The difficult second album

joey100

Sunday 2nd Feb

So up before the club TT and to the pool. Bit of a splash and dash, took it nice and handy and just concnetrated on a few different parts of the stroke. Used the pull a good bit too. Altogether around 1200m done.

Club TT was in the afternoon so drive to the aquatic centre and used the drive from there to the start as the warm up. TT was around 6.8km long and a few short drags but mainly flat. Had estimated time at 10 mins but this was more because one of the other lads in the club had that as his time and I wanted to beat him. Race was that short that it was just flat out for the whole thing. One or two bad gear choices and bit of tired legs after the 3 hour turbo but all in all went very well. Finished in 9.51 and joint first with another fella (who has beaten me in every TT up to now, by around a minute in the 20km TT's) so reckon i have made improvements over the winter. Legs were tired after and then cycled back to get the car. All in 30km cycled.

Evening was to be a run but with gf coming home early I had an excuse to cancel it, was looking for an excuse really. Body is tired, I've been going since 1st Jan without any proper rest so have emailed the coach about asking to take this week as a rest week.

Monday 3rd Feb

So with tired legs and tired body it was onto the turbo today, plan had been for 6 X 4mins at 105% of FTP but changed this to more of an endurance effort. Tried to keep the legs spinning and done an hour. Nice to get off after the hour rather than 3 like Saturday, reckon the rest of the week will be like this, would like to keep the distance up a bit but the intensity down.

On a side note when I've been using trainer road it's estimated my FTP at around 130 watts. I'm around 61kg so in or around 2 watts per kg. Not a great number (I do realise trainer road is not accurate but is consistent so gives you something to measure against). But a little bit in me wants to know what my real number is, the fella who had the exact same time as me at the TT had an average power of around 320 watts, hes a bit heavier than me though but nice to see that the number is more than likely higher than the 130 trainer road is giving me.

couerdelion

joey100 wrote: »

the fella who had the exact same time as me at the TT had an average power of around 320 watts, hes a bit heavier than me though

A bit? I reckon he's nearly twice your weight!

joey100

Tues 4th Feb

No swim this morning, made an executive decision that I needed the sleep more than I needed the swim. Cycle in and out of work and just managed to miss the wind and rain.

Evening session was an easy hour and a bit on the treadmill. Pace kept right down and covered about 11.2km. Legs feeling much better already, another few days and I'll be ready to go again.

Saturday's are usually my long cycle with the cycling club, when I can make it. This week I've been invited out with a group of racers who don't cover the same distance but move very fast. Group is made up of a lot of A3 and up racers so will be good to go with them and see how I get on. Hoping the weather is ok so I actually manage to get out.

joey100

Wed 5th Feb

So still in the middle of the recovery week and the whole body is starting to feel much better. No real intensity this week and nothing too long. Easy turbo session tonight, 1 hour focusing on endurance. Set out to hit the hour and see how I was feeling with the plan of possibly going to 90 mins. Took it handy and enjoyed it so decided to call it a day at the hour mark. Need to focus on recovery this week, not the SBR table!

joey100

Thurs 5th Feb

Another easy day, and this time I even managed to get outside for a run. 12.4km done very easy and very slow. Hopefully this weather gets a bit better, much easier to train outside than looking at a wall on the treadmill.

joey100

Fri 6th Feb

Cycle in to work, work to swimming and then swimming home.

Evening swim with interested. Good session, 800m warm up then into the main session, a 20 min test. After my horrible attempts to count 400m last week I had my garmin with me this week to take away the hassle of counting. Set off at a good pace, led the lane for the first 10 mins, (garmin set up to beep at 5 min intervals), toes were tapped so let next person in front and drafted for around the next 4mins. Last 6 mins I tried to push on the pace a bit, felt strong enough after the drafting. Altogether 49 lengths done, up 2 lengths from last time I done this. But much more pleased tonight, the last effort I pretty much drafted the whole thing, tonight was a much more accurate measure of where my swimming is. Know myself I haven't been in the pool as much as I could be, trying to prevent the early season burnout I feel I had last year. Swimming will be upped over the coming months and feel I can make some more improvements here. Rest of session was some easy and some fast 100's. Good session overall and felt good leaving the pool.

joey100

Sat 8th Feb

Up early and the group spin had been cancelled because of the weather. Probably best off for me with it being my training week and all. 2 hours easy enough on the turbo. Body feeling much better and was no hassle at all.

Afternoon on the treadmill, 12.25km at an easy pace. Again no hassle and body feeling much better.

joey100

Sunday 9th Feb

Last day of the recovery week and took the full day off. Mam's birthday and gf's birthday both in same weekend so Sunday was spent eating cake and relaxing.

Mon 10th Feb

So back into proper training and body feeling much better after the rest. Plan was for a turbo, 1 hour with 6 x 4 mins at 105%. I've struggled with this since the first time I done it (only time I managed to complete it) and so have most of the people in the club doing it. After a recovery week though I was hoping I would get through it and I did. Finished the whole thing, paced it a lot better than previously and got through it. Still very very tough though. After this was an hour focusing on endurance. I'm going to try up my training slightly over the next few weeks, add on a few extra half hours. Hopefully going to add an extra run session (at lunch time in work, probably just an easy paced run) and if I can an extra swim session. Will do this gradually though to see how the body responds to it.

mossym

add a few hours? fair play, you're already doing savage hours for Olympic distances

joey100

Cheers Mossy, I'd like to add a half hour to at least one if not two of the turbos a week. I want to try add in another session a week too, probably alternating between run and swim. Will be doing this slowly to see how the body reacts, if it's not working and impacting other sessions too much I'll cut it out.

Tues 11th Feb

Swim before work. An early morning one. Lots of drills, lots of different drills. Something different than usual and in a strange way I kind of enjoyed it.

Commute in and out of work on the bike.

Evening session was a run. On the treadmill again. 4km warm up then into 6 X 600m intervals with 200m recovery between. These were tough but not tough enough that I ever thought I wouldn't finish them. Around a 4km cool down then too to bring total to 13.25km.

joey100

Wed 12th Feb

Turbo session today. First hour was to be a new session, bit of a warm up then 2 X 10 mins at 105% with 4 mins rest inbetween. Found this ok, got into a nice rhythm and kept the legs spinning loose. Kept it above where I needed to and heart rate never got too high either which I was very surprised at. Usually my heart rate creeps up and up, but with this it stayed pretty steady. Was very happy to finish the session and felt I still had a bit left in the legs. After this was half an hour focusing on endurance. Nothing too bad.

Thurs 13th Feb

Long run this morning before work. 15.5km, legs were feeling grand, on the treadmill again, incline set to 1% and watched a good bit of the winter Olympics, seen one of the women's speed skating finals, English girl crashed and took the top two with her, 4th place won. From last to first in a corner, took the boredom out of the treadmill for a bit anyway.

Fazz

Hi Joey,

I gather you're using Trainer road for your power figures.
I used this myself before and have a Minoura V150 turbo - it was close enough to their equivalent in gear 1 and actually gave me reasonably accurate power numbers.

For yours, it seems drastically underestimated at present.
Given this, do you think you're efforts at 105% FTP are actually that?
I mean are you almost falling over when finished?
Is HR through the roof etc?

Can you change resistance to a different level and see if that yield's more accurate figures - may help you track things better and train better.

I know you're in early stages and will see a lot of improvement working of RPE so I imagine you are working very hard anyway, just food for thought.


And more volume being introduced.... :eek:

I'm glad I'm approaching more volume myself or I'll be left for dust

joey100

How's it going Fazz, Yep I've been using trainer road for over a year now, apart from during the summer when I got out as much as I could. I just checked and I've spent 5.9 days on trainer road in the last year!

The FTP number is definitely lower than it should be but the effort is still tough. The session yesterday was hard but I think part of the reason it wasn't too bad is I'm just coming off a recovery week and I'm starting to see gains since my last FTP test (6th January, probably due another one). The figure I had to hold yesterday is in or around what I held for the majority of the 20 min test back then. Once I figured that out I was ok about it, I knew I could hold it for 20 mins so 10 didn't seem too bad (without the 5 min clearing effort beforehand too).

A few weeks back I completely took apart the turbo to see if I could get it to give a more accurate figure but ended up pretty much the exact same. I would love to know my actual number but trainer road has been very consistent and even before the recovery week I was struggling with some of the 105% stuff. I have been doing a block of training working in that zone and suppose I might be seeing some benefit of it now.

I'll only be adding a little bit more volume, maybe an hour or hour and a half a week, I'd say you will still be ok! I'd be keeping more of an eye on Green and Red, maybe me and him should alternate months between us to try and beat you. Let us have a recovery month after every hard one!

joey100

Friday 14th Feb

Swim session with interested. 800m warm up, main set was 3 X ( 6 X 50m off 1min, 3 X 100 off 1.50) 1 min rest between sets. This was tough, started well, but by third one was struggling. Aiming for 43 seconds for the 50's and 1.30 for the 100's, pretty much bang on the 1st and 2nd set but the 3rd set of hundreds hurt and was a few seconds out. Great session though, can really feel the benefit of these.

Sat 15th Feb

Club open day in the morning so nothing done. Had planned a park run but the weather was really bad so skipped it and straight to the open day. Did get a new pair of runners though in amphibian king ashtown, pair of cloud racers, bit strange looking but very comfortable, will see how I get on with them.
Evening session was 2 hours on the turbo, 1st hour focusing on sweet spot and tempo, second hour mainly on endurance with a few tempo and sweet spot efforts towards the end.

Sun 16th Feb

Good training day, run cut a bit short though. Plan was for 6 X 1.1kms but cut it to 4 X 1.1km's, wore the kinvara's today, bit wet out and didn't want to ruin the new runners the first time I wore them! Bit of a warm up and cool down as well.

Afternoon went out for a cycle with the gf on her new bike, up howth from sutton side, out to portmarnock then onto Malahide and home. Great spin and kept it fairly handy the whole way apart from bit of a push up howth head.

Evening session was a swim. Lots of 400's and some 100's too. Long session in the pool but felt good, need more quality time in the pool. Technique is better than ever but fitness not where it should be. Will get there though. Best thing about today was the gf managed to do the cycle and the swim, much easier to train when she wants to too. Shes hoping to do a few sprints this year so should be doing some more over the next few months.

joey100

Mon 17th Feb

Turbo session before work. Bit of a warm up then into 6 X 4 mins at 105% with 45 second recoveries. Last week this wasn't too bad, fresh of a recovery week. This week it hurt more, was tougher, alot tougher. Got through the 6 but heart rate was a lot higher than last week. Last half hour was spent on endurance. Had bought a new fan over the weekend, 18 inch from Argos. It's really good, I still haven't got the space set up properly so was a bit further away from me than I would have liked but I can see the difference it made. I was still sweating but just didn't feel like I was doing the workout in a sauna like it usually does.

Run gear was brought into work and should be able to get out for a light run around lunch time tomorrow and Wed, nothing hard, more recovery runs.

Trig1

very good read in the TDAr forum.... well done!!

joey100

Tues 18th Feb

Slept it in and missed my early morning swim but will try again tomorrow morning. I'm getting really bad at getting up early, need to work on it.

Cycle in and out of work.

Managed to get out for my first lunch time run. Looking back now probably ran it a bit fast, have to pull it back a bit on these runs so they don't impact the important sessions. Anyway lovely afternoon for it, down pigeon house road and out to the seafront and back. 6.85km altogether.

Evening session was another run. Bit of a warm up then into 10 X 300m trying to keep pace at 3.45 min kilometres, with 100m recovery. Bit of a cool down then. Good session and the last 2 intervals were tough enough, it was then I knew I pushed it too much earlier on in the day. Wore my new runners for this and probably a bit too long on for their first time but feel nice and comfortable. Nearly forgot how much nicer it is running outside than the treadmill. 12.1km altogether.

Bambaata

Hey joey100, are you doing the club practise race on Sunday? Will be there myself, really looking forward to it, it'll be my first ever bike race (although i understand its going to be smallish as its an inhouse job)

joey100

Unfortunately not Bambaata, heading this away this weekend so not around. Haven't been out with the club much recently so have missed a lot of what's going on. Will hopefully get some club races done though once they start.

Wed 19th Feb

Cycle in and out of work. tired legs today but the easy spins done them good. Evening session was on the turbo, same as last Wednesday, 2 X 10 mins at 105%. Heart rate a bit higher this week and legs were tired, but again got through it. Up to recently my cadence on the turbo would be longer than on the road and I've been trying to bring it up to match and it seems to be working well. Half an hour after this just focusing on endurance. All while watching the Arsenal match on the laptop, a great game of football.

Thurs 20th Feb

long run before work. Once i decided to go it decided to rain so was to the treadmill for this. The winter Olympics was on so distracted me a bit, 16.65km all just over 5 min kilometres and 1% incline. Legs a bit tired and first 5km was tough, sort of got going then and the rest wasn't too bad.

Bambaata

joey100 wrote: »

Unfortunately not Bambaata, heading this away this weekend so not around. Haven't been out with the club much recently so have missed a lot of what's going on. Will hopefully get some club races done though once they start.

Cool. thoguht i might get to say hello, ive only been out 3 or 4 times in total but enjoying the company when i do go out. Will be out with them Saturday morning too though

joey100

Fri 21st Feb

Evening swim session with interested. Warm up including some drills, a few fast lengths and a building 400 that came in on 6.15, for what seemed relatively easy effort. Then came the hardest swim session I have ever done 10 X 200m on 3.20 (my pb before today was 3.05 so i knew these were going to be tough). Wasn't feeling great in the water but was going to give it a good go. First 200m came in at under 3 mins so a new pb and I knew I had gone out too hard. The next few were tough but I was getting a bit of a break, around 5/6 I started thinking I would have to stop, there was no way I could keep it going, but convinced myself to try for another 1 and see. The last 2 I had no rest, was coming in just under 3.20. By the end I was wrecked, I managed to keep them all under 3.20 but I was really feeling it. To finish off the session was 4 X 100m off 1.40, by comparison these were a lot easier, still a bit short of breath but a lot better.

Sat 22nd Feb

So as part of our christmas present myself and the gf were going away this weekend. We couldn't check in until 2.00 so meant I had bit of time in the morning to head out on the bike. Up and out of the house by 8.00, headed towards Howth, over Howth head from Sutton side, onto Portmarnock and Malahide, then onto Skerries. Was feeling great, pushing it at times but legs felt good and was going well. Once I turned at Skerries back to Dublin it was straight into a headwind the whole way back. Passed a few groups heading out and felt good to be coming towards the end of mine. Altogether 85km pretty much exactly done.

Sunday 23rd Feb

Didn't get home until pretty late so only time for a run. Nothing fancy, steady paced run, bit quicker than usual but nothing fast. Altogether 13.3km ran at around 4.45 min kilometres and felt grand, new runners felt a lot better too.

Monday 24th Feb

2 Hours on the turbo focusing on endurance, pretty ok. Bit boring but a few sprints thrown in. Legs feeling good, had been feeling tired towards the end of last week but feeling a lot better now.

joey100

Tues 25th Feb

Had to get both my swim and run done before work, will be in late and had to be in early enough. Swim session, was ok, still not feeling great in the water. Feel like I'm fighting it a bit and working harder than I should have to. Doesn't seem to affect the times too much though, still around where they have been.

After this up to the treadmill, bit of a warm up then into 6 X 800m at around 3.50 min kilometres, legs were a bit stiff but got through them all. 200m recovery in between each. bit of a cool down then, not a bad day. Not ideal having to do the 2 back to back but at least I got them done and managed to get up early too.

joey100

Wed 26th Feb

Cycle in and out of work.

Turbo after work, 50 mins including 2 X (7 X 40 second sprints) with 50 second recovery between sprints and 6 mins between the sets of 7. These weren't too bad, think it's time for another FTP test. Last one was the 1st week in January and these should have hurt alot more, will try get one in next week. After this was 44 mins focusing on endurance.

Thurs 27th Feb

Long run before work. Took a while for legs to wake up but one they did felt really good. 17km averaging around 4.52 per kilometre and felt grand so please with the run.

joey100

Fri 28th Feb

Nothing today, took it easy.

Sat 1st March

Out for a spin with the triathlon club in the morning. Cycled down to the meeting point, we done a spin out towards the lap of the Lucan GP (hoping this will be my first bike race in March) and then back home. Altogether 85km done, legs not really with it today but overall not too bad.

Evening was just an easy recovery paced run with the gf. 5.5km done, nothing fast, just nice ad easy and was a lovely evening for a run.

Tomorrow is the 2nd of the club winter TT's, a 9km TT with a bit of a climb throughout the whole thing. Type of course should suit me and after coming joint first last time hoping I can keep it up tomorrow.

joey100

Sun 2nd March

So club TT day, drove out and it was a lovely morning, but as we got closer the weather got worse and it was lashing rain for pretty much the whole thing. Few moments where I thought I'd be better off just staying in the car. Great turnout though with around 12 from the club out. Course was 9km on the Skyrne road, pretty much a gradual climb with a few short descents. Set off second from last and came in on around 14 mins. Not a fast time for the distance but fast for the course. Fastest out of the club and when I got home and up loaded it turned out I got about 4 KOM's on strava so fast overall too. Reckon I could knock a few seconds off it too fairly handy, no warm up done and few extra layers that I'd prefer not to wear. That was it for the day though, next few weeks see a duathlon and a bike race so couldn't really spend the rest of the day training.

Mon 3rd March

Turbo session before work. Legs a little tired but nothing too bad, first hour was bit of a warm up then into 8 X 20 seconds sprint 10 second recovery. 5 min rest between sets and 4 sets in total. These were tough but got through them all without dropping the power too much. coming in around 150% of FTP consistently with a few above this. After this was half an hour concentrating on endurance. Hoping to do a FTP test on Wednesday so we will see what improvement's I've had from the start of the year.

joey100

So didn't get to train at all yesterday, throat is starting to get a bit sore and as the day went on it got worse and worse. Took the day off completely and today will probably just be an easy turbo session. FTP test will be put off until I'm feeling better. Have a race this Sunday and want to be feeling ok for it, throat is feeling a bit better today so hopefully it be ok by the weekend.

pointer28

Are you still doing Rosslare?

joey100

Hope to be, throat isn't too bad. I reckon by the weekend I should be ok, I'll be down there anyway this weekend so be a shame not to try it, you doing it?

pointer28

That's the plan anyway, small niggle in my left leg but going to test it out today and I think it'll probably be OK.

Different to last race, only one distance this time 3.5k/20k/3.5k, pan flat out and back run, and a better surface for the bike.

Routes here https://www.facebook.com/rosslare.duathlon?fref=ts

You might need to scroll down a bit but it's there.

joey100

Wed 5th March

Still not feeling fully right so no FTP test, another easy day. No training and just trying to get better.

Thurs 6th March

Woke up feeling a good bit better so just an easy 1 hour spin on the turbo, nothing fast and nothing hard. Felt good to be back at it but can feel still not at 100%. Be few easy days over next few days in hope I'm ok for rosslare duathlon. SBR table won't be looking good this month!