I’m beginning this log 4 months out from Ironman 70.3 in Phuket. Although I’ve completed some races since departing Irish shores nearly two years ago, my training in the intervening time has been far from consistent. My intentions for this race are good and I’m hoping logging my training here will serve as some extra incentive to stay focussed.
Two weeks into things I’ve so far managed to stay on track, getting in two sessions most days. Training seriously will curtail my explorations of the world. Before I left Ireland though, I enjoyed training and triathlon and if sacrificing opportunities to travel produces a good result in Phuket, then I’ll happily settle for that.
What will be a good result for me in Phuket, I cannot truthfully answer that just yet. I’ll wait and see how the training goes over the four months and make a prediction closer to the date.
Just briefly to comment on the conditions for training over here; there are two swimming pools in the town in which I’m based, but with no lanes and a lorry load of kids in the pools during regular opening hours a swim training session during these times is not possible. I’m not far from the sea though, but the water is dirty with about 15cm visibility at the best of times. There are only so many plastic bags and fishing nets you can swim into before giving up, so most of my open water swims have been relatively short. I’ll try talk nicely to the pool owners though and see is it possible to get in a swim when no kids will be about.
The bike that I have is a regular road bike, with stock issue wheels. I intend to purchase some aero bars, but at the time this log starts off I don’t have any. I bought 28mm tyres for a month’s cycle tour around Thailand. To save my 23mm tyres for racing, and because I fncking hate punctures, I’ll be doing all my training on the wider tyres. I don’t have the mathematical formula to hand, but I’m hoping the 23mm tyres will give me a slight speed increase on raceday.
I can run on the road during the day, but with the sun shining it can get pretty hot, so I generally wait to run after sun set. Then when it’s dark it’s not safe to run on the roads, so 90% of my runs are done on a 1.04km loop (according to mapmyrun). It might sound pretty tedious running this twenty times, but it’s fairly easy work out your pace here, so you have to take the rough with the smooth.
I’m a bit short of gadgets over here and will only be using a stopwatch and a basic Cateye cycle computer to train with. Looking at my training might not give you folks too much to comment on, but I’ll just get on with things as best I can and will appreciate any advice anybody sees fit to give.
Anyway that’s about enough rabbiting; I’ll begin the log proper with the first week’s training below.
Monday 30th July
a.m.
45 minutes weights & core work
Lunch break;
I had hoped to do a pool based swim session during this lunch break. The pool is in a hotel near my apartment and they’ve been kind enough on previous occasions to let me swim here before it’s open to the general public when it’s not possible to swim 5 metres, let alone 25, without swimming into one of the 40 or so kids that are let into the pool.
However I’ve been told it’s going to be closed for one month so as it can be cleaned, it seems like an awful long time, but you get used to the fact that that’s the way things are done in Thailand, and make alternative arrangements. This alternative was 50 minutes on the turbo, which went like this;
5 minute warm up, 1 minute hard & 1 minute easy, 2 hard & 2 easy, 4 hard & 4 easy, 6 hard & 6 easy, 4 hard & 4 easy, 2 hard & 2 easy, 1 hard & 1 easy, 5 minutes cool down
p.m.
1 km OW swim
Tempo run, 2.08km warm, 3.12km @ race pace, 1.04km easy, 5.20km @ race pace, 2.08km easy, 3.12km @ race pace, 2.08km cool down
Tuesday 31st July
a.m.
1.4km OW swim
Lunch Break;
40 minutes on turbo, 5 minutes warm up, 30 minutes medium gear @ 90 rpm, 5 cool down,
p.m.
Brick Session; {25 minutes on turbo (medium gear @ 90 rpm) & 3.12km run @ race pace off 40 minutes} x 3
Wednesday 1st August
a.m.
Run; 10 minute warm up, 1 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery,1 minute @ interval pace, 5.30 minutes cool down
p.m.
1.8km OW swim
Thursday 2nd August
a.m.
45 minutes weights & core work
p.m.
Cycle; 30 minutes warm up, {200m hard, 100m rolling, 500m hard, 300m rolling/easy, 1.5km hard, 800m easy} x 6, 40 minutes cool down
Friday 3rd August
a.m.
30 minutes warm up, 30 minutes HIM race effort (avg. pace of 34.3km/hr), noticed I had a slow puncture after 1 hour 20 minutes of cycling, would like to think it happened somewhere in the middle of my HIM race effort and my average speed would have been a few kilometres per hour quicker only for it. Slightly wishful thinking, but anyway I’d only a hand pump, I reckoned (correctly as it turned out) I’d make it home without having to replace the tube, so turned around at this point and began a careful cycle back home, returning after just over 3 hours out on my bike. I had intended to be out for longer and get more 30 minute HIM efforts in, but the puncture and fading light by the time I’d have been back out with a fully inflated tube put paid to that, so I had to reschedule the rest of the workout for another day.
p.m.
With a shorter and easier than planned cycle I’d undertaken earlier in the day, I felt my legs would be okay to tackle a longish run this evening. I ran 19.76km in 1 hour 19.33 minutes. On December 2nd the 21km run won’t be after the sun goes down, and will come after a 90km cycle, but I hope to be able to sustain something not too far off this kind of pace come race day in. I believe running long training runs at desired race pace has worked for me before, so I’m going to stick with this approach for the next 4 months.
Saturday 4th August
a.m.
1km OW swim
p.m.
3 hour turbo, 25 minutes warm up, 30 minutes HIM race effort, 20 minutes recovery, 30 minutes HIM race effort, 20 minutes recovery, 30 minutes HIM race effort, 25 minutes cool down
Turbo session was to compensate for the cycle I had yesterday. I wanted to get back out on the road, but there wasn’t going to be enough hours of daylight left when I eventually got around to starting. And with the Olympics on TV the 3 hours spent indoors were not as boring as they might otherwise have been.
Sunday 5th August
p.m.
Cycle; 2 hours 30 minutes easy, just spinning out the legs. 68.29km in total.
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Probably a Hugely Inefficient Use of my Time
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Triathlon / Duathlon / Adventure Racing
Training Logs
Probably a Hugely Inefficient Use of my Time
| 10-08-2012, 08:49 | #1 |
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Probably a Hugely Inefficient Use of my Time
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| 13-08-2012, 14:55 | #5 | |||
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| 13-08-2012, 15:53 | #6 |
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Monday 6th August
a.m. nothing lunchbreak 45 minutes weight & core p.m. 1,000m O/W Run; hill reps 350m x 10 Haven’t done a proper session with hills in a while, felt very slow. I don’t know how to describe the climb other than it was a b@stard. This is what mapmyrun has to say about it; This is a 0.35 km Run in Lang Suan, Thailand. The Run has a total ascent of 75.0 m and has a maximum elevation of 95.0 m. This map was created byalan2811alan on 08/06/2012. a maximum elevation of 95.0 m. This map was created by alan2811alan on 08/06/2012. Average of 2.16 per rep Tuesday 7th August a.m. 1,000m O/W swim lunchbreak 40 minutes turbo, easy spinning p.m. 1 hour 30 minutes turbo, Session taken from turbotraining.co.uk 10 minute warm up, 10 x 4 minute periods, going from 72% of HR max to 90%, trying to maintain a cadence of 90 – 100rpm throughout. I don’t have a HRM, so I just went off feel. Cadence fell slightly below 90rpm for the final two 4 minute periods, 10 minute cool down. Exactly half the numbers above for the final 30 minutes. Wednesday 8th August a.m. Run; 10 minute warm up, 1 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery,1 minute @ interval pace, 5.40 minutes cool down p.m. Cycle Intervals; Warm up, main set was 7 x 5km intervals on a straight stretch of road, ( I didn’t keep a record, but the following stats are what I remember seeing on my cycle computer after each interval, 4 of them out @ approximate average speed of 41km/hr, 3 back @ approximate average speed of 37km/hr, Cool down Thursday 9th August a.m. 131.86km cycle in 5 hours 8 minutes. I did four 30 minute HIM efforts during the cycle. I held 34.8km/hr, 35km/hr, 35.7km/hr and 35km/hr for the four efforts. It would be nice if these HIM efforts were a small bit quicker, but I intend to do all of my long cycles following a similar structure, with 50% of them on the same road, so it should be easy to see if I’m improving or not. p.m. I went to a swimming pool for this swim. 400m warm up; then I did a 750m TT effort just to see where I’m at swimming wise. I completed it in 15.18, I wasn’t expecting much better. My legs were seizing up towards the end, the pool was about to close, so I just got out of the water and didn’t bother with a swim down. Friday 10th August a.m. weights & core p.m. Brick; {20 minutes on turbo (medium gear 90/95 rpm) and 2.08km @ race pace, off 30 minutes} x 4 I’ve no accurate way of measuring cycling speed, but was running at less than 4 minutes per kilometre and getting around 1.30 rests between efforts. Saturday 11th August a.m. I had planned on swimming, but it was going to be easy to get this done in the afternoon, so I chose to stay in bed for an extra hour. p.m. 1,000m O/W swim Run, 19.76km in 1.19.45 Exact same run as I did last week, only it took me 12 more seconds. Less than a second slower per kilometre, which isn’t a lot, but still I’d have preferred if it had been a 12 seconds difference the other way. Sunday 12th August 2 hours on turbo, easy spinning, watching men’s marathon in Olympics |
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| 17-08-2012, 17:36 | #7 |
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Monday 13th August
a.m. I didn’t have to go to work today, so I was able to get out on my bike early in the day and got a hill session in. 12 x 550m hills as fast as possible, (average of 1 minute 43 seconds), recovery rolling back downhill. Starting out at 1.33, the reps got progressively slower finally averaging out at 1.43. Had planned on doing 14, but I was only getting slower, the day was getting, I was running out of water and I didn’t see the point in doing the 14 just to say I had completed them. p.m. Went to a pool for this evening’s swim, 400m warm up 5 x 200m off 4.10 (I could manage to hit these times) 5 x 100m off 2.00 (I managed the first three, but was pushing off on 8.01 for the 4th 100, came in on 10.04) 200m cool down I’m a long way off where I was two years ago, which is no great surprise. I’m hoping improvements will be easy-ish enough to come by though and I’ll be comfortably swimming under 2.00 per hundred in a few months. Tuesday 14th August a.m. I’m still waiting for the swimming pool where I plan to do my lunch time swims to open, so I had a free session during the day to fit in something else. I decided to move one of my weekly weight’s sessions to this slot and that left me with an a.m. session to fill in. I wasn’t particularly happy with yesterday’s hill session on the bike, so decided to try replicating something like this on the turbo. Session went like this; 10 minute warm up, {1.30 minutes in the hardest gear at the highest level of resistance @ 60 rpm & 1.30 minutes recovery} x 12, 5 minutes cool down Lunch break 45 minutes weight & core work p.m. Tempo Run; 10 minutes warm up, 12 minutes hard, 6 minutes easy, 24 minutes hard, 12 minutes easy, 12 minutes hard, 10 minute cool down I didn’t get an exact distance for the hard parts, but glancing at my stop watch told me I was running at around 4.00/km. I wasn’t going hell for leather and was holding the pace fairly comfortably. Wednesday 15th August a.m. Run; 10 minute warm up, 1 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 6 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 4 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery, 2 minutes @ interval pace, 2 minutes recovery,1 minute @ interval pace, 5.40 minutes cool down I needed to take an emergency toilet break in the middle of the second six minute interval. Luckily enough there are public toilets where I run, so I avoided any embarrassment. p.m. 44 minutes on the turbo; The session was taken from turbotraining.co.uk; 10 minute warm up, (30 seconds sprint & 1 minute recovery) x 5, (1 minute sprint & 1 minute recovery) x 5, (30 seconds sprint & 1 minute recovery) x 5, 9 minute cool down Thursday 16th August a.m. 4 hours 30 minute cycle, total distance 142.51km I did four 30 minute HIM race efforts during the session, and I averaged the following speeds for each of the efforts; 1) 37km/hr, 2) 38.3km/hr, 3) 36.9km/hr 4) 35.8km/hr These speeds are an improvement on last week, probably in part due to the fact that I removed one of the spacers from under my handlebars and that unlike last week I inflated my tyres before heading out. The last effort became a struggle and after 15 minutes my speed was tailing off. My neck and lower back were hurting and I was very glad to finish when I did. p.m. 1,000m O/W swim Friday 17th August a.m. 45 minutes weights + core work p.m. I have a race coming up on Sunday, which will be my first triathlon race in nearly 9 months. It’s not a target race though and I didn’t want to alter my training to much in advance of it. I did however try to incorporate a bit of speed work into Wednesday’s turbo session and this was also the idea with the run intervals this evening. Run Intervals; 1.54km warm up, {380m @ rep pace, 380 metres recovery} x 12, 0.76km cool down. I messed up the timing after the second interval and had to reset my stopwatch. I averaged 1 minute 16 seconds for the final ten efforts. I was making a big effort not to drop off the pace and the intervals started to get faster once I had the first 6 out of the way. This almost never happens with me and I guess it just goes to show on should be concentrating on holding form more regularly. I’ll be travelling to the race tomorrow, but I plan to get a short stint in on the turbo before I go and then hope to get in the water once I arrive at the venue tomorrow. |
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| 17-08-2012, 17:54 | #8 |
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Seems like a mental volume of training for a HIM. I have Galway HIM in two weeks and haven't done half that. Making me worry now, ur some animal if you can keep that weekly volume up for 4 months consistently, best of luck with it.
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| 17-08-2012, 18:00 | #9 | |
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| 17-08-2012, 19:31 | #10 |
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some very fast cycle splits for a road bike- did you get the aero bars yet??, is it a good road bike?? what are the roads like over there-better or worse than these stupid Irish roads??... some very good training been done on bike and on foot, keep it up, how long is it since you did any racing?
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| 19-08-2012, 13:24 | #13 | |||
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There could be others training for Galway who've done twice as much as me, but what van you do about it? I think as long as your training has been consistent, you'll be fine in whatever race you choose to do. Everybody has different targets and different demands on their time, I think there's little point worrying about what somebody else is doing. Quote:
I got tri bars alright. The first day with them was 8th August. If I had updated daily I would have remembered to mention it, but when it came to my Sunday evening weekly update I just wanted to post my week's training as quickly as possible. Roads are hit and miss. The roads I cycled in the north of the country were generally much better than here in the south. The roads I use to train on are okay, some dodgy spots, similar enough to country roads in Ireland I guess. My last triathlon was November 2011. I ran a marathon back in February and a 14km road race about a month ago. There's not really much of a tri scene over here and it's not as easy get to races when you're not in a small country like Ireland, and you don't have a car. Quote:
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| 21-08-2012, 16:49 | #15 |
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Saturday 18th August
a.m. 20 minutes turbo; 5 minutes warm up (1 minute sprint + 1 minute recovery) x 5, 5 minute cool down p.m. I was a bit later getting to the venue than I had hoped I would. I had planned on swimming the full course, so as I would have had a chance to practise sighting and what not. But the light was fading by the time I eventually did get into the water, so I was just swam out to the first marker we’d have to turn at tomorrow, then turned around and headed back to shore. I saw three jelly fish on the way back in. They were the size basketballs and the first one was directly under me before I noticed. This was good practise for keeping high elbows, but it really freaked me. Thankfully I made it back to land unscathed and hoping if jellyfish do make an appearance tomorrow there’ll be enough swimmers around me to shield me from them. Approximately 900m |
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