The Good Mood Cookbook

Oryx

Kurt Godel wrote: »

Did you get any feedback on how you paced the 1500m? (clock or coach)

Only the first 100 which was 1.45. He tells us to go off hard for the first 100 but I never do because my hr goes high and I struggle to get it down and settle into a rhythm afterwards.

Kurt Godel

Oryx wrote: »

Only the first 100 which was 1.45. He tells us to go off hard for the first 100 but I never do because my hr goes high and I struggle to get it down and settle into a rhythm afterwards.

I take it this is to mimic Tri conditions rather than improve your TT?

Oryx

Kurt Godel wrote: »

I take it this is to mimic Tri conditions rather than improve your TT?

I have no idea why. First rule of swim club is you don't question the swim coach.

His thing is always first and last 100 hard.

Kurt Godel

Oryx wrote: »

I have no idea why. First rule of swim club is you don't question the swim coach.

His thing is always first and last 100 hard.

Good rule.

It's to mimic Tri starts/finishes, good to see he's being tri-specific with you. A (steady paced) 1500mTT under 30 mins is good to have; but the ability to sprint out, swim steady and controlled, and then race in, even at a slightly slower time; will stand better to you in races.

Oryx

The last 100 I can do so I'm halfway there.

RacoonQueen

Never done a 1500m tt, thats a good method of getting it done aswell. Something for the session plans.

Kurt Godel

Kurt Godel wrote: »

Good rule.

Actually, bad rule. Question him on how you should sprint the first 100m without getting into oxygen debt. Pacing is key, and good feedback will cut through a lot of trial and error on your part.

griffin100

............and swim the first 100m 'tarzan style' with the head out of the water to mimic a mass ow start

Oryx

griffin100 wrote: »

............and swim the first 100m 'tarzan style' with the head out of the water to mimic a mass ow start

Funny you should mention that. I was in the pool again this morning (less than 12 hours later - it felt weird) and it was all slow technical drills. One of the things I tried (my own invention) was swimming with my eyes shut, apart from when I lift my head to sight. Trying to mimic ow where my sighting sucks. What I noticed was that it is not my arm stroke that throws me off course, but my kick. With pb I swim straight as an arrow. Kicking I drift to the right. I also noticed when doing a bc kick my left leg is weaker. Interesting.

So as mentioned, concentrated drills today. Done in half lengths, the second half of the length, you swim to reinforce the feel of the drill in your normal stroke. Works well. 1400m in an hour.

Also, I got a letter today. Inside was €50 and the promise of a free entry to next years Blackstairs AR, where I came 2nd (female). Kudos to the organisers, they honoured the prizes even though the female entry list guaranteed each of us a placing! Still, the money will come in handy, and Ill enjoy doing that race again.

Oryx

And twelve hours later, I'm swimming again. Ow this time. It felt colder than last week going in but once I got moving it was fine. Very rough though. A strong current and big rolling waves made it quite hard work. The way down the strand took 8 minutes and it took over 12 going back. Very stop start again as the waves just kept knocking us about, even tipping us completely over at times. 600m. Which was enough. To those doing tri an mhi on Saturday.... Good Luck with that...

Ran after the swim just to warm up. 5k along the new and improved Pikeman route. Warmed everything but my feet which were still numb blocks of ice going home. Cycle 90k at that temp? Like I said. Good Luck!

Oryx

Brain would not wake up this morning. I nearly fell into my porridge at half six. Ended up scrapping the planned 10k tempo, and did a shorter 6k fartlek (1min on, 1min off). The 10k is hillly, and sometimes, the body just says 'Nah'. I knew if I went out I would have jogged it and got nothing from it.

The fartlek was good, I set the 910 to jingle at me every minute, and I just ran laps of my (relatively flat) road. It woke me up, but now I'm in work, its snoozy time again.

Oryx

Turbo with girls. Short intervals of increasing intensity. I kept it to 80% hr as I am tired today. Resting hr is lower than normal which is a sign. As the set progressed I did feel better but played it safe anyway.

Club superwoman is looking fabulous in todays Fit magazine in the Indo btw.

Oryx

Oh-my-god-it's-early swim today. I start these swims at 6.30 instead of 7 now, and that extra half hour makes a big difference in the sleepy stakes. But I get more done, which is the point.

Pyramid today. 100 to 500 and back again. I could not swim with any kind of speed today, god knows why, body tried but didn't have it. So in order to get something from the swim, I worked on that gawdammed catch, rolling into each stroke, and feeling the water so I glide better. By the 500 interval I had settled into a rhythm and had some minor moments where it all felt good, working with the water instead of fighting with it. I need more of those moments.

Total 2800 with 100 wu and 200 sd in 71 mins including av. 20 seconds between each interval.

Av. pace was 2.19 per 100, with the fastest still over 2 mins, which is terrible. I'm putting it down to tiredness, try again next week.

Oryx

Oh! What a beautiful morning!

^Dory style intro to thread.

It was very nice out today, I only hope it was as pleasant at Tri an Mhi for all my clubmates. Just a run for me this morning. Feeling tired this week, I've done a few big weeks recently. So a recovery run recharged the body (and the soul). Just me and the twittering birds, and the odd car, in the gorgeous sunshine. Still chilly out, but you can't have everything. 15.25k

Dory Dory

Oryx wrote: »

Oh! What a beautiful morning!

^Dory style intro to thread.

It was very nice out today, I only hope it was as pleasant at Tri an Mhi for all my clubmates. Just a run for me this morning. Feeling tired this week, I've done a few big weeks recently. So a recovery run recharged the body (and the soul). Just me and the twittering birds, and the odd car, in the gorgeous sunshine. Still chilly out, but you can't have everything. 15.25k

Is that how I sound??? :eek:

Recovery runs are wonderful, aren't they? I no longer take my Garmin with me on them....what freedom to listen to the body and appreciate the surroundings.

Oryx

You sound good, trust me.

Well it was recovery till I realised I was going to be late back. The last 3k was tempo

Oryx

Long bike today. On my own this week, and shorter as I had less time to play. The same route with an earlier turnaround. The idea this week was to see how far I could get in the four hours I had. So I tried to work hard. Ten miles in I saw some cyclists ahead and they were a great motivator. Eventually passed them and had to suck it in and try not to look pooped. But I actually passed cyclists. Proper ones! They probably weren't trying to hard but I'll take it anyway.

Turned @ roughly 34 miles two hours in. The route back took longer as its four miles downhill from my house, so four miles back up going home. And the light breeze that was there today was in my face going home. Total ride time of 4.09, 4.20 incl breaks. 67 miles (108k). I'll take that. Good to know i can hold that pace for that distance. And really good to get into the right headspace to work for that much time. That's what's been missing.

Oryx

Kettlebells last night. Shoulders were already stiff from c. 3 hours on the drops the day before, so they felt it. But otherwise okay. He is going into a phase of strength work rather than endurance, which sounds good, should help my core flabby belly.

Light turbo this morning. All z1/z2. Why? Because I lied to myself and said that a recovery session would be fine. Lies wont get me round UK 70.3. :cool:

Oryx

Tuesday pm
Swim, club session. This was coach's annual boot camp extravaganza. 1000m of drills just to get us warmed up, then onto the pool deck for 50 situps, then 25m sprint to the other end, up on deck again for pushups, dive in and sprint..... you get the picture... up on deck for some horrible s&c work after every 25m, non stop. This back and forth went on for a half an hour. I quite enjoyed it, in a masochistic way. Some of the others didn't seem to enjoy it quite so much judging by the expressions.

Weds am
30 mins spinning on the turbo, then out for an 11k run. I wasn't setting the world on fire speedwise today, and I'm not making excuses for that. I tried but it wasn't there for whatever reason. Tomorrow I have two short sharp sessions planned, so we will see how they go.

Oryx

Wednesday pm

Sea swim. It felt cold going in tonight but okay once we got going. Still a few waves to knock us about and the current against us on the way back made it very difficult and slow. Technique was out the window probably because I haven't swam as much this week and that does seem to make a difference. We stayed in for about a half hour tonight and did a little more distance. If the weather stays warm I should get a decent swim done next week as prep for Athy.

Oryx

Thurs am
Sunshine and fartlek. The sunshine was deceptive, with the breeze around a chilly 6 or 7 degrees. This was a short session. 4 mins to warm up, then 1 min on 1 off for 26 mins, and a 4 min cool down jog. This felt easier than last time, once I settled into it. I did find it hard to push into that 'this hurts so bad I'm gonna puke zone' so I do need to try harder.

I'm so used to longer stuff that short sessions feel so handy. I finished this feeling like it was just a warmup and I should be doing more.

Dory Dory

I totally know the feeling - after doing 13, 15, 18, and 20 mile runs, doing a 4 to 6 mile run seems hardly worth dirtying up your clothes over!

Oryx

As you may have realised, I like my music. And I often use it to motivate me and get me moving when I know training is going to be hard, or whatever. One of the songs thats catching my heart at the moment is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEy6WPB_txw

On the way to work this morning, I was trying to select a particular station on my car stereo. No matter what I did or what button I pressed, it kept going back to Beat fm. It couldnt detect any other station - damn peculiar. I had the volume down so I wasn't listening to blipping static, and when I eventually gave up slapping the stereo I turned it up, to hear the opening bars of that song.

Made me smile for the rest of the drive into work.

Dory Dory

Too funny - I am listening to Evanescence's Open Door cd....what a coincidence.

Love many of their songs, tbh, not usually my go-to for pre-training psych-me-up, but love the feel to their music. Call Me When You're Sober is on right now....one of my faves.

Oryx

Thursday pm
Brick session. This was a change to the advertised turbo just cos I felt like it while the weather was nice. And my friends who do it with me let me call the shots, god love them.

10 mins w/u then 10 @90 cad. Out to the road for a 10 min out and back (uphill then back down). As we have different paces turning at 5 meant it didn't matter. We then repeated the 10 min bike/ 10 min run twice more but in a harder gear each time. Finished with a 10 min spin to ease the legs.

This was a good session, the runs got progressively faster as we're a competitive bunch, the last downhill sprint was full on. It was good to shake it up and do something different.

Kurt Godel

Feck me, how many doubles are you doing these days? Something has lit a fire under your ass, you are certainly motivated. (And motivating)

Oryx

Kurt Godel wrote: »

Feck me, how many doubles are you doing these days? Something has lit a fire under your ass, you are certainly motivated. (And motivating)

UK 70.3 in three weeks time would be the fire you're talking about.

Oryx

Friday
In the pool for half six today. 500 of drills to warm up. I had planned timed 400s and even though I forgot my watch I did them anyway. I don't think I was setting the world on fire with my times which were around 9 mins but I reckon improved rather than slowed as I got through them. Did five with 150 bc to finish. 2650 in 75 min approx.

Oryx

All roads to my house are uphill, so this morning I tackled all of them. This was necessary to prepare (more mentally than physically) for the HIM which is known for its challenging bike course. I looked at a video of the route yesterday and it doesn't look too bad but sometimes you don't see the steepness in a vid. I've been told there are 'get off and walk' sections but that's not gonna happen...

I never went more than 5k from home, just looping around the narrow roads up and down, up and down. Most of the hills are 1.5 -2k long, and they're good because they all have tough spots at different points. So on one the hardest push is at the bottom, the next at the top.

Whats the worst thing when climbing a hill? Thinking you have another gear to drop to when you don't. I was clicking the lever in vain thinking 'bugger'.

My descending sucked because the roads were full of gravel and I was too chicken. Only improved on some i did twice, when I knew the line to take, but still poor.

This was just under two hours, 36.5k. There were points when it was max effort and horrible but as it was intervals, and short enough, yet again I finished feeling fresh and ready for more.

Oryx

Family commitments mean I don't have much time today so I got out early for a long run. Weatherwise, this was the first day in a year that felt like summer. Absolutely glorious out. I think I need to emigrate somewhere warm. I'm made for this weather. I bounced along like a happy bunny. Speaking of bunnies, there were plenty of them around. And squirrels. And twittering birds. All that was missing was a trilling Disney Princess. (I did think of Dory)

I did nearly get swept off my feet, but the knight was in leathers on a GSXR1000. He came around a corner so close I had to jump in the ditch. But I know the guy and he waved hello midway through his evasive maneuver so all is good.

20.35k in two pleasantly plodding hours of sunshine. Sure what else would you want to do of a Sunday morning?