riding in a group heading the other way. Suspect they were doing a similar route to us.
We also saw and stopped and chatted with Steve and Isla Rush. They were out with the North Norfolk Wheelers. With riding to the start and then home again they were going to clock 72miles. That's Isla's longest ride. Very impressinve for a 10 year old.

Runners Update 9th Oct

This week was the start of my Ironman Australia training. The first week of 25. Seems to have gone pretty well so far. A swim Monday, a run Tuesday, a ride yesterday and a run today. Tomorrows a rest so should be okay in doing that too. A lot less volume than I'm used to but the intensity is there and that I'm not used to.

Whilst I'm just starting out on the journey to my next Ironman this Saturday sees the climax of the year for the Worlds best Elites and Age Groupers at the World Ironman Championships in Kona, Hawaii. Whilst we have no one from the HO Runners in attendance (I did so want to go, sorry), we do have two local representatives. Simon Edye from Tri-Anglia and the man behind Ronaldo Ice Cream off Dereham Road qualified in the Men's 55-59 Age Group. More significantly Chrissie Wellington from Bury St. Edmunds is defending her Ladies World title that she has won each of the last two years. Chrissie remains unbeaten at Ironman distance and took 15minutes off the previous Ladies World Record at Roth in July. A truly awesome performance and a great Ambassador for Sport and the Country, in fact she has been short listed for The Times Sportswomen of the Year, so if you agree with me you can vote at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/related_reports/sportswomen_of_the_year/article6858437.ece#

9.3miles in 67:30

Thats 7:14mpm or 8.3mph. The aim was 8-10 miles at 7-7:30mpm.

Did the run in my new Newtons:


Proof from the iphone of the distance and speed:


Rest day tomorrow. Should be able to do that.

"Adventure is worthwhile in itself" - Wk1 Wed

Today's training schedule had two things on it. The first was a choice between swimming or laying in bed. I'd prepared everything the night before to be able to jump out of bed and get on the bike up to the UEA pool, but then as I lay in bed the day looked dark and wet so I stayed cosy and dry.

More success with the second item though and I was joined by Jonathan Tyrrell (JT) for that one. Our lunchtime ride was to include two 10 minute efforts at 85-90% of maximum heart rate. We were supposed to do a 10min warm up, the first effort, have 10min recover, do the second 10min effort, have a second recovery and then ride out the rest of the hour. We used our usual 16.3mile route out through Mulbarton and timed the efforts so as to avoid junctions. That meant that the warm up was more than 10 minutes and the warm down and ride back to work less than the 20 minutes.

We did the session correctly as you can see from the graph of my heart rate throughout the session. A low average for the warm up, middle recovery and warm down. Plus a nice high average during the two efforts. They were hard. Quote from JT of "Chilli would love this session".

Oh and the opening quote was from Amelia Earhart.

Week 1 Tuesday - Run Efforts

First set of run efforts was on the cards today. Between 6 and 8 400m efforts aiming at doing them all at a consistant 85 seconds with one minutes rest in between.
I jogged the mile or so from Surrey St down to Whitlingham lane where I did some heel flick and knee lift drills before some stretches to ensure I was fully warmed up. I was using a make shift 400m course between the Ski Club and the Canoe Club. A running track would have been better, but make do with what you can. The pavement was littered with conker shells and leaves and the road, whilst quiet and clearer felt slick and slippery under foot. I used a bit of both.
My times were 92.6, 93.0, 89.5, 90.5, 93.3 and 91.4. So not quite the 85second target, but my course did have a slight rise in it and might be over distance. Plus my coach (Joe) might also be about to discovery that I'm not as quick as he thinks. I'll have my heart rate trace to share later the average was 145bpm max of 188bpm - my HR max is 182 so that means I was giving over 100% (assuming the monitor was reading right).
How come I only did 6? The aim was to be consistant. The fifth was definately harder and was the slowest so put everything into the final one.

Update with Details
Have now downloaded the heart rate trace and lap times. Didn't get a clean trace particularly not on the first and third efforts. Was suspicous about that 188 reading. Also got a funny trace at the start of the warm up which is reading too high.

400m Course (415m)

Day 1 of 175 (and a bit more)

It's started. An optional swim. Didn't feel like getting up this morning so opted for "second chance Monday" and swam in the public session at UEA at 7.30pm. Created my own set of 400m warm, 800m alternatining each 200m between kick and pull, 800m alt 50m drill 50m swim, 16x 25m (1 length) sprints on 30seconds (2nd starts 30seconds after the first so faster you swim the more rest you get) and then 100m backcrawl warm down. 2,500m in 45minutes.
Tomorrow isn't going to be quite so easy.

Tomorrow it starts

Tomorrow is the first day of the 25 weeks to Ironman Australia following the schedule being set by Sports Science Undergraduate and Cat 1 Road Racer Joe Skipper. For me, I'm going to learn how to have a coach. For Joe he gets to prove he can improve the performance of a fairly average Ironman. And having been enchanted and inspired by the film "Julie and Julie" I'm going to blog the journey of the next few months.

I hope it's satisfying. I hope it's successful and I hope you enjoy it with me.

Training Schedule for weeks 1-3

Have now received the schedule for the first 3 weeks of 25 to get to Ironman Oz. There'll be a few more weeks after that to get to Comrades.

This is what I'll be doing over the next few weeks:

Runners update 1st October (for w/s 5/10/09)

Breaking news at time of writing our weekly update is that London Marathon applicants are finding rejection letters on their door steps as the get home this evening. I'm hoping that some are also finding confirmation letters, but I've only heard from two people so far and they've both had rejection letters, though one is now boasting the ownership of a nice new red jacket.

If you haven't gotten in to London don't fret there are other options. I believe Brighton is now full (though spots might open up due some people being successful in getting into London) there is the Bungay Marathon locally. There is the Sheffield Half on the same day as London. For those that can travel there is the Boston Marathon on the 19th April (a Monday). And for inspiration on other overseas marathon's it's worth having a look at www.209events.com

I tried to run round UEA lake yesterday and was stopped on the bit running up the East side of the lake before turning right onto the decked pathway. It looks like they are in the process of making this a proper pathway, or perhaps just a hard core pathway. It will certainly be an improvement on the twisty man worn muddy root prone trail that was there. A fair amount of progress has been made since JT and I ran this route 2 weeks ago so hopefully it won't take them long to complete, but in the interim be warned that you might have to make detours if you are running in that area for the next couple of weeks.

I've got a coach. A sports science undergraduate has asked if he can coach me through to my next Ironman. He's confident that he can help improve my time, so we'll see. The 25 week schedule starts Monday. Looks like I'll be doing less volume but far more quality (efforts). I'll be working in blocks of 3 weeks with the third week being recovery as before, but this time round it will be a run focused week with some biking, then a bike focused week with some running then a recovery week. Idea being to balance out the loading on the legs from biking and running so as to get the most gain from both. Fortunately the swimming is easier to fit in around these. The upshot is that I won't have a regular weekly routine which should be good

Been lent the "Lore of Running" by Tim Noakes. It's a hefty tone but well written and comprehensive. There are various models in there that I've scanned, but the intro gives the impression that the South African author Tim Noakes is about to disprove them. One model predicts running performance from VO2 max, which would put me at a 1:24 half marathon and a 2:56 marathon. I'd love to do those times so hope he'll tell me how to achieve them, but as graph a few pages on shows the PBs of various distance for Seb Coe plotted against those for Halle Gabrielselassie I suspect that when I read the narative I'll find out why the model shouldn't be taken as gospel. I have started reading the chapter about preparing for Ultramarathons and being South African he has a strong focus on Comrades. Afraid you guys might get fed up hearing about Comrades.

A Months Holiday

Lovely.

Following the Ironman I've had a month off from proper training and notionally a month away from racing. I say notionally as I still helped Iain Dawson round Waveney2 triathlon to a 10th place finish, some might say riding tandem with him gives him an advantage against the other 120+ able bodied participants. There was also the Round Norfolk Relay where Team Tri-Anglia got a club record.

But apart from that I've only ridden or run for fun, yes the Diss 15 was fun, and I've not done any swimming.

Monday however is 25 weeks from Ironman Australia so the rest period is coming to an end and I'll start building for the next challenge.