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To Hell with Good Intentions.
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One of these...
I wear a small backpack with a weight in it packed with a towel to stop it bouncing around. It takes a couple of runs to get used to but I know from last year that I felt progressively stronger over a couple of months. Forces you to focus on good form and you really feel it in the legs like BG work on the bike.
Unless I'm picturing it wrong, something like this is bound to affect your form. It sounds like your inviting injury to me. If you really must introduce extra stressors to your run, would you not be better off wearing extra layers or running with a jacket open so it catches the wind?0 -
Unless I'm picturing it wrong, something like this is bound to affect your form. It sounds like your inviting injury to me. If you really must introduce extra stressors to your run, would you not be better off wearing extra layers or running with a jacket open so it catches the wind?
A colleague of mine who does a lot of ultra running and has won some 100 mile races uses a weighted vest. You can increase or decrease the weight due to the way the vest is designed. He reckons it's very popular with ultra runners. He had no great concerns over injuries either which I found a little strange.0 -
A colleague of mine who does a lot of ultra running and has won some 100 mile races uses a weighted vest. You can increase or decrease the weight due to the way the vest is designed. He reckons it's very popular with ultra runners. He had no great concerns over injuries either which I found a little strange.
couple of guys i know use them to prepare for ultra mountain runs, make up for having to train on the flat. proper mountain stuff, not the hills we have here0 -
A colleague of mine who does a lot of ultra running and has won some 100 mile races uses a weighted vest. You can increase or decrease the weight due to the way the vest is designed. He reckons it's very popular with ultra runners. He had no great concerns over injuries either which I found a little strange.
I run with a backpack regularly, to train for running with it in events. My experience and what others who do similar have agreed with is that it's improved my running posture. Even a small weight in the backpack pulls the shoulders back and forces you to run in a more upright position. I think if the back pack is well fitted to the body and the weight isn't bobbing around, there shouldn't be a problem.0 -
Right, I have a bit to catch up on here... generally things have been ticking along however, I’ve been very busy at work the last while and we’ve had some sick kids which has meant I’ve missed one or two planned sessions. I also managed to sprain my wrist and wasn’t able to swim last week. It appears to be sufficiently healed to get back in the water this week.
@Zico – I think you’re partially correct in that yes, I am increasing my risk for injury but I don’t think it’s any different to say running with a Camelbak which I doubt would raise too many eyebrows. This session is intended as a replacement for a long aerobic mountain run which unfortunately due to my family circumstances is often unfeasible. My understanding is that intention is similar to a big gear bike session in that you’re working on leg strength (by adding weight in this instance rather than pushing a bigger gear). The session is done at a relatively low intensity – HR was capped at 150 for me which is (as far as I can remember) middle of zone 2. It is absolutely adding stress and therefore increasing injury risk, but the risk is somewhat mitigated by:
a) I don’t tend to injure easily - the majority of injuries I’ve had are due to falls / knocks etc.
b) Low intensity of the session
c) I have experience of including the session before and haven’t had any negative effects.
As mentioned above, I actually think it helps with form as 1) you’re forced to run upright and 2) over time it appears to help core strength and help run form outside of the session.
Week commencing 06/02/2017
Monday
Two uncooperative kids meant that the planned run session wasn’t done.
Tuesday
Swim – 3.2k
Run – 8k – 2 minute circuit finishing in 30seconds hard
Wednesday
Run – 25min easy
Strength – 40 mins – bodyweight,lifting.
Bike – 1hr easy spinning
Thursday
Run – 15mins easy
Strength – 1hr – core work – lots of new exercises in this one for me. A deceptively difficult session!
Swim – 3.5k
Bike – 90mins – BG work
Friday
Swim – 3.8k
Bike – 90 mins – More BG work
Saturday
Long run – 90 mins working on cadence
Sunday
Long bike – 4hrs.
Totals
Swim: 3hrs
Bike: 7hrs 50
Run: 2hrs 50
Strength: 1hr 40
Total: 15hrs 20
Week commencing 13/02/2017
Monday
Bike – 1hr 5 – easy spinning
Tuesday
Strength – 30 mins – core work
Bike – 90mins – 16*1 minute hard intervals
Wednesday
Run – 1hr – hill work
Thursday
Run – 20mins easy
Strength – 30 mins – core work
Run – 20mins easy
Swim – 3.5k
Friday
Swim – 3.2k – Morning
Swim – 3.5k – Evening
Bike – 90 mins –BG work
Saturday
Long run – 2hrs – good run and finally seeing some progress. Unfortunately tripped and sprained my wrist though.
Sunday
Long bike – 4hrs – on the turbo because of the wrist.
Totals
Swim: 2hrs 40
Bike: 8hrs
Run: 3hrs 50
Strength: 1hr
Total: 15hrs 10
Week commencing 20/02/2017
Monday & Tuesday
Had to travel to Tralee for work. Between driving, the actual work, and my sprained wrist I didn’t do any training on these days. This was to be a recovery week anyway.
Wednesday
Run – 30mins easy with 6 * 1 minute hard efforts
Thursday
Long bike – 2hrs
Friday
Long run – 1hr
Bike – 40mins easy
Saturday
Aerobic Bike test- 40mins – seeing good improvements here.
Run – 15 mins easy
Sunday
Aerobic run test – 40 mins – marginal improvements here
Bike – 1hr – with 8*1 minute hard efforts
Run – 15 mins easy
Totals
Swim: 0
Bike: 4hrs 20
Run: 2hrs 45
Strength: 0
Total: 7hrs 50 -
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I guess I should probably do some kind of update. I’ll not do a full update on all the training or lack thereof.
The last block hasn’t really been great – of the last 3 weeks I’ve only had one proper relatively uninterrupted training week, followed by two weeks where a number of sessions were missed due to (in order – a cold (this didn’t actually cause any missed sessions!); a 2 year old with an ear infection; a vomiting bug that made its way through the house; and a baby with an ear and throat infection). Effectively I’ve probably treaded water fitness wise for this block - all things considered I’ve done a few decent sessions; but nowhere near the consistency I’d expect of myself – but then again the missed sessions were for legitimate reasons.
I had my first race of the season at the Sportsman’s duathlon on Sunday where I came 10th in a pretty strong field. It’s hard to take any conclusions from the race given the lead in (I was up till 1:30 the night before with the baby after a very long day); but roughly speaking I’d say I’m maybe 5/10 watts off where I was this time last year on the bike, and I’m 2-3kg too heavy to run anything near well (that said; I’m 5kg down on January and making steady progress on that front – all the interruptions over the past couple of weeks have slowed progress a bit though).
My notes to coach from the race were as follows:
· Overall I think it was fairly reflective of where I am. I don’t think I was overly impacted by tiredness or outside factors even if they were present. Considering where I am in the season and what I already knew going in there were no nasty surprises. I think if I can get a good consistent run and drop the remaining extra pounds I’ll be in a good position come August. I have the last Sportsman’s down on the calendar – if you’re happy enough I’d like to use that as a mini progress marker to show improvement over the next ~6 weeks.
· Some silly things which I’ll have resolved for future races:
o Shifting on the TT bike not as good as it should be – I’ve probably neglected the TT bike over the winter in the knowledge it’s being replaced.
o Didn’t have the Garmin (bought a new one recently) set up right to display power or even HR – in the shorter races I like to really focus on a power number and I might have squeezed a little extra out with the visual – that said; I didn’t finish with much left in the tank so it’s not as if there was 20 or 30 watts or something.
· I focused on cadence in the run – especially on the 2nd one and I think this really worked well. I had someone to chase on the 2nd run which helped also, but I didn’t feel like I faded over the course of the run like I might have this time last year – or at least to the same extent.
Sunday week puts me at the 20 weeks out mark for Dublin 70.3 and coach has 2 relatively easy maintenance weeks in the diary until then before things start to ramp up. With a decent run of consistency I’ll be in a good place at the end of April – hopefully everything else will cooperate!0 -
Looks like your not having much luck RJM, hopefully this is it though now, all your bad luck done at once!
When is the new bike coming? Sure that has to be worth at least them 20w your down.0 -
Looks like your not having much luck RJM, hopefully this is it though now, all your bad luck done at once!
When is the new bike coming? Sure that has to be worth at least them 20w your down.
To be fair, we tend to be quite lucky with illness in general so I'm sure we were due a bit of a blip. Main thing is that everyone's on the mend now - youngest hasn't had a nice last couple of days and it's particularly unpleasant seeing him in bad form as he's an exceptionally happy child the majority of the time.
Herself probably needs a night out or similar as well so we'll have to do something on that front and hopefully the house will be back on the right track.
New bike is sitting in the shop waiting for final payment and my crankset to be transferred over. I should have next week at the latest!
How's your new ride working out?0 -
Here she is...0
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Only been out on the roads on it once, turbo twice. Been sick since I got back from Amsterdam and haven't done a whole lot really. In the doctors tomorrow to try and get to the route of it. But the bit I've been on it it feels nice, not as harsh as the Argon, lot more comfort and don't feel as stretched on it. Didn't feel as bad in the crosswinds either, bit heavier alright but I'd take that for the comfort and stability. Just need to start getting out on it. In the middle of getting the FLO rear and Disc changed to 11 speed.
Had a look at them Giant's too, look really nice, nice bit of integration on them too. Will work well with the flo's on it.0 -
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Ah crap, I just ordered 2 11speed hubs from them, if I had of known I could have put them in the same order, saved you the shipping. Saying that the hubs have been in Chicago since 7th march.0
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Well done at the weekend.
Did you take the new bike out?0 -
Was that yourself I seen running down past Herbert park this lunch time? If not you have a twin, even wears velo revolution too..0
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rodneyr1981 wrote: »Well done at the weekend.
Did you take the new bike out?
Thanks, but I'm not sure there's anything well done about it! Power numbers on the bike were decent; otherwise I'm far too fat to be moving anywhere near fast enough. I'm behind where I want to be for various reasons but last couple of weeks have been good and it's not all negative in terms of current fitness.
Had the new bike alright. All positive on that front!0 -
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Dublin 70.3
Every race report needs a bit of context. For this one, it’s probably sufficient to say that I’ve struggled with training in the past 12 months for various reasons. These include work, kids, sickness, and motivation. Training has improved in the past number of weeks, but for the purposes of this race the improvement came a little bit too late to allow me to get into the shape I’d like. I also had done a 70.3 race in Tyrone 4 weeks ago where I achieved a personal worst time at the distance, paced the bike terribly and walked a significant portion of the run. With all of that in mind; the goal for the day was to swim well and pace the bike in order to allow me to run strongly – whatever the result.
The day before the race I packed the kids into the car and the lads went for a day out in Dun Laoghaire. We had great fun checking out the boats in Scotsmans Bay and dealt with the matter of registration and dropping my gear off. By the end of the day I was exhausted and really questioning the sanity of going ahead with the race. But sure I had to collect my bike either way.
The morning of the race I had my trusty chauffeur (Dad) pick me up shortly before 5 and we made our way to Dublin. I have done much of my training the past month or so fasted and have found it working pretty well. They say you shouldn’t change things for race day so I decided to forego my usual bagel and or porridge and just had a coffee and some water on the trip down.
We arrived at the race site shortly after 6am and I set about preparing myself, my gear etc. There was no expectation, no nerves, andno pressure.
Swim – 29:02
Once I had my wetsuit on we wandered along the seafront towards Sandycove Beach. I downed a gel with 5 minutes to go and made my way to the front of the swim start in the ~30 minutes pen. I found myself standing next to Owen Martin – time for a quick handshake and ‘good luck’ before the countdown began in earnest.
Before long we found ourselves filing into the water to the sound of the Dropkick Murphys and the race was on. The water was relatively cold, but it was calm and the surrounds of the bay combined with the hues of the sunrise made this a particularly peasant swim. I found my rhythm fairly quick and settled into a good stroke focusing as usual on taking hold of the water and pushing right through. Whatever about anything else; I’ve been swimming well in training and was keen to show this on race day. I swam the majority of the course on my own – getting feet here and there, but rarely at a pace that was really a good fit. My Garmin has the swim as a bit long (2,070m) but I’m not certain whether this is because of going off course or the course actually being long. Regardless, I swam well and I’m happy with a 29:02 which puts it as my best split for a 70.3 race to date. More importantly, I was getting out of the water feeling pretty fresh and I didn’t feel like I had burned any matches.
T1 – 4:21 The results sheet has my T1 time as 4:21; however, that also appears to have been noted as the transition time for almost everyone so I’m assuming there may have been a malfunction with one or other of the timing mats. My T1 was a bit of a disaster; I headed for the tent and had my wetsuit around my waist quick enough, but once inside I set about looking for bag number 1905 which wasn’t my number (my number was 1095). When I found where I thought my number should have been, there were no bags and it took me an age to calm myself sufficiently to get my head straight and get back on track. It felt like an eternity, but realistically I think I lost one or two minutes here.
Bike – 02:25:37
The goal for the bike was to pace it conservatively and ensure I had the legs to run. In previous races I have viewed the bike as, for want of a better phrase ‘my weapon’, only to suffer towards the end of the run. For this race I decided to view it as my weakness. While I normally work off a power figure and ignore almost everything else; this morning I looked to ride easy at a zone 2 heart rate and looked to view power as a guide for climbs. I had settled into a nice rhythm around 150bpm, and 240w by the time I hit Blackrock, and was at 145bpm by the city centre. My power was creeping up though, and by the time I passed the Phoenix Park I started to wonder whether today might be a good day; or at least a better day than expected. Overall, I biked well. I have a bit of a theory that dropping breakfast and going easy for the first section of the bike allowed my stomach and body to return to normal after the swim, and that this aided digestion and hydration for the remainder of the race. I often have the problem of a high heart rate immediately after the swim which I struggle to get under control for the rest of the race. I was able to steadily increase the effort over the course of the bike and I’m happy with how I paced it. By the end, I had averaged 267 watts (NP 280), which is the highest I’ve ever hit in a 70.3 and a full 15 watts more than I managed in Tyrone just 4 weeks before. I also was feeling pretty fresh.
If that was the sole story of the bike course, I’d be happy; however there was also the small matter of a 5 minute drafting penalty to spoil my day. I have since re-read the rules and have sent an e-mail to TI and the race organisers detailing a number of issues I have with how the draft marshalling was enforced. However, I also understand that a draft penalty is effectively deemed to be a judgement call on behalf of the marshal and therefore cannot be appealed. Suffice to say that I disagree with the penalty; furthermore the two guys in the penalty tent with me singled me out to the TI official to state that I had not been drafting and that indeed I had effectively been on the front of a group being followed for a huge portion of the race. Anyone who has raced with me or who knows me will know that I particularly dislike drafting and would certainly not intentionally cheat and I am gutted to have a penalty against my name.
T2 – 7:53 (including a five minute penalty)
The penalty tent was a joke. The bike marshal had not shown me a card so I didn’t know what my penalty was and had to spend time talking to the TI official to figure things out before I could even start serving the penalty. I was told by the official not to eat or drink during the penalty – I have since consulted the rules and found that this was incorrect information and that I should have been allowed to eat and / or drink anything that I had on my bike or on my person.
Run – 01:30:08
I was starting the run with legs feeling pretty fresh and I still had little or no expectations from the race. I stopped at the first portaloo to spend a penny and then got into the real meat of the race. I was caught about 2km into the run by a relay runner – I ran with him until 4km at a pace that transpired to be a little too hot for me, but I think I managed to recognize that pretty early on. I settled into a good steady hard pace which consistently seemed to fall at 4:15 or so per km and was pretty comfortable all things considered for the first lap. My heart rate was high, but that’s fairly normal with even open running races for me, and I felt pretty good. The race was 3 by 7km laps, and I reminded myself continuously that really, the pain should come on the last lap – and it did. At this stage, it’s all too familiar – slowly but surely my legs start to seize up and the range of motion gets smaller. I grit my teeth and push on. The soft controlled steps of 70 – 80 minutes before turn to loud slaps of the pavement. I start to feel my IT band really tense and it’s all I can do to stop from grimacing and gurning. This really hurts. And I’m loving it. Because I’m still moving forward, still passing people, and I’m proving even my own self-doubt wrong.
Finish – 04:37:01 – 11th – M30-34 All things considered I’m pretty happy with the race. Yes, I could have been fitter and training could have gone better. Yes, I could have been leaner and that would have had a decent impact on my bike and run times. Yes, I’m not happy about the drafting penalty. But I enjoyed my race, I got the best I could out of my body on the day, and I’m enjoying my training probably more than I have done in 12 months. There’s plenty of time to lay good foundations for next season and to hatch some cunning plans (and cunning ways to sneak them past the boss).
Edit: I have since received confirmation from IM that I should not have received any penalty and that they will be reducing my T2 time by 5 minutes. This leaves my end result as 4:32:01 and 7th in AG. It would also have been sufficient for the first WC roll down slot. I have requested that this be made available to me but have been told that it cannot since I didn’t attend the roll down ceremony. I’m appealing.0
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