Training Plan - Week 44 - October 27 to November 2

Planned two easy runs during the week as I want to test out both my pairs of trail shoes with different orthotics in them before racing on Saturday. 

Sunday is the first of this year's Kintore winter rides but depending on their plan and how I feel after racing Saturday I might do a shorter solo ride instead. 



Monday - Swim with TPT.
Stretching session.

Tuesday - Gym bike.
Yoga session.

Wednesday - Easy run.

Thursday - Easy run.
Core session.

Friday - Rest Day.

Saturday - North District Cross-Country League - Keith.

Sunday - Long ride - Kintore.



Target totals - Swim > 1.3 miles. Bike > 45 miles. Run > 12 miles. 1 short core, 1 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 30 mins of yoga.

Training Review - Week 43 - October 20 to 26

Monday was my normal swim session. The niggle in my calf was bothering me through the day but it was fine in the pool. 

Tuesday I went to the gym to just sit for an easy hour on the bike. As I was ticking over and reading my kindle I was feeling fairly comfortable and every so often I upped the power a little. This brought me up on an accidental 20 mile session. Probably a little bit too much but I had a planned rest day for Wednesday to recover. 

Wednesday I had my rest day and went for a massage. It was brutal. My niggle had calmed down to the point that it was completely fine, but over the past week it seems that I have been hugely compensating and everything else that she touched was an absolute nightmare. 

Thursday was my first run of the week. I went to Kirkhill and did the same easy loop as the last few weeks. The work the masseuse did left me with a lot of really sore muscles. It took nearly 3 miles before they eased off enough to feel comfortable.  

Friday I had to skip training for film night. Went to see The Judge. Lots of good performances with Robert Duvall, Robert Downey Jr and Vera Farmiga all standing out but it is a bit of a strange collection and they all have moments where they outshine the film and distract from the story.

Saturday I just had no interest in training. Still a bit achey from my massage. I did a chunk of housework, including the annual-ish attempt at cleaning the windows.

Sunday I dragged myself out onto the bike, despite the wind. It wasn't really the best day to be out on the bike, but it was far from the worst and never felt windy enough to be unsafe, just hard work going into it and fast coming back. I ticked along for 35 miles and recced some quiet roads for a future ride. 

Despite the 3 rest days this week I still managed to get all my swim and bike miles in. Still slipping a little behind my running target, but not by any sort of noticeable numbers and I can make it back in the next couple of months without too much trouble.



Target totals - Swim > 1.3 miles. Bike > 50 miles. Run > 12 miles. 1 short core, 1 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 30 mins of yoga.

Health Challenge targets - Walk 300, Swim 60, Cycle 200, Run 120, Yoga 30, Core 15.

Monday - Yoga 20 mins.
Swim with TPT 1.3 miles (2,200 m) in 60 mins.

Tuesday - Gym bike 20 miles in 63 mins.

Wednesday - Rest Day.
Massage.

Thursday - Run at Kirkhill 4.5 miles in 46mins.

Friday - Rest Day.
Cinema - The Judge 6/10.

Saturday - Rest Day.

Sunday - Bike 35 miles in 2hrs 35 mins.
Yoga 25 mins. 


Actuals - Swim 1.3 miles (2,200m). Bike 55 miles. Run 4.5 miles.  short core,   short light weights and   short stretching sessions. 45 mins of yoga.

Health Challenge  - Walk loads, Swim 60, Cycle 218, Run 46, Yoga 25, Core 12.

Training Plan - Week 43 - October 20 to 26

I am booked for a massage on Wednesday so hopefully she can sort out, or at least improve, whatever is wrong with my calf muscle. The rest of the week then needs a bit of reshuffling around that. Final week of the Health Challenge at work so I can stop counting minutes after this week. 


Monday - Swim with TPT.
Stretching session.

Tuesday - Gym bike.
Yoga session.

Wednesday - Massage

Thursday - Easy run.
Core session.

Friday - Gym brick.
Core session.

Saturday - Long run.

Sunday - Long ride.



Target totals - Swim > 1.3 miles. Bike > 50 miles. Run > 12 miles. 1 short core, 1 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 30 mins of yoga.

Health Challenge targets - Walk 300, Swim 60, Cycle 200, Run 120, Yoga 30, Core 15.

Training Review - Week 42 - October 13 to 19

Monday's swim was fairly steady. My left shoulder was a bit achey at full extension but it doesn't seem to be affecting my stroke or pace. 

Tuesday I just took an easy day in the gym. Sat on the bike for a lazy 45mins.

Wednesday was a flexi-day so I planned to do a long ride or long run and then adjust my weekend to suit. Then spent half the day holding hands at the dentist again. In the afternoon I did some wii fit, yoga and steps and then went out for a longer run in the evening. Then I did  a stretching session before bed. 
Thursday I woke up and almost fell over climbing out of bed. Something in my right calf is very painful. It seems to ease off quite quickly if I walk on it but as soon as I sit down for 5 minutes or more it stiffens up and is intensely painful to move again. There is also an area about the size of a tennis ball that is too sore to touch. Since it eases off when moving I thought it would be ok to run on so I took a lap around Dyce. It was ok as long as we were moving but stiffened up as soon I stopped. I tried stretching again at night but it didn't help. 

Friday I went to the gym and sat on the exercise bike for an hour. The niggle was there occasionally but it was fine to just tick over. Then went to see Dracula Untold, it is frankly beyond terrible. 

Saturday I decided to be sensible and stay off my calf and see if that helps any. 

Sunday I went for a very slow and easy bike around Dyce. I didn't want to stray too far from home in case I had more calf problems so I just did a couple of laps around the airport. Took me up to my bike miles target for the week. And got me some extra time on my work's Health Challenge.
So my cunning plan for a long week and plenty of running has not gone well. But I have clocked my longer cycling week despite picking up an injury. 




Target totals - Swim > 1.3 miles. Bike > 50 miles. Run > 15 miles. 1 short core, 1 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 30 mins of yoga.

Health Challenge targets - Walk 300, Swim 60, Cycle 300, Run 150, Yoga 30, Core 30.

Monday - Swim with TPT 1.4 miles (2,250 m) in 57 mins.

Tuesday - Gym bike 13 miles in 45 mins.

Wednesday - Long slow run 7.1 miles in 61 mins.
Yoga 40mins.
Stretching.

Thursday - Jog 3.4 miles in 34 mins. 
Stretching.

Friday - Gym bike 18 miles in 63 mins.

Saturday - Rest day.

Sunday - Slow bike 19miles in 1 hour 30 mins.


Actuals - Swim 1.4 miles (2,250m). Bike 50 miles. Run 10.5 miles.  short core, 0 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 40 mins of yoga.

Health Challenge  - Walk loads, Swim 60, Cycle 198, Run 95, Yoga 40, Core .

Training Plan - Week 42 - October 13 to 19

Flexi day on Wednesday this week. I want to try and put in a longer running week to try and make up for being slightly short on numbers for the last couple of weeks. Whatever I do on Wednesday I will adjust the week from there.


Monday - Swim with TPT.
Stretching session.

Tuesday - Gym bike.
Yoga session.

Wednesday - Flexi day plan unknown.

Thursday - Easy run.
Core session.

Friday - Gym brick.
Core session.

Saturday - Long run.

Sunday - Long ride.


Target totals - Swim > 1.3 miles. Bike > 50 miles. Run > 15 miles. 1 short core, 1 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 30 mins of yoga.

Health Challenge targets - Walk 300, Swim 60, Cycle 300, Run 150, Yoga 30, Core 30.

Training Review - Week 41 - October 6 to 12

Nice easy start to the week with a simple TPT swim session and then a core session.

Tuesday I went to the gym for an easy spin on the bike. Stepped the pace up slightly from previous weeks but still kept it calm enough that I could read as I pedal. Reminding myself that it is now winter and the plan is lots of time at low efforts.

Wednesday I stayed on a rest day. 

Thursday I went to the gym and just sat on the bike. I wasn't feeling too hot so I just ticked my legs over for 45 minutes. Then I did a core session and some yoga in the evening. 

Friday was my first run of the week. An easy trip to Kirkhill. Nothing too severe, but a nice steady off-road 5-miler.

Saturday I planned an extra swim session. In order to get some run miles in I arranged to run their and back as well. Was hard work being up and trying to run that early in the morning, and the swim felt really hard work, running home again I finally warmed up enough to feel comfortable. 

Sunday I went out for a solo ride. It was 6 degrees as I left the house so I wrapped up in most of my winter training gear. For the first 40 minutes or so this was absolutely the right decision. I was nice and comfortable, warm enough and enjoying myself on a brisk and clear autumn morning. But the sun was out and it did start to get a bit too warm, especially on the climbs. My winter jacket is really great, the gloves are possibly not quite as good as I had hoped but they will be fine for autumn and as a spare pair in my pocket through winter. 

A bit short on running miles this week, mostly because I thought the pool was further from my house. But still going to call this as a very good week. Another week over 60 miles on the bike and 2 miles in the water. 



Target totals - Swim > 2 miles. Bike > 55 miles. Run > 15 miles. 1 short core, 1 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 30 mins of yoga.

Health Challenge targets - Walk 300, Swim 60, Cycle 240, Run 120, Yoga 30, Core 30.

Monday - Swim with TPT 1.4 miles (2,200 m) in 57 mins.
Core session.

Tuesday - Gym bike 19.7 miles in 63mins.

Wednesday - Rest day.

Thursday - Gym bike 13.9 miles in 45 mins.
Yoga session. 
Core session.

Friday - Run at Kirkhill, 4.9 miles in 50 mins.

Saturday - Run to Bucksburn 2.6 miles in 25 mins.
Swim 950m in 31mins.
Run home 2.5 miles in 23 mins.

Sunday - Ride 27.3 miles in 2 hours 5 mins.


Actuals - Swim 2.0 miles (3,150m). Bike 60.9 miles. Run 10 miles. 2 short core, 0 short light weights and 0 short stretching sessions. 22 mins of yoga.

Health Challenge  - Walk loads, Swim 90, Cycle 233, Run 98, Yoga 22, Core 20.

Race Review - Peterhead Sprint Triathlon

Pre-race I was in a state. There were a few people there that I didn't want to see, and very few of the ones that I would normally hide amongst to try and deal with it. I worked around it by sitting in the car for about 45 minutes between registering and the briefing, then setting up my transition after almost everyone else was already in the pool. Then I got changed and headed out onto pool side, found a quiet space and tried to calm my heart rate and decrease some of the twitching. Today was as close as I have been to a serious panic attack for a while. Maybe karma isn't quite as effective as it seems.

There were only two heats. The first one had all of the novice race and some of the slowest racers from the sprint race. By the time I was at poolside the novices were starting to finish.

With what would normally have been a whole fast heat worth of swimmers crammed into two lanes meant there was a huge range of abilities. That then led to a lot of overtaking. Garmin suggests that I had 9 stops to let people pass at about 4-5 seconds each. And I was never able to get on to one of them to get a beneficial tow to make up for it. Also the pool at Peterhead is also a funny shape, wider than it is long, and quite shallow. So even with 6 lanes there still isn't a lot of surface wake, but there are a lot of funny currents going on underneath. This makes for quite a bit of directional control that isn't normal for pool swims.

The watch says I was out of the water in 12mins 28. That would have been a huge swim PB, so with all the stops I was really surprised. But then less surprised when I downloaded from Garmin to find that I had been tapped too early. I only did 28 laps, or 700m, instead of the 30 laps / 750m that I should have done. With all the stops against 2 laps short the time probably isn't too far from what I am capable of.

Through T1 I was fairly conservative. I took it easy and just went through everything carefully to try and avoid some of the messes I have made this year. It wasn't fast, but it was calm and efficient.

I had a really good mount onto the bike and got up to pace and into my TT position really early on. 

On the first roundabout out of town the sign had been twisted round by the wind. It looked like a straight arrow, so I went straight on. Then I had a look back at the signs on the other side of the roundabout and wasn't confident that was the way the route went. I should have recced the bike route, or at least looked more closely at the map. Instead I pulled over and had a quick look back to check if the next cyclist came straight over. He did, but he was so close behind me that I wondered if he had just followed me across a wrong turn. he shouted "straight on, definitely" as he passed, so I got straight back on the pace.

I was catching some people on the bike. And I was spending a lot of time in my TT position. Peterhead is a very flat course. There was a fairly gusty crosswind but I was managing to handle it well enough. Just before half way the route turn through the village of Longside. I was even managing to time trial straight through the village and up the rise out of town. From there back to Peterhead is a busier road and some of the traffic was a bit risky. But I was managing to still keep the pace on, and I got very lucky with the traffic across all three roundabouts coming back into town and didn't have to ease up at all.

Averaging over 20mph on the bike despite the crosswinds was really great. It is my fastest average speed on the bike apart from the straight time trial that I did.

T2 was as slick as I have ever done. And as it turns out I was fastest of anyone. 20 seconds in and out.

And onto the run I felt fairly good. My legs were moving ok. Still not running like I used to but it was as fast a shuffle as I have managed this year. I was under 7min/mile pace steadily. The route goes straight out and back so approaching the turn you get a chance to see the athletes in front. I knew I wasn't going to catch anyone in front but there were a couple of people close behind me that looked to be running well so I had to push again on the downhill coming back in. 

On the way back down the hill I passed a lot of people I know. There are massive spikes in my heart rate track at the points where I passed the people I didn't want to see. Jumping over 210bpm from the 165 it was doing during the rest of the run. That doesn't seem to have affected my pace though, I was still running well enough and coming in to the finish I managed to muster up a bit of a sprint, even without checking behind to see if anyone was gaining. 

If I  factor the amount of overtaking against the 2 laps short I was probably on to set another swim PB. At some point I may try and sneak in a 750m swim time trial before the end of the year, just to see what I can actually do flat out with the turns in. The bike was as fast as I have ridden in a triathlon yet. The run was as good as I can expect for what I have done this year. So a pretty good race all in. 

Here are the full results. Fourth Senior, seventh overall. That is a pretty good finish to the season. 

Training Plan - Week 41 - October 6 to 12

OK, so it is time for winter training now. No more planned races this year. I might do a couple of local cross-country events of they fit in, maybe a duathlon if the weather looks spectacular that week, but those will be late decisions. The only 'proper' race I might put back in is the 5k swim champs if they are going to be held again this year. 

So with no races left I can focus on basic fitness and that means lots of miles at lower efforts. I could just start writing massive miles on the plan now but that is likely to just end up with me dropping sessions all over the place. So it is a heavier week but not an extreme week. 



Monday - Swim with TPT.
Stretching session.

Tuesday - Gym bike or brick.
Yoga session.

Wednesday - Rest day.

Thursday - Easy run.
Core session.

Friday - Easy ride or run.
Core session.

Saturday - Long run.

Sunday - Long ride.


Target totals - Swim > 2 miles. Bike > 55 miles. Run > 15 miles. 1 short core, 1 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 30 mins of yoga.

Health Challenge targets - Walk 300, Swim 60, Cycle 240, Run 120, Yoga 30, Core 30.

Training Review - Week 40 - Sept 29 to Oct 5

Monday's swim felt pretty terrible. But the turns in the deep end were pretty good and I tried a couple in the shallow end which weren't complete disasters. 

Tuesday I stuck to just biking in the gym to get some time and miles in.

Wednesday was massage day.

Thursday was my first trip outside this week with an easy run at Kirkhill. Stretched it out to do an hour and that crosses the October Strava 10k challenge off the list. A few small niggly bits from massage the night before but nothing too severe. 

Friday I wanted to try and round off some of my number for the week but without doing anything that would damage my race changes. Decided to do a brick and to take the run as just an easy warm up and then sit on the bike for an hour. 

Saturday I had though about taking the bike out for half an hour but it was pouring rain in the morning and I spent the afternoon sitting in A&E (not for me this time)  so it turned accidentally into almost a proper pre-race rest day. 

Sunday was Peterhead Traithlon which, as always, will get a report to itself.

Not a great week, but not a bad week. Peterhead being such a short race and taking Saturday off to fit it in both hurt my totals for this week. And missing wednesday for a massage was all it then took to make me fall short for the week. 


Target totals - Swim > 2 miles. Bike > 40 miles. Run > 12 miles. 1 short core, 1 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions. 30 mins of yoga.

Health Challenge targets - Walk 300, Swim 60, Cycle 200, Run 120, Yoga 30, Core 30.

Monday - Swim with TPT 1.5 miles (2,300 m) in 57 mins.

Tuesday - Gym bike 18.6 miles in 63 mins.

Wednesday - Massage.

Thursday - Run at Kirkhill 6.4 miles in 61 mins.
Core session.

Friday - Gym brick. Treadmill 2 miles in 20 mins. 
Bike 17 miles in 55 mins.

Saturday - Rest day
Stretching session.

Sunday - Peterhead Sprint Triathlon
Swim 700m in 12:28 (plus 100m warm-up)
Bike 14 miles in 41:10. 
Run 2.9 miles in 20:16.


Actuals - Swim 2.0 miles. Bike 49.6 miles. Run 11.3 miles. 1 short core, 0 short light weights and 1 short stretching sessions. 0 mins of yoga.

Health Challenge  - Walk loads, Swim 72, Cycle 160, Run 101, Yoga , Core 10.

Quarterly Review - Q3

Third of these for 2014.


Targets that this is based on are: here.

Q1 report is: here.
Q2 report is: here.

2014 Annual Targets are:


Swim 78 miles and learn to tumble turn.

Bike 1820 miles.

Run 624 miles.

There are some additional racing targets, Swim 400m under 6mins 30, and 750m under 13mins, and 1500m under 27mins. (And if I do by some chance find another 5k swim race, get under 1hr35).
Cycle a TT race.
Run a 5k under 21mins 30, or 10k under 44mins, or half marathon under 1hr 48.
Clock personal best times at Knockburn Sprint and Standard and at Huntly Standard (allowing for weather). 
Finish in the top-10 at Forres Novice. 

That means at the three-quarter point of the year I should have done somewhere in the region of:

Swim 58.5 miles and be doing some turns.

Bike 1,366 miles.

Run 468 miles.
And some of the other targets as well

And the actuals to date are:


Swum 66.7 miles and doing lots of turns.


Biked 1454 miles.


Run 467 miles.


And run a 10k under 44 mins. (43:30 Moray RR 10k).
Finish Top-10 at Forres. (5th)
PB time at Knockburn sprint. (slower by ~2 minutes). 
PB time at Knockburn Standard (faster by 2 minutes).
PB time at Huntly Standard (faster by 4 minutes).
Swim 400m under 6:30 - 6:25 at Alford.
Swim 750m under 13 mins  - 12:56 at Inverurie, 12:55 at Westhill.
Swim 1500m under 27 mins - 26:42 at Huntly.
Swim 5,000m race under 1 hr 35. - Optional, depends on doing a 5k race.
Do a TT bike race - Deeside Evening series

I have reproduced my graphs again to match the Q2 report. Again for the technically minded reader they show cumulative distance by date and are all baselined to January 1st. This does mean some slight fluctuations as some years I start with a weekend and some years start with a Wednesday etc. And every fourth year there is an extra day which took me a while to understand and adapt the sheet for. 2014 in each graph is the pink line, hence the flatline from today to end of year as that data still all contains 0's.

Swimming.

Continuing on from Q2 I have kept my swim miles above the plan. My plan for this year was actually to do slightly less than last year but at the minute I am well ahead of target. Having moved up to lane 4 and working hard, I am now doing almost 300m more on a Monday night session than this time last year. To hit my target for the year I pretty much just have to keep turning up to Monday night sessions until mid November. More likely I am just going to absolutely hammer my target. 

So now I need to decide if I want to try and set a new record for a year or just hit my original target. Last year I had a big upturn in December as I piled on some miles prepping for the Scottish 5k swim champs. I would like to do that race again if it is on. If not then I think I will still go past the 85 miles I did last year, so that is my new target.

Biking.

Being back in the gym on regular exercise bike sessions and getting out for a couple of Kintore weekend rides has more than sorted out the mileage deficit that I did have on the bike at the end of Q2. As with the swimming I am now doing way over my target every week. so it is likely that I will get to 1,820 by about the end of November. There is no danger of beating last year's total. I could set a bigger target at 1,900 or 2,000 but there isn't any major benefit from that. Not having a mountain bike might actually turn out to be a benefit on the mileage front as it stops me from taking a whole day to pick up 8-10 miles on the mtb. 

Running.

Not such an easy graph to read as the pink line pretty much disappears behind the red target line and in amongst the previous years of data as well. As of the end of Q3 I am 1 mile behind target. That is less than a quarter of one percent, or about 8 minutes over the 63 hours or so. I can easily tick over to the end of the year on the line. As long as I am chasing the other targets it is going to be difficult to get any more.  

Changes to targets


So what changes to make with 6 months gone?


New swim target is 85 miles.

Having cleared my backlog and going into winter I am fine for bike miles but no huge desire to push the limits so it is staying as 1,820 miles. 

I was looking at a longer run target but I lost some ground in July and I am just going to be safe with this one for now. 

Race Preview - Peterhead Sprint Triathlon

This is a bit of a strange preview to write. I wasn't planning to do this race, partly because it didn't exist until about 2 weeks ago. It dropped off the circuit a few years back and has just been resurrected. In future years it is going to be an early season race but for this year it is going to appear as a very late race.

Here are my results from last time it existed in 2010:

Split Name Race Time Leg Time Time of Day Pos Cat Pos Gen Pos Swim 00:16:36 00:16:36 11:51:46 33 9 23 T1 00:18:09 00:01:32 11:53:19 26 7 20 Cycle 01:06:22 00:48:12 12:41:32 36 10 28 T2 01:06:53 00:00:31 12:42:03 22 4 14 Run 01:26:38 00:19:45 13:01:48 13 7 11

It is difficult to try and use this to set targets for racing again this year though. 

The swim time I can take a stab at because it is going to just be a 750m pool swim. So I should go somewhere between 12:30-12:50 depending on what sort of draw I get and how my turns go.

But from there we are into completely random guesswork. The bike route I remember as being really fast, and that was without the fast bike and the pointy hat. Looking at some of the other times from 2010 I think I should go about 41-42 minutes. 

The run is another really hard to predict. I think that last time I did this race I got it about right so the time I ran then is about what I would do now if I push slightly too hard on the swim and bike. But the run is pretty much dead flat out-and-back and there should be decent targets to chase, so if I get the bike right then 18 minutes-ish doesn't look ridiculous.