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Week Ending 21st Jan
Nothing spectacular this week, all about just hitting planned sessions and building good habits. Actually that is what the next few weeks are all about. With that in mind this week was very successful! Not since Feb 2014 have I hit all planned sessions in a week.
I got very hung up on making each session green this week, weirdly motivated me! I even made a gif at the end of the week
For long term motivation and success it needs to come from within but I will take motivation from wherever it comes from for now. Then when the new good habits are more entrenched hopefully the motivation will be from within.
Swim
3 sessions, 3000m in total. All about getting up early enough to make my way to the pool - new habit. Warm up, drills, a few 25m sprints and cool down.
Bike
3 sessions, 3.75 hours, 90km. Two turbo sessions and one outside. The turbo sessions had some cadence and tempo, 45 minutes each. The outdoor spin was over 2 hours in north county Dublin on small country roads, very enjoyable but suffered for the last 45 minutes! I am determined not to miss endurance sessions this year.
Run
3 sessions, 1.5 hours, 19km. Two 30 minute run with some 30 second build efforts and a 50 minute one. It's slow running at 6 min km's but I am keeping HR near the low end of Z2 as much as possible.
Strength
Two 45 minute sessions, one concentrating on the lower body and one on the upper body.
So that's it, just over 8 hours put down, good start but need to do it again this week.0 -
So a case of 1 step forward and two steps back. A poor week last week, I got a cold and missed 5 sessions. To be expected I guess as I am starting up again, plus it's that time of year, plus I work in a school, plus I forgot to supplement my diet with some vit C and Zinc. Anyway I feel better now.
Except for a pain in my left knee. I do have experience on my side and I remebered that this could mean a saddle height shift. Checked the TT bike which is set up on the turbo and it had indeed fallen by 5sm! the extra weight must have pushed it down
Sorted now so hopefully that will be that.
Swim
2 sessions, 2200m
Bike
1 session, 22km, missed endurance ride.
Run
1 session, 5km.
Strength
2 x 45min sessions
Weight Watch
Last week 91.6kg; This week 92kg; Up 0.4kg
Only 3.25 hours put down, here is to a better week.0 -
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Good week last week. Missed a gym session and my long bike session due to snow/ice conditions. The missed bike session was disappointing because one of the legs of a four legged stool to set up up for a good year is not to miss endurance sessions. I was down home and had no turbo trainer with me, I'd have quiet happily done two hours on Sunday watching Galway beat Mayo on TG4! Lesson to be learned - bring the turbo trainer home for a few weeks anymore just in case.
The 4 legs of that stool btw are...
- Get at least 7.5 hour sleep each night
- Do not miss Monday planned sessions
- Clean Diet on Monday is very important
- Never miss an endurance session
Still a good week in the books though, almost 7 hours done, 10 out of 12 planned sessions done. This week sees week 5 of 5 of a prep period, recovery week next week and then base training proper. It's been a good block for me, in comparison to this time last year. I am fitter/faster now but still the 10kg over this time last year. hopefully lent will kick start the weight loss.
Some numbers for the prep block (so far):
-Compliance rate - 35 sessions out of 46 hit (76%)
-Compliance rate on a Monday - 100% (4 out of 4, the other Monday's I had not planned a session)
-Compliance rate for endurance sessions - 9 out of 11 (82%)
-Average hours/week - 5 hours 11 minutes
Last Week
Swim
3 sessions, 4300m. Still enjoying the short swim sessions and my goal of just creating a habit of getting to the pool before work in the morning is working. Two weeks time I will start to up the duration.
Bike
Two 45 minute turbo sessions with some short efforts thrown in. Deposit down on a Tacx Neo, looking forward to getting my hands on that piece of kit.
Run
Three sessions, 2 x 30 minutes easy and 1 x 55 minutes easy. Last year my running never got going, determined this year to change that, soon I will start doing 4 sessions per week.
This week
Already a two hour spin in the legs from yesterday. I'm off this week and I've planned 3 x 2 hours spins, so one down. I will get a 200m and 400m time in the pool to see exactly where I'm at. Running this week is all about fun, 2 trail runs planned in the Dublin/Wicklow mountains...and with that in mind I'm off to do one of them now from the Ticknock car park
:cool: 0 -
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Swim
3 sessions, the usual, technique, CSS and endurance.
Total Dist 6800m
Bike
2 sessions this week, a BG one and a long one, again felt really good on the long session.
Total Time: 3hr 16min; Total Dist 89km;
Run
3 sessions including a hill repeat session and long slow run. On Monday's easy run a strange thing happened, my pace was much faster for the same effort/HR. I guess some run progress finally!
Total Time 2hr 50min; Total Dist 30km;
Compliance Watch
10 out of 10 sessions. 4 weeks in a row all sessions hit. 40 in a row - hard to believe that, I was so flakey for so long.
Weight Watch
UP a little this week unfortunately, I really cant afford slip ups in my die
Notes
Entered my first race of 2018, the Mourne Mountain Skyline 35km on the 20th October, it sold out in 4 hours, I must have been one of the last in! Really looking forward to this, never ran more than 22km in my life but my attention is on endurance stuff this year and that will be a great test for me and the end of the year. To prepare for it I will get my mileage up and do a few IMRA runs (including the half marathon in Ballyhoura on the May BH weekend) and also just do my own mountain runs too.
My next race though will be the April Setanta duathlon on the 14th I think.
Recovery week this week, body was very sore going into yesterdays LSR but held up well and feels great today.0 -
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Lonan has been raving about the Mourne Skyline race since last year. Sounds like a great race and very well organised - the Mournes are steep. Check out his blog on the race from last year.
The Connemara loop will be a good one to add in to the training diary.
Good lord, what have I done! Must reach out to him for some advise. Thanks Neady Ballyhoura Half entered now too. 0 -
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El Director wrote: »Good lord, what have I done! Must reach out to him for some advise. Thanks Neady Ballyhoura Half entered now too.
If Lonan found it tough you'd better start some race specific prep for it
One for 2019 for me.0 -
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If Lonan found it tough you'd better start some race specific prep for it
One for 2019 for me.
A big overall goal for me this year is to improve my aerobic endurance by doing more volume (easy stuff) and to support that I need to improve muscular endurance too, big gear work, hill reps, mountain running etc... So my hope is that as a byproduct of this focus I will be able for such a venture. That is the reason I picked the event, it's supposed to be really tough and it's towards the end of the year - so it's a test really, did I improve my endurance/robustness?
I also will have no target in my head regarding placing or time, I just want the test. In saying that I do not want to be out there for over 7 hours like many last year, 4 hours for the winner so anywhere between 5 and 6 will be good enough for me.
So hopefully the mountain running I have planned will help anyway and I will try to find very steep slopes to practice the hands on thighs hiking technique, I think the Warrior Run in Sligo is very steep so I may put that on the calendar in Aug.0 -
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Pre-race
It was an early start on Saturday for me. I had my usual breakfast and it was a glorious sun rise, you could feel it was going to be a warm one. The journey to Kilfinane took 1.75 hours. I got registered and had an hour until the buses were leaving taking us to the start line so I graciously accepted a cup of tea and half a scone. I then headed back to the car and got ready.
Nutrition was going to be important today especially in the heat. I decided on having a gel every 20 minutes but none for the first hour and I aimed to drink 1L (water) per hour or so with dioralyte mixed in after the first hour as I know I loose a lot of salt on hot days. I recently bought a nutrition vest - Salomon S Lab Sense Ultra 5L (they need a new, snappier name!) and while it was expensive it really did the job nicely. Easily carried all the nutrition I needed and the mandatory rain cape/jacket and mobile phone with loads of room for more. I started with arm warmers which I peeled off and stuffed into a pocket on the first climb. For water/drink there are two 500ml soft flask bottles up front. Everything is accessible without taking the vest off and after a while you even forget that you are wearing a vest. On my feet were Inov8 Roclite 305 and they were a good choice. Running on road with trail runners isn't the nicest experience...in my experience and there was 4km or so of road but these are not so bad on the road and were great on the muddy/slippery parts, not once did I slip. The vest and shoes were the most important things, apart from that it was a t-shirt, shorts, calf sleeves (I hoped they offered some protection for my achilles) and a baseball cap. I also but on sun cream but forgot my neck, ears and upper arms :rolleyes:
I headed for the bus and realised two things, (1) I had not gone to get my mandatory gear checked and (2) I had not applied vaseline to known chaffing areas. Decisions had to be made quick...I ran back to the car and got vaselined up to the max! I almost didn't but I was so glad that I did as I ended up chaffing early on even with the vaseline but without it it would have been absolute agony, next time I must bring a little with me. Then I dashed back and got the gear checked and on the second bus.
The Race
We had about 30 minutes to kill until we were off. No need for a warm up I figured but ended up doing a short one out of boredom and stretched a little, I also made an effort to chat to some folk I started towards to back of the pack and once the gun went off I just settled into a very easy pace. The first 3km is flat and on a road/through fields. There are a number of styles to negotiate and the first one is after about 1km which meant there was quite a lengthy queue to get over it. That was fine by me and I suspect those wanting a really good time knew about it and rushed to the front to get there first. That first 3km was so nice through the fields and woodland, meandering along a river bank and nice and flat. I was at the back of a nice pace line and the 6 min/km suited me just fine.
After 3.2km we faced the first of the major climbs which lasted 2km and, according to Strava, had an average grade of 14% and a max section of 32%. All that means it was tough...but not as tough as the second major climb It was all hiking for this section as best I could but I don't hike and I don't practice moving up a climb like this at pace. There was supposed to be an aid station at 4km but either there was none or I missed it some how. It was fine as I had enough with me thankfully.
The downhill section was a little hairy but I made up some places, not that I cared but I just didn't want putting the brakes on too much as that would kill my quads.
From 10km to 14km we had the next big climb, 38% in parts...this took the life out of me. Really need to practice this stuff more, my glutes were on fire! It was slow, so slow but I got there! There were some more ups and downs until 17.5km and it was pretty much down hill into town then but I was so trashed at that point that I could only average 6:16/km.
When I got to the end I was so happy to have finished. It was really hot at that stage and free craft beer went down a treat As did the chicken curry...so tasty I had seconds!
I really enjoyed the event, it was so well organised and everyone was so friendly. I cannot fault the event at all, the people manning the stations were so helpful too, filling up your bottles for you etc... I have pictures on instagram, @eldirector365
My main aims were not to get injured, not to push myself so the DOMS wouldn't be too bad and enjoy myself. All achieved I am very happy to say. If I wanted to improve at this lark I'd have to loose about 10kg and practice moving swiftly up the steeper sections. Maybe I will, maybe I won't but I will do more IRMA mid-week runs during the summer as I really love just being in the mountains and the Leinster branch of IRMA is very active, every week during the summer.
First I need to get back to some consistent training.0 -
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