Underachievers Please Try Harder

RJM85

Time for a new log.

2015 went pretty well. All objectives at the start of the year achieved and exceeded my expectations for the most part:

Sub 4:20 HIM with 3rd in AG, 3 x 2nd places, 2 x 4th places, and a couple of PBs @ 10k (36:19), 10 Mile TT (21:17), and 400m Swim TT (5:46).

Training went well, and was consistent. Diet as usual will need work and it slipped more than it should have.

Will be working with a new coach for next year and won't nail down all the plans until after he gets back from his holidays in Hawai'i, but unless I have a major change of heart I'll have the following goals next year:
- Dublin 70.3
- to win a (any) race
- sub 21 minute 10 Mile TT
- Dublin Marathon

As usual, my main constraints will be time and my poor self control when it comes to food. I have been doing bits and pieces since the end of August but nothing really of note. It's time to start actively getting out and excercising to keep fit and 'train to train'. 1st of October is a nice round date to start.

rodneyr1981

RJM85 wrote:

Will be working with a new coach for next year and won't nail down all the plans until after he gets back from his holidays in Hawai'i, but unless I have a major change of heart I'll have the following goals next year: - Dublin 70.3 - to win a (any) race - sub 21 minute 10 Mile TT - Dublin Marathon

Bit early but what kind of marathon target have u in mind?

RJM85

rodneyr1981 wrote: »

Bit early but what kind of marathon target have u in mind?

My dads PB is 3:14 ;-D

RJM85

The ultimate goal would be to train well, and do a good race where I can be fairly confident I couldn't have got much more out of myself on the day. So long as I'm happy with the preparation and the execution then I'm happy.

I'm conscious that changing coaches, and therefore to a certain extent changing approaches will mean that I will find new things that work for me and equally things that don't. As such I'll be buying into what coach says (because I believe he does know what he's at) and trying to execute the plan as best I can. Whatever that gets me, I'll have to be to at least a certain extent, happy with.

That said, I'd like a sub 3.

RJM85

78.2kg this morning.

That means I've managed to put on between 4 & 5 kg in six weeks.

I've always thought I could have a career in competitive eating.

joey100

Good to see you keeping up your log. I'd say you will win a race this year, wouldn't say it's even a matter of picking the right race, probably be competitive in most you enter.

I do think though you should concentrate on Dublin marathon rather than Dublin 70.3, but only because I'm doing Dublin 70.3 and we are probably in the same age group. Either that or I'll post you links to bargain food deals so you can work on the competitive eating alongside training, be my best chance of keeping up with you!

RJM85

joey100 wrote: »

Good to see you keeping up your log. I'd say you will win a race this year, wouldn't say it's even a matter of picking the right race, probably be competitive in most you enter.

I do think though you should concentrate on Dublin marathon rather than Dublin 70.3, but only because I'm doing Dublin 70.3 and we are probably in the same age group. Either that or I'll post you links to bargain food deals so you can work on the competitive eating alongside training, be my best chance of keeping up with you!

You're making steady progress year on year. I'd say another good winter will give you another good jump. I'd say there's serious potential for you to do some damage on the run leg in time.

zico10

RJM85 wrote: »

That means I've managed to put on between 4 & 5 kg in six weeks.

Don't be too proud of yourself, I'd say I've managed this in six days.

RJM85

zico10 wrote: »

Don't be too proud of yourself, I'd say I've managed this in six days.

that sounds like some sort of challenge!

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Who have you gone with for coaching? No problem if you don't want to disclose.

Good luck for next year.

zico10

RJM85 wrote: »

that sounds like some sort of challenge!

I think it's best not to go there. I'll get back to eating somewhat normally next Monday(or until the current half price offer on Ben & Jerry's ends in SuperValu). Then I intend to adopt a poor body image once more.

RJM85

Atticus Famous Salt wrote: »

Who have you gone with for coaching? No problem if you don't want to disclose.

Good luck for next year.

I'be asked Owen Martin to coach me.

Kurt_Godel

RJM85 wrote: »

- to win a (any) race

Which race? I'm sure you have something better in mind than the local fat fighters try-a-tri!

RJM85

Thurs 01st Oct:
Swim - 2k. New pool as my normal one is closed for renovations. It's either a slow pool or slightly long or something because times were noticeably slower than normal. No real purpose to the session, just swimming steady, broken up into 250 swim, 250 pull & paddles, repeat. Coming in about 4:05.

Run - 40mins about 8.5k. Steady / easy. HR is higher than it should be, but that's to be expected.

Friday
My parents normally take Connor on a Friday, but they had a wedding this week and we were stuck for a baby sitter. I took the day off to mind him. We picked his mum up to go for lunch and a bit of shopping afterwards (he was very excited with his new pram), and then I drank a couple of beers and watched the rugby. A good day.

Saturday
Slightly less than 1hr, 12k easy / steady. Nice run. I'm not as unfit as I feared, but still seriously noticeable.

Sunday
Bike - ~2.5hrs, 75k or so. Enjoyable. Felt it a bit close to the end, but it was nice to be out on the bike.

Grand total of 6hrs 40 for the week (including a bit of running and swimming before Thursday). Nothing spectacular, but it doesn't need to be right now. More importantly, I'm feeling like I want to get out and do some excercise, enjoying swimming, biking and (well kinda, but it'll come when my weight comes down again) running. Diet hasn't been bad either, apart from the bits I'm blaming on the RWC.

RJM85

Kurt_Godel wrote: »

Which race? I'm sure you have something better in mind than the local fat fighters try-a-tri!

Ha! Well I came second at Sportsman Duathlon, Cootehill Sprint, and Carligford Tri this year... All three are possibly on the calendar again this year, so one step up on the podium would be nice...

I'm not overly fussed to a certain extent, but it needs to be an actual race. That said, I'm likely to discount any race I actually win as worth feck all!

Edit: the winner of the non draft race at pulse Sprint came 3rd behind me at carlingford. I'd take that!

Kurt_Godel

RJM85 wrote: »

I'm not overly fussed to a certain extent, but it needs to be an actual race. That said, I'm likely to discount any race I actually win as worth feck all!

As a running friend once put it, "a gong is a gong is a gong". You can't do better than first on the day!

But I know what you mean, I once found out about a local sprint tri the day before, got a last minute entry... turns out it was the main goal that a keep-fit group had been targeting... I won, and got a very nice sports bag for my troubles... at prizegiving a very irate local hero came up and told me I had robbed him of his intended bag;) One race's midpacker is another race's ringer!

Anyway, looking forward to following your progress over the winter. You are now my official 400mTT nemesis

RJM85

Kurt_Godel wrote: »

Anyway, looking forward to following your progress over the winter. You are now my official 400mTT nemesis

Note to self: learn to tumble turn.

RJM85

Kurt_Godel wrote: »

But I know what you mean, I once found out about a local sprint tri the day before, got a last minute entry... turns out it was the main goal that a keep-fit group had been targeting... I won, and got a very nice sports bag for my troubles... at prizegiving a very irate local hero came up and told me I had robbed him of his intended bag;) One race's midpacker is another race's ringer!

I'm told that BMCs entry to this year's Carlingford Tri came on the day, presumably because of the generous prize money on offer. I totally should have hit him up for /my/ €250!

RJM85

Managed to get the rear wheel of my bike caught in the Luas lines this morning and left myself with a bruised shoulder (and ego). No run today and I suspect no swimming for a couple of days.

RJM85

I'm quite sore today. No point in trying to push through pain at this stage. There'll be nothing done for another day or two in the hope that I'm right for a decent run and bike at the weekend.

In other news; my hopes of besting Joey in Dublin in August have been dealt a blow. A second delightful bundle of sleep deprivation on its way to us in April!

ray o

Congratulations!

joey100

Congrats RJM, The first one didn't slow you down too much so not too sure it will be enough for me to beat you, but I'll keep my fingers crossed!!

zico10

Congratulations!

Dory Dory

Yep...congratulations from me too!!!!

rodneyr1981

Congrats. Those 1am runs will have to be squeezed in between feed's

Bambaata

Congrats!

pgibbo

Congrats. Plenty of training before April so :pac:

RJM85

Nothing done for the week. Shoulder didn't allow anything. Still there today, but seems a lot better. Going to see how I get on with a run.

RJM85

I spent a bit of time yesterday and this morning trying to figure out what might be realistic expectations in terms of a result for Dublin 70.3. Based on looking at peoples times from known events that I have done (Tri an Mhi CXIII, Budapest 70.3) and comparing them to Dublin, I’m of the opinion that roughly speaking, the Dublin course is about 10 minutes faster than Tri an Mhi, and about 10 minutes slower than Budapest. Podium for 30-34 this year was sub 4:27; with that in mind the goal has to be 4:25 or below, which as near as I can figure will require a bit of improvement on my Budapest fitness and execution. This is roughly how I see it going…



Swim: 29/30 minutes – given a sea swim, and obviously dependent on conditions, I’m guessing that the same time for Dublin as I managed in Budapest would actually constitute an improvement. I seem to do proportionately better in calmer conditions and I’d guess that I have a bit of a ‘pool swimmers stroke’. Something I have constant difficulty with is managing open water swims in training (I think I managed 4 in total last year). I’ll have to see if there’s anything that I can do on that front, and it also might be worth considering whether I can gear the majority of my races pre Dublin towards sea swims. Obviously, if the swim course is long again this year, then I can expect to be slower too. If that’s the case I’ll probably need to find the added time in transitions and on the run.



Bike: 2:22 – an avg speed of 38km/hr would give 2:22. There’s one Irish guy that did both Budapest and Dublin – I was 2 minutes faster than him on the bike in Budapest, and he managed a 2:24 in Dublin. All things being equal, the same power as Budapest (266 NP) should hopefully give me a 2:22. I’m not expecting not to improve year on year, but I am expecting to maybe bike more conservatively with a view to running better – this is something I’ve discussed with the new coach; while I’m not 100% sold on the idea as the best race strategy for me I’m happy to give it serious consideration and will do a bit of calculations to get an idea of the differences to be expected within power ranges.



Run: 1.27/28 – same time as Budapest on a more difficult course. In truth, I’ll be hoping for a bigger improvement on the run all going well. If I can get the weight down I expect I’ll get a good amount of free speed with similar fitness levels to this year.



Giving myself 5:30 for transitions (similar to Budapest) all that should have me sneak in under the 4:25. That said; I should be looking to improve on transitions also. In Budapest I passed the guys who came 2nd, 4th, 5th in my AG on the bike. I actually swam slightly faster than all of them, meaning I lost time in T1. It took a full lap of the bike course to catch the guy who eventually came 4th – that’s not really good enough when you consider I had already been ahead of him 45km beforehand.

joey100

Looks like we have the same time in mind for Dublin so, with a very similar split of times, my bike might be bit slower but hoping for slightly faster run and swim. If you are looking to do a bit of sea swimming next year let me know, I'm north county Dublin so not too far so we could pair up for some swims. I'd be the same as you, not a huge amount of open water swimming done apart from races, will need to work on that a bit next year.

RJM85

joey100 wrote: »

Looks like we have the same time in mind for Dublin so, with a very similar split of times, my bike might be bit slower but hoping for slightly faster run and swim. If you are looking to do a bit of sea swimming next year let me know, I'm north county Dublin so not too far so we could pair up for some swims. I'd be the same as you, not a huge amount of open water swimming done apart from races, will need to work on that a bit next year.

Just rough thoughts for the moment, but it's good to have a clear picture of what I'm looking to achieve and how feasible it actually is. Part of me feels like effectively aiming for 3rd place is like standing still, but I genuinely think it would require an improvement on this year to achieve.

I'm going to have a good think about the swimming aspect. It would be great to have open water company (even pool company!). There's unfortunately a dearth of decent swimmers in the immediate tri community around me. I appear to be the fastest swimmer in our club, which reflects fairly badly on the situation!

Unfortunately, the biggest issue with getting ow swimming for me is time. And I'm unlikely to have additional time next year. I could always prioritise swimming at the weekends, but that would be at the expense of long run or bike which probably isn't worth the trade off.

RJM85

Not a great week. Bruised rib as well as shoulder so swimming didn't happen. Strung a couple of runs together and then we all came down with a fairly horrible cold.

Seem to be okish for swimming this morning and managed a run so we'll start again!

RJM85

Monday
Swim - 20 mins 1k
Run - 30 mins 6k

Tuesday
Swim - 20 mins 1k
Run - 30 mins 6k

Wednesday
Swim - 20 mins 1k

Thursday
Run - 30 mins 6k

Friday
Nothing

Saturday
Tri club session - 1hr 2.5k

Sunday
Club spin 3.5 hrs / 110k

6hrs 46 total. Building a bit of routine, feeling good, and based on todays club spin, I'm not as unfit as I might be, but definitely fat. Onwards and upwards!

joey100

Where are you swimming these days rjm? Did you use to swim in Tara street pool? Just cos I'm looking to swim somewhere for the next few weeks but think I seen they were working on that pool.

RJM85

joey100 wrote: »

Where are you swimming these days rjm? Did you use to swim in Tara street pool? Just cos I'm looking to swim somewhere for the next few weeks but think I seen they were working on that pool.

I normally swim in the Markievicz but they're closed for renovations. They've organised access to the pool on Sean macdermott street for us in the interim. It's a bit old fashioned, but it's better than nothing.

MojoMaker

Joey, try Belvedere, I'm sure I heard there's an drop-in PAYG session in the mornings I think 6-7am every day of the week, Interested will know more.

RJM85

365 days of training

RJM85

Met with the coach on Friday. He's very much of the opinion that this time of year is for recharging, indulging a little, and building up brownie points for when I need to be out training. Good chat - we're both on the same page more or less, and he's fairly confident I can meet all of my goals for next year.

No swimming last week due to a bruised rib - trying to make sure I'm healed before pushing myself again but it's taking time. Couple of easy runs and a 2.5 hr cycle on Sunday. I'm definitely not as wildly unfit as I feared, but I do need to keep check on my weight.

RJM85

Toddlers with bronchitis are not condusive to achieving much of anything. On the mend.

pgibbo

Nasty. Once they're on the mend that's the main thing. They bounce back so quickly. It's amazing

RJM85

I'm fatter than I intended and more unfit than I intended, but we have a plan and for the first time in ages I'm feeling ready to go. It all starts Monday!

rodneyr1981

Good to see this log up and running again.
Any goals or targets for 2016?

RJM85

rodneyr1981 wrote: »

Good to see this log up and running again.
Any goals or targets for 2016?

A 70.3 - hopefully Dublin, and Dublin marathon. Looking for an AG podium and a sub 3hr

Kurt_Godel

Best of luck RJM. Make sure you do a January 400TT with all that extra buoyancy!

RJM85

Kurt_Godel wrote: »

Best of luck RJM. Make sure you do a January 400TT with all that extra buoyancy!

There's one in the plan for next week. I'm dreading it! If I'm within a minute of October I'll probably be doing well!

RJM85

Food diaries and heart rate caps are a total buzzkill.

RJM85

Two bad:

- I’m fat

- I’m slow



Two good:

- We have a plan

- I’m motivated



Monday

30 min Weights session. This is new to me – the S&C stuff I’ve done before was more in the way of stretching, core exercises etc. This was mainly body weight stuff. I’ve lots to work on and I was pretty sore for both Tuesday & Wednesday after.



(also had 30 minutes of easy running to and from the gym)



1hr bike including FTP test.

Started the test too ambitious and faded badly. FTP @ 304w down from 338 in the summer. I need to learn to hurt better again.





Tuesday

45mins Aerobic run with HR in Z2. Slow. Really felt like I was plodding along for this.



1hr Easy bike 140 HR cap with 15 minutes easy running after.



Wednesday

40mins run session – with a few short efforts. I misunderstood the description and made this harder on myself than needed. The run felt good though, and form was there.



40 mins – Swim TT. 6.21 for 400m, 3.09 for 200m. That 400m time is down from 5:46 in September so there’s plenty of work to be done.



Thursday

30 minutes weights session. Barbell stuff. Hamstrings in bits afterwards. I’m really REALLY weak.

(also had 30 minutes of easy running to and from the gym)



45 min Easy bike 120 HR cap.



Friday

Run TT. So slow. 20 minutes flat out came out at roughly half marathon pace when I’m fit. Again, loads of work to do.



I’m taking the view that ‘I am where I am’ at the minute. The main thing is that I actually want to get out and train again and I’m consistently making those little boxes on TP turn green. Diet has been good all week – it’s something I wanted to focus on this year after letting things slip last year so coach is reviewing my food log at the end of the week also. I don’t think it’s necessarily a case that I don’t know what I should and shouldn’t be eating, its more likely that I just need that extra motivation that well it I’m going to write THAT in the food log I’d better have earned it.



Looking ahead. There’s a definite change in approach from what I’ve been used to, and I can see definite differences just from looking at the first two weeks of the plan. I’m sure it will take a bit of getting used to, and it will be interesting to see how my body reacts to a different approach.



Onwards and upwards!

pgibbo

Great to see you back at it. Best of luck with the year ahead.

What's the thinking behind a HR cap on the bike if you're training off power? How are the HR limits determined?

RJM85

pgibbo wrote: »

Great to see you back at it. Best of luck with the year ahead.

What's the thinking behind a HR cap on the bike if you're training off power? How are the HR limits determined?

That's something I need to understand a bit more about myself tbh. The main purpose seems to be to ensure I'm in the right zones be it recovery, endurance etc. And that I'm not over doing it.

In terms of power I'd be fairly hopeful that my power numbers should move relatively quickly in the first month or two training as I go from messing around 4 hrs a week to specifically training 14-15 hours a week. That's a hopeful guess more than anything though.

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Surely power and hr should be used combined? Its always the first sign of an improvement or the need of a retest if you see power creeping up a zone with effort and hr remaining easy in Z2 (as an example).

Just back into the swing of it myself this week and quickly realised i have been avoiding the hard stuff for nearly a year or so:) not to mention the additional recovery required after a quality session.

RJM85

Atticus Famous Salt wrote: »

Surely power and hr should be used combined? Its always the first sign of an improvement or the need of a retest if you see power creeping up a zone with effort and hr remaining easy in Z2 (as an example).

Just back into the swing of it myself this week and quickly realised i have been avoiding the hard stuff for nearly a year or so:) not to mention the additional recovery required after a quality session.

Yeah, I don't think it's a case that power is being ignored or anything, just that HR is being used to set the sessions. Over time I should see the power for bike or pace for run go up for the same HR. Previously my sessions would have been set by pace or power, but you'd obviously see the improvement through HR dropping at the same power/pacr.

The focus at the minute is to build the base fitness and even just get into the routine of training (and to get to know the new coach and him me). I know the plan is to use power more when the TTs start, so I assume power and pace will become a bigger part of the plan later on when we need to be more specific.

Have you picked races you're aiming for yet? Are you still going to be doing the road stuff?