Almost like a whale

Morning.
Good Swim session, overall aim to swim E3 endurance session.

300 wu
Drills
3X400 off 10 min
200 cool down

Total of 2000m.
Good because I held reasonable form in the last rep.

Evening.
30 min on the Turbo.
10 min wu
10 min 100+ cadence
5 min spin up intervals
and 1 leg drills
5 min spin down

Overall a good mid week training day.

Cheeky Blast

I'm supposed to be base training, you know controlled effort levels and that sort of thing.. but today I was a bit stuck for time as Lisa was still feeling a bit shook, so I had an hour to train in (more or less) so I went off full bore on the mountain bike for an hour! Yay :-)
Weather was excellent and trails are dry so it was one hour ten at pretty much, but not quite full steam. It was that or no training at all, and it was fun. Remember fun?

Session 1:10, 25km 200m of total climb.

It's all starting to creak!

And I don't mean the bike.
Up and out early this morning to do the first of two sessions planned for today. Overall training hours planned 1:30. The morning session was a 50 minute run most of which was straightforward over distance easy running but I also added six minutes off strides/drills.

Drills were as follows:
2X Heel kicks+ High knee
2X Bounds + front kicks
each with a pick up sprint at the end and a jog back.

After pretty much the first week of serious training the whole body feels a bit tired and worked over. Tomorrow is set to be a reasonably light day with Tuesday as a rest day.

Second session of the day was a 40 minute strength session focusing on abdominals and leg strength. One leg squats are more manageable now then they were last week, though the heels together squat exercise does seem to be putting a lot of strain on the lateral anterior tibial muscles.

The main planning goal of the week is to book up all the main races for the season before they all sell out!

A distance ride on the cross bike.

Planned training hours: 2:30 hours.
Session plan: over distance bike ride with rolling hills to be covered at level 2 and level 3 exertion.
Overall a good ride (2:20 in the end) though left knee continues to be problematic. I cut the ride slightly short as Lisa and the boys are still feeling a bit ropey with the sickness bug.

Training plan.

I have worked out this year's training plan with a target of doing half Ironman triathlon in September. The training plan is based on 400 annual training hours and uses the methodology from Joe Friel's book "the triathletes training Bible".

I will post a detailed breakdown of the training sessions at a later stage.

(I have a plan, that's something in itself)

This weeks breakdown is posted here: WeekBa1_2.pdf

Easy running.

Planned time: 1:15 hours.
Session aims: easy run session followed by MS strength session.

Given that our house is stricken once more with the dreaded winter vomiting flu I was quite pleased to be able to get out for any training at all today. As it was everybody felt okay in the afternoon and I got out the door for a run.

This was a nice steady one-hour run sticking to zone two effort level (I was in zone 3 a lot) and focusing on good posture and minimising heel strike. I made a conscious effort throughout this run to keep my hips forward and run in a tall position. It was difficult at the start of the run to keep my heart rate down at the required level. It was also interesting to feel that I had a lot of speed in my legs, probably as a result of the fast running at the half marathon. This was also the first run in quite a while where I have been rained on hard, which is pretty good going all things considered.

Run session was followed by a short core strength session plus chest and arms.

Notes: left patella continues to be painful after 10-15 minutes of running. Must remember to do some band work and also to tape patella to see if this will alleviate symptoms.

Big bike (-ish)

Planned time: 1:30 hours endurance plus speed elements.
Session aims: long bike ride with controlled effort over rolling course, remaining seated in the climbs with the majority of the session being carried out in zone two with significant excursions into the zone three.

This was a nice longish bike ride on the cross bike which was mainly on the road but with a significant amount of off road (by way) covered also. In the session I concentrated on maintaining correct effort levels, climbing steadily in the seated position and also maintaining a good position on the drop bars in preparation for transition to a more correct triathlon/time trial position.

Weather was pretty good all in, I did get rained on a bit towards the end but that doesn't matter too much when you are close to home.

Notes:
My left knee is aggravated slightly, feeling almost tired, when I am in the drop position. Sit bones are also quite painful at the moment but that comes from not spending enough time in the saddle. Gone soft haven't I?

Day two of serious training (so far, so good)

Two session day. Total time:1:15
AM swim session, intensive endurance and speed drills.
PM strength training.
Swim session aims:
much the same as the previous day's session with an emphasis on skills in the drill set and building overall endurance in the main set. Session consisted of 400 m drilling followed by main set which again featured 4 x 200 m off five minutes. Swim time for the 200 m sets varied between 4:16 and 4:36, which is an improvement over the previous day. It will be interesting to track the 200 m interval time as training progresses.

Strength session:

This was a short strength session with the usual core stability element plus one leg squats, seated row, squats and some chest work.

Back in the swim of things.

Planed Hours: 1:30
Sessions:
AM 50min Swim
PM 40min Bike
Session aims:

Intensive endurance swim session (E3) with some speed drills to improve technique.
Warmup: 3 x 100 mixed swimming easy pace.
Drill set: a 400 m mixed drill set.
Main set: 4 x 200 m off five minutes.
Cool down: 2 x 100 m easy swimming.

It was good to be back in the pool. Never thought I'd say that. But the swimming wasn't as bad as I had feared as it has been neglected in favour of running over the last couple of months. This was probably prudent in the last few weeks due to the fairly severe ear infection reported previously (still a little bit deaf if I'm honest).

I think to improve technique I need to get sorted with some coached sessions, so that will be a key aim for April/May.

Turbo session aims:
extensive endurance session (i.e. low intensity) with a number of spin up drills to improve cadence and pedalling efficiency.
Even with the aid of podcasts these turbo sessions are very, very boring. Without the aid of intervals or something else to break up the monotony it's difficult to focus on the aims of the session. Something to work on I suppose.

This is my first double session a day for quite a while, so that's good. There are plenty of those in the plan!

Back in the Saddle

Its been a while since I have had the bike out and my next event is Clic24 MTB enduro, so its time to turn some pedals again. Also I am back on some serious Triathlon training, this being the end of base week one. Most of the first week has been pretty much washed out by this bloody recurring cold that doesn't want to shift (or more likely a new cold every 30 seconds due to toddler infection effect).

This was a good over distance bike ride held mainly in zone two and zone three (occasional excursions into zone four are somewhat inevitable on a mountain bike, otherwise it's get off and walk time). Total time 1:56 total distance 34.3 km. I had to push hard over the last quarter as otherwise I would have been late home. The temptation to just do a few more trails was nearly too much to overcome because it's been so long since there has actually been dry trails to ride.