Cycling (8.94 Miles / 00:41:18 / 13.00 Mph / Cadence 67 / HRZ3) Elevation 337M
Hills - 3 X Pond Park Road
Having missed this session earlier in the week because of my alarm clock malfunction, I was determined to get the session in. I rearranged the schedule a bit and swapped my rest day about and hit the hill on Saturday morning. Weather conditions were decent and thankfully I had the wind behind me a bit on the climb. it did mean however that coming down the hill was a bit slower but that's not necessarily a ad thing.
I haven't done the hills in a while so I was a bit worried as to how it would go.
I won't lie. It was a bit harder than it had been before but that's only to be expected as I was doing up to 5 sets on it previously and was getting the climbing legs but at least this was a start and it will be a weekly feature for me throughout this training cycle.
Pleasingly the three sets all went well with times for the climb of 08:54/ 09:01 / 09:27.
Fairly consistent and a positive start to the hill sessions.
Running (5.01 Miles / 00:46:00 / 00:09:11 per mile / HRZ 2)
While Ben was doing his warm up for his Rugby match I decided to kill the time with my Zone 2 slow run today.
Very strangely this felt like a tough run even though I was taking it easy and not worrying about pace.
It might be that I haven't run much this week, or maybe it was running so soon after the bike hill session, although there was a gap of over an hour but either way it felt much harder than it should.
I got it done though and it did get a bit easier as the run went on.
Sunday 17th November 2013
Cycling (28.43 Miles / 01:50:40 / 15.40 Mph / Cadence 80 / HRZ 2) Elevation 362M
You've got to love the Northern Ireland winter! typical weather which is breezy, cold and wet.
The rain wasn't belting down but it was what Peter Kay describes as "Wet" rain. You know that mizzle that just soaks you through no matter what you are wearing.
Not to be put off, I hit the road nicely wrapped up with tights, gloves and overshoes on and hopefully as well prepared as possible for the conditions,
My training plan had me schedule for a 90 minute ride so I estimated approximately 24 miles or so, although the conditions were bound to play a bit of a role.
Very quickly it became clear that this was going to feel a lot longer than 90 minutes. Within 5 minutes I was wet through and my vision was pretty impaired because of the mizzle. Imagine driving your car without wiping the windscreen and it fogging up. That was it!!
My route was undulating and one that I have done many times.
I felt a bit tired early on and realised that the winter wheels which I had put on the bike were substantially heavier than the normal ones I ride. It is amazing the difference in a set of wheels. In some ways the heavier slower wheels are good for winter training as they will build a bit of strength and the decent race wheels will feel so fast when I get them back on again.
Anyway I started to feel a bit stronger and pushed through the rest of the ride pretty well, although I was really freezing cold and wet.
By the time I got home I was able to wring out my gloves and empty my shoes. so much for my "best that money can buy" SealSkinz Overshoes!
I'm reasonably happy with the ride and the average speed. not too bad as a start.
On a completely non training related point. Later in the day I took the Dog for a walk to Wallace Park in Lisburn. It was lovely and the leaves were beautiful colours.
However, I'm about to have a rant here and I'm not being at all sexist about this.
One of my recently developed pet hates is seeing women out running who are obviously "Boot Camp" regulars. (Usually in pairs!)
They are bloody annoying! They run along then suddenly stop, walk a bit. Which is fine but this pair proceeded to launch in to the most pointless exercise in the middle of a run.
The first one started doing about 150M of lunges and the other got on to hands and started walking monkey style along the side of the football pitch!!
What the Hell is that all about.
I blame Boot Camp and some of the so-called "Trainers" who take these. A lot of the exercises they do seem to be pointless and certainly not any use when mixed in during a run.
Another one that I see regularly is running carrying hand weights!! Why?
Just run faster it'll have more effect.
Anyway rant over and I feel better.
Week 1 Summary
7Hrs 39 Mins
Swim: 3250M
Bike: 75.59 Miles
Run: 9.4 Miles.
Not too bad for a first week, although I missed both of my core strength and conditioning session and a brick run - but got everything else in OK.
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