I really must get my ass in gear and start updating the blog more regularly than I am at the moment. There just seems to be so much going on at the moment and I forget to update the blog on a regular basis now.
Anyway, here is a bit of a summary of the week so far. Not a bad week at all.
Monday 17th June 2013
Running (6.00 Miles / 00:48:54 / 00:08:09 per mile / HRZ 3.7)
I wanted to get a decent paced run in ahead of the Lisburn Half Marathon on Wednesday night. The idea was to push the pace a bit but not do anything too long, so I opted for a 6 mile tempo run.
Usually I don’t really look forward to Tempo runs as by their very nature are at the threshold of race pace and get a bit uncomfortable.
As it turned out, this one went pretty well and I managed to hold a decent pace and was very pleased with 8.09 per mile.
A bit of a boost ahead of the Half Marathon on Wednesday.
Wednesday 19th June 2013
Swimming ( 1500M / 00:34:33) 18M pool at Gym
I thought that ahead of the race tonight that a run would be a good idea to just keep the body nice and loose, and apart from anything else my dreadful swimming fitness and form needs all the work it can get.
I have to admit that this session felt a lot better than my previous sessions and I can feel a bit of strength coming back again, if not speed.
The elbow still isn’t allowing me to pull though at more than about 80% of power on the right arm but it is not painful, which is good.
Running (13.19 Miles / 01:53:43 / 00:08:38 per mile / HRZ 4.1)
As I mentioned in the summary blog last week, I had relatively low expectations going in to this event and had my sights set on a sub 2Hr run and a great result would have been a 1Hr 55min run. As the time above shows, things went a lot better than I hoped they would.
It was a hot night by Lisburn standards and was up around 20 degrees on the start line.
I decided to take it relatively conservatively and aim at maintaining a steady pace and not worry too much about what was going on around me and aim to hold an 8.30 per mile pace throughout.
For the first 4 or 5 miles I seemed to have a hell of a lot of people going past me but I held to my plan and let them go as I had a feeling with the heat that I would be seeing quite a few of them later on!
As an aside – I love it when people recognise my Ironman M Dot tattoo on my leg. About 2 miles in to the race I could overhear three guys behind me talking about the tattoo and one of them was explaining to the others what was involved in Ironman. They were all suitably impressed and my step lightened and sped up as I felt good at the kudos being given to me, even of they weren’t talking directly to me. In fact it was obvious that they thought I couldn’t hear them, as one of them then proclaimed “ I bet you it’s not a real tattoo anyway, it’s probably just a transfer.”
Bas£*rd!! I felt like turning round and telling him it was real and hard earned but thought better of it as there were three of them and I didn’t fancy my chances of outrunning them in this heat, so I just let it go and let them run past. Funny enough I didn’t notice any of them with M Dot tattoos anyway.
As it turns out, I had the last laugh when I passed all three of them again within the next few miles as they had clearly gone out too fast and blown apart before even half way.
I held the pace throughout and from 7 miles to 11 miles I was passed by only a handful of people as I was literally passing hundreds of folks.
I pushed hard through the last 3 miles and the average pace came down a bit more.
As it turns out I ran another negative split, doing the second half of the course 1min and 30 secs faster than the first half. This was great considering the back half if much hillier. This is the second year in a row I have done this.
On the whole I was delighted with the time as it was only 3 mins slower than my PB last year and that is off the back of very mixed and limited training this year.
I was also great to see so many of the Lisburn Triathlon Club members out again doing the Half Marathon and 10K and showing some tremendous form with blistering times.
Confidence is high.
Thursday 20th June 2013
Cycling (11.54 Miles / 00:52:29 / 13.20 MPH / Cadence 68 / HRZ 2.8) Hill Repeats – Elevation Gain 418M
My old favourite hill repeats. Four times up the Pond Park Road.
Not much to say about it except that I feel that I am getting fitter and faster.
My average time for the uphill is reducing and I feel as if I could handle five repeats now.
The hill sessions pay off and persistence is the key.
Topped out over 41mph on the way down – which was great fun.
Friday 21st June 2013
Swimming ( 1750M / 00:38:23) 18M pool at Gym
Back in the pool again and increasing the distance.
I managed to swim this session straight through with no breaks at all and have to say that I felt very comfortable through out – apart from the usual elbow niggle which is not too bad.
Strength is coming back and the average speed is improved by a few seconds per 100M.
It is completely obvious to me that consistency in training is what leads to improvement.
Not a bad week again. I think I will try to do Parkrun 5Ktomorrow morning, but I don’t think a long bike is going to be possible this weekend unfortunately.
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