A good week let down by a lazy Sunday.

Following the exertions of the weekend I decided to take Monday easy and not train and have a bit of a family day instead.

It may have been lees painful to go training as we would up shopping for the Kids summer clothes in Belfast and the pain in my wallet will stay with me for a while!

Tuesday 27^th May 2014

Running (00:27:28 / 3.25 Miles / 00:08:27 per mile / HRZ2)

Tempo Run

A total disaster.  That’s all I can really say about this run.

I set out with David and Ian to do a brisk 10K but found myself blowing to pieces after only 1.5 miles and I had to take a short cut and end the run early.

I am putting it down to fatigue from a heavy weekend of racing and biking but it still was a very disappointing effort.

Cycling (16.19 Miles / 00:52:49 / 18.40 MPH / HRZ 2 / Cadence 79)

Club Time Trial

Every so often we do a time trial with the Club over a flat out and back route which just falls short of 10 miles at 9.7 Miles

Conditions were good as it was a nice dry evening with what appeared to a light breeze.  After meeting up with Stuart and cycling down early, we let Arran get away for his run while I timed him.

He knocked out a pretty impressive time of just over 23 minutes.  I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere near that time but at least it gave me a good marker point to go for.

My effort at the Time Trial went rather well I think.  The outward stretch felt good and I held the aero position fairly comfortably for most of the stretch and I was feeling strong and concentrated on good form and cadence.  We had been set off at one minute intervals, so my objective was firstly not to be caught from behind but also to try to make up time on the man in front of me.  Unlikely to be honest but at least it was a goal.

As I approached the Moira Roundabout for the half way turn Ii saw Gavin first and then Patrick come back the other way.  It looked like Patrick was holding or maybe stretching the one minute gap on me but I felt like I may have made up a wee bit of time on Gavin as Patrick was closing on him.  Sadly I had forgotten how long it takes to get round the Moira roundabout and by the time I came back round, both of them were out of sight.

The stretch home was definitely more in to the wind.  It wasn’t strong but forced me to keep in a relatively easy gear and just spin the pedals rather than grind a gear.

I crossed the line with a time of 25:46 – which gave me 7^th place out of 15.  I was happy with that and got closer to some guys than I would have expected.  Well done to Aaron for winning in the smoking time of 22:34.

Wednesday 28^th May 2014

 

Cycling (16.41 Miles / 01:18:10 / 12.60 MPH / HRZ 2 / Cadence 66) Elevation 642M

Pond Park Hills X 6

Up early and back on the hill.  After my last effort I was hoping to do a bit better and thankfully things went pretty well for me.

I managed an average climb time of 08:46 which is steady enough.  Not my fastest average time but still decent enough and I felt decent enough throughout the climbs.

Next week as I have a Half Ironman race at the weekend I will probably cut this back to just four reps. and save the legs a bit for the race.

Running (01:00:00 / 7.05 Miles / 00:08:31 per mile / HRZ2)

Exorcising the demons of my disastrous run on Tuesday was the name of  the game.

I set out with a definite objective of keeping within the HR Zone and not worrying what pace that led me to.  Luckily it went rather well and the pace was steady and at no time did I fell anywhere near as fatigued as I did the previous day.

Swimming (00:56:45 / 2200M)

Endurance Session

We very nearly had a lane each at training tonight.  Arran was coaching and there were only three of us in the session across the two lanes.

Sean and I took the slower lane and let Brendan have a lane to himself.

I wanted to get a decent longer endurance session and Arran obliged with a warm up and 3 sets of 600M with varying pace but focused on maintaining a consistent pace.

Things then started to get a bit freaky.

Sean and I opted to take one side of the lane each and bizarrely we matched each other almost stroke for stroke and second for second.  It was brilliant to have someone right beside me and even a small thing like having the spray from someone’s stroke hit me in the face and mouth as their arm left the water was good as it marginally replicated some race conditions.

I felt strong through the whole session and pleased with the pacing.

Friday 30^th May 2014

Swimming (01:17:30 / 3250M)

Endurance Session

The dreaded early morning start began with my alarm going off at 5am and the inner dialogue in my head having a good old argument with itself.  One side saying just reset the alarm and go back to sleep but then the other side saying I needed to do this and I was almost awake anyway. This literally went on for about five minutes and the motivated side of my brain eventually won out.

I was in the water for 5.35am and started out on my session to do 3250M – which is 130 lengths of the pool.

There were a few other people in the lanes and I was sharing with a lady who was breast-stoking (the swim stroke and not some sort of sexual thing) rather quickly.  She kept pace with me and at times managed to slip ahead.

I felt pretty crap about being overtaken by her but realised she was actually quite decent.

The time passed pretty quickly and at the end if I had more time I honestly think I would have carried on to do the full 152 lengths or 3800M which is the Ironman swim distance.

Cycling (00:58:45  / 15.74 Miles / 16.2 MPH / HRZ2 / Cadence 75)

Commuting in and out of work was pretty decent today.  The weather wasn’t bad and the traffic wasn’t awful.

I know that the commute started out as a means to get “free” miles of training done but I think I will keep it up even once Ironman is done as I do enjoy it – although maybe I’m just saying that because the weather is a bit better and I’m not riding in frost, rain and darkness.

Saturday 31st May 2014

Running (02:18:41 / 16.00 / 00:08:36 per mile / HRZ2)

I was dreading this long run a bit as I haven't been going all that well on the long run recently but I was determined to get it done and even try to make it as enjoyable as possible.
I picked a nice out and back route to make it simple and take the thinking out of the equation.

I settled in with a nice steady heart rate and aimed to maintain this and pace.  The heat was a bit more than I was used to so I carried the bigger water bottle with me and tried to keep sipping as I went.

I am delighted with the  way the run went.  Average Heart rate stayed well within Zone 2 and the pace was really comfortable and incredibly 14 of the 16 miles were within 10 seconds of the average pace of 8.36 per mile.  That was the most pleasing part of the whole run.

I let myself down on Sunday by just not doing anything at all.  I was supposed to do a long bike ride but I just got a bit lazy and did nothing.
Did it feel good?  Not really actually.  The weather was meant to be total rubbish and typically the weather turned out nice the time I decide not to go out.