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The Ironman Commeth.....slowly
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Week 5
Monday
Swim 2,300m (300m wu / 400m drills / 100m x 3 (30 secs) / 200m x 3 (30 secs) / 100m x 3 (30 secs) / 200m drills / 200m cd).
Back to swimming 2.15-25 per 100m after last Friday's disaster but still on the slow side. Legs are beginning to feel the extra run and bike training and my kick is suffering so that might be an issue. I had to take a slightly longer break between sets.
Last night was mental in the pool - there were about 10 people swimming lenghts (2 looked like they were swimming off 1.45 per 100m) with 4 teenagers engaging in that traditional courting ritual of splashing about in the middle of the pool trying to impress their (intended?) girlfriends - all this with no lane ropes. Needless to say the there were 1 or 2 collissions - accidental and otherwise. I ended up cutting my second drill set down from an intended 400m to 200m, I was worried about clipping other swimmers with my fins in the tight space. Needless to say I had words with the 'lifeguard' after the swim.
I'm thinking I might leave the watch at home for the next few swims. I tend to get fixated on my swim times (in case you hadn't noticed:D) and by not having a watch with me I cant do this. I need to remember, my target time is arond 1.30hrs for the IM swim; if I work hard I might get it down to 1.25hrs which was the middle competitors time for IMUK last year; and if I work really hard I could get a few minutes lower. However I would get better returns on investing that extra training effort and time into my bike or run where the gains are likely to be greater than 5 minutes. Also, I could train like a maniac in the pool, get down to 1.20hrs, and get a puncture on the bike - in fact I should probably spend some time practicing puncture repair:).
Tuesday
Run 5 miles / 45 mins
Up at the crack of dawn to run. Nice and dry - decided to wear my brand new runners and a new type of sock I hadn't tried before. I usually wear Sole socks (€10 a pair:eek:) but on Saturday I found some Nike run socks that felt the same so bought some (€9 for 3 pairs
). Ten minutes into the run the heavens opened. Ended up runnng in torrential rain but it felt great. When I got home my new runners looked like I'd run cross country in them and my socks were soaking but the good news was not even a hint of a blister. I'll wear these socks on a longer run and if still no blisters then I'm buying a truck load of them at €3 a pair. 0 -
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Based on my age and 10km PB I have a 'predicted' VO2 max of 44.3 (http://www.runningforfitness.org/faq/vo2.php) which puts me borderline 'excellent'. I think thats a bit generous, so we'ill wait and see.
So much for internet predictions :rolleyes: my VO2 max came in around 60 ml/kg/min - 'superior' according to the above website
. Of course it's all meaningless until the final report comes back with details of blood lactate and max heart rate but from what I can see so far I'm happy with that - it's a hell of a lot better than it was when I started training two years ago. The tester told us that some of the 18 year olds she teaches come in at 25 :eek:, not necessarily a reflection of obesity but of little or no exercise.
Test was tough enough - run three minutes on threadmill at 10kph, monitor heart rate, after 3 minutes take blood sample and increase speed to 11kph; and so on. I got to 16kph and almost finished the three minutes but dropped with 20 secs to go. I was fecked. Still feeling it this morning so gave my schedueled one hour turbo a miss. Was nice to do some hard running after 5 weeks of trying to run aerobically.0 -
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Week 6
Monday - day off - ate like a horse all day
Tuesday - woke up early, turned over and went back asleep. My excuse was that I was hoping to get a swim lesson in that evening and I wanted to 'save' me legs for that
Went to the public pool near home last night for an adult swim lesson session from 10-11. Pool had about 40 people lined up along the side ranging from those who can barely put their face in the water without a panic attack right up to swimmers looking to improve technique. No length swimming, all widths. Met the coach for the more experienced swimmers and explained that I could swim (to a fashion), was training for an IM (I got a look of pity) and wanted some technique help and would a 1:1 lesson be better. He told me to get in the pool and he'd have a look...which he did.
The bad news:- I'm taking far too many strokes for the distance covered
- I'm not reaching far enough
- I'm not rotating by body nearly enough
- I'm muscling the recovery with a tendancy to recover with my arms stiff and too wide from my body
- My pull can be too straight at times
Monday
Run 8 miles / 70 minutes - lovely run, -2 degrees and dry - lovely.0 -
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griffin100 wrote: »My excuse was that I was hoping to get a swim lesson in that evening and I wanted to 'save' me legs for that
I misread this initially and thought it said ''shave me legs" and I thought 'Wow - he's really getting into it!'.
I heard secondhand about a swim coach who says that women listen and follow the technique instruction much better then men as the men just start racing as fast as they can with quick strokes which ties in with your comments.
I'll check my strokes next time also but its a 25m pool. It'd be interesting to see what numbers people come up with.
Interesting log - keep up the good work.0 -
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I misread this initially and thought it said ''shave me legs" and I thought 'Wow - he's really getting into it!'
.
Maybe later in the year when I can get a quick tan on them:D
At the moment I take about 22-23 strokes to do a 20m pool length which is pretty poor (compare that to Interested - damn it - I better catch him on the bike in Valentia to make myself feel better:p).
Looking at Interested's link my 23 strokes per 20m on 2.15 pace means I have a high stroke rate and need to decrease my stroke rate by about 7-8 times per minute which is around 4 strokes per 20m length. That is definitely something that I can work at doing.I heard secondhand about a swim coach who says that women listen and follow the technique instruction much better then men as the men just start racing as fast as they can with quick strokes which ties in with your comments.
I'm a man; in work I'm the boss; of course I know what I'm doing; I dont need any advice or coaching coz I know more than the coach 0 -
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griffin100 wrote: »
Now normally I'll watch a DVD when on the turbo but last night I stuck on MTV and cycled away.Maybe I could get into this dance thing that the youngsters seem to like. Next I'll start wearing a high vis vest and blowing a whistle when on the turbo:D:D I like the MTV dance also on the turbo... probably due to the trance like nature of the videos and the rhythm of the bass beat suiting turbo training...
Get yourself some glow syick to wave about too and do the session with the lights off (or strobes on if you have em..) 0 -
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griffin100 your doing some great work recently. Impressive stuffgriffin100 wrote: »So much for internet predictions :rolleyes: my VO2 max came in around 60 ml/kg/min - 'superior' according to the above website. Of course it's all meaningless until the final report comes back with details of blood lactate and max heart rate but from what I can see so far I'm happy with that - it's a hell of a lot better than it was when I started training two years ago. The tester told us that some of the 18 year olds she teaches come in at 25 :eek:, not necessarily a reflection of obesity but of little or no exercise.
Were you satisfied with your test results? Was your estimated max HR in line with your test resultsgriffin100 wrote: »Test was tough enough - run three minutes on threadmill at 10kph, monitor heart rate, after 3 minutes take blood sample and increase speed to 11kph; and so on. I got to 16kph and almost finished the three minutes but dropped with 20 secs to go. I was fecked. Still feeling it this morning so gave my schedueled one hour turbo a miss. Was nice to do some hard running after 5 weeks of trying to run aerobically.
Did you have to hop onto the sides of the threadmill after every 3 mins when your blood was been taken and then jump back on again after at the increased speed?0 -
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Hi Griffin,
Great training log.
I’m on week 6 of the DF competitive plan now, so have been following your progress closely!:o)
Quick question for you: Are you swimming in an open gym pool or a public one?
The reason I ask is the pool I use has blocks of ‘1 hour ‘sessions, so I’m not too sure how to get in my 3,000+m’s sets when the time comes.
Interested to hear how others are handling this!
Also how are you finding keeping to the Z1/Z2 guides on the bikes and runs?? 0 -
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I’m on week 6 of the DF competitive plan now, so have been following your progress closely!
)
Jesus, dont use me as a measure - I'm struggling to get all of the suggested sessions done. I've been straying from Finks plan but I'm trying to make sure that my weekly run times and that my weekly long bike matches his. I'm trying to go with a 8-9 session a week set up - 3 x each discipline. This means that if I take one day a week off that I have 3 double session days. Its all starting to melt my mind though - I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about the number of days left in the week and the number of sessions I need to do:rolleyes: The only absolute rule I have is that family comes before Fink.Quick question for you: Are you swimming in an open gym pool or a public one?
The reason I ask is the pool I use has blocks of ‘1 hour ‘sessions, so I’m not too sure how to get in my 3,000+m’s sets when the time comes.
Interested to hear how others are handling this!
I swim in a gym pool where I'm a member so time isn't an issue. My main problems (apart from mediocre swimming) is the lack of lane ropes and pool ettiquitte in my pool. On Monday night I had to swim around a couple of guys who were chasing each other around the pool with those polystyrene 'sausages' that the kids use to learn to swim. These weren't not kids, they were my age - f***wits.Also how are you finding keeping to the Z1/Z2 guides on the bikes and runs??
Again I'm not a slave to the Z1-Z2 thing. I tried in week 1 to run / cycle at Z1 or Z2 but its bloody hard to differentiate - a couple of heart beats here and there. I ended up staring at my hrm as I ran / cycled - not a great idea. The whole point of the base phase is to build aerobic fitness as far as I understand it so I just make sure that I'm not hitting Z3. All of my runs / cycles / turbos to date have been in the Z1/2 zones without trying to seperate Z1 and Z2 (the only exceptions were a club TT and this morning when I couldn't run slowly for some reason). Like I said before, I'm not an absolute slave to Fink. It is hard though to get the heart rate into Z2 on the turbo, whilst its quite easy on the bike!!
Good luck with the training.0 -
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