Help me up off the plateau!

gofasterdad

Tuesday Morning

I always take a quick look at the next mornings turbo session to see what I have in store, I was a little shocked when I saw plan for today's workout.

Trainerroad session "Gendarme" :

30 seconds @ 120% FTP
30 seconds recovery
Repeat 40 times


I thought this session was going to really test me, but I actually found it very manageable.

gofasterdad

Wednesday Morning
Weights session in the gym

Wednesday Lunchtime
sun is shining, blue skies, perfect day for a run.. I went to get changed and realised that I forgot to pack my shorts. I briefly considered heading out in just the Nike undershorts but i'd never live it down if the lads spotted me going out through reception

I will try to squeeze in a run this evening to make up for it.

gofasterdad

Wednesday evening
just an 8k run around the block before dinner. The garmin battery was low, so I just ran for enjoyment without looking at cadence / time / speed. The footpaths were busy with loads of runners / walkers. It's interesting to see the difference in different areas of the city, I am living in an area with a reasonably young age profile, lots of young families etc and there is great life around every evening wiht people walking / running and kids on bikes etc, my parents live in an area with a much older age profile, lots of retired people etc. and I see hardly anyone walking / running around in the evening. I much rather living in an area with lots of active people as it encourages you to get out there yourself.

Thursday morning
60 mins on the Turbo, including 27 mins of under-overs :eek:.

I did some good mornings yesterday in the gym, nothing crazy, just an empty bar but my hamstrings can really feel it today. I would love to have more time to do some proper deadlifting / squatting and also some yoga. Maybe when the kids are older I will have some more time, but for now I want to spend as much time as possible with them and that means doing my training at the crack of dawn so I can spend my evenings with them.

gofasterdad

Friday Morning
masters Swim session

Friday Lunchtime
11.7k run, no time as I forgot to charge the Garmin, just ran on feel and it felt slow.

gofasterdad

Saturday morning

90 mins on the Turbo including 50 mins of Under-overs (3mins @95%, 2mins:@105%)

I always find under-overs quite tough.. it's because you think you are going to get a break during the "under" segment, but it's still 95% of FTP so it's not really a break. The tired legs when carrying the kids upstairs later that night left me in no doubt that I had worked hard.

Monday Morning
Masters swim session.

gofasterdad

Tuesday Morning
60 mins on the Turbo, an unusual workout today
[ 15 seconds @ 150% , 15 seconds recovery] repeat 64 times
This might be more useful for road racing which involves lots of surges & breaks etc rather than triathlon which is more like a solo time trial. I enjoyed the change in pace though.

Tuesday Lunchtime
11.7k run in 48.34 a new PB

I found some great tunes on the mp3 player and just got myself really in the zone, the run finishes with a long drag for about 1k, I just charged up the hill powered by some good old fashioned hardcore rave / techno. A great feeling, I loved it.

gofasterdad

Wednesday Morning
Weights session in the gym

Thursday Morning
60 mins on the Turbo, this was a tough enough session, 5 * 4 mins @ 105% FTP with each 4 min block preceded by 3*15 seconds @ 200% FTP. basically it was a few short hard sprints followed by 4 mins of holding the power above threshold.

gofasterdad

Thursday Lunchtime
11.7k run in 51:00 took it handy enough today as the legs were still a little tired from this mornings bike session.

I passed a few teachers taking students out for a lunchtime run today which was great to see. They were running a bit then walking a bit, and a lot of them were struggling, but fair play to the teachers for being proactive and getting the students out and about in the fresh air, we need a lot more of this type of activity in schools.

gofasterdad

Friday Morning
Masters Swim session

gofasterdad

Saturday Morning
90mins on the Turbo

Sunday / Monday Family time

Tuesday Morning
60 mins on the Turbo

Wednesday Morning
weights session in the gym

I forgot my running gear today so no lunchtime run.

gofasterdad

Thursday Morning
60 mins Turbo on the bike.. more Under Overs

Thursday Lunchtime
long easy run.. 11.7k Had to take a few diversions as there were trees down everywhere.

gofasterdad

Friday Morning
I slept through the alarm and was woken up 20 mins later by my wife asking me if I was going swimming. I got there 15 mins late but it was surprise T20 day and the first half of the club were in the water and the other half were counting their laps. I got in for the second round and recorded a 1200m.

I haven't been doing a huge amount of swimming so I didn't expect a great result, but it's still dissapointing to be 75m short of my PB of 1275

The weather is supposed to turn fairly bad here later this morning, but the plan is to get out for a lunchtime run.

gofasterdad

Friday Lunchtime
12.5k run in 55 mins. the riverbank was muddy and slippy and still blocked in a few places due to fallen trees.

gofasterdad

Saturday Morning
90 mins on the Turbo.

Sunday
My wife was doing a local 10k, so I took the kids in the buggy and met her at various stages in the race to cheer her on. It was an unusual feeling being the spectator for once, but I really enjoyed the morning with the kids.

Monday Morning
Masters swim session
Earlier this morning, it was looking unlikely I would get out for the lunchtime run as work is busy, but a gap seems to have opened up and if it still open at 12 o'clock, i'll be out the door like a shot

gofasterdad

Monday Lunchtime
Run completed. My right achilees / calf tightened up after about 7 k, it wasn't hugely sore but definitley tight. not wanting to take a chance, I eased off on the pace and cut it short at 10k.

gofasterdad

Tuesday Morning
30 mins on the turbo trainer, called it quits at the 30 minute mark as there was just no power in my legs. both my wife and daughter have a bit of a bug at the moment. so I said there was little to be achieved in pushing a workout that my body clearly did not want to do.

Wednesday morning
weights session in the gym. I seem to be back to full strength again. no running today as I want to rest my calf for another day or two. It feels much better, but there's still a little tightness there. I want to do the Limerick duathlon on Sunday so I will forego a lunchtime run or two in order to make a full recovery.

gofasterdad

Thursday morning
60 mins on the Turbo, including 4 * 10 mins @ 95-99% FTP. there was a 5 second sprint every two mins but I left that out and just focused on holding steady power.

The calf feels a lot better, i'm not going to test it yet. but it's looking good for Sunday.

gofasterdad

Friday Morning

Awake since 4 a.m. with one extremely chatty and restless 2 year old, she eventually went to sleep at 6.15, exactly 5 mins before my alarm went off

Swimming went well. I felt really strong, i haven't felt this strong in ages. there was a good bit of sprinting, fast starts / finishes etc and I felt like I could just turn on the power and it felt great. i think going back to the gym has really helped me regain a bit of strength. I still fade over the longer stuff, but for those short sprints I really felt good in the water and I havent felt good in the water in a while.

looking forward to the Duathlon on Sunday, if the calf holds up I will give it a good lash, especially on the bike.

gofasterdad

Sunday February 24, 2014 : limerick Duathlon

Duathlon Race Report:

Last Year I came 15th in a time of 55:31, this year, I was hoping for a better time, but with the national duathlon series, I expected a stronger field.

Warmup:
I didn't have a huge amount of time for a warmup - it sounds crazy, but I was worried about my calf and I didn't want to blow it in the warm-up. I wanted to start the race at least.

Run 1:
As usual, the run started off at a crazy pace, rather than try to battle it out at the front I held back and ran a decent but steady pace. Coming down the hill towards the end, I spotted one of the lads from the swim club and upped the pace the pace a little to overtake him.

Run 1 4k : 13.16 (26th place)


Bike
It was my first time using the elastics on the bike shoes and it worked great, I used the slow downhill section to tie the straps and went hell for leather when I hit the open road. There was a stiff headwind / cross wind on the way out, which, combined with a slight incline made for tough work. I was really feeling the effort at this stage, but I was catching and overtaking the guys ahead and they looked like they were feeling it too, so I said at least it's not just me and pushed on even harder just so they wouldn't be tempted to stay with me.

After the turnaround, the wind was on my back and that extra little bit of speed just felt great. At this point I thought to myself, the intensity was a little lower than what I know I can hold on trainerroad, so I dropped a gear and pushed harder again and soon I was pushing up through the field again. Anytime I felt myself relax I just thought of all those mornings on trainerroad and I kept the intensity as high as I could bear. It worked, because I came off the bike in 6th position with the second fastest bike split overall!

Run 2
I knew this was going to be tough, and it didn't dissapoint. I was pretty chuffed with myself to be this far up in the field, my wife and two kids were standing on the hill on the way down which gave me a bit of a boost as my wife looked really proud . A little further down the hill, I was being shown the two lads ahead of me and given instructions to "stay with them!, stay with them!"

I genuinely did try to stay with them, I really did, but it just wasn't going to happen. This was more about damage limitation, than anything else. All I could do was keep the cadence high, use my arms and hold on. In the end, I lost 9 places on the run to finish 15th overall.


Run 1 2013 13:58
Run 1 2013 12:36
Run 1 Improvement 1:22



Bike 2013 25:14
Bike 2014 23:19
Bike Improvement 1:55


Run 2 2013 15:23
Run 2 2014 13:38
Run 2 improvement 1:45

Overall 2013 55:54
Overall 2014 50:57
overall Improvement 4:57

Summary:
I'm very very pleased with this. During the race I was a bit dissapointed with my performance on the run. Particularly because I felt I had made great improvements recently, but on the day, it felt awful to see the guys ahead pull away and not be able to do anything about it. But now, when I look at the times compared to last year, I can see a huge result from all my effort and I know I have come a long way.

When I was out on the bike, I knew I was doing well, but to get the second fastest bike split on the day was fantastic. It's even more satisfying because I was riding a basic aluminium road bike with a basic cheap wheelset. Thank you Trainerroad. My wife is pushing me to buy a TT bike, but I need to get the house renovations done and kids bedrooms finished before I can think about a luxury like that.

Next Race: Tralee Half Marathon, for the annual Family race, 8 of us have entered to battle it out for the much coveted "Fastest Kelly" Coffee Mug.

pgibbo

Nice improvements there. Fair play! :cool:

catweazle

gofasterdad wrote: »

My wife is pushing me to buy a TT bike, but I need to get the house renovations done and kids bedrooms finished before I can think about a luxury like that.

Permission from the wife :eek::eek::eek:

Buy it - don't worry about the kids sure it will harden them up

gofasterdad

catweazle wrote: »

Permission from the wife :eek::eek::eek:

Buy it - don't worry about the kids sure it will harden them up

Ha, maybe you're right catweazle. She has been on at me for while now to get one. Reminds me of a piece of furniture in my parents house called "your fathers racing bike". Years ago, My father had saved up for a racing bike, but ended up donating the entire fund to my mother who had fallen in love with a piece of furniture at an auction. That piece of furniture is still referred to as "your fathers racing bike" to this day. The real racing bike was eventually bought and went strong for thirty / forty odd years until it was stolen a couple of years ago.

gofasterdad

Monday Morning
Masters swim session - at the end of the session, half the club were doing diving practise for an upcoming masters event so I jumped into the fast lane for 3 * 200 & 5*100 with the faster swimmers. I hung on to the back of the group but was reasonably happy with my form at a higher pace than usual.

Tuesday morning
60 mins on the Turbo. this week is a relatively light week on TR, as there is a new FTP test coming up next Tuesday.

Tuesday Lunchtime
9.5k easy run.. 45 mins. At the start of the run, the legs were still feeling the effects of Sunday's exertions but felt much better at the end.

gofasterdad

Wednesday Morning
Weights session: The strength is definitley returning, starting to move up to heavier weights.

wednesday lunchtime
Lunchtime run, 11.7k 50:48
I took this one handy enough as I am having a relatively light week. finished strong for the last 1k. perfect conditions, nice and cool, bright and blustery.

gofasterdad

Thursday Morning
30 mins on the Turbo. The laptop insisted on installing windows 8.1 halfway through the session and would not take no for an answer.. After a couple mins waiting I realised it was going to be a long long process so went to the kitchen and did some foam rolling instead.

Thursday Lunchtime
Slow easy run.. I was going to take today off running but I was reading an article yesterday about the importance of slow running and I realised that I never really run slowly.. 90% of my runs are fairly high effort and about 10% are medium effort. So, today I set the Eagles playing and went out to enjoy an easy run in the sun.."Take it easy" never sounded so good.
8k in 42 mins.

gofasterdad

Friday
Felt awful on thursday evening with a stomach bug, was so close to puking, so no training on either Friday or Saturday.

Monday Morning
Masters Swim Session

Monday Lunchtime
Lunchtime run : 11.7k in 50:04 - felt fine throughout but a little queasy when I tried (and failed) to eat dinner afterwards.


Tuesday Morning : FTP Test

September 2013 : 265
November 2013 : 274
January 2014 : Test did not save correctly, no FTP calculated .
March 2014 : 282

I'm satisfied with that result, I thought I might get 285, but 282 it is. A 6.5% improvement since September sounds good to me.

gofasterdad

Tuesday Lunchtime

Slow recovery run, 8 or 9 k in around 45 mins

Wednesday Morning
Weights


Thursday Morning
60 mins on the Turbo including 4 * 10 mins at 100% FTP with 2 mins recovery

gofasterdad

Thursday Lunchtime

11.7k Run at a handy enough pace

Friday Morning
Tough pool session
2*400
6*200
8*100


Friday Lunchtime
I considered not going running but as there wasn't a cloud in the sky I headed out for another 11.7k run at an easy pace.

gofasterdad

Saturday Morning
90 mins on the Turbo. including 5 * 10 mins at 92-112% FTP: Tough session, really had to dig in for the last 10 mins

I have the Tralee half-marathon on Sunday, I am doing it as part of a family group and would not be doing it otherwise, I have not run over 12 k in training.. My brothers are far faster and each of them have done a couple of half-marathons already this year. This makes it a little easier as there is little point in me trying to compete against them, I will treat it as a longer than usual training run. No point in going all out and doing myself some injury which would negate all my hard work to date.

Monday Morning
Masters Swim session

gofasterdad

Tuesday Morning

60mins on the Turbo including 3*12 mins at 95-99% FTP holding the Aero position.

No Lunchtime run today, despite my relaxed attitude towards sundays half-marathon, I still want to do it on a reasonably fresh pair of legs. It will be tough to just let the brothers off at the start, my plan is to treat it like two 10k runs, a nice relaxed one to start and a faster second one. That's the plan but I've no idea what i'm like at that distance so maybe my legs will seize up at 18k and I'll have to walk to the end.

I have a tough turbo session planned for Saturday morning.. my wife thinks I am mad to even consider it, but it's an important session towards a more important goal for me.