Week 3 summary: 16–22 Jan

Monday
Rest day. Felt like I needed it: sore stiff back, left ankle sore where I twisted it stepping in a hole yesterday, and still got a bit of a dry cough from my xmas cold. Went to Oxford Brookes in the evening for another meeting about the development of the Harcourt Hill Cycling Facility. Quite a good, interesting meeting, an hour and a half went pretty quickly.

We watched “To boldy go – down” when I got back. Fascinating programme, I’ve always loved stories about free-divers and so on and it was good to meet one close up. Those saturation divers in the North Sea were nuts though – I can remember thinking that more than 30 years ago, the first time I heard about what they have to do. I guess they get paid well though.

Tuesday
AM. Swim 2900m. Steady. Included some mixed strokes, working on my left shoulder’s rotation.
AM. Physiotherapy. In between triathlon and bike chat ;-), Chris got me doing core stability-type exercises, moving my left arm in smooth, level movements without involving the shoulder.
PM. Run 10km/49, steady, HR151

Wednesday
PM. Turbo 32km, inc. 4x4km (2km rec.), hard __ HR147(167)
4km (done at ~300W) = 6:44 + 6:44 + 6:42 + 6:43 (average 35.7km/h),  recovery 2km at ~215W
Average session power 253W, cadence 90, Tacx gradient +3

Thursday
AM. Swim 2500m, inc. 6x200m (30s rec.), brisk. The fire alarm went off halfway through the 200s. Fortunately they didn’t make us stand in the car park in our Speedos (they have survival blankets for that, we did ask, but I bet they’re just flimsy foil things), but it did kinda interrupt my session a bit!
PM. Run 16km/1:21, steady easy, HR151

Friday
PM. Turbo 32km/1:05:31 [29.3km/h, 234W, cadence 92, Tacx gradient +3], steady easy, HR135

Saturday
AM. Run 11½km/62, XC at Shotover: 2 MTB hill laps + 1 flat park lap, brisk, HR150(165)
PM. Weights 0h55. Worked on abs and back, and with weight, shoulders and flyes (cable and dumbell)

Sunday
Cycle 209km, inc. Poor Student Permanent 201km Audax/7h56 (inc. 13min stopped), brisk, HR135(158)
Jules is on nights at the moment, so I take every chance I can get to get out of the house so as not to disturb her whilst she’s sleeping.

It was going to be a very blowy day, but I headed out the door with my lights on soon after 7am and picked up my first receipt at Barclays Bank in  Turl Street. Strong headwinds all the way to Malmesbury, with the odd brief bit of shelter from villages and hedgerows along the way. I slogged along, average speed pretty low, but I figured that once I’d got to Malmesbury I’d pick up a bit of a tailwind and things would get easier. The first 20k to Cirencester was indeed nice, but beyond that, it was a real fight up the Whiteway – massive gusty crosswinds made steering my bike very uncomfortable. I spent most of the climb down on the drops to get more weight over the front wheel. By the time I’d made it over the climbs at Compton Abdale I was exhausted from fighting the wind and the gradients, and conditions didn’t get any better over the tops past the Broadway Tower and down into Chipping Campden. I stopped here for a refill of bottles and a couple of chocolate bars before a tailwind (at last!) finish back to Oxford. My arms gave up along here, and I had to do quite a bit of stretching to get comfortable as I rode along. I deviated slightly from the route at the end, preferring to ride back along the A40 cycle path rather than battle with the traffic through PearTree roundabout, and collected my finish receipt back in Turl Street  just under 8 hours after I’d left. That was a hard ride – battling with the wind for the first 5 hours or more.

Hours 16:14
Another good week’s training, slowly recovering from the previous week’s blood donation. I mixed in some intervals and my back’s starting to feel better. Decent long ride at the end of the week, although I can feel that I’ve got some way to go before I’m really comfortable with long distances – that’ll come.

Week 2 summary: 9–15 Jan

Monday
Lunchtime. Run 10km/48, steady, HR151
PM. Erg 8km, inc. C2 Challenge series 10km attempt (got as far as 6km at 1:57/r24 _ HR156(166) before putting the handle down)

Tuesday
AM. Swim 2800m
Main 2000m of the session done at 1:45 per 100m, excellent. Also managed a few lengths backstroke without my shoulder complaining too much.
PM. Cycle 115km, steady, HR136(162) ascent 1000m
Nice afternoon for a ride. I took my old club run route over the top of the Cotswolds to Great Rollright and back.

Wednesday
AM. Run 9km/45, steady, HR148
PM. Gave blood. Only just though! My blood failed the “drop test” but a subsequent re-test of a whole blood sample showed I was at 135 g/L haemoglobin, bang on the lower limit for donation! (Corresponds to a haematocrit of around 39% – I’ve always had rather low values for red blood cells and platelets and so on.) This was  my 25th donation and I got my award and certificate.

Thursday
PM. Cycle 84km (32km with Jules + 52km), steady, HR128(159)
Jules wanted to test out her potential 10-mile cycle commute to the ambulance station, north of Kidlington, so I took the afternoon off to do the ride with her. It was a warmish afternoon despite the breeze, and after we’d got back home I went out for another spin around Otmoor. Great sunset.

Friday
AM. Swim 3300m, inc. 3200m/54 (1:41/100m pace). Excellent swim. Left arm strength coming on really well.
PM. Run 11km/56, steady easy, HR150. Breathless!

Saturday
AM. Erg 12km, inc. Challenge Series 10km/39:26.2 (1:58.3) r23 __ HR161(167)
Joined a 10km on RowPro. Hywel Davies was rowing five of them (!), each starting on the hour from 9am. I joined the 10am row. Struggled a bit. 1:57 seemed pretty easy for the first 2km, and then my lower back gave a massive twinge as I was passing the 3km mark – the usual place, low down on the right, just above my hip. I rowed OK though until about 6km when, breathless, I had to sit up and paddle the remaining 4km with about 2:00 pace showing on the monitor. My lower back was very stiff the rest of the day wandering around Oxford doing some shopping with J (we stopped for a Mission Burrito lunch – massive!), and my right hamstring tightened up nicely walking back from the bus stop.

Sunday
AM. Run 14km/1:13, hard, HR150(166)
Hamstring OK but my back’s very stiff. Experience tells me it’ll be this way for at least a week. It seemed too slippy and cold on our road for cycling so I went out for a run, did three laps up and down the hills of the MTB XC circuit on Shotover. Stepped in a hole and twisted my ankle at one point, which wasn’t too great. Tough work.
PM. Weights 1h00.  Over to Brookes gym for plenty of abdominal work, trying to stretch my back, as well as cable flyes and shoulder exercises for my weak left arm.

Hours 15:24
A good week’s training, managed a long ride too. Annoyed about hurting my back on Saturday – that could live with me for a month or more yet. I have plenty of stretching to do, although it’s good that I have enough confidence in my left shoulder to get back to the gym – I ought to be there more often over the winter.

Week 1 summary: 2–8 Jan

Monday
Lunchtime. Swim 2000m, steady
Left arm still fails to take a decent catch, but is stronger through the rest of the stroke. Averaged ~1:52 per 100m
PM. Run 10km/47, steady, HR149

Finished the town bike rebuild: new brakes off my old TT bike + orange cables + new bar tape, and SA 5-speed hub gear. It was tricky to work out the correct gear cable tension to get the hub shifting right but I think it’s OK now. Test ride to the pool and back, pretty happy with that, gear ratios OK.

Tuesday
AM. Physiotherapy at the JR2
The Physio seemed impressed with my progress – reminded me that 3 weeks ago I could barely raise my left arm above shoulder height. Gave me a stronger bit of elastic to work with, and some sculling exercises to do in the pool as well as some more flyes-type stuff, with the elastic and with weights. On my way through the hospital I enquired at the X-ray department if I could buy copies of my X-rays, but it’s gone up to £30 a set! (It used to be £10), so I decided not to bother.
Sneezed my way through work.
PM. Erg 11km. inc. RowPro 30min/7707m (1:56.8) r24 __ HR158(169)
First time on a RowPro session – there was a handy half hour starting at 17:15, just after I’d get home from work. Found out a few useful things – like the metres you do to warm up whilst logged into a session don’t appear anywhere (on the laptop or on the PM monitor). Had a good row though. One guy sped off at 1:49 and three of us rowed together. There were nine in the session, from UK and USA. It was good motivation, I can see myself buying the software.

Wednesday
PM. Run 13½km/67, steady, HR148
Another sneezy day at work, but managed to drag myself out for a steady plod when I got home.

Thursday
AM. Swim 2500m, steady
1:50 per 100m pace. Getting there!
PM. Turbo 52km/1:45:31 (29.6km/h) __ HR142(158) __ ave 238W, cad 95, Tacx gradient +3.
Done as alternate 8min 220W/2min 310W
Booked the afternoon off work but it was way too windy to be safe (we’d had gales in the night), so I sat on the turbo instead.

Friday
PM. Erg 11km, inc. C2CTC 7x777m (70 sec rest) = 20:33.0 (1:53.3) r24 __ HR141(164)
Solid effort, didn’t feel like I was too close to the limit.

Saturday
AM. Run 9km/45, steady, HR148
Out the door early before we packed the car up and drove to my mum’s in Devon for another xmas dinner.

Sunday
PM. Cycle 48km, steady, HR132
We got back from Devon while there was still a little light in the sky so I put some lights on the bike and went out for a couple of laps of the Oakley road race circuit on Otmoor.

Hours: 9:08
Shame I didn’t manage to get a +4-hour ride in, but a solid week and hopefully I’ll have a chance to get out for longer next week. I bought a RowPro licence at the end of the week, it seemed like it’d be useful to train with others online. I’ve got to start concentrating on my diet – breaking my shoulder and having a cold over xmas hasn’t exactly been kind to my waistline – I’ve got about 5kg to lose before the racing starts.

[Edit: hmm, trying to find a WordPress design that works better with a weekly blog - a stock design that's wider across the screen so you don't have to scroll down so much to read each entry would be better]

Cycle 110km

Cycle 110km, steady, HR140(163)

Up at a reasonable hour, out the door well before 10am for a jaunt across the Chilterns to Stokenchurch, Henley and Goring. Plenty of people out and about, hiking and cycling. The towpath at Henley was rammed with people taking a stroll. A few spots of rain on the run back into Cowley, it was that sort of day. Found this ride more tiring than it ought to’ve been – that cold is still running me down a bit. Nevertheless a +15-hour week, at last.

New year’s resolutions
I’m not much of one for this sort of thing, but in 2012: I’m going to try to: (1)  floss more (I promised my dentist I would and just didn’t come up with the goods in 2011!), (2) have three sober days a week (although some evenings I only have a single beer with dinner it’s been, at best, one or two days a week without a drink for the past 15 or 20 years, that’s not so good), (3) wear a cycle helmet for those little trips around town where I’ve not bothered in the past. I owe that to Jules, and to all those medics who ask a million times ”were you wearing a helmet?” every time I pass through the ED at the JR2.

December summary + 2011 round up

December summary

Run 91½km/9
Cycle 602km/13
Swim 2500m/2
Erg 25km/3
Weights -

Hours = 31:31 (7:07 per week)
Rest days = 7

————————-

2011 summary

Run 1783km/139
Cycle 14214km/160
Swim 143950m/48
Erg 335km/36
Weights 7h55/9

Hours = 729:13 (13:59 per week)
Rest days = 68
Total sessions = 392

And so ends 2011, a year of going long, mostly on the bike. A pretty good year, considering that up until the end of the season I’d done barely a dozen interval sessions – the whole year was based around endurance for the 12-h and 24-h TTs, Paris-Brest-Paris and Challenge Henley iron-distance. Being under less stress from these sessions, I had a largely injury-free year, although I was getting close to the ragged edge of overtraining by the end of an 87-hour April. Managed to get it all under control by the time the main racing season came around and showed a bit of speed with a sub-21 minute 10-mile TT and sub-23 minutes on the trike, plus a good showing at IM UK 70.3 in June. I’m very happy to have nabbed the club 24-hour trike record and finished PBP comfortably, as well as dragging myself round the Chilterns to a decent 10½-hour ironman finish.

Shame I got injured in a crazy bike accident in November, breaking my humerus, but that seems to be healing well and by the last week of the year I’m back on the treadmill of double day sessions and 4-hour rides. I have Challenge Roth to work towards on 8 July and have yet to decide what my intermediate events will be – I need a half-ironman warm up, maybe the Swashbuckler at the end of May, for a change of scene. 2012 will see a return to my more typical training formula: more speed-focussed (my weakness), and letting the endurance taking care of itself. I’ve not ruled out another crack at the Mersey 24-hour TT and there will certainly be some tandem time trialling once the shiny new tandem frame I bought the week before my accident is built up.

Erg 8km (5km TT) + run 9½km

AM. Erg 8km, inc. C2 Challenge 5km, hard, HR154(173)

2km w/u
5km: 19:17.0 (1:55.7) r24 __ HR167(173)
1km w/d

PM. Run 9½km/47, steady, HR150(159)

Last day of the month, time to have a go at the Challenge Series 5km test. I had an idea I could go sub-19 minutes, but realised that wasn’t on the cards after just 1000m and paced myself up to 3500m where I started to blow a bit and had to ease off yet more until the 500m to go point. Almost a minute off what I can do on a good day, but with a head cold and a recently broken shoulder, I’ll settle for that.

Managed a good run in the evening, a few people out and about although it didn’t look too busy on the streets just yet. Quiet night ahead for us, Jules has a shift starting at 6am tomorrow morning and I need to get this cold out of my system and crack on, only 28 weeks to Roth. I’d better make sure they’re 28 weeks of solid graft.

Swim 1500m + turbo 32km

AM. Swim 1500m

PM. Turbo 32km/1:06:37 (28.8km/h) steady, HR138(147)

Average power 236W
Average cadence 91
Tacx Flow gradient +3

Another swim before a morning at work, clearing my overladen Inbox. Managed a bit further with fewer breaks to rest my shoulder or for breaststroke lengths to break it up.

Spent the afternoon faffing about with my town bike – finishing off the installation of a Sturmey Archer 5-speed hub and fitted some new brake cables and bar tape. I’d planned a run this evening, but it was wet and cold and I wimped out in favour of a steady turbo.

Erg 9km

PM. Erg 9km, inc. CTC 2km+1½km+1km+½km (1min rec.), hard, HR147(176)

2km w/u
2km: 7:37.9 (1:54.4) r25
1½km: 5:40.5 (1:53.5) r26
1km: 3:45.4 (1:52.7) r27
½km:  1:48.8 (1:48.8) r30. [total = 18:53.6 (1:53.2)]
2km w/d

Spent the day faffing about in a rather unconstructive way, bored of my cold now, but managed to guilt myself onto the erg in the late afternoon. Planned to increase the rate by one spm every interval and see what I had left for the last 500m. Half-a-minute’s improvement over my last, xmas-eve, attempt but it still doesn’t get me into the first Independent boat. At this time of the year I’d normally expect to go half a minute faster than this for a straight-out 5km erg, so there’s plenty of work to be doing.

Swim 1000m + run 9km

Lunchtime. Swim 1000m, easy

PM. Run 9km/45, steady, HR145(155)

Decided to head back to the pool for the first time in nearly 15 weeks. Time also to test out how my weak shoulder would perform. Just pushing off from the wall on that tentative first length (I picked the “medium” speed lane for the first time ever) I realised I couldn’t hold my arm out straight into the water without it flapping everywhere. Most of my crawl lengths were spent today working on that one aspect - I couldn’t extend my arm in a glide properly (something I’ve been working on for the last few years – getting more glide in my stroke to make for a more relaxed approach to long-distance triathlon swims).

I couldn’t really put much “pull” effort through the arm either, although that’s mainly a strength issue and something I can easily work on. I could just about manage 4 lengths at a time before I had to put in a couple of lengths breaststroke to let things calm down again and decided that 1000m would be my lot – any more and I’d probably not be able to haul myself out the pool! (I have however, resorted to the steps after hard interval sets in the past ;-)

Nice evening run. My cold is slowly getting better.

Cycle 117km

Cycle 117km, steady, Winslow HR139(161)

Grey, overcast day ideal for some winter mileage… sort of. My first 4-hour ride since the accident and my left shoulder was very sore for the last hour. In fact, most of me was pretty tired by that point too! The last 20km or so was a real slog.