Week15 Review and Week16 Preview

Week 15 was the first of two harder weeks. We still had some snow and ice laying around to be cautious with, but that only really had any effect on the Wednesday evening long run. Of course rain and wind added character to the long saturday ride (shortened that one a little). The diagram above shows what I did compared to what was on the schedule. Of the 9 sessions in the week, 6 were done exactly as planned, 2 were off the pace and one was done late and over distance. In all I'm happy with the week, it was always going to be a tough week and if I'd done it we'd be thinking that it ought to have been harder.

Week 16 is now upon us and that's due to be another hard week. The schedule is in the graphic below. It's pretty much the same as week 15, with a couple of modifications - a 30 minute swim competition on the sunday evening rather than an additional run and 1 mile efforts on the Friday rather than 1km efforts. Also included in the graphic is a preview of what might be in store for the recovery week 17 and then a sneak at what will be happening in the week leading up to the training camp in Lanzarote, were we can expect a lot of cycling (must get the brake cable fixed on the tt bike for that).

Ride, Cinema, Run

Rode with the VC this morning, well, at least to their cafe stop at Bressingham. http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3417398 I then rode back on my own as I needed to get back for a trip to the cinema to see "Up in the Air". Found my legs were quite tired to start with, and then completely shot at the end. Getting up the hill to join the group was hard, riding with the group was fine, even when they speeded up for the final couple of miles to the cafe, though the average speed was lower than the target. Once on my own I made an effort to get the speed back up and made some headway getting it from 16mph to 17mph, but was then tired for the rollers along Stoke Road and the average dropped again.

I really enjoyed the George Cloony film "Up in the Air". I found it really quite engaging, interesting and funny. A little sad perhaps at the end, but to my mind he did the right thing.

Then in the evening a run. Really wasn't looking forward to going out. In fact the legs didn't want to do anything. I was sat there in a muddled state of mind thoughts switching between "I'm going to be sore and not enjoy it" and "I'll feel guilty to dipping out". So, I let fate decide, I let my friends cat Pushkin decide which coin to toss and it came up heads, the run it was. The schedule said 6 miles at 7:30 - 8:00 mpm, and finding a route that was going to be pleasent to run in the dark on a sunday evening had been part of the procrastination, but in the end the inner city ring road was an okay option - fairly quiet, just a couple of drivers making turns without indicating. As I was feeling tired I attacked the first mile as I feared I was going to be slow and was pleasently surprised to knock it out in 7:12. After that tried to settle into a rhythm but could feel that I was getting progressively tired as the run went on, and grapes hill wasn't a thrilling sight in the fourth mile. Ended up covering 6.1 miles in 45:38 which works out to 7:28mpm. So pleased with that, makes up for being off the pace on the bike earlier in the day.

The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Finished the million selling number one bestseller today. Took a little time to get through it, but it was interrupted by 2 other books that I was lent. Found it very hard to get into, but once I get to half way it started to get more compelling.
Managed to read something like 17 books last year. Its a close call between "Girl with the dragon tattoo" and "Girl who played with fire" for the best one. I'm looking forward to the third and final one of that trilogy coming available in paperback in April.

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.