Today I've mostly been getting wet. Saturday 16th January

When I was given the schedule for today the directions were 4hours at 18mph average with intermediate sprints (sprint for village signs) and attack the hills. No where in there did it say find a 20mph head wind to ride into, nor did say spend 3+ hours in the rain and it certainly didn't say find flooded roads to ride through where the water comes up to your ankles.
But then again, they are the things that add to the richness of life. I was joined by Angie Thorp, Will Hall and Russell Clarke with the intention of following a 72mile that Will had plotted, but with the wind we decided to see how we got on over the first 20miles. Will was tired before we started and Angie was struggling from not doing anything for the last 3 weeks and they both turned round and headed home before we got to 15 miles. And by the time we got to 45miles Russell was questioning the wisdom of not having breakfast. The idea there was to encourage the body to use fat stores for fuel rather than carbs.
We altered the route to 58miles and found the road flooded at 30.5miles just after crossing the A140. Averaged 16.1mph but the conditions took their toll on that. Heart rate averaged 72% of HRM.
I hadn't appreciated how cold and wet I was until I got home. Headed straight to bed to get some warmth. Really not the day for the boiler to be playing up following the plumbers visit yesterday to fix a radiator thermastat. (Fingers crossed might have fixed it now.)
So once warmed up I headed to UEA pool for a shower and to make up for missing yesterday's swim session. I'd expected to only get 55minutes due to the pool closing to switch between 25 & 50m mode. When I discovered upon arrival that it was staying at 25m all evening I opted for a longer steady session comprising 5x 1k with 1minute rest between swimming full stroke on the odds and pulling the evens (arms only with a pull buoy between the legs).
Figured I'd earned a beer and curry following that lot (sssh don't let on about the two slices of christmas cake after the ride).

5x 1k Run Efforts Wk 15 Friday 15th January

Was later than hoped getting to bed last night after the turbo session and writing up the blog. That and needing to be at home by 8:30am for the plumber ment that I missed my morning swim. I'll have to make ammends for that tomorrow evening.
I did make the 5x 1k run efforts at lunchtime and was again joined by Paul French. The aim of the session was to run each of the 1k's at a target time of 3:50 (m:s) with a 2.5 minute rest between each. We've done this session a few times now and have our unofficial 1k course on Whitlingham Lane. The last time we did this session, which was Tuesday 15th December 2009, our times for the efforts were: 3:49, 3:54, 3:54, 3:58 and 3:52.
Today our times were: 3:48, 3:53, 3:46, 3:49 and 3:45.
A definate improvement. Heart Rate trace and split analysis in the attached graphic.

Turbo Session, Wk 15 Thursday 14th Jan 2010

After yesterdays run the legs have been feeling a bit tired today. They were certainly moaning about walking between the offices at work today. The didn't seem to mind the bike ride in or home, so following a consultation with the coach (at the coach's request) I went for the planned turbo session.
For those of you not know what a 'turbo' is, it's a trainer that enables me to ride my bike indoors. Mine is a Tacx Flow (click the link to see it on wiggle).
The session involved 15 minute warm up, four 10 minute efforts aiming at producing 300watts throughout with 5minute recoveries and then a 10minute warm down. I found it hard to constantly produce 300+ watts thoughout the efforts, particularly on the 2nd, 3rd and first half of the final effort. You can see that in the heart rate trace as the heart rate is higher to maintain the same workload. Also in the graphic is a summary of the session, shows how I use the variable resistance of the turbo, plus the resistance from different gears to get to desired power outputs. Also in there are some numbers recorded by the turbo's display unit. When riding your body remembers rate of movement and effort. That means power and cadence are the important numbers and generally over time I want to see these increase while the heart rate to drop, that would mean I'm getting more efficient. Miles and speed are largely irrelevant because you can setup on the turbo to give some impressively high numbers which won't be repeatable in the real world.
The numbers today were 80minutes at an average heart rate of 126bpm (69%) with a peak of 153 (84%) with the power being an average of 230watts and a max of 333. Cadence (speed the legs are turning over) of 109rpm max and an average of 94rpm. The power is the important one. Justin Rapp who won Ironman Canada 2009 was aiming to ride at 260-269watts for the 4.5 hours of his bike ride. So I've a bit of a way to go for that. Michael Hutchins when he went for the hour record was aiming at sustaining 400watts which is what the tour riders sustain on the big moutain climbs. Chris Boardman has the hour record and still holds the record for highest average speed on le Tour prologue could sustain much more than that 400watts, but was teased because his peak output didn't break the 1,000 mark. The top sprinters can deliver a peak of 1,600watts. Not that I'm looking to get anything like that. I'd like to get to 230watts (perhaps 250-300) for an ironman ride.
To help me through the session this evening I had the Prodigy and then the Fratellis for company.
Oh, and the legs. You know, I think they might actually feel better now post ride than they did before, but we'll have to review that tomorrow.

Long Run wk15 Wednesday 13th January

To enable two long bike rides this weekend my long run for the week needs to be done today. The distances are now building and today's is 17 mile. These long runs will now extend by 1 mile week (except for the rest weeks were I'll get a reprieve).
The plan is to do the run afterwork. Originally the idea was to run home. I then thought about doing the run early this morning from home, but stayed in bed. My plans now are to do the run from work, then cycle home. The route I've chosen is shown in the graphic and can be seen at gmaps pedometer here. Have tried to keep away from too many quiet country lanes as it is still a bit icy. Figured that quiet city paths might be wisest, though it is now snowing again (13:09)

Post Run Update
Right, so the run is done. The target pace was 8:20mpm (minutes per mile) which is the pace from my best marathon. The conditions were a mix between slushy and icy. That means I found things a little soft under foot or a little slippy under foot at times. It was dark, the batteries in my headtorch look like they need replacing, oh and it drizzled a bit. It sounds like I'm trying to make excuses. Which I guess I am, though I suppose the other take is that I'm showing off because I managed to achieve 8:24mpm. I'm very pleased with my early evening's work.

Tuesday wk 15 - 12th Jan 2010

Up early and at UEA for a swim. A solo 2mile session taking 57 minutes consisting of:
warm up: 600m f/s (freestyle), 600 pull
main: 7x 200m repeating on 3:15. swam them all in 2:55 - 2:58.
16x 25m repeating on 30seconds. Some I did in sub 20seconds.
warm down: 200m.

Effort run session comprising 10x 400m. Aim was to do all of them as near to 80seconds as possible and certainly sub 85s for all of them. Achieved that for at least 6 of the efforts, though was that tired at the ends of them it sometimes took two or three attempts to press the button on the watch. You can see the splits on the attached graphic. The heart rate curve is nice and smooth and pretty consistent. You'll note that the first effort was the slowest and correspondingly has the lowest heart rate peak. You'll see that the pulse drops nicely between efforts though after each effort doesn't go quite as low as the previous one.

17 mile run for tomorrow. Best I crack on with plotting a route.

Weeks 11-14 Summary

The above is a snap shot from the Polar Training log showing what I've been upto for the last 4 weeks.

Been in touch with the coach and this is the schedule for the upcoming Week 15:

MTB introduction wk 14 Sunday 10th Jan 2010

Aim and aspiration was to ride with Russell Clarke, Iain Johson and Roger Slee on our Mountain Bikes in the snow on the Marriotts Way to Aylesham and back. All started out okay, albeit slow but before we got half way to Reepham we found the conditions awfully slippy. Persevered a little further but turned round struggled some more then rode back on the road. Would have been quicker running than riding. Still opportunity to get out doors on the bike. Found a nice cafe in Drayton and saw several runners out including Tim Topper, Karl Sherry and Andy Walpole.

Went swimming in the afternoon. 4k in 66minutes as 5x 800m, odds as full stroke, evens pull.