Horse walking and the Week 12 IM Training Round up.

Wednesday  29^th January 2013

 

Running (00:37:02 / 4.60 Miles / 00:08:02 per mile / HRZ 2)

Medium Tempo Run

 

A lunchtime run with Brendan again but this time I wanted to just ease off on the pace very slightly from our usual tempo pace as I was still conscious of protecting my knee a little bit.

Happily I felt no ill effect and we managed to hold a very steady pace throughout the run.  It’s lovely to be able to run this sort of pace and not feel too pressed.  That’s a big step up for me over the last six months.

 

Swimming (01:01:26 / 2150M)

Endurance Session

 

This was another good swim session, this time with Arran taking the helm as Coach and doing a good job at it.

After the triumph of my 1.43 / 100 at Monday’s training I was feeling confident.  Interestingly with another times session at the end of this one my tempo pace 100M split fell down to 2.00Mins.  Quite a bit slower than Monday night and it was probably a combination of my legs being a bit tired after the run at lunch and also a more endurance focussed swim set taking it out of me a bit before hitting the 100s as part of a tortuous Pyramid set that Arran devised.

I’m not going to feel demoralised over it as hitting 2.00 / 100m at the end of a tough set is still not too bad.

 

I’ve started thinking about how I may need to start working on increased endurance fairly soon, and by that I mean steady state swimming for an extended period of time.  The training at the moment is brilliant in terms of building technique and blending with endurance but I just feel like I should be doing some training where I just go and swim 2500-300M straight and not worry about particular skill based drills.  I might start taking advantage of some very early morning swims in another month or so just to start working on the swimming steady for an hour or so. I know it worked well for me last time around and hopefully if it is on top of the excellent coached sessions it will give me a further boost.  I’ll not rush to any decisions yet but that’s just where my head is at now.

 

Thursday 30^th January

 

Cycling (01:01:36 / 15.56 Miles / 15.2 MPH /HRZ 2 / Cadence 76 RPM)

Commute

 

The usual run up and down from work.  The only notable thing was my slightly faster return home than normal.  It could have been due to lighter traffic or maybe that I was trying to ride a bigger gear.

I read an article about increasing strength and power on the bike, which is something I definitely need to do, a I feel like I lack power and therefore speed.  The article suggested riding for some time in a gear that is one or two more than I would normally ride.  Therefore it increase the resistance and forces activation of bigger muscle efforts.

 

This is the antithesis of what I have been focussing on which is high cadence and turnover of the legs but I’m wondering if a combination of both elements within my training will yield some results.  So I am going to try to use the commute each week as a big gear grinding session to build strength.  This will be particularly challenging on the way home as it is a net gain of about 200m in elevation over 8 miles in a big gear.  Great fun.


Sunday 2nd February 2013


Cycling ( 03:13:28 / 52.59 Miles / 16.30 MPH / HRZ 2 / Cadence 81 RPM)
Sunday Long Ride


I was actually meant to do my long ride yesterday but I wimped out due to the weather.  Wimp might be a bit strong, as there was snow on the ground and a gale blowing but nonetheless I didn't go out.
So Sunday rolls around and it turned out to be a really lovely day so I was going to make the most of it.
Clear skies, no rain, oh and a fairly stiff breeze.  Well you can't have everything.
As part of my ride I had arranged to meet up at the Down Royal Racecourse with some boys from the Club so that we could do a test run around the bike course of out upcoming Duathlon.
This went well and the course is good and has the potential to be fairly quick.


Back at the Down Royal we all witnessed one those surreal things that you really only see in Ireland.
inside the racecourse is a hard path which is the ambulance track used in the races.  Many people use this for walking their dog.
One man however decided that he was going to take things up a notch by walking his two horses on dog leads.  You heard me right!  He was walking two Shetland ponies on leads like they were dogs.
Very amusing.



I had a lot more miles to go so I hit out for the road again.  The next 10 miles or so were really windy and tight enough going.
Once I turned towards Lough Neagh the wind came round from the side a bit and it made things a bit easier going. 
Heading up the side of the Lough towards Glenavy the wind moved to being from almost behind me and I was able to make up for lost time and raise the speed a bit.
Sadly the tailwind left me at Glenavy and the road home was eight miles of face in to the wind grinding!


I am particularly pleased with the ride, the way I felt and the average speed given the conditions.

Week 12 Summary

8 Hrs 05 Mins

Swim 4350
Bike 92.70 Miles
Run 11.41 Miles

Hours trained was up a bit this week which is good, and the volume on the bike came up towards the levels I need to be doing as a minimum from now in.

It was a pretty low level on running this week but I'm not all that worried as running is the area where I feel I have a decent base of mileage and missing a long run won't make too much difference at this stage.

One of my highlights this week had to be the swim on Monday and it served as a bit of a confidence boost.

The next two weeks are going to be a bit challenging with some disruption as I'm travelling with work.  I'll make it work some how but I'm guessing that some sessions might need to be adapted.

A decent week on the whole and I'm ready for a good week ahead.