Saturday 14th June 2014
Running (02:39:32 / 18.12 Miles /00:08:48 per mile / HRZ2)
Hardly the ideal preparation for an 18 mile run the next day but we had friends round and the beer and wine was flowing rather well.
So, when the alarm went off on Saturday morning I was a bit nervous as to how I would feel.
Thankfully I felt fine and eventually once I got myself sorted I headed out the door to get this run done.
Pretty quickly the effect of the night before made itself clear to me as I had awful heartburn for abut 5 miles. It eventually subsided but wasn’t too pleasant while it lasted.
We are having a decent wee spell of nice weather and it was pretty humid on the run. This is all good practice for me ahead of Zurichwhich is sure to be hot and sticky.
I had a purpose in mind for the runtoday and it was to remain in control with heart rate, feel comfortable and not get out of breath – and if possible, maintain a pace around 8.45 -9.00 per mile.
As I progressed through the run I felt good, I had two gels with me but wound up only taking one of them through the run and didn’t really feel like I needed any more than that.
The pace splits were really consistent and the only mile split that was out of the normal range was the last mile up the big hill home, and even then it was only about 40 seconds off, which is not too bad.
I’m pretty chuffed with the run. I felt strong, in control and aware of my pacing. Job’s a good ‘un!
Sunday 15th June 2014
Cycling ( 101.02 miles / 06:16:10 / 16.10 MPH / HRZ 2 / Cadence 75)
North Down Coastal Challenge
A couple of years ago I built this event in to my pre-Frankfurt preparation and I was keen to do the same again this time around.
The big Sportive is about 60 miles around the Ards Peninsula, so I decided to ride down there and home again afterwards to make it up to 100 miles. A decent day of training.
Ian was joining me for this and only at the last minute did he decide to go the whole hog and do the 100 miler rather than meet me at the start in Bangor. This was great news as it meant I would have company for the whole ride.
Starting out at about 8AM I had to put sun-cream on for the first time this year. The only stuff we had was Factor 10, so I was fully anticipating a bit of burning as even at this time of the morning it was warm and bright.
The ride down to Bangor only took about an hour and a quarter and once registered, we started out ahead of the scheduled 10AM start time.
Within about one mile of starting out we had about 4 to 6 people latch on to our wheels and they literally followed us the whole way. Sadly they were just happy to sit in and draft of us for the whole 32 miles down to Portaferry and never once took a turn at the front. I’m not really up to speed on cycling etiquette but even I know that they should have been taking a turn on the front. Maybe we should have taken it as a compliment because we were setting a decent pace and averaging about 18MPH without too much effort really.
The lunch stop in Portaferry was very welcome and set us up nicely for the return leg back to Bangor. It turned out to be a 20 mile straight run in to a headwind all the way to Newtownards. This was tough enough at times but we still kept the average speed up without destroying the legs.
It was great to meet up with a few more friends, Michael, Donald and Ivan and their friend Jonny on the way up the Ards Peninsula and ride along with them for some miles. Donald even found the energy to ride ahead at speed just to get a good photo for Twitter!
Ian was holding up very well and we made good progress back toBangor and I think we finished up doing the 60 miles in about 3H45Mins. Not too bad.
Psychologically it was tough to know that while everyone else was finished, we still had another 20 miles to ride home. It was warm and windy and we never really seemed to get a proper tailwind.
I have to say that I’m really pleased with my ride as I felt strong the whole way through and not under pressure at any point. Certainly there was a bit of tiredness in the legs on a few of the hills from time to time but really nothing too bad, and I could have comfortably run off the bike when I got back home again.
Ian did brilliantly and knocked out his first 100 mile ride and it was well earned in the heat and breeze. It was great to have good company on the way round and plenty of laughs to keep us going.
That’s my third ride of 100 miles or more and I certainly felt a lot stronger on this one than any of the others and hopefully the strength is coming along at the right time.
Weekly Summary
Hours: 15H 49Mins
Swimming: 1300M
Cycling: 162.50 miles
Running: 34.38 miles
A decent week of training and the only disappointment was the low level of swimming, I’ll pick up on that next week.
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