I'd like to start by apologising for the briefness of this week's entry... although extremely selfish of me I needed to make myself feel better about the bike so spent far too long fiddling the stats to do just that... whilst I'm on the subject of me me me I'm also going to stop writing this at 7pm sharp (about two minutes from now) so that I can be tucked up in front of Masterchef (bbc iplayer) in time for a minimum of eight hours sleep... sorry ;)
To cut a very long story extremely short (more details next week) I've been really worried that although I'm swimming better than ever (400pb this week 5:33) and running better than ever (half mara pb at last month's Brass Monkey 1:19:35) I just don't feel my bike is getting the attention it so very much needs. A quick look at the stats from the previous two years has upped my mood though...
Lets assume that the key training weeks are the 20 leading up to race week (I've not included race week in this as it doesn't really involve any opportunity for fitness gains). A quick fiddle on Excel shows that in that period up to IMCH 2007 I managed just under 183 hours in the saddle, and in the same period up to IMDE 2008 I managed 141 hours (probably explains quite a bit - more next week) at an average of 9 hours and 7 hours per week respectively. Considering my total weekly training hours even the IMCH bike volume is pretty poor! So far this year I've completed the first seven of those 20 weeks and at 73.5 hours I'm ten ahead of Switzerland at the same point and 25.5 ahead of Germany. Today's picture shows Lanzarote bike hours as the red line, Switzerland as the blue line and Germany as the black line.
I now feel much happier :)
Night,
T
p.s. How's the 28 days going? I'm 15/15 for the water, 14/15 for the stretching and at 23 hours on the bike have 13 days to spend 25 hours in the saddle.
p.p.s. sorry we've not been so good at replying to your comments, normal service will resume this week.
Sunday, 15 February 2009
Speed wobbles...
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6 comments:
Sounds like you are on track. That is great news. First time posting on your blog. Great read by the way, doing my first IM this summer at Austria and its giving me alot of motivation reading about your exploits. Just wondering, when you do a long turbo session early in the am what kind of intervals and such do you do or is it just a case of steady miles. Can't get my head around what would be best to get the most out of my own training.
Keep going, train strong and I'll keep reading and keeping a look out in our local races.
Cheers,
Ove Indergaard (fellow LBT'er)
Hey Tom
Well on track, don't honestly think you'd let yourself not be, so forget the wobbles, you're not even close to having one!
Goals on track then, well done, mine are too following the first weeks missed swim; I'm actually looking forward to the swim on Wednesday am :-) I'm on a high having completed the full Reliability Ride route yesterday.
See you at runclub
Khara
Great to hear from you Ove! Hels and I will be in Klagenfurt supporting so get ready for some serious race-day motivation ;) It was also my first Ironman and is the most amazing event, I'll try and dig my race report out and post it on here.
In terms of morning turbo sessions they're new to this year's training as typically we've only swum and occasionally run in the early hours. For some reason I seem to swim fine first thing but struggle with the other two. Anyway, our current Tuesday morning turbo (6-8am) goes like this... 20 minute warm up as 5 min easy spin, 5 x 30 sec left leg 30 sec right leg, 10 minutes of fast cadence work - then we do the 'main set' of 5 x 6 minute steps at 120, 130, 140, 145 & 150 heart rate followed by 5 x 5, 5 x 4, 5 x 3 and 5 x 2 minutes at the same increasing heart rates. For referecne my pool triangle heart rate typically goes from 155-165 over the 20k so a the hardest we're just below that intensity. Importantly we have something to eat first, normally honey, yoghurt and seeds and then a massive high car high protein breakfast straight after.
Khara,
Thanks for your positive comments as usual and well done on doing the reliability ride :)
I'll look forward to seeing you in Austria, seems a long way off but just focusing on one training session at a time. The Session looks good and I might borrow some elements off this.
Just to get your opinion on something. My training is going well and I'm sort of following Don Finks Ironfit intermediate programme, but it seems a bit light on the old cycling compared to the running, would it be worht it do you think if I can up the cycling by increasing the length of the cycling sessions? Currently it is 4.45 of cycling and 4.30 running plus three swims a week. seems a bit imbalanced but I don't want to overdo it either??
What you think??
Been doing really well so far with the pilates, sleep and caffeine. Only a coffee at home before set off to work. My office now looks like a herbalists with decaff tea, fruit tea, nettle tea, white tea and an organic detox tea that came with my veggie box. Just having a major wobble now though as I'm tired and got headache and fancying bobbing to coffee shop next door, so thought I would post to you instead and then once it's in black and white I can't go, and will be good and go and brew another decaff option
As you always say "stay strong"
Ove,
Your question regards balancing training volume between swim, bike & run is really interesting. If you don't mind I'll give a detailed answer as the topic of my blog on Sunday? The short answer is that it depends on a) your strengths and weaknesses and b) your aims and objectives... I know that doesn't help much but I'll spend a bit of time on it over the next few days and write up at the weekend.
Debra,
With only nine days left (including today) of the 28 days it's time to stay stong, you've come this far so I'm sure you can do it ;)
cheers guys,
T
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