Night Riding the brick.

Monday 24th March 2014

Swimming (2200M / 00:59:25)

I really felt like I was swimming backwards tonight.
It was a tough session but I just felt like a big plank floating in the pool and had no real strength and certainly no speed.  It didn't help that I got moved in to the faster lane as there was space free.  It just made me feel worse when I finished a set 150M behind the first guy in the lane.
I ma hopefully going to get in to the pool on Friday morning this week which will kick off my 3rd swim each week as I think I could do with the extra training.

Tuesday 25th March 2014

Cycling (01:09:21 / 19.32 Miles / 16.70MPH / HRZ 2 / Cadence 80 RPM)

Once again I was Night Rider.  It was nearly 8.30PM by the time Brendan and I hit the road for a two loop ride around the vast metropolis of Lisburn.
We really started to hammer it pretty hard right from the start and my concern about being able to sustain it disappeared fairly quickly as I was feeling really strong on the bike. 
This is the feeling that I have been looking for, and it finally seemed to be with me.  This was a bit of a surprise to me as I thought the weekend would have left me with heavy legs but there was no sign of it.
The route we picked was a good mix of flat, rolling hills, grinding hills and a few twists that we had to accelerate out of.
I am really pleased at how good I felt and this was probably most felt on the Big hill up home.  Normally I'm grinding it out at about 10MPH but tonight I was cruising it at over 13MPH and probably could have gone harder without expending much more energy.

Most impressively of all tonight was Brendan managing not to fall off the bike as this was his first ride with clip in pedals.  Chapeau Sir!

Running (00:15:28 / 2.00 Miles / 00:07:43 per mile / HRZ 2)
Brick Run

My smart idea to make this in to a brick session seemed justified as we headed out straight off the bike.  We were absolutely flying at around 7 mins per mile pace, however as this was downhill it was only to be expected.  the good thing was that both Brendan and I didn't have heavy legs heading out on the run and we re able to hold this pace easy enough.

Things changed fairly rapidly as we turned at the one mile mark and headed back up the hill again.  the pace dropped, the conversation stopped and the breathing got harder and faster.  It was tough coming back up again.  The 7.13 per mile on the way down was replaced with 8.13 per mile on the way back.

I'm still really pleased with the time and the effort that went in to the run and I think Brendan enjoyed it to.