Long ride session today went well, I went out for 5.5 hours, and although it was pretty cold for the first few hours, I had a good ride and almost hit the 100 mile mark (actually did 159.7km = 99.8 miles). I then did a 1 hour run off the bike which was fine, no real issues, I think my body was pleased to be doing something other than riding the bike!!
I've ridden further tan 160km on a number of occasions in the past but never on my own and this is certainly much harder than riding long distances with a group. My pace is ok, averaged almost 29km/h with my heart rate well under control.
Only a couple of minor issues that I had to deal with, another water bottle full of sports drink was ejected onto the roads of Kent and squashed, this is a bit annoying but not much I can do about it as for these long rides I have to take out large bottles in the behind the saddle cages, in the actual race if this happens there will be an aid station within 20km so I can just get more, is a bit of a pain that I keep wasting bottles though!
I also had a bad spell after about 4 hours, when it felt like someone had turned the power supply to my legs off, managed to come out the other side and actually felt quite strong at the end.
I haven't managed to put a good long run in the day after my long ride for quite a while so am hopping that tomorrow goes ok, am doing my usual 90 min easy ride and then have a 2 hour 40 min run planned. Going to take 1.5l of sports drink out this time as well as some gels so hopefully I can keep my body fuelled better than last week.
Out for a curry tonight, not sure that is the best pre-training nutrition but I'll make sure I eat lots of rice!
Sunday, 10 May 2009
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Welling Half Ironman - Take 2
I had a day's holiday from work today to do the 2nd of my 3 planned half ironman race simulations. I was hoping to do exactly the same as last time although this option was taken away when I looked at the swimming pool opening times and was somewhat annoyed to see that you are only allowed to swim in the mornings if you are over 60! Not particularly helpful for me.
Found another local pool that was not quite so ageist but being a bit further away decided that I would swim, drive home and then do the bike and a full 21.1km run rather than split in 2 like last time.
Swimming pool was actually much better that they one I have used before, they had 3 lanes roped off and each was nice and wide, I started as the pool opened so there were only 2 other people in the lane and it was easy to overtake so I had an uninterrupted swim, completed the 1.9km in 36.03 without too much bother. I'm quite happy with my swimming at the moment, I swam 36 minutes in Geelong last year and I know that I am faster in the open water with a wetsuit on so doing that sort of time in the pool is a good sign. We also did a split 1500m at the squad session on Tuesday (500, 400, 300, 200, 100 with various different efforts during each set and approx 30 seconds rest in between each block) I did this in 25.30 (excluding the rests), given that my best 1,500m race time is about 29 minutes, I've clearly made some progress.
Anyway, back to today, despite the drive home from the pool, I was out on the bike within 20 minutes of finishing the swim, same course as last time although a bit more traffic to contend with and this time the wind was more of a problem for the second half of the ride. My nutrition plans had to be changed half way round when having just finished one of my bottles of sports drink, the other one was ejected from the seat mounted bottle holder courtesy of a huge pothole. I did stop to see if I could recover it only to see it obliterated by a couple of trucks and a few cars!! SO with no liquid left I didn't really want to eat much more as I need to be able to wash it down with something otherwise stomach troubles are never far away. Apart from that the ride was ok, time was not great but with plenty of traffic etc I'm not too worried, total time was 3.08.57.
I was pretty thirsty when I got home so chucked some water in and took a gel, put the running stuff on, this time with a camelback full of 1.5l of sports rink and 4 gels in my pockets and set out for the run. Run was ok, I kept my HR on track for the first 45 minutes or so but then probably let it go a bit higher than I should of and as a result faded a bit towards the end, although the run home was uphill and into the wind so probably not quite as bad as the time would suggest, Half marathon (ish) completed in 1.56.56 so an overall time of about 5.40 is similar to last time.
Didn't feel too bad afterwards, obviously tired but recovered pretty well after some food and a shower. I'm still not 100% happy with my nutrition, so will keep making changes until it feel right.
Back into my normal training for the rest of the week with a long swim tomorrow and then an easier day on Friday before another big weekend. I expect I will get close to the 100 mile mark on my ride on Saturday which is always a nice milestone.
Have been enjoying watching the cricket for the rest of today and have the champions league semi-final tonight to watch so my legs are getting a good rest!
Found another local pool that was not quite so ageist but being a bit further away decided that I would swim, drive home and then do the bike and a full 21.1km run rather than split in 2 like last time.
Swimming pool was actually much better that they one I have used before, they had 3 lanes roped off and each was nice and wide, I started as the pool opened so there were only 2 other people in the lane and it was easy to overtake so I had an uninterrupted swim, completed the 1.9km in 36.03 without too much bother. I'm quite happy with my swimming at the moment, I swam 36 minutes in Geelong last year and I know that I am faster in the open water with a wetsuit on so doing that sort of time in the pool is a good sign. We also did a split 1500m at the squad session on Tuesday (500, 400, 300, 200, 100 with various different efforts during each set and approx 30 seconds rest in between each block) I did this in 25.30 (excluding the rests), given that my best 1,500m race time is about 29 minutes, I've clearly made some progress.
Anyway, back to today, despite the drive home from the pool, I was out on the bike within 20 minutes of finishing the swim, same course as last time although a bit more traffic to contend with and this time the wind was more of a problem for the second half of the ride. My nutrition plans had to be changed half way round when having just finished one of my bottles of sports drink, the other one was ejected from the seat mounted bottle holder courtesy of a huge pothole. I did stop to see if I could recover it only to see it obliterated by a couple of trucks and a few cars!! SO with no liquid left I didn't really want to eat much more as I need to be able to wash it down with something otherwise stomach troubles are never far away. Apart from that the ride was ok, time was not great but with plenty of traffic etc I'm not too worried, total time was 3.08.57.
I was pretty thirsty when I got home so chucked some water in and took a gel, put the running stuff on, this time with a camelback full of 1.5l of sports rink and 4 gels in my pockets and set out for the run. Run was ok, I kept my HR on track for the first 45 minutes or so but then probably let it go a bit higher than I should of and as a result faded a bit towards the end, although the run home was uphill and into the wind so probably not quite as bad as the time would suggest, Half marathon (ish) completed in 1.56.56 so an overall time of about 5.40 is similar to last time.
Didn't feel too bad afterwards, obviously tired but recovered pretty well after some food and a shower. I'm still not 100% happy with my nutrition, so will keep making changes until it feel right.
Back into my normal training for the rest of the week with a long swim tomorrow and then an easier day on Friday before another big weekend. I expect I will get close to the 100 mile mark on my ride on Saturday which is always a nice milestone.
Have been enjoying watching the cricket for the rest of today and have the champions league semi-final tonight to watch so my legs are getting a good rest!
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
2 months to go
Today marks the 2 months to go point and my training is really starting to get challenging. This weekend was really tough but I managed to survive and feel like I learnt a few things which is good.
Saturday's ride was good, I made an early start, getting out the door by 6am so it was nice and quiet on the roads. I decided to take a route that meant a lot of the ride was on the A21 towards Hastings, a dual carriageway at some points but I was keen to try and get some uninterrupted riding with less junctions and better road surfaces which worked quite well, I got home n just over 5 hours with 145km covered, a quick change at home and I then headed out for my one hour run. I started this at a nice easy pace and managed to plod along ok, legs didn't feel too bad, pace was certainly not high but I had never intended it to be.
Sunday's plan was a 90 min easy ride followed by a 2.5 hour run, the ride was fine, a bit windy on the way home but no major problems, quick change and out for my run, I took a camelback filled with water and 3 gels for the run which would normally be plenty. My plan was to take 1 gel after 1 hour, the next after 1hour40 and the last one just after the 2 hour mark. These plans changed pretty rapidly when after only about 15 minutes, I was feeling awful. My legs felt like they had nothing in them and as such I could not get my HR up to where I would have liked it to be so with over 2 hours of running still to go, I decided to revert to a damage limitation type of strategy. I therefore took one of my gels after 20 minutes and that helped for a little while but I was then into the cycle of being slightly lifted after each gel and then feeling this slowly wear off over the next 20-30 minutes and then feeling terrible again! As I only had 3 gels I had to just try and battle through the terrible parts and try and keep going. I am fully expecting to feel like this on the actual day so in a way it was probably pretty good practice, although in hindsight I think I need to start taking out a sports drink rather than simply water, at least during the race there will be an aid station every 2km or so where I can properly re-fuel if I need to.
As you can probably imagine, the next 2 hours of the run were not a whole heap of fun and I was pretty happy to get home in one piece. Hopefully some lessons learned for next time though, and was also encouraging that I still managed to cover 27km even though I felt like death for most of it, had the run gone really well I would have expected to cover something like 29km so it was not the end of the world.
I have booked this Wednesday off work and am planning to do my 2nd Half Ironman simulation. The weather forecast looks ok so I am expecting this to go ahead. I'm going to follow the same format as last time, which means braving the public swimming pool again which will no doubt drive me mental!! I'm going to try a few tweaks to my nutrition strategy as I felt a bit bloated on the bike this Saturday.
This session will be done at my planned Ironman pace which I think I have worked out in my head, and only 2 and a half weeks out from Barcelona will also give me a bit more practice stringing all three sports together. The only other thing I need to sort out before then is getting some open water swimming in, I had hoped to do this yesterday but ran out of time and was feeling pretty beaten up after the weekend so I will try and work out a time to get down to the lake to get used to my wetsuit again.
Saturday's ride was good, I made an early start, getting out the door by 6am so it was nice and quiet on the roads. I decided to take a route that meant a lot of the ride was on the A21 towards Hastings, a dual carriageway at some points but I was keen to try and get some uninterrupted riding with less junctions and better road surfaces which worked quite well, I got home n just over 5 hours with 145km covered, a quick change at home and I then headed out for my one hour run. I started this at a nice easy pace and managed to plod along ok, legs didn't feel too bad, pace was certainly not high but I had never intended it to be.
Sunday's plan was a 90 min easy ride followed by a 2.5 hour run, the ride was fine, a bit windy on the way home but no major problems, quick change and out for my run, I took a camelback filled with water and 3 gels for the run which would normally be plenty. My plan was to take 1 gel after 1 hour, the next after 1hour40 and the last one just after the 2 hour mark. These plans changed pretty rapidly when after only about 15 minutes, I was feeling awful. My legs felt like they had nothing in them and as such I could not get my HR up to where I would have liked it to be so with over 2 hours of running still to go, I decided to revert to a damage limitation type of strategy. I therefore took one of my gels after 20 minutes and that helped for a little while but I was then into the cycle of being slightly lifted after each gel and then feeling this slowly wear off over the next 20-30 minutes and then feeling terrible again! As I only had 3 gels I had to just try and battle through the terrible parts and try and keep going. I am fully expecting to feel like this on the actual day so in a way it was probably pretty good practice, although in hindsight I think I need to start taking out a sports drink rather than simply water, at least during the race there will be an aid station every 2km or so where I can properly re-fuel if I need to.
As you can probably imagine, the next 2 hours of the run were not a whole heap of fun and I was pretty happy to get home in one piece. Hopefully some lessons learned for next time though, and was also encouraging that I still managed to cover 27km even though I felt like death for most of it, had the run gone really well I would have expected to cover something like 29km so it was not the end of the world.
I have booked this Wednesday off work and am planning to do my 2nd Half Ironman simulation. The weather forecast looks ok so I am expecting this to go ahead. I'm going to follow the same format as last time, which means braving the public swimming pool again which will no doubt drive me mental!! I'm going to try a few tweaks to my nutrition strategy as I felt a bit bloated on the bike this Saturday.
This session will be done at my planned Ironman pace which I think I have worked out in my head, and only 2 and a half weeks out from Barcelona will also give me a bit more practice stringing all three sports together. The only other thing I need to sort out before then is getting some open water swimming in, I had hoped to do this yesterday but ran out of time and was feeling pretty beaten up after the weekend so I will try and work out a time to get down to the lake to get used to my wetsuit again.
Friday, 1 May 2009
The May Challenge
So with April now out of the way, the training is going to move to a new level. Due to the 2.5 week holiday, Aprils training totals were relatively low:
Swim - 14.9km (9.3 miles) - 5 hours 34 mins
Bike - 459km (286.9 miles) - 17 hours 3 mins
Run - 137.2km (85.8 miles) - 11 hours 47 mins
Total - 34 hours 25 minutes
I've had a good week so far, after having a nice rest on holiday, my legs were complaining a bit with the 55km that I ran over the first 3 days of this week but although there is always an element of having tired legs with this sort of training, I'm not feeling too bad.
May was always going to be my biggest training month of the year, as I get to the last couple of weeks of June I will start to reduce the volume to prepare for the race so I decided to set myself a challenge in May. I want to have my biggest month in each sport, based upon the training log that I have which goes back to the start of 2008, the most I have done in each sport is as follows:
Swim - 26.3km (Sept 08)
Bike - 1170.3km (Jan 09)
Run - 265.7km (Oct 08)
When I started working towards this race I spent 3 week blocks concentrating on one particular sport which is why the biggest weeks for each one were some months ago.
My intention is to do this through consistent training rather than mega sessions, although obviously the big weekends that I have planned over the next few weeks will help. I am also taking a day off work next week to do another half ironman simulation so that will help with the numbers.
Have a 5 hour ride followed by a 1 hour run planned for Saturday and then Sunday will be my long run (2.5 hours) with an easy 90 minutes on the bike beforehand. Being a public holiday on Monday I am hoping to get my first open water swim of the season in as I'm reliably informed that the lake is now about 14 degrees so should be just about bearable!
Swim - 14.9km (9.3 miles) - 5 hours 34 mins
Bike - 459km (286.9 miles) - 17 hours 3 mins
Run - 137.2km (85.8 miles) - 11 hours 47 mins
Total - 34 hours 25 minutes
I've had a good week so far, after having a nice rest on holiday, my legs were complaining a bit with the 55km that I ran over the first 3 days of this week but although there is always an element of having tired legs with this sort of training, I'm not feeling too bad.
May was always going to be my biggest training month of the year, as I get to the last couple of weeks of June I will start to reduce the volume to prepare for the race so I decided to set myself a challenge in May. I want to have my biggest month in each sport, based upon the training log that I have which goes back to the start of 2008, the most I have done in each sport is as follows:
Swim - 26.3km (Sept 08)
Bike - 1170.3km (Jan 09)
Run - 265.7km (Oct 08)
When I started working towards this race I spent 3 week blocks concentrating on one particular sport which is why the biggest weeks for each one were some months ago.
My intention is to do this through consistent training rather than mega sessions, although obviously the big weekends that I have planned over the next few weeks will help. I am also taking a day off work next week to do another half ironman simulation so that will help with the numbers.
Have a 5 hour ride followed by a 1 hour run planned for Saturday and then Sunday will be my long run (2.5 hours) with an easy 90 minutes on the bike beforehand. Being a public holiday on Monday I am hoping to get my first open water swim of the season in as I'm reliably informed that the lake is now about 14 degrees so should be just about bearable!
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