The aim of weeks 1-4 is simply to get back in the habit of training twice a day with decent volume in all three disciplines and as few hard sessions as possible.
I've decided to break down my training diary report in to the following sections...
Overall
21 hours, all quality and with structure and purpose. Fitted it round work well and am feeling the benefits already. I reckon I'm about 6-8 weeks ahead of this time last year... it's important not to blow yourself in training though so please remind me to pace myself... I need to peak in 30 weeks not three!!
Swim
Good week with a total of 16.5k making my weekly volume the same as Michael Phelps' daily volume... that's 660 lengths by the way! Worked well on the tumble turns and had some excellent video feedback from Jack Maitland at the TTC workshop on Sunday afternoon. No times or benchmark swims just yet, will work on new technique points in week three and probably do something timed in week 4.
Bike
Also a good week, getting out both weekend days. Saturday was one of the most painful training experiences I've had as H and I got soaked by ice-cold sleet from start to finish... my finger tips are still painful over 24 hours later! Sunday was painful in a different way (see below under workout of the week). A good turbo session on Wednesday meant I was in the saddle for just under ten hours this week :) Nice to be back on the bike :)
Run
Nothing hard as yet although took the Wednesday tempo treadmill up a notch. It was significantly easier than last week though which is great. Ran 12 on Thursday with H and TB, again felt pretty good holding 8:15 miles at an rpe of about 5/10. As with the bike I'm just slowly upping the mileage.
Lifestyle
Been better with water intake this week and although I'm not hitting my target of 2 litres per day plus training requirements I'm on the way. My weight continues to drop with my 5-day average standing at 73.4 this week compared to 74.2 last (target 66 by March). Been eating well with no sweets, chocolates or junk food and no artificial additives, preservatives or flavourings where possible. On the downside I only managed 47.25 hours sleep (6.8 per day) compared to my target of 56... staying up for the Amir Khan fight then getting up for the Ricky Hatton fight didn't help!
Workout of the week
I've long believed that in order to improve effectively at anything you do you must surround yourself with people who are where you want to be and for Ironman Germany I'm trying to do that for my swim, bike and run training. This morning then I went out for a very hilly four hour ride with my friend Carl Saint who is a far far better cyclist than me with pb's of 19:11 for ten miles and 1:43 for 50... that's an average of 31 and 29 mph respectively!! I pretty much spent the entire ride glued to Carl's back wheel with my lungs exploding but there's no way I could train so hard or learn so much without someone like that to aspire to. Too often people shy away from associating with others who they see as 'better' than them... unfortunately that means they are seldom exposed to the inspiration and example of what is possible with a little hard work.
Sunday, 9 December 2007
Tom's training diary - week 2 of 32...
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2 comments:
Tom -- tough training plan! How do you work out your pace for the Tuesday p.m. tempo runs and what recovery do you take?
Gareth...
There is no recovery between the 10 minute sections of the tempo run, i.e. it's a 40 minute continuous effort.
Initially I set the speeds as 13, 14, 15 & 16kph which was an educated guess as to what I could manage without completely beasting myself. In order to progress I then decided that each week I would take a minute of 13 off the beginning and add a minute of 17 on the end. This meant that after ten weeks it would become 14, 15, 16, 17. I did it in the lead up to the London marathon this year and as the weeks progressed my heart rate actually went down!
This time I've started it a little easier (although my heart would have disagreed in week one!) but will look to take it a little further and see how far I can go with 18.
As a guide to setting the speeds...
14 is about my marathon pb pace, 15 half-marathon, 16 = 10k and 17 is around 5k pb pace.
Treadmills and road are very different so it is by no means a precise science.
Cheers
T.
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