The difficult second album

Kurt Godel

Great start to the season for you. Don't beat up too much about the swim, unless the first guy would have given you a great tow, thats a solid time. Very difficult to know where to place at this stage of the season, lane etiquette goes out the window in a pool tri.

joey100

Cheers Folks, yep plenty to take from the tri. Happy with how it went but plenty of room to improve, has helped the motivation.

Monday 6th April

Evening easy run. This was going to be a bit of a test to see how the legs where feeling after the race. 40 mins easy. Legs felt good, not too tired at all and no real soreness or stiffness. Pace was a lot better than recently with it sticking around 4.50 min kilometres and the heart rate right in the middle of the easy zone. Lovely evening for it too, nice to be back running in shorts and t shirt.

Tuesday 7th April

Bit of a change to the usual timetable this week sees me in the pool Tuesday and Thursday morning. So up nice and early and at the pool for a quarter to seven only to find out that some of the roof had started to cave in so the pool was closed. They reckon it will be sorted in a few hours so should be able to get it done after work, just means I'll have a swim and a bike close together today but should be grand. Have to give the pool a shout in a while to see if it gets sorted though, would have been nice to have known beforehand and been able to stay in bed!

joey100

Tuesday 7th April

Finally got to the pool. Bit of a warm up then into main set of 10 X 100 with 15 second rest between, aiming for best average pace. Tried to push it a bit more than the last one I done and was bit shocked to see pace for first one come in at 1.30. This meant it was going to be tough to keep the pace up and I would probably drift out but I said I'd give it a go anyway. All of them came in between 1.29-1.31 with the last 2/3 starting to get bit tough. Really pleased with that swim, had the whole pool to myself so no drafting at all and still not fully swim fit. One thing I really worked on that had been said to me before by interested was keeping my kick going, I have a tendency to ease off on the kick as the 100 goes on, start too fast and then let it die off. I've a pretty good kick and when it's going well it really helps with my body position and gives me a bit of speed too. It really clicked today and is something I'll keep working on now. Don't usually get out of the pool feeling great about a swim session but this was one of the few times.

Evening turbo session. The downside to all this good weather is that it gets warmer and warmer so tougher and tougher on the turbo. For tough interval sessions I don't think you can beat the turbo really, everything is the same every time so I'm going to have to stick with it and put up with the heat. tough session tonight, bit of a warm up then into 10 X 1 min hard, 1 min easy but trying to keep the hard consistent across all ten. Was aiming for 300 watts and then would push on depending on how they were going, was pretty confident I could hold that across all ten. Ended up hitting at least 310 for each interval. The last 2/3 the legs were starting to really hurt and the power was dropping as they went on. Not sure how strong that is but would be around 135% of FTP so I was working! Good Days training done.

pointer28

joey100 wrote: »

The downside to all this good weather is that it gets warmer and warmer so tougher and tougher on the turbo.

Same here, nearly melted yesterday on the turbo so bought this as soon as I climbed off. 16" and puts out a good strong breeze, longevity remains to be seen but for €30 and readily available I thought it was worth a gamble .

http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/4251831/Trail/searchtext%3EFAN.htm

joey100

Cheers Pointer, I've been using this one,

http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/4250090/Trail/searchtext%3EFANS.htm

It's nice alright but think I might be on the lookout for another one, I have a little stand for it that puts it right at head height but with no air flow in the room sometimes it seems to just move warm air around. New house has an outside plug so should be able to do some of the turbos in the back garden with a fan so hoping that's not as bad.

pointer28

Look's a bit sturdier than mine alright but it was a "spur of the moment, buy the first thing that comes to hand" kind of purchase.

Who knows, might need another in a few weeks.

joey100

Wed 8th April

Legs were a bit tired after the bike on Tuesday so was happy it was only an easy run today. Pace a bit slower then usual but heart rate where I wanted it. Done later than I would have liked because I had to go try the new club gear on for size, club have gone with shadow this year and the kit looks nice.

Thurs 9th April

Morning swim. Got to the pool and noticed that the clasp on my garmin was broke, needed it for the swim so tried to work around it but in the end the simplest thing was to stick the watch down my shorts and use it that way. Pretty much the same session as Tuesday but todays 10 X 100 were using the pull. Again aiming for consistent times, times came in from 1.38-1.42, some of the slower ones where more to do with struggling to find the stop button on the watch than being that much slower. Wider range in times than when swimming normally. Around 8/9 seconds slower per 100 too, but never felt really really pushed. Will have to fix the garmin later, not sure how long I would last before they throw me out of the pool for sticking my hands down my shorts at the start and end of every 100m interval. Good thing the pool was empty!

joey100

Who knows, might need another in a few weeks

I'm half looking for another one myself, don't think you can have too many fans on the turbo. I would like a remote control one, so that as the intervals get harder you can higher the fan. Bit easier in the winter too, can be a bit cold at the start with the fan on, remote control make it easy to turn it on when you need it, not sure they even exist though!

MD1983

joey100 wrote: »

Wed 8th April

Will have to fix the garmin later, not sure how long I would last before they throw me out of the pool for sticking my hands down my shorts at the start and end of every 100m interval. Good thing the pool was empty!

try it when the aqua aerobics class is on for the grannies...!

MD1983

from 1.30 per 100m normal to 1.38 per 100m with the pully bouy suggests that you dont get a great benefit from a wetsuit or would that not be the case for you?

tunney

joey100 wrote: »

I'm half looking for another one myself, don't think you can have too many fans on the turbo. I would like a remote control one, so that as the intervals get harder you can higher the fan. Bit easier in the winter too, can be a bit cold at the start with the fan on, remote control make it easy to turn it on when you need it, not sure they even exist though!

MD1983 wrote: »

from 1.30 per 100m normal to 1.38 per 100m with the pully bouy suggests that you dont get a great benefit from a wetsuit or would that not be the case for you?

The two sessions and the comparison is something rather telling. Confirms a suspicion and will guide training in the pool.

joey100

suggests that you dont get a great benefit from a wetsuit or would that not be the case for you

Yep, definitely. First season I was getting out of the water with people I would normally lap in the pool. Second season a bit better, last season I cut the legs on my wetsuit to up around the knee and found it better again. Still see people knock huge times off their pool swims when wearing a wetsuit outside compared to me. Think my PB over Olympic is around 23.30, I've done around 1200m in the pool in a 20 min test so not really inline with each other.

joey100

Thurs 9th April

Easy hour on the turbo. I thought the power wasn't as high as normal but looking back on it seems to be around where it should be. Legs could still feel Tuesday's turbo in them though.

Fri 10th April

Was at a wedding down in Wexford so stayed the night with Laura's parents. This run was done nice and early. No real flat ground, they live on the side of mount Leinster so didn't really bother with pace. Plan was warm up then 10 X 30 seconds hard, 1.30 steady. I pushed as hard as I could for the hard bits, sometimes flat, sometimes downhill but seemed to be mainly uphill. Steady bits pace was a bit out but heart rate was where I needed it. Tough session made tougher by the hills.

Sat 11th April

Still down in Wexford so long cycle was done down there. Late night after the wedding so was later than planned getting out. First long spin on the TT bike in a while. Plan was 1hr easy, 3 X (20 @ 240Watts, 10 easy). Had a pretty horrible cross wind for most of this. Left Bunclody headed towards Enniscorthy and then on towards Rosslare. Easy power felt good, legs were ok and apart from the winds it was enjoyable enough. The hard sections where miles off where I needed them to be. I don't know why really, just couldn't get the power near where it should have been. Was over 20 watts out on each interval. Took a bit of a longer break after the second one, was just coming into Enniscorthy and didn't want to start it there but even that didn't help. First session I've finished not feeling good in a while now.

Sun 12th April

Long run. 1 hr easy, 20 mins steady, 10 easy. Legs were a bit tired for this but was pleased with how comfortable it was. Easy pace around 4.50, steady pace a bit out from normal at around 4.25 but felt very comfortable and felt in total control. Covered around 19.25km in 1hr 31mins so a good session done.

Mon 13th April

Start of a recovery week and a day off. Has come at the right time, the legs felt pretty tired this morning and was happy I wasn't going to the pool.

joey100

Tuesday 14th April

Easy 45 mins on the turbo. First time using the Elite Muin since I got it. It's definitely quieter than the Lemond, not quite as realisitic feel but far better than any other turbo I've used.

Wed 15th April

Had to move my morning swim to Thursday so was only a half hour easy run. Done this sockless in new racing flats I bought recently. Wanted to try them out before a race. lovely to run in but bit of problem with the tongue not fully covering the laces at the very bottom so bit of a bloody foot from that. I'll re-lace them differently to get that sorted. Lovely shoe to run in though, nice and light. Was absolutely flying this evening, easy pace was coming in at around 4.45 and below pace. Everything felt so easy, could do with a few more runs like that!

Thurs 16th April

Early morning swim. Lot's of 4 sets of 60m. Lots and lots of them. Felt decent in the water, not great but getting better. Plenty of pull buoy work too so nothing too hard on the legs. Another turbo session later.

mossym

the muin is a nice turbo isn't it? don't regret the purchase for a second, and have mine a few months now

joey100

Yep definitely is, takes a few mins for it to get going but is very nice. It's going to be going in a spare bedroom in the new house, the only bedroom that actually joins the neighbours house so needed something quieter than the Lemond. Does the job perfectly, and a lot nicer than all the other turbos I've used. The OH is happy too, with 2 turbos means they can be used together. Tuesday's turbo was done together watching some of the gold coast ITU race, if she's happy it makes it that bit easier getting time to train.

joey100

Fri 17th April

Another early morning swim. Felt bit better than on Thurs morning but just feel a bit flat all week. It's been like this across swim, bike and run but that's normal enough for the week that's in it.

Evening run. 30 mins easy with 5 X 20 second builds. Legs felt decent for this, easy pace is really after jumping in the last week or two, gone from around 5.00 to 4.45 for pretty much the same heart rate. Good to see improvements, legs struggled to get going for the builds and they didn't reach any sort of fast speeds.

Sat 18th April

Long-ish easy cycle. 2.5 hours nad kept it nice and easy. Threw in a few hills but nothing major. Was moving nicely until I got to the coast and had a headwind for around 10km. Tough going into it but just kept it nice and easy. Legs felt good. Surprised to see my average cadence was in the high 60's when I got home. Used to be that it wouldn't be far off 100. around 72 km done.

Sun 19th April

Easy run again. 1 hour. I run a lot of the same routes, doesn't really bother me and means I have a fair idea where the kilometres end and what sort of time I would normally be at at certain points along the run. Today I was around 1.10 ahead of my times that I would have been doing in Jan/Feb. Heart rate was a good bit lower and legs felt great. All in all an easy paced run. Around 12.5km done in the hour.

Mon 20th April

Early morning swim. And a long one. Bit of a warm up into main set of 3 X 320m pull off 6.00. Swimming with a pull buoy I'm always slower. These came in around 5.50 ish. Never under huge pressure but don't think I could have gone much faster. Maybe my lack of upper body strength needs to be worked on?? Having a chat with the coach over next day or two so I'll find out. After this was into 6 X 100m steady off 2 min. These came in between 1.38-1.40 and felt comfortable. When I go straight from pull buoy back to swimming I find that my kick is a bit all over the place. Happened here again, took 1 or 2 of the 100's to get back into a rhythm. Altogether around 3400m done for my longest swim in a while.

rodneyr1981

joey100 wrote: »

Fri 17th April

Another early morning swim. Felt bit better than on Thurs morning but just feel a bit flat all week. It's been like this across swim, bike and run but that's normal enough for the week that's in it.

Evening run. 30 mins easy with 5 X 20 second builds. Legs felt decent for this, easy pace is really after jumping in the last week or two, gone from around 5.00 to 4.45 for pretty much the same heart rate. Good to see improvements, legs struggled to get going for the builds and they didn't reach any sort of fast speeds.

Sat 18th April

Long-ish easy cycle. 2.5 hours nad kept it nice and easy. Threw in a few hills but nothing major. Was moving nicely until I got to the coast and had a headwind for around 10km. Tough going into it but just kept it nice and easy. Legs felt good. Surprised to see my average cadence was in the high 60's when I got home. Used to be that it wouldn't be far off 100. around 72 km done.

Sun 19th April

Easy run again. 1 hour. I run a lot of the same routes, doesn't really bother me and means I have a fair idea where the kilometres end and what sort of time I would normally be at at certain points along the run. Today I was around 1.10 ahead of my times that I would have been doing in Jan/Feb. Heart rate was a good bit lower and legs felt great. All in all an easy paced run. Around 12.5km done in the hour.

Mon 20th April

Early morning swim. And a long one. Bit of a warm up into main set of 3 X 320m pull off 6.00. Swimming with a pull buoy I'm always slower. These came in around 5.50 ish. Never under huge pressure but don't think I could have gone much faster. Maybe my lack of upper body strength needs to be worked on?? Having a chat with the coach over next day or two so I'll find out. After this was into 6 X 100m steady off 2 min. These came in between 1.38-1.40 and felt comfortable. When I go straight from pull buoy back to swimming I find that my kick is a bit all over the place. Happened here again, took 1 or 2 of the 100's to get back into a rhythm. Altogether around 3400m done for my longest swim in a while.

Hi Joey,
That's a big difference in cadence. You trying to bring it down? What would you typically race olypic/HIM at? Sorry for questions it just something playing with at moment too. Cheers

joey100

When I started with the new coach one thing he noticed was that my cadence would normally have been very high. Low90's -mid 90's. Worked on lowering it since October really. Up to now that would have been my cadence for everything, I'd say majority of races where in that zone.

Only done one race so far with the new lower cadence, bike time was bit slower, that wasn't down to cadence though that was from 5 weeks off the bike. Did find though that my run time was similar to last year including the 5 weeks off. Seems to put less pressure on heart rate, similar power with a higher cadence sees me having a fair bit higher heart rate.

Still experimenting a bit with it myself, Saturdays cycle was particularly low. There was a few climbs where I stayed seated and tired to put out a bit more power. Have been averaging mid 70's and I'd say that is where it will be for most of my races this year. Seems to be a nice balance between power and energy used.

tunney

rodneyr1981 wrote: »

Hi Joey,
That's a big difference in cadence. You trying to bring it down? What would you typically race olypic/HIM at? Sorry for questions it just something playing with at moment too. Cheers

Other thing about cadence is its typically zeroed. In that if you coast down hills that brings the reported average down. Whereas the non-zeroed - or just the average for when you pedalled - then I suspect that would be higher.

joey100

That makes sense. On the turbo it's being averaging around low 70's and there was some free wheeling on Sat cycle so that would be a good reason for the low average cadence. See this is why I have a coach, somebody who knows what they are talking about!

Kurt Godel

What sort of cadence to you do your BG sessions on the turbo joey?

joey100

Haven't done any in a while but back when I did them they were around 68, but that was when I was only starting to lower the cadence. Usually spin around 73/75 on the turbo, and isn't too different outside. Still have a habit of spinning up hills so sometimes that can raise a bit.

joey100

Mon 21st April

Easy run after work. 45 mins running, around 9.5km done. Even though the heart rate and pace was decent it was a slog the whole way around. Never felt comfortable and found it difficult to get moving. Positive is that even though it felt like that the pace was good. Chat with the coach after this about the plan to for Carlow, looking forward to it, this has been my first 6 week uninterrupted block of training since November. Going to be 2 relatively tough weeks and then prepping for the race. Thought the week looked tougher when I got it emailed to me alright, some tough bike sessions to come. As well as trying to get into open water, don't like the cold water!

joey100

Tues 22nd April

Evening turbo session. This one looked like a tough one when I got it so wasn't looking forward to it. Plan was for warm up then 5 X 6 mins @ between 110%-120% with 4min recovery. Plan was to aim for the lower end of these, bike stuff has been tough recently so wasn't sure I could hit the numbers and finish them all. So aiming for 250w, hit above 255 for all of them. Was nice and in control for the lot, last 2 were tough though. Good turbo session, new 1 hr power record too.

Wed 23rd April

Morning swim. So after a bit of a chat with the coach he gave me a few drills to work on to try and improve. Warm up then 5 X 100m with broom. After this was 15 X 100 with 15 sec recovery. When I took away the broom I noticed that when I tire I really start to cross over, makes the whole body snake and slows me down. Really concentrated on the stroke and not crossing and seemed to work. Broke it down mentally into 3 X (5 X 100). First 5 averaged 1.37-1.38, second 5 around 1.36-1.37 and third 5 around 1.35-1.36. These were all mod, so never flat out . After this was 4 X 60m fast, coming in between 55-57. Good session done in the pool.

joey100

Wed 23rd April

Evening run session. Felt a lot better tonight than I did on Monday but still not very fluid. 20 mins easy, coming in around 4.45, 15 mins steady, coming in around 4.15 and 10 easy again around 4.45. Run has really come on the last few weeks, last time I done a session like this the steady bits were in and around 4.25 so a good improvement. In control too and they actually felt steady rather than a bit below hard. Over 10km done in around 47 mins.

cart man

joey100 wrote: »

Wed 23rd April

Run has really come on the last few weeks, .

Well done on the progress Joey, what do you put down the biggest reasons for the improvement?

joey100

Consistency, It's the first full 6 week block of training that I have been able to complete since November because of injuries and sickness. Just plenty of running has done it.

RJM85

joey100 wrote: »

Consistency

/the/ secret. Full stop

joey100

I had all this typed out and it disappeared so I'll try again,

Thurs 24th April

Evening turbo session. 1hr 15 mins easy. Average power up a bit on usual and felt good on the bike.

Fri 25th April

Missed the morning swim, just slept through alarm and when I did wake up rolled back over. Need to make sure I don't miss any sessions like this any more.

Evening run session. First hard run session in a while so was going to be a bit of guessing done. Plan was for 5 X 4 mins as fast as I could hold with 2 mins recovery. Ran these by feel as much as possible. First 2 around 3.40, 3rd around 3.45, 4th around 3.50 and 5th around 3.53. Set off too fast and paid for it at the end. Was always going to be a bit of a guessing game but good session to do.

Sat 26th April

Somewhere between Fri evening and Sat morning I ate something that didn't really agree with my stomach. Meant that this 3 hr cycle was done on the turbo. Bit of a warm up then into 4 X 20 mins at 90%. 90% is around 207w and held 214w across them so pleased with how it went. Last 4/5 mins of last one was tough but got through it ok. Straight out onto run from the bike. 5 mins mod, legs came around quicker than usual and heart rate didn't spike, gradually built into it. 10 mins easy after this. Good session to do.

Dropped into Wheelworx on my way home from the base2race expo to have a look at the new Felt IA. Really really nice bike, nice enough that if I could swing it past the OH I'd get one at the end of the season, not sure what chances there are of that happening but if anyone is interested in a small Argon 18 E118 with Sram force let me know!

Sun 27th April

Evening run session. Plan was for 45 mins easy, 30 steady and 15 easy. Easy section went well, pace a bit down but was concentrating on keeping the heart rate well down and was pleased the pace didn't drop more. For the 30 steady I concentrated on running strong rather than what I normally do, run fast-ish and then pull it back a bit with the heart rate usually at the limit of steady. Usually means as it goes on the effort goes up, heart rate goes up and pace goes down. Was feeling good for all of this until around 4 mins to go when I had to drop the pace when the stomach decided it had had enough of the running. Bit of a jog on the shortest route home I could find and a 5 min easy ending rather than 15. 17km done in 1.09.

Mon 28th April

Early morning swim session, wasn't really feeling it at all this morning. Main set was 8 X 100 sw, 8 X 100 pull. Swims came in around 1.36 and pull around 1.46 so still a bit out. What I did notice though is that I was actually using my arms a lot more, for the first 40-50m of each pull I would be moving well and strongly and then the arms would tire. Arms where tired getting out which isn't normally how I feel so something is happening with the new hand entry!