Me Against The World...

BTH

Monday Evening was club swim time.
wu of 6*25m Sprints
8*50Kick
3sets of 4*50 off 1:15, 3*100 off 2:10. 60sec between sets. Aim here was to come in on target 400mTT pace on the 100s. And this set showed me how far I'm off a sub 6min 400m. I posted a 6:20 in early December and was hoping to be near 6min shape. I'm not! 50s were in on 44/45 after the first set which were slightly quicker (40sec for the very first one :rolleyes:) 100s I was stuck on 1:32/33 and just couldnt bring them any quicker. There has definitely been a lack of this short sharp intensity to the Monday sessions since the new year, with the coach favouring longer sets so far. Not saying that 16*100 off 1:45 wasn't bloody hard either, but these are the type of session I was making massive
improvements from pre christmas. May have been due to lower numbers turning up last night. Or Interested taking it easy on us for the first couple of weeks. Anyway, I hope it continues!

Tuesday Lunch time.
Easy run down to and around Herbert Park. 9.xxkm in 47min or something. 15min @4:20 pace. Ready for the tough turbo tonight..... Even more ready for nexts weeks easy week. First time I've ever felt that I've earned an easy week. Reckon by Wednesday next week I'll be fed up of easy sessions!

Quick jot down of races planned up to June.

March 11 - 10km in Carlow
March 25 - Naas Duathlon
April 22 - National Duathlon Champs
April 29 - Joey Hannan Oly
May 12 - Tri an Mhi Half
June 2 - Athy Oly
June 3 - Athy Sprint????


Couple of stag do's and a wedding in there to space everything out a little.

BTH

Tuesday Evening was hard turbo night. 4*7min in HR Zone 4, 3min Z2 recoveries, followed by 20min Z3. The Z4 intervals were 5 min two weeks ago and 6 min last week. This was the first week where I saw a definite fade in performance through the 4 intervals, with HR stuck at the higher end of Z4 (tipping Z5 at times), with a lower cadence than normal. HR wasn't dropping enough through the recoveries either. During the Z3 effort I had to drop a gear from what I can normally push, as HR was tipping Z4 and cadence was threatening to tip below 90. So not particularly happy with the session. As said above, recovery week will be greatly appreciated.

Wednesday Morning, 6am swim LC in NAC. Came into this with renewed focus following my post-mortem of Mondays swim. Following a 400m WU, it was into 8*100 pull on 2:10, coming in 1:38-40, 10*50 kick which I did "side saddle" as the turbo was still in the legs, 6*100 descending on 2:00, in on 1:51,49,43,42,39,36, (far too soft for the first couple) 10*50 on 1:00 in on 48-50, and a 400m cd. Really tried to push the 8*100 pull & and 10*50s but keep it controlled as well, focusing on right hand entry which is a long standing issue (and requires a lot more work). Happy with this session, and happy with bursting El D's bubble who though he would get an early swim in to overtake me on the SBR challenge!! 3200m in 1:20

shotgunmcos

BetterThanHoyte wrote: »

Happy with this session, and happy with bursting El D's bubble who though he would get an early swim in to overtake me on the SBR challenge!! 3200m in 1:20

Thats the spirit

Good swimming BTH

BTH

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Thats the spirit

Good swimming BTH

Cheers Shotgun. I was finishing a length when he arrived on the poolside. He wasnt too impressed when I told him I had 3k done already. He's probably still in there trying to make up lost time!!

Bambaata

Ah you're being slightly hard on yourself on not being happy with the turbo session. That session is designed to test you and improve you and it has to be expected that HRs wont match speed/cadence in the recoveries if you're comparing to easier sessions. Thats my 2c anyway

I've had sessions i haven't finished because i just couldn't maintain the effort, now they are the ones to be disappointed with.

BTH

Wednesday evening myself and herself did an hour Yoga, and I did a little core work later on.

Thursday morning 13k run in 60min, with 45min @4:15 pace which is where I hope to have my Marathon pace come October. A long way off that now. AHR for the 45min was 164, which I dont think is sustainable for 3 hours! All the same, I felt good this morning. Pace was supposed to be 4:25 but I didnt pay too much attention to the watch and just ran off feel.

shotgunmcos

BetterThanHoyte wrote: »

Wednesday evening myself and herself did an hour Yoga, and I did a little core work later on.

Thursday morning 13k run in 60min, with 45min @4:15 pace which is where I hope to have my Marathon pace come October. A long way off that now. AHR for the 45min was 164, which I dont think is sustainable for 3 hours! All the same, I felt good this morning. Pace was supposed to be 4:25 but I didnt pay too much attention to the watch and just ran off feel.

My avg HR for the Conn Marathon was mid 160s. You mainly do your long training runs at a lower HR overall but on Marathon day you will sustain a higher heart rate. Spending time at PMP or PMP HR during your runs is a good thing IMO. Long slow runs is for Ultra running.. not marathons (unless its your first one)

El Director

Hey dude, good to see you yesterday morning.....not :cool: (a very 90's inspired reply )

While I am pleased with my loffty swim positon in the challenge what is more pressing is my slow start to the running and biking for 2012 so I must address that when I can.

Well done on all fronts though man, you are really putting in the work and there will be plenty of battles between all boardies in 2012 and I'm looking forward to it

BTH

shotgunmcos wrote: »

My avg HR for the Conn Marathon was mid 160s. You mainly do your long training runs at a lower HR overall but on Marathon day you will sustain a higher heart rate. Spending time at PMP or PMP HR during your runs is a good thing IMO. Long slow runs is for Ultra running.. not marathons (unless its your first one)

It will be my first but I don't believe in soft targets. Looking at the hometown half at the end of August so target for the full debut may have to be revised based on that result. Not going to do anything stupid, respect the distance and what not, but I'm going to finish my tri season in mid August to give DCM some proper focus and give it a good lash.

BTH

El Director wrote: »

Hey dude, good to see you yesterday morning.....not :cool: (a very 90's inspired reply )

While I am pleased with my loffty swim positon in the challenge what is more pressing is my slow start to the running and biking for 2012 so I must address that when I can.

Well done on all fronts though man, you are really putting in the work and there will be plenty of battles between all boardies in 2012 and I'm looking forward to it

Once those boring slow IMer's get going with their long dull training we'll all be sliding down the SBR challenge fairly quickly. But happy with my training so far in 2012, and touch wood I havent missed a session yet, other than on Saturday run that I changed to a LSR instead of a hard run as I was suffering with a throat and nose issues. You look to be getting back on top the running this last couple of days, so hopefully that can continue for you.

It's going to be an interesting year alright. Myself yourself and Fazz all fighting for Bambatta's feet at the start of a swim.....

BTH

Club Swim
5*100WU with middle 3 as drills
4*100 kick as 25 kick, 25 right side, 25 left side, 25kick

2*200 off 3:30, in on 3:16, 3:14
2*400 off 7:00, I miscounted (good job I'm not an accountant or anything) and only did 350 on the first one but I made up for it on the second, so I did 350 on 6min (in on 5:41) & 450 on 8min (in on 7:25)
2*200 off 3:30 in on 3:16, 3:14

100cd
2600 in an hour

Happy to hold 1:37/38 pace throughout, including the longer sets, even if I can't count! Tried to concentrate on not letting form or pace slip in the longer reps following the discussion on the swimming for tri thread. Lashing into the 450 after less than 20sec break after the 350 and still holding pace is very satisfying as well.

shotgunmcos

Good stuff. I think I might be jumping on the feet of 'team interested' come triathlon races this summer. Now if ye could all just bunch together and kick hard please

pgibbo

I wonder could we get interested to do a nationwide coaching effort? :cool:

Cracking swimming BTH. You're making great progress.

So sub 3 is the current target for DCM. How much under or 2:59:59?

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

BetterThanHoyte wrote: »

Once those boring slow IMer's get going with their long dull training we'll all be sliding down the SBR challenge fairly quickly.

Sure IM is where the real men race BTH;) Great swimming by the way!!

BTH

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Good stuff. I think I might be jumping on the feet of 'team interested' come triathlon races this summer. Now if ye could all just bunch together and kick hard please

pgibbo wrote: »

I wonder could we get interested to do a nationwide coaching effort? :cool:

Cracking swimming BTH. You're making great progress.

So sub 3 is the current target for DCM. How much under or 2:59:59?

If some of the others have made half the improvement I have then the club will put in a great showing in the water this year, as they'd all have been very good swimmers already. He just pushes us all that bit harder than we would have otherwise and I'm certainly seeing the massive benefit from it.

Sub 3 is the target. Don't care how much by. First half was in Portlaoise in August last and I ran 1:29:40. I'd be happy to come in with the same cushion to be honest. I wasn't as prepared for that half as I'd have liked to be, so I'm hoping with a better prep, and a lot more miles in the legs, I'll crack the 3hrs. The Longford half at the end of August might tell me I'm mad, but until then sub 3 is the target.

BTH

Friday Easy turbo. 60min in Z2 with 6*10 sec sprints. Legs in much better shape than last week. Struggled to push the sprints then.

Saturday morning
17km run with long WU, 10*150m hill repeats @ 5km intensity, walk back, then 2*10min at 4:10 pace with 2min recovery, and long cd. Had this, a trip to CSS for a new saddle, a trip to B2R for new racing flats, and a dentist visit all wrapped up by 2:05pm. Good mornings work!

Sunday morn.
Club "training day" so a 2800m swim set in the NAC at 8, followed by breakfast and a bike spin @10. This was shortened to 2hours because of the weather, soaked through. No one was in any mood for the planned run after, but I did get out for a short jog with the boss later on.

haggis_mccloud

BetterThanHoyte wrote: »

Sunday morn.
Club "training day" so a 2800m swim set in the NAC at 8, followed by breakfast and a bike spin @10. This was shortened to 2hours because of the weather, soaked through. No one was in any mood for the planned run after, but I did get out for a short jog with the boss later on.

Fair play to you for keeping the log BTH!! Good reading and I will be borrowing some of your sessions impressive with the fast stuff in the weekly long run, tough.
Was very glad when I woke up this morning that I had a road race today and not the club training day in the rain, got the cycle in yesterday instead.
You really are flying with the swimming, hard work paying off.
In relation to the high heart rate I also had a high average for dublin marathon (167), was expecting a bit lower, this compares to 5 miles today at a much quicker pace with average of 169, hard to figure it out at times.
keep up the good work

BTH

haggis_mccloud wrote: »

Fair play to you for keeping the log BTH!! Good reading and I will be borrowing some of your sessions impressive with the fast stuff in the weekly long run, tough.
Was very glad when I woke up this morning that I had a road race today and not the club training day in the rain, got the cycle in yesterday instead.
You really are flying with the swimming, hard work paying off.
In relation to the high heart rate I also had a high average for dublin marathon (167), was expecting a bit lower, this compares to 5 miles today at a much quicker pace with average of 169, hard to figure it out at times.
keep up the good work

Cheers Haggis. I would imagine that the cold on Sunday prevented you getting the HR up much higher. While the marathon wasn't in ideal conditions, I don't recall it being a particularly cold day. You were much better off in Raheny on Sunday.

BTH

Last Swim of the month and easy week starts off with a stinker of a set.

500m wu,
6*25kick hard,

16*50 hard, on 60sec. Brought these in on 45/46 sec for the lot except the first one was 44 and the second & 7th were 47.

6*100 on 1:45, in a:30,36,36,36,36,37
60sec rest
6*100 on 1:40, in on 1:32,33,33,35,34,34

I swallowed half the water in the pool, and kept smashing the knuckle of the index finger on my left hand against the lane divider.


Anyway, a pretty good month of swimming laid down. Largest distance month ever, with 38.65km in 14 sessions, compared to 35.60km (15 sessions) in December, and 21km (12 sessions) in January last year. Interesting the number of sessions hasnt changed drastically. Didnt realise I was doing so many sessions last Jan. Avg distance per session is up 1k, which shows that I was putting in the time last year, but not pushing myself at all, and therefore getting very little benefit. I know I'm not going to see a great deal of improvement from now until race season starts, the majority of the improvement has happened already. So the main aim has to be maintaining where I am, and becoming more comfortable swimming at these paces, while trying to hold decent technique. There are still a number of issues I need to deal with on that front, so there'll be no slacking off. And there will still be times for hard work, like last night!

pgibbo

Cracking stuff BTH. That's a serious 2k of swim work.

Out of curiosity, do you find your times are much different on solo swims to the group sessions?

shotgunmcos

BetterThanHoyte wrote: »

500m wu,
6*25kick hard,

16*50 hard, on 60sec. Brought these in on 45/46 sec for the lot except the first one was 44 and the second & 7th were 47.

6*100 on 1:45, in a:30,36,36,36,36,37
60sec rest
6*100 on 1:40, in on 1:32,33,33,35,34,34

That sound like a tough set and some bloody good swimming out of you too! Were you alone on in a grup?

BTH

pgibbo wrote: »

Cracking stuff BTH. That's a serious 2k of swim work.

Out of curiosity, do you find your times are much different on solo swims to the group sessions?

Cheers PG,

Its hard to say really. Anytime I've swam in a 25 pool in a solo session, it's very difficult to swim those speeds as generally everyone else in in pool is much slower and get in the way. I find I can match those times, but I wouldnt even attempt to swim 2k at that kind of intensity on my own. It's always easier when you know you are being chased down! Lately my solo swims have been long course, so they'll naturally be a little slower, but I do try to include a bit of hard swimming, even if its only 4*100 hard. But the solo swim is more an endurance set

@Shotgun, I was leading out a lane for the 16*50's and the guy behind was coming in on very similar times so I was being chased hard. The 100's I was in the faster lane at the back of the group, but giving 5 sec between swimmers, and them all being much faster than me I was effectively swimming on my own half a length behind the next person. Rather than getting a draft off them, I was more concerned about the lead guy catching me. He was probably coming in sub 1:20, and with me headin off 25sec after him by the time I'm at 50, he's right up behind me finishing his 100.

This was Interested's club session. I didnt mention that earlier for some reason.

BTH

Tuesday Lunchtime run. Garmin screen froze after 50metres so I had no clue of pace or time done. Plan was for 45min easy and aiming to increase the cadence to 90. Reckon I managed only 33min or so, 7.35k according to mapmyrun, and my cadence was definitely higher than usual so maybe I was around the 90 mark. HR was certainly a little higher than my normal easy zone, but still well below anything approaching hard work.

Managed to get the garmin alive again when I got back to the office. Pressing all 7 buttons simultaneously did the trick.

BTH

Tuesday Eve
45min easy on the turbo, Keep it in zone 1 and high cadence.
21.83km covered, HR 113/125 Cad 103/125

Wednesday Lunch
Another attempt at working on run cadence, this time with a working Garmin. Instructions for running this week (easy week) are cadence at 90 or more, and run as fast as you need to to maintain form. So these are always going to be a little faster than recovery paced, but still relatively easy. 10.34km @4:31 pace HR 151/165 Cadence 93/95. It aint easy trying to keep up that kind of turnover, but happy with how this went. Two more of these this week, and I'll need to incorporate this into other runs in future weeks.

Quick Summary of January for bike and run as I’ve already done swim.
824 bike kms and 196 running which are both also largest distance months. Biking wise I don’t know where I stand, but considering I’m doing two turbos and a weekend cycle, compared to only 1 turbo & the weekend last year I should see a little improvement here come the new season. Haven’t done any testing or anything, but I’m confident that my coach is leading me in the right direction on this front. Considering his background, the biking is where he should be strongest!
Running wise I feel I’ve made a decent amount of progress this month. No testing either, but some very challenging sessions put in, and being able to complete those off the back of very slow running for a couple of months should give me great confidence in the coming months.

BTH

Thursday AM
A copy and paste from Tuesday eves turbo session.
45 min Z1 100+ cadence. avg 103 cad 111HR

Swim session this eve, two more easy runs, and a hilly bike left this week. Looking forward to what the coach has lined up for the next block of training. There were some evil laughs coming out of him last night so it should be interesting!

BTH

Thursday Eve, club Swim
8*50wu
4*50kick
6*200 on 3:30
3*100 on 1:45

Came in on 1:38 pace for everything, but ditched the session at that. Was supposed to be 2*100 & 8*50 on top of that. Ropes in the pool have been stretching and stretching (obviously using something cheap) meaning that they come in across the lane. I’ve spent three weeks punching the ropes with my knuckle at the end of the stroke. It was bad on Monday and I left the pool cursing that sh1thole, but after tonights session its much much worse. My knuckle is badly swollen and purple. Didn’t see much point in continuing to make it worse for another 15 minutes. I mentioned it to the coach tonight and he said he was having the same problem swimming on Monday, and another girl said the same thing tonight. I’d imagine theres others too. Honestly can’t see anything being done about it anytime soon, but if its not I’m going to have to stop doing the clubs sessions. I have no interest in coming home from sessions as pissed off as I have been on Monday and this evening. Trying to swim and all you can think of is trying to swim as centrally in the lane as you can, and you still end up punching the f-ing thing. Focus on strokes goes completely out the window at that point cos you’re so pissed off, and and and AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Sorry, drama queen-esque rant over.

Fazz

I'm smiling here as I sympathise with you having the same experience the last week myself!
Not the pools fault in my case, just my weak stroke tendency to exit right arm/hand up into the god damn lane dividers.
My wrist was black and blue after Mondays' session, and I almost drew blood.
You'd think that'd learn me, and it is slowly, but it's easy to do and hard to prevent.
Trying to stay not as far right myself, and it's helping without crossing to centre of lane and interrupting traffic.
Here's hoping lane's are clockwise next time to even it out

My wrist just looks tanned now, and hoping tomorrow's swim will see me hit divider much less as I hope to have learned my lesson and adjust to save the pain.

at least you've an excuse.... mine is just my own fault!

haggis_mccloud

BetterThanHoyte wrote: »

Cheers Haggis. I would imagine that the cold on Sunday prevented you getting the HR up much higher. While the marathon wasn't in ideal conditions, I don't recall it being a particularly cold day. You were much better off in Raheny on Sunday.

good point, didn't think of the colder conditions but obviously makes a difference. Will be hoping for a cold non windy day for DCM this year so!

I was wondering where you disappeared to at swimming. hope you recover well

BTH

haggis_mccloud wrote: »

I was wondering where you disappeared to at swimming. hope you recover well

I see you got a promotion mid session. Well done. Did the same happen to you with the ropes?

BTH

Friday Run
Mostly easy run, 10km done, with 5*1min @3:50 1min recoveries.

After a manic day, I squeezed this in before getting home from "work". Still concentrating on high cadence meant that the 1mins were low 3:30's pace. Did the last 3km in the new racing flats. Had to stop half way to take off my socks. A little tight with them on, but going to be racing sockless, so just need to train sockless in them. Very light and comfy, very happy with them so far.

Was in B2R for a new wetsuit beforehand and while there Eanna comments on my timing. Says that in the water I look like I could be a fast swimmer, but the timing on the left arm is off. I'm placing the left arm too carefully, and its entering before my body has rotated enough. My kick timing is also off, which he has commented on before. Followin another thread, I really need to work on the inbalances in my stroke.