Probably a Hugely Inefficient Use of my Time

zico10

I’m beginning this log 4 months out from Ironman 70.3 in Phuket. Although I’ve completed some races since departing Irish shores nearly two years ago, my training in the intervening time has been far from consistent. My intentions for this race are good and I’m hoping logging my training here will serve as some extra incentive to stay focussed.

Two weeks into things I’ve so far managed to stay on track, getting in two sessions most days. Training seriously will curtail my explorations of the world. Before I left Ireland though, I enjoyed training and triathlon and if sacrificing opportunities to travel produces a good result in Phuket, then I’ll happily settle for that.

What will be a good result for me in Phuket, I cannot truthfully answer that just yet. I’ll wait and see how the training goes over the four months and make a prediction closer to the date.

Just briefly to comment on the conditions for training over here; there are two swimming pools in the town in which I’m based, but with no lanes and a lorry load of kids in the pools during regular opening hours a swim training session during these times is not possible. I’m not far from the sea though, but the water is dirty with about 15cm visibility at the best of times. There are only so many plastic bags and fishing nets you can swim into before giving up, so most of my open water swims have been relatively short. I’ll try talk nicely to the pool owners though and see is it possible to get in a swim when no kids will be about.

The bike that I have is a regular road bike, with stock issue wheels. I intend to purchase some aero bars, but at the time this log starts off I don’t have any. I bought 28mm tyres for a month’s cycle tour around Thailand. To save my 23mm tyres for racing, and because I fncking hate punctures, I’ll be doing all my training on the wider tyres. I don’t have the mathematical formula to hand, but I’m hoping the 23mm tyres will give me a slight speed increase on raceday.

I can run on the road during the day, but with the sun shining it can get pretty hot, so I generally wait to run after sun set. Then when it’s dark it’s not safe to run on the roads, so 90% of my runs are done on a 1.04km loop (according to mapmyrun). It might sound pretty tedious running this twenty times, but it’s fairly easy work out your pace here, so you have to take the rough with the smooth.

I’m a bit short of gadgets over here and will only be using a stopwatch and a basic Cateye cycle computer to train with. Looking at my training might not give you folks too much to comment on, but I’ll just get on with things as best I can and will appreciate any advice anybody sees fit to give.
Anyway that’s about enough rabbiting; I’ll begin the log proper with the first week’s training below.

Monday 30th July
a.m.
45 minutes weights & core work

Lunch break;
I had hoped to do a pool based swim session during this lunch break. The pool is in a hotel near my apartment and they’ve been kind enough on previous occasions to let me swim here before it’s open to the general public when it’s not possible to swim 5 metres, let alone 25, without swimming into one of the 40 or so kids that are let into the pool.
However I’ve been told it’s going to be closed for one month so as it can be cleaned, it seems like an awful long time, but you get used to the fact that that’s the way things are done in Thailand, and make alternative arrangements. This alternative was 50 minutes on the turbo, which went like this;
5 minute warm up, 1 minute hard & 1 minute easy, 2 hard & 2 easy, 4 hard & 4 easy, 6 hard & 6 easy, 4 hard & 4 easy, 2 hard & 2 easy, 1 hard & 1 easy, 5 minutes cool down

p.m.
1 km OW swim
Tempo run, 2.08km warm, 3.12km @ race pace, 1.04km easy, 5.20km @ race pace, 2.08km easy, 3.12km @ race pace, 2.08km cool down

Tuesday 31st July

a.m.
1.4km OW swim

Lunch Break;
40 minutes on turbo, 5 minutes warm up, 30 minutes medium gear @ 90 rpm, 5 cool down,

p.m.
Brick Session; {25 minutes on turbo (medium gear @ 90 rpm) & 3.12km run @ race pace off 40 minutes} x 3

Wednesday 1st August

a.m.
Run; 10 minute warm up, 1 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery,1 minute @ interval pace, 5.30 minutes cool down

p.m.
1.8km OW swim

Thursday 2nd August

a.m.
45 minutes weights & core work

p.m.
Cycle; 30 minutes warm up, {200m hard, 100m rolling, 500m hard, 300m rolling/easy, 1.5km hard, 800m easy} x 6, 40 minutes cool down

Friday 3rd August
a.m.
30 minutes warm up, 30 minutes HIM race effort (avg. pace of 34.3km/hr), noticed I had a slow puncture after 1 hour 20 minutes of cycling, would like to think it happened somewhere in the middle of my HIM race effort and my average speed would have been a few kilometres per hour quicker only for it. Slightly wishful thinking, but anyway I’d only a hand pump, I reckoned (correctly as it turned out) I’d make it home without having to replace the tube, so turned around at this point and began a careful cycle back home, returning after just over 3 hours out on my bike. I had intended to be out for longer and get more 30 minute HIM efforts in, but the puncture and fading light by the time I’d have been back out with a fully inflated tube put paid to that, so I had to reschedule the rest of the workout for another day.

p.m.
With a shorter and easier than planned cycle I’d undertaken earlier in the day, I felt my legs would be okay to tackle a longish run this evening. I ran 19.76km in 1 hour 19.33 minutes. On December 2nd the 21km run won’t be after the sun goes down, and will come after a 90km cycle, but I hope to be able to sustain something not too far off this kind of pace come race day in. I believe running long training runs at desired race pace has worked for me before, so I’m going to stick with this approach for the next 4 months.

Saturday 4th August
a.m.
1km OW swim

p.m.
3 hour turbo, 25 minutes warm up, 30 minutes HIM race effort, 20 minutes recovery, 30 minutes HIM race effort, 20 minutes recovery, 30 minutes HIM race effort, 25 minutes cool down
Turbo session was to compensate for the cycle I had yesterday. I wanted to get back out on the road, but there wasn’t going to be enough hours of daylight left when I eventually got around to starting. And with the Olympics on TV the 3 hours spent indoors were not as boring as they might otherwise have been.

Sunday 5th August
p.m.
Cycle; 2 hours 30 minutes easy, just spinning out the legs. 68.29km in total.

pgibbo

Best of luck with it zico.

It must be damn hot doing turbo sessions there :eek:

Dory Dory

Best to you! I do most of my runs in a field that is approximately 2/3 of a mile around, so I know all about running in circles too!

Izoard

Will the 4 months training be done with 1 t-shirt and a single pair of jocks?:)

Good luck with it!

zico10

pgibbo wrote: »

It must be damn hot doing turbo sessions there :eek:

It probably is, but just stick a fan on at full blast and you learn to get used to it.

Dory Dory wrote: »

Best to you! I do most of my runs in a field that is approximately 2/3 of a mile around, so I know all about running in circles too!

I've sort of learned to enjoy my little loop though. When I do eventually get back to the wide open spaces of The Phoenix Park I'll probably wonder what I was thinking, but right now I'm happy enough with where I have to run.

Izoard wrote: »

Will the 4 months training be done with 1 t-shirt and a single pair of jocks?:)

No, fortunately I don't have to live out of a 15 litre bag for the next 4 months, so I can afford to keep more clothes in my apartment.:)

zico10

Monday 6th August

a.m.

nothing

lunchbreak

45 minutes weight & core

p.m.

1,000m O/W

Run; hill reps 350m x 10
Haven’t done a proper session with hills in a while, felt very slow. I don’t know how to describe the climb other than it was a b@stard. This is what mapmyrun has to say about it; This is a 0.35 km Run in Lang Suan, Thailand. The Run has a total ascent of 75.0 m and has a maximum elevation of 95.0 m. This map was created byalan2811alan on 08/06/2012. a maximum elevation of 95.0 m. This map was created by alan2811alan on 08/06/2012.
Average of 2.16 per rep

Tuesday 7th August

a.m.

1,000m O/W swim

lunchbreak

40 minutes turbo, easy spinning

p.m.

1 hour 30 minutes turbo, Session taken from turbotraining.co.uk
10 minute warm up, 10 x 4 minute periods, going from 72% of HR max to 90%, trying to maintain a cadence of 90 – 100rpm throughout. I don’t have a HRM, so I just went off feel. Cadence fell slightly below 90rpm for the final two 4 minute periods, 10 minute cool down.
Exactly half the numbers above for the final 30 minutes.

Wednesday 8th August

a.m.

Run; 10 minute warm up, 1 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery,1 minute @ interval pace, 5.40 minutes cool down

p.m.

Cycle Intervals; Warm up, main set was 7 x 5km intervals on a straight stretch of road, ( I didn’t keep a record, but the following stats are what I remember seeing on my cycle computer after each interval, 4 of them out @ approximate average speed of 41km/hr, 3 back @ approximate average speed of 37km/hr, Cool down

Thursday 9th August

a.m.

131.86km cycle in 5 hours 8 minutes. I did four 30 minute HIM efforts during the cycle. I held 34.8km/hr, 35km/hr, 35.7km/hr and 35km/hr for the four efforts.
It would be nice if these HIM efforts were a small bit quicker, but I intend to do all of my long cycles following a similar structure, with 50% of them on the same road, so it should be easy to see if I’m improving or not.

p.m.

I went to a swimming pool for this swim. 400m warm up; then I did a 750m TT effort just to see where I’m at swimming wise. I completed it in 15.18, I wasn’t expecting much better. My legs were seizing up towards the end, the pool was about to close, so I just got out of the water and didn’t bother with a swim down.

Friday 10th August

a.m.

weights & core

p.m.

Brick; {20 minutes on turbo (medium gear 90/95 rpm) and 2.08km @ race pace, off 30 minutes} x 4
I’ve no accurate way of measuring cycling speed, but was running at less than 4 minutes per kilometre and getting around 1.30 rests between efforts.

Saturday 11th August

a.m.

I had planned on swimming, but it was going to be easy to get this done in the afternoon, so I chose to stay in bed for an extra hour.

p.m.

1,000m O/W swim

Run, 19.76km in 1.19.45
Exact same run as I did last week, only it took me 12 more seconds. Less than a second slower per kilometre, which isn’t a lot, but still I’d have preferred if it had been a 12 seconds difference the other way.

Sunday 12th August

2 hours on turbo, easy spinning, watching men’s marathon in Olympics

zico10

Monday 13th August

a.m.

I didn’t have to go to work today, so I was able to get out on my bike early in the day and got a hill session in.
12 x 550m hills as fast as possible, (average of 1 minute 43 seconds), recovery rolling back downhill.
Starting out at 1.33, the reps got progressively slower finally averaging out at 1.43. Had planned on doing 14, but I was only getting slower, the day was getting, I was running out of water and I didn’t see the point in doing the 14 just to say I had completed them.

p.m.

Went to a pool for this evening’s swim,
400m warm up
5 x 200m off 4.10 (I could manage to hit these times)
5 x 100m off 2.00 (I managed the first three, but was pushing off on 8.01 for the 4th 100, came in on 10.04)
200m cool down

I’m a long way off where I was two years ago, which is no great surprise. I’m hoping improvements will be easy-ish enough to come by though and I’ll be comfortably swimming under 2.00 per hundred in a few months.

Tuesday 14th August

a.m.

I’m still waiting for the swimming pool where I plan to do my lunch time swims to open, so I had a free session during the day to fit in something else. I decided to move one of my weekly weight’s sessions to this slot and that left me with an a.m. session to fill in. I wasn’t particularly happy with yesterday’s hill session on the bike, so decided to try replicating something like this on the turbo.
Session went like this; 10 minute warm up, {1.30 minutes in the hardest gear at the highest level of resistance @ 60 rpm & 1.30 minutes recovery} x 12, 5 minutes cool down

Lunch break

45 minutes weight & core work

p.m.

Tempo Run; 10 minutes warm up, 12 minutes hard, 6 minutes easy, 24 minutes hard, 12 minutes easy, 12 minutes hard, 10 minute cool down
I didn’t get an exact distance for the hard parts, but glancing at my stop watch told me I was running at around 4.00/km. I wasn’t going hell for leather and was holding the pace fairly comfortably.

Wednesday 15th August

a.m.

Run; 10 minute warm up, 1 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery,1 minute @ interval pace, 5.40 minutes cool down

I needed to take an emergency toilet break in the middle of the second six minute interval. Luckily enough there are public toilets where I run, so I avoided any embarrassment.

p.m.

44 minutes on the turbo;
The session was taken from turbotraining.co.uk; 10 minute warm up, (30 seconds sprint & 1 minute recovery) x 5, (1 minute sprint & 1 minute recovery) x 5, (30 seconds sprint & 1 minute recovery) x 5, 9 minute cool down

Thursday 16th August

a.m.

4 hours 30 minute cycle, total distance 142.51km
I did four 30 minute HIM race efforts during the session, and I averaged the following speeds for each of the efforts; 1) 37km/hr, 2) 38.3km/hr, 3) 36.9km/hr 4) 35.8km/hr
These speeds are an improvement on last week, probably in part due to the fact that I removed one of the spacers from under my handlebars and that unlike last week I inflated my tyres before heading out. The last effort became a struggle and after 15 minutes my speed was tailing off. My neck and lower back were hurting and I was very glad to finish when I did.

p.m.

1,000m O/W swim

Friday 17th August

a.m.

45 minutes weights + core work

p.m.

I have a race coming up on Sunday, which will be my first triathlon race in nearly 9 months. It’s not a target race though and I didn’t want to alter my training to much in advance of it. I did however try to incorporate a bit of speed work into Wednesday’s turbo session and this was also the idea with the run intervals this evening.

Run Intervals; 1.54km warm up, {380m @ rep pace, 380 metres recovery} x 12, 0.76km cool down. I messed up the timing after the second interval and had to reset my stopwatch. I averaged 1 minute 16 seconds for the final ten efforts. I was making a big effort not to drop off the pace and the intervals started to get faster once I had the first 6 out of the way. This almost never happens with me and I guess it just goes to show on should be concentrating on holding form more regularly.

I’ll be travelling to the race tomorrow, but I plan to get a short stint in on the turbo before I go and then hope to get in the water once I arrive at the venue tomorrow.

subscriber

Seems like a mental volume of training for a HIM. I have Galway HIM in two weeks and haven't done half that. Making me worry now, ur some animal if you can keep that weekly volume up for 4 months consistently, best of luck with it.

BTH

subscriber wrote: »

Seems like a mental volume of training for a HIM. I have Galway HIM in two weeks and haven't done half that. Making me worry now, ur some animal if you can keep that weekly volume up for 4 months consistently, best of luck with it.

Thats nothing. You should see what he did for the full IM. The guys a machine when he gets going.

Trig1

some very fast cycle splits for a road bike- did you get the aero bars yet??, is it a good road bike?? what are the roads like over there-better or worse than these stupid Irish roads??... some very good training been done on bike and on foot, keep it up, how long is it since you did any racing?

Dory Dory

Best of luck to you on Sunday!

pgibbo

Best of luck this weekend.

Impressive training :cool:

zico10

subscriber wrote: »

Seems like a mental volume of training for a HIM. I have Galway HIM in two weeks and haven't done half that. Making me worry now, ur some animal if you can keep that weekly volume up for 4 months consistently, best of luck with it.

It might be more than average, but I think it's far from mental. I don't think the fact it's a HIM has anything to do with it either. There's still only seven days in a week whether you're training for a full or a half. How much time someone wishes to give to training is up to them. Granted it's far easier for single/childless people like myself to find time, but if it were an Olympic distance race, or even a sprint, that I cared as much about I think I'd be doing a similar volume of training.
There could be others training for Galway who've done twice as much as me, but what van you do about it? I think as long as your training has been consistent, you'll be fine in whatever race you choose to do. Everybody has different targets and different demands on their time, I think there's little point worrying about what somebody else is doing.

Trig1 wrote: »

some very fast cycle splits for a road bike- did you get the aero bars yet??, is it a good road bike?? what are the roads like over there-better or worse than these stupid Irish roads??... some very good training been done on bike and on foot, keep it up, how long is it since you did any racing?

It's a Trek 2.1, whether it's good or not I don't know what to say. I'd prefer to have my TT bike, which is back Ireland, but the Trek is fine. As the man says; it gets me from A to B.
I got tri bars alright. The first day with them was 8th August. If I had updated daily I would have remembered to mention it, but when it came to my Sunday evening weekly update I just wanted to post my week's training as quickly as possible.
Roads are hit and miss. The roads I cycled in the north of the country were generally much better than here in the south. The roads I use to train on are okay, some dodgy spots, similar enough to country roads in Ireland I guess.
My last triathlon was November 2011. I ran a marathon back in February and a 14km road race about a month ago. There's not really much of a tri scene over here and it's not as easy get to races when you're not in a small country like Ireland, and you don't have a car.

Dory Dory wrote: »

Best of luck to you on Sunday!

Thanks very much. I believe you're racing yourself this weekend. I don't know the time difference between Virginia and Thailand, but if you see this message before your race, best of luck to you. And if you don't, I hope it went well.

Dory Dory

Mine went well - I hope yours did too!

zico10

Saturday 18th August

a.m.

20 minutes turbo; 5 minutes warm up (1 minute sprint + 1 minute recovery) x 5, 5 minute cool down

p.m.

I was a bit later getting to the venue than I had hoped I would. I had planned on swimming the full course, so as I would have had a chance to practise sighting and what not. But the light was fading by the time I eventually did get into the water, so I was just swam out to the first marker we’d have to turn at tomorrow, then turned around and headed back to shore.
I saw three jelly fish on the way back in. They were the size basketballs and the first one was directly under me before I noticed. This was good practise for keeping high elbows, but it really freaked me. Thankfully I made it back to land unscathed and hoping if jellyfish do make an appearance tomorrow there’ll be enough swimmers around me to shield me from them.

Approximately 900m

zico10

Dory Dory wrote: »

Mine went well - I hope yours did too!

Fair play and well done on the AG win. Nothing like that for me. Crap swim, okay bike and okay run. I only had a stop watch to go on, but I was happy enough with my splitss when I finished the race. Then I was emailed the results yesterday and I wasn't so happy after I studied them.

I'll post a race report in a day or two and you can find out why.

Bambaata

Fair play to you Zico! If ever i feel i have horrible conditions to train in ill just need to think of you! Looking forward to the report.

Kurt Godel

Hey zico, I enjoyed reading your Sub 10 IM training thread last year. Comparing the sort of sessions you were discussing on it, to now, how far off that sort of form are you now? Is the goal to get back there?

zico10

Sunday 19th August

Swim 1.380km; 00:30:35

We were told at the briefing than the swim would be reduced to 1,380m in honour of the Thai Queen’s 80th birthday. Why not 1,480, which would have been closer to an Olympic distance swim, I do not know. It felt like more, but 1,380m is what we were told we’d be swimming.

It was a running start, and knowing my place as a not-so-great swimmer I assumed a position some way behind those in the front. As with a lot of races I’ve done though, be they triathlon or running, not everybody at the front of the starting pack seemed to care so much about their ability to stay at the front once the gun went.

The starting line wasn’t far back from the water’s edge and as soon as it was deep enough to swim, that’s what I did. Not everyone was so eager to actually swim and after 30 metres I was still swimming into the backs of people wading in waist deep water. Considering it was supposed to be a swim, I found this annoying. Shortly after though the water became too deep to walk in and everybody had to swim, whether they wanted to or not. Now it was people doing the breast stroke that annoyed me, which is fine, but why anybody would start at the front of an open water swim, when they know they’ll be breaking into the breast stroke after 100m is another thing that irks me.

After around 300m, I felt I was amongst swimmers of similar ability as myself. There were yellow buoys leading all the way up to the first turnaround point in the swim. They were spaced very close together and sighting was easy. I was swimming right beside a rope trying to get a draft off swimmers in front. This occasionally meant getting my right hand caught in the rope connecting the line of yellow buoys, but I figured I was taking the straightest possible line to the turnaround and didn’t think it worthwhile to drift too far left.

I reached the first turnaround feeling I’d made good time. The next marker we’d to swim to was visible, but I’d lost the feet I had been trailing, and I ended up swimming the remainder of the distance on my own.

I got to the next turnaround which came about two-thirds of the way through the swim. I was expecting a line of yellow buoys to lead me all the way back to shore and started swimming in a line that I thought would bring me alongside these elusive yellow buoys. I hadn’t sighted in the expectation that I would catch sight of the yellow buoys to my right when taking a breath. I took about 20 strokes before realising that those yellow buoys just weren’t there. I decided that the best thing to do at this point was to stop and find me bearings. I saw the yellow buoys around 200m ahead, but if I kept going in the direction I had been I would have ended up on the wrong side of them. All of the swimmers were to my left and I had no choice but to change direction and try join up with them.

The shortest line to join this pack was not the shortest way back to land, so there was no point in trying to join them straight away. Instead I eyed up the yellow buoys and concentrated and getting on the right side of them. I managed this, but never did get back amongst the pack of swimmers.

I came out of the water about 20 metres to the right of most of the other swimmers, which only confirmed I’d picked a poor line. Anyway it was over with, and a check of my watch told me I’d finished in 28 minutes something. That was about what I was expecting, but the official results gave me a 30.35 swim. I still had a bit of a run between checking my watch and crossing the timing mat, but I’m certain that time was not correct. It didn’t affect my overall position though, and there’s probably a similar discrepancy with everyone’s time.

T.1; 00:00:58

I’d no wetsuit to take off, so the transition from swim to bike was a fairly straightforward affair. I shoved a few gels in the pockets on my tri top, which probably took 1 or 2 seconds, but there were only 9 transitions under 55 seconds, so I don’t really see where else I could have saved time.

Cycle 41km; 01:06:08

Apart from going over two bridges, the entire cycle was practically pancake flat. There were some hazards we had to slow down for, and 5 or 6 sharp turns we had to take, but I wouldn’t describe it as a technical course. I was holding back a little bit, but I could spend the majority of the time on my tri bars and was happy enough with the speed I was managing to hold.

I took a wrong turn at a roundabout, which probably added about 100m to my overall distance. 100m isn’t much, but it took a minute or so to build back up momentum after coming to a complete stop. It allowed someone I had already overtaken get back in front of me, but I caught him again and apart from this no other cyclist passed me.

Despite the one mistake, when I arrived back in T2 I felt I’d had a good bike leg. Now though I do think I could have pushed harder, and I think had I exited the water in a quicker time, I would have had stronger cyclists to pace myself off.

T2; 00:00:55

The quickest bike to run transition was done in 27 seconds. This would imply that I could have gone faster, but I was half a second faster than the winner, a guy who raced in the Beijing Olympics. I don’t think I’ll ever be half a second quicker than an Olympian, at anything, ever again, so I can take a small bit of pride in my time.

Run 12km; 00:50:46

It was an out and back run and was pretty uneventful. I started off the run feeling okay, but after 1 km I could feel the slight start of stitch setting in. It’s been a long time since I had been trying to run 12km at <4.00/km and I was fearful I hadn’t hydrated properly on the bike. I just concentrated on holding form and thankfully the feeling went away.

I passed a 4km sign when I saw the race leader coming in the opposite direction. In another few minutes the guy in second place appeared. Five minutes went by and the runners passing on the opposite side of the road appeared more frequently. I counted 10 runners, before stopping and concentrating on my own race.

I reached the turn around and decided against taking one of the gels I was carrying. I grabbed a cup of water though and gulped down the only water I had over the run. I was slower than I thought I’d be getting to this point, so I pushed on and told myself to pick up the pace for the second half. This didn’t really work though, and though I don’t have splits to hand, I’d be pretty sure the second half of my run was only marginally faster than the first.

I’d passed about 20 or 30 people on the run and when the finishing arch came into view I saw one other guy ahead of me I thought I could catch. I pushed hard and he turned around to see me approaching quickly. Instead of putting up a fight for the place though, he just dropped to the side and let me pass him. It probably saved us both from making a spectacle of ourselves at the finish, but I would have liked to have been forced to dig a bit deeper for the place.

I was hoping for a sub 48 minute run, but only one guy managed this and it wasn’t the Olympian, so I’m not sure how realistic I was being. Still I never once felt like I was running quickly, and despite wanting to I wasn’t able to go any faster on the day. I did have the 3rd fastest run split, the fastest was a Thai who has already raced in both Las Vegas and Kona, and the second was the Austrian Olympian. But I wasn’t particularly close to matching either of their times and knowing nothing about the other people I was competing with, being the third fastest runner on the day doesn’t tell me much.

All in all I’m not overly happy about the race. I do feel I could have done better. It did come at the end of a hard three weeks’ training though and it was never a target race for me. It was nice to compete in my first triathlon in almost 9 months, and while as I said already I’m not overly happy, I’m not too disappointed either.

zico10

Bambaata wrote: »

Fair play to you Zico! If ever i feel i have horrible conditions to train in ill just need to think of you! Looking forward to the report.

Thanks Bambaata, it's good to know someone of your calibre is taking an interest in this log.

I'm sure people train in far more horrible conditions than me.

Swimming's certainly not ideal, but with non wetsuit swims, and no group sessions over here I was never expecting my swim to be awesome. I don't want to be giving up too much time, but thankfully the swim is less important in a HIM.

@ Kurt Godel

I'm sorry to do this, but it's well past my bedtime here and I'll wait until tomorrow to answer you. It's not as simple a question for me as you might think.

Dory Dory

Well done, zico. I think you did a fabulous job!!!

zico10

Kurt Godel wrote: »

Hey zico, I enjoyed reading your Sub 10 IM training thread last year. Comparing the sort of sessions you were discussing on it, to now, how far off that sort of form are you now? Is the goal to get back there?

I'm still a bit off sub 10 shape I'd say. I think I'd be close enough to my race day bike split if I were to have a bash at 180km tomorrow. But I'd still need another few months to get back to where I was with my run. And a few months might not even do it. Coming up to my ironman race, I'd nearly 4 years of consistent running done. In addition to triathlons, I'd trained for 4 marathons in the three years prior to Challenge Copenhagen. I had a lot of running miles built up and this stood to me for the IM marathon.
As a comparison to now, it's been two years since Challenge Copenhagen, and I'd say my combined mileage in this 2 year period would be similar enough to what I ran in any one of the three years from August 2007 to August 2010.

I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to have a slow swim in Phuket. I'm hoping a fast bike and run will compensate. There's nobody here to train with and I really feel that my swimming is the one thing that will only improve in a group session. I was never a super fast swimmer anyway, and even if wetsuits were allowed, I would not see myself being capable of holding the same pace for 1.9km as I was for 3.8km in August 2010.

I plan to train just as hard and just as often as I did for my ironman race, but I'm coming from a lower base. It'll be the first HIM race that has gotten 100% of my focus, and I want to be as well prepared as I possibly can be on race day. If it were a full iron distance and not a half, I'd be worried that I just wouldn't be able to build up my endurance to the required level in time. But because it's a 70.3, I'm not too concerned about this. I don't find the distances one bit daunting. It certainly won't be easy, but the way I see it is that it's just a case of getting each section over and done with as fast as I possibly can.

Ultimately I do see myself racing ironman distance again. If I was based in Ireland it's certainly what I'd be doing. And when that day comes, I'd definitely be looking to go faster than 9.47. I'm not sure if this answers your question, and who's to say if a HIM alone can tell much, but yes my goal is to get back to that sort of form.

Dory Dory

Question - why do you think your swim will only improve with a group session? (sincere question, no commentary behind it, just curiosity)

zico10

Dory Dory wrote: »

Question - why do you think your swim will only improve with a group session? (sincere question, no commentary behind it, just curiosity)

I just think having others in the lane keeps me focused. It could be just a mental thing, but when I was on my own I could never replicate what I'd be doing in group swims. Someone in my lane starting to tip my toes after only 50m would have the same affect as a kick up the backside. That never happens when you're swimming alone.

Dory Dory

Yeah, chasing or being chased are great motivators....so I get it. I train alone so sometimes I forget the benefits (other than boredom) of training with others.

shotgunmcos

Well done on the Tri Zico. Sounds like you had good company to chase. Thanks for the report too, good read.

@Dory, I find group swims better/easier too. Used to be the same for rowing. In a crew boat you would simply never stop, never quit

zico10

This is a recovery week, so any hard sessions I usually do will be typically reduced by 40%

Monday 20th August

Lunchbreak

Run; 5 minute warm up, 1 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery,1 minute @ interval pace, 5.40 minutes cool down

p.m.

Swim; Approximately 2,000m in the pool
I forget exactly what I did, but it was a mixture of drills and 100m off 2.10. I was interrupted in the middle of it by one of the staff telling me she was supposed to close the pool at 5. She was speaking Thai to me, this much and the fact she wanted to go home were all I understood. I tried explaining to her that I’d been told on a previous occasion that the pool would be open every day until 6 and that I’d arrived there at 5 and had already paid money expecting to get an hours’ swim done. I wasn’t getting through to her though and had to ring a Thai friend to explain all this to her.

Tuesday 21st August

Cycle; 30 minutes warm up, 8 minutes @ 37.7km/hr, 4 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ 40.2km/hr, 3 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ 37.8km.hr, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ 40.3km/hr, 10 minutes recovery, 8 minutes @ 38.3km/hr, 4 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ 39.9km/hr, 3 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ 39.4km/hr, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ 37.7km/hr, 30 minutes cool down
All the hard parts were done at a PE of 9. The average speed was influenced much more by road condition, etc. rather than the effort I was putting in.

After the race on Sunday, I think I need to get more used to running fast off the bike. From now on I plan to run 5km at race pace after every bike session I do. This being a recovery week I decided beginning today to just ease into it with 3km runs instead.
Run; 3.12km in 11.50

Wednesday 22nd August

Run; 16 minutes easy, 16 minutes @ .50/km, 16 minutes easy
The idea starting off was just to do an easy 48 minute run, which is 60% of the time of 80 minutes I gave to my longish runs during the first three weeks of the training. After about 5 minutes of running I decided this was going to be a boring way of spending 48 minutes, and felt there wouldn’t be any great harm in doing the middle third at pace. So this is what I did. I started earlier than I usually do and there were still a lot of walkers out. It required pushing things a small bit to get each of the four 1.04km laps done in less than 4 minutes.

Thursday 23rd August

3 hours 6 minutes cycle; 95.05km
18 being 60% of 30 was the logic I used in determining how long my HIM race paced efforts would be during my recovery week, so I did four 18 minutes efforts at race pace. Average pace; 1) 38.2km/hr 2) 37.8km/hr 3) 38.1km 4) 37.5km/hr

I did a run at race pace after the cycle. There was about a 20 minute gap between finishing my cycle and starting the run. I had similar feelings, like the onset of a stitch, which I had at the race on Sunday. It only lasted between 500m and 1km and then went away, so maybe all I need is more practise in running fast off a long bike. I’ll be better prepared the next time I do similar and plan to be out running in less than 10 minutes of getting off the bike.
Run; 3.12km in 11.39

Friday 24th August

1,000m O/W swim

40 minutes on turbo, easy gear @ 85/90rpm

Saturday 25th August

Run Intervals; 10 minute warm up (2.08km) & 15 minute drills
2.08km Interval x 3 @ interval pace (average pace 3.34/km)
0.76km cool down

Sunday 26th August

Cycle; 30 minutes warm up, 7 minutes hard (37.8km/hr), 4 minutes easy, 13 minutes hard (36.9km/hr), 7 minutes easy, 13 minutes hard (39.4km/hr), 7 minutes easy, 7 minutes hard (37.4km/hr), 30 minutes cool down
Run; within 10 minutes of finishing cycle, 3.12km @ race pace in 11.47

zico10

Monday 27th August

a.m.

45 minutes weights & core work

Lunch break

Run; 9 minutes warm up, 3 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 5 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 5 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 5 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 3 minutes @ interval pace, 5.36 cool down
13.20km

p.m.

Swim; 400m warm up, 6 x 75m kick, 50m easy, 500m drills, 100m easy,
10 x 100m off 2.05, I came in ahead of time each time, but rest was getting shorter as I went along, started cramping during the last rep and came in on 20.46
250m swim down

Tuesday 28th August

a.m.

Tempo Run; 10 minutes warm up, 20 minutes @ < 3.50/km, 10 minutes easy, 20 minutes @ .50/km, 5.48 minute cool down
I ran my usual loop, just slightly over 5 laps each time. During the first 20 minute stretch the first lap was significantly faster than the other 4, I eased up a bit and took a few seconds longer to complete each lap. During the second 20 minute stretch, the first three laps were all ran within 1 second of each other. I sped up a little bit for the last two, without having to expend any huge amount of extra energy.

Lunch break;

30 minute stretching and 30 minutes sleeping

p.m.

Turbo; 10 minutes warm up, (90 seconds highest gear, hardest level of resistance @ 60rpm & 90 seconds easy) x 12, 10 minutes cool down

Wednesday 29th August

a.m.

55 minutes turbo; 10 minutes warm up, (4.00 steady, 2.00 hard, 3.30 easy, 0.30 sprint) x 4, 5 minutes cool down

5.20km run in 19.29 within 5 minutes of finishing turbo

p.m.

Swim; 8 x 400m with 30 seconds rest, easy pace, 72 minutes

Thursday 30th August

Cycle; 125km in 4 hours 30 minutes

I took a different route to the road I’ve cycled for the last three weeks. This one involves quite a bit of climbing, and will be a lot more like what I’ll have to face in Phuket, as opposed to the practically totally flat road I do most of my cycles on.

Four 33 minute HIM race efforts. My computer was only intermittently picking up speeds over 46km/hr, which was really bugging me, but it wasn’t until after finishing the third effort that I sought to correct the problem. I’d switched the magnet onto a different wheel I used in the race last Sunday week and didn’t put it back on my training wheel correctly. This is the first time since I’ve hit such speeds though and it hadn’t been a problem before. The average speeds for the first three 33 minute splits are not accurate, but the fourth and final one is okay. Because of this there might not be much point posting them here, but at any rate this is what my computer read; 1) 31.7km/hr, 2) 28.9km/hr, 3) 30.8km/hr, 4) 33.8km/hr
It’ll mean cycling this road again next week, (which was my intention anyway) and see how much faster I can go.

5.20km run in 19.33 within 15 minutes of finishing cycle.
After over 4 hours on the bike, I was finding it hard to work up the determination to get back out and just get this run done, hence the 15 minute break in between. 4 seconds slower than yesterday, but it felt like more. Right now it would have been very hard to imagine keeping this pace up for another 5km, let alone 16. Anyway the first lap was the quickest. I was expecting to take one lap before I found my legs, so this was a bit of a surprise for me.
The run was done at around 2 o’clock in the afternoon. I normally would be out running at this time, and for the sake of 20 minutes to save on sunblock I wore a T-shirt instead of a vest. The temperature was already high, and wearing a T-shirt made it seem even hotter still. That will be my excuse for finding the 5 laps tougher than yesterday.

Friday 31st August

Run; 20.80km in 1.23.16 (average pace <4.01km)
I ate too much fruit about 2 hours before the run, and had to take a toilet break after 18km. It was a slight increase in pace from my previous longish runs, but the fact it wasn’t continuous annoys me.

Saturday 1st September

Brick; 28 minutes on turbo & 3.62km run off 47 minutes
I did the turbo bit in my apartment whilst half watching Liverpool and Arsenal on the telly. ‘Transition’ involved running down two flights of stairs before I was out on the road and was taking around two minutes. I’ve no accurate measure of how long it took me to do each run, but I was getting around 2 minutes rest after finishing one cycle and run.

Sunday 2nd September

850m O/W swim

Turbo; 15 minutes warm up, (5.00 hard, 2.30 recover) x 2, (10.00 hard, 5.00 recovery) x 2, (20.00 hard, 10.00 recovery) x 1, (10.00 hard, 5.00 recovery) x 2, (5.00 hard, 2.30 recover) x 2, 5 cool down

5.20km run within 5 minutes of finishing turbo, Completed in 19.33, which was the exact same time as Friday, but this was much later in the day and I felt much better throughout. I don’t know how important the splits for each 1.04km lap are, but I made an effort to remember them and for what it’s worth here they are; 1) 3.57, 2) 3.53, 3) 3.52, 4) 3.58, 5) 3.53

Bambaata

Seems like you're going well! What kind of effort was that 20.8k run??

zico10

Bambaata wrote: »

Seems like you're going well! What kind of effort was that 20.8k run??

Thanks, it would be nice if I could find a few more races to do, just to gauge things, but I'm happy so far with how the training has gone.

The run wasn't an all out effort, but I wasn't taking it easy either. I've no HRM so can't give you any stats from that, but it's an effort I want to be able sustain for the half marathon on race day. I wasn't obsessing about time or pace, but I would like to run 2 seconds per km quicker in Phuket. I'll keep the effort the same for all these longish runs and I'm expecting/hoping/wishing (take your pick) that my speed steadily increases with no extra effort over the next few months.

zico10

Monday 3rd September

a.m.

45 minutes weight & core work

Lunch break

Run; 9 minutes warm up, 3 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 5 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 5 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 3 minutes @ interval pace, 2.06 cool down

p.m.

Swim; 2,800m
400m warm up,
3 x 75m kick no board, 3 x 75m kick with board,
50 m full stroke,
100m left arm only, 100m right arm only, 100m catch up
100m full stroke,
100m, 200m, 400m, 200m, 100m off 2.00per 100 (I wouldn’t describe it as comfortable, but I managed to come in ahead of time for each of the splits)
100m easy
{50m sprint & 50 easy} x 2 {25m sprint & 25m easy} x 2
100m swim down

Tuesday 4th September

a.m.

Tempo Run; 8.00 warm up, 12.00 @ tempo pace, 6.00 easy, 20.00 @ tempo pace, 10.00 easy, 12.00 @ tempo pace, 6.29 cool down
Time; 1.14.29, Distance 17.68

p.m.

Cycle Intervals; Approximately 30 minutes warm up, 10 x 2km @ 20k TT pace out and back along same stretch of flat road, biggest gear both ways, splits; 1) 41.7km/hr, 2) 40.3km/hr, 3) 42.3km/hr, 4) 40.9km/hr, 5) 41.9km/hr, 6) 40.8km/hr, 7) 40.8km/hr, 8) 40.3km/hr, 9) 41.3km/hr, 10) 40.3km/hr
It’d be an entirely different matter holding this pace for 20km minus the rests, but happy I managed to keep them all over the magic number of 40km/hr. For the seventh rep I decided not to look at my computer, just to see if by concentrating on keeping my upper body perfectly still I’d still be able to maintain my speed with a very, very slight drop off in effort. Answer would seem to be ‘no’, but it felt like the wind decided to change direction for this one and only rep as well, so you never know!

Wednesday 5th September

a.m.

Turbo; The session was taken from turbotraining.co.uk, and I had the timer from this running on my laptop. I accidently closed the browser window in the middle of the session and I took closer to a 7 minute recovery than 5 in the middle of the set as I went searching for the session again.
10.00 warm up, 2.00 hard, 5.00 rest, 0.40 hard, 5.00 rest, 2.00 hard, 5.00 rest, 0.40 hard, 5.40 rest, 9.30 race pace, 0.30 sprint, 2.00 warm down
The warm down was meant to be 10 minutes, but I was going out running straight after finishing on the bike and didn’t see any point in spending so long cooling down.

Run 7 minutes after finishing turbo; 5.20km in 19.45
It took a bit longer than my last 5.20km run off the bike, but think it’s mainly because it was early in the morning and even after the turbo I didn’t feel fully awake.

p.m.

Swim; 400m warm up, then I tried for 7 x 400m off 8.00.
I started off okay, but things got fairly messed up towards the end. I came in on 39.50 or so, after the fifth effort, I’d completely lost concentration at this stage though and I thought I was after finishing the sixth 400m. I wasn’t able to see clearly through my goggles and thought my watch showed a time of 49.52. I was annoyed to have been so far away from 48.00 for 2,400m, and pushed off on what I thought was 50 minutes. After swimming 25m though I thought there was no possible way I could have been that far out and I then reckoned my watch must have been showing 39.52 and not 49.52. I finished off the 400m and realised this was indeed the case. I came in on 48.03, but I was spent and being already behind time I decided to take an adequate rest before pushing off again. This I did on 48.20, but the extra rest didn’t do much good for my next 400m and I came finished on 56.41.
I was banjaxed after finishing and stood up to see a woman at the poolside holding off a 6 inch cobra with a long pole. One of the pool staff was sent for and when he came in he was carrying a shorter stick. I imagined he was an experienced snake handler, who was going to capture the cobra and kindly set it free away from the pool, but instead he just smashed its skull in with the stick. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in a swimming pool, my head was still messed up from pushing hard in the swim, and I wasn’t 100% certain I wasn’t hallucinating. I decided to call time on things after this and didn’t bother with a swim down.

Thursday 5th September

Cycle; 121.26km with four 33 minute HIM race efforts
I cycled on the same hilly road as last week. I had no problems with my computer this week. Average pace for each of the HIM efforts, 1) 33.3km/hr, 2) 29.6km/hr, 3) 34.7km/hr, 4) 35.2km/hr
The wind was a factor today, and my two 33 minute HIM stints on the way back home were not done on the exact same stretch of road as going out, so it’s hard to make anything of the splits.

Run within 20 minutes of finishing cycling; 5.20kmin 19.10 (avg speed .42/km), the fastest time yet I’ve done this 5.20km in off the bike. I won’t get too excited though as there had been a 20 minute gap, and think I need a few more similar times in similar scenarios so as to be sure it’s a pace I can hold consistently.

Friday 7th September

a.m.

45 minutes weights & core work

p.m.

Run; 20.80km @ race pace, completed in 1.21.46 (avg pace .56/km)


My average pace was 5 seconds per kilometre quicker than last week, I have it under 4.00/km as well, which ideally is where I want it come race day. Along with the run off the long bike yesterday things seem to heading in the right direction. Hopefully there’ll be no slipping backwards when I attempt the same runs next week.

Saturday 8th September

Brick;{23 minutes on turbo & 1.04km run off 30 minutes} x 5
I’ve no accurate measure of either. Was spinning a medium/high gear at about 85rpm and from what I can remember by glancing at my stopwatch before and after each lap I was running at about 3.50/km.

Sunday 9th September

O/W swim; approximately 2,000m