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2020...
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14-10-2019 5:41pm#1The comeback??
So... ive been a few years away from triathlon now. I had it in my head it was 2016 but it was actually 2015! :eek: I surcame to plantar facititis at Kilkee Hell of the West and never returned. Id not proberly managed it to that race and it hit me hard. Ill never forget that race, ****e swim, good bike coming into T2 about 6th/7th and had been in good run form but 500m out the course the foot blew to pieces! Id started new job not long after where stress was on a high so never got to the bottom of it and just went biking for a few years. Ive moved back to a much less stressful job now with loads more time off (2.5 times time off!!) and have got the foot in order so Im hoping i can return in 2020.
Id a knee op in June to sort an issue with medial meniscus and attended Aidan Woods since August to ensure i built it back ok as well as treating the foot. All has gone well and Aidan has seen me off now to my own devices.
Plan for next year is to just do Sprint and Olys. Perhaps look to Lost Sheep at end of year if all going well. That said is Ras Tailteann is on next year (doubt it) ill aim for it and just through in some triathlon
Aim of the log is to keep me ticking over, hoping i can update once a week or so. Getting back to the pool is going to be the biggest challenge, never liked swimming! Ive barely swam in those years! Bike wise im fine, FTP is up 8-10% from triathlon days. I should be a lot stronger than i was previously. If im not hitting sub or very close to 60min 40ks ill be disappointed. Run should come back with time.
So aim for each week for the coming month or so will be 3 swims, 3 runs, 3 bikes with 3 core/strength sessions consisting of lots of single leg squats, heel raises, sumo squats etc! I need to keep the foot right this time!9
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And so into week 1. Slow and steady start ;-)
Monday
Jumped into a bike race on Zwift Monday. I generally have an idea of my FTP and figured I was ok for the B cat this week. They are always hard races, always near the limit with surges here and there. 312AP for 40mins had me in a heap at the end! Lost contact with the few Cat A guys 6k out and almost caught by peloton behind but held on for B cat win
Almost sick at the end trying to stay away, as close to getting sick as I can remember for a very long time! These races will be a feature once a week for a few months but will be dropped when I need to get serious. They are not too dissimilar to the hour of power type sessions.
Tuesday
25mins strength/core work followed by 30min easy run. No issues, I struggle with some of the strength exercise but need to keep at them.
Wednesday
Easy bike for 50mins followed by a trip to the pool! hoped to do 20mins or so only to be booted from the pool 5mins in! I hadn't realised pool shuts an hours before gym! Swimming fitness is zero! Did 200m without trying to put much effort in but was still fading towards end of it!! Hope to get a longer session in again this week. When I say long I mean 20mins, don't laugh!
Weighed myself fearing the worst for the first time in age and pleasantly surprised to be 3/4kg lighter than I expected!0 -
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Last week was all about strength work to try improve the foot for running and the bike. As id done f all the week before I wanted to just get back to things so didn't kill myself on the bike. Of the 3 midweek rides just 1 had some decent intensity. It involved 45s reps of 560-600W - about 180% FTP. My Kickr has been returned with a new on route (arrives today!) so I had to use gearing and cadence to try reach the zone! I was spinning at 110-120RPM to get to the target, good practise for sprinting!
I got a good spin outdoors again Saturday. I was over west as herself had an exam in college so ended up doing a repeat of the week before. Legs didn't feel great starting out and the wind was a killer! I was head on or battered to the side for the first half and really battled to keep the head in it. I was on the brink of turning back a good few times but started counting to distract myself. Got to 400 at one point Legs came around a little as I started climbing over Shannapheasteen. I like this climbs as its like a stairs, a series of little climbs that you can attack in parts. As I'm largely turbo bound at the moment I wanted to attack the downhill too, almost lost it once or twice but good practise all the same hitting 70km/hr at one point. Happy I persevered in the end!
Foot seems a bit improved, I'm hoping the strength work is helping. Will be trying a test run this week. Hopefully that goes ok as I wold love to be back running in time for Xmas, i've two weeks off so will have lots of time on my hands!
New warranty replacement turbo arrives today so I should get a decent amount done on the bike too. I'm going to try getting two long bikes a week in with a turbo of 2-3hours midweek and another 2.5-3hr bike either turbo or outdoors depending on where I am. I don't see myself doing many over 3 hours.0 -
So not been a great few weeks since the last update. Now that Xmas is over and routine is getting back to normal I want to get training back (to what normal once was!). Ive only biked and not as much as id have liked at that.
The foot has improved and so ill get back running this evening, ill start short again (10mins) and work from there.
I've joined both CI and TI for the year so at least now that I've paid I am more inclined to race :P I hope to get a duathlon in soon but ill wait to let the foot show it can deal with race pace before picking any. I also need to get headset, cables etc and get the P2C setup again! Ill set it up permanently on the turbo so at least I can start working on TT bike again. The few times its been brought out of the cupboard the past few years has basically just been for club TTs, the right brake lever fell off on the last one so it needs a good service!
I' be doing a weigh in tomorrow (not looking forward to that!)0 -
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A bit of a write off week last week. The slight pain in my knee on the Sunday before meant I binned a bike session Monday when about half way through. It was twinging a little bit more than i liked so the week was dialled back a lot.
Swim
Just the one dip, times ok but I did nothing for a few days to give the knee a bit of a break. Will go more this week and use pull buoy.
Bike
A binned session Monday. I was ok doing easy intensity but was getting a bit of an uncomfortable feeling when the intensity ramped up. I gave the bike a break the rest of the week. Went out Saturday for a test on both it and the TT bike. Spent a few evenings completely building the TT rig after another long while in storage.
Run
Ran easy Tuesday and Wednesday. I don't feel the twinge at all when running so did a 20min and a 30min run, the 30 had some 15-20s sprints and again all good. These were completed after a 20mins of core and strength exercises
Naas Duathlon
First duathlon in many many years!! I knew I was in no shape to race it but was excited to get back to some form of "racing". I've done zero run intensity in probably 3 to 4 years and so I planned to control the first run, bike hard enough and see whatever I had left for the second run!
Run 1
So run 1 went off fast, I set off figuring I could run at about 160ish BPM. I was surprised that I was relatively far up the field. The aim beforehand was to hope to run just under 4min/km so I was shocked to see I finished run 1 at 03:35/km pace! Way faster than I thought possible.
Bike
I lost a feckin' age in the first 3mins. The clasps on my tri shoes just wouldn't release. I managed to get one closed but rode the rest of the bike with the right shoe open I was 3 mins in before I abandoned attempts to close it. Was passed by loads and lost probably about 40-50s due to slowly freewheeling when I should have been hitting 58-60km on the downhill section! Lesson learned, I might have to cut away a bit of the clasp to make it easier to close. From there to about 9/10km I was passing people. I eventually got caught in a pack of lads from about 9km which for about 3km was really bad. There were about 6 or 7 lads that kept closing and passing one another, it needed a decent surge to get past and I got nabbed as I came into a hill and stuck behind one of them! I was about 4/5m behind him and just as I went to surge past moto lad pinged me. I think that's my first penalty ever! What really wrecked my head was seeing 2 or 3 of these lads properly drafting eachother. Moto spoke to 2 of them but I see no other penalties near me. One of them didn't even have his number showing! I couldn't get my chain onto the 12 which meant I was losing ground on the fast downhills. In the end I came in just ahead of these guys, I wanted T2 first of the group to make it less messy. I handled this group badly. Whenever I was at the back the power was far too comfortable but it was a real effort to get ahead. I kept getting past then on the downhill areas. Hence it was impossible to just TT relatively evenly. Paid for this later!
Run 2
Legs were fairly toast at this stage. The lack of running really showing now and far too much surging on the bike. Went out at what I hoped I could hold but I was fully expecting a stream of guys to pass me and sure enough this is what happened. Still though I have to be happy with run pace here as I ended up at 4min/km. I thought that was going to be run 1 pace so happy enough.
Overall I'm happy enough with the race considering I'm in no shape for racing! Loads of room for improvement and still under the hour. I didn't bike near as well as I should have, AP of 295 and NP 325 shows there was far too much surging. At that 325 is still below threshold! Id hoped to be closer to 340AP! 27 min AP was 317, less than 100 for a lot of that opening 3 mins Had that not happened I probably would have been away from those guys I got caught in later on. I think most of them past me in this section! Bike ended up being 30:50'ish so reckon id have been under 30 but this this feck up.
Ended the week with a very easy turbo to spin out the legs. The knee feeling a slight twinge this morning so I'm going to bin this week for the most part. Ive booked physio for Friday as a precautionary, it feels similar to the feeling I had for the majority of 2018 before I finally got a tear on the medial meniscus in Nov 2018. Ill hit the pool 3 or 4 times but wont bike or run. I'm off the Gran Canaria Thursday week so I want it in good shape for that!0 -
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So i had an update done covering up to the end of Feb but i cant remmeber where i saved it
In short, physio went well. Quad tightness the issue, told that the area operated on is likely to flare/feel sore when under heavy training load so so i need to roll etc as much as possible.
Gran Canaria was great! Its an amazing island for cycling. Got lots and lots of climbing in and it definitely helped as i definitely got a nice spike in form the past few weeks, for lockdown!
I had kept the running going, didnt do much swimming but at the virus shutting down races I had about 1.5/2 weeks mid March where i wasnt focused on planned workouts but did keep going a little.
Right now im doing a mix of planned workouts, zwift meetups of varying intensity and zwift races. Ive gone well in the 3 CI zwift races so far and beat Thomas de Gendt last week Ive set power records from 5s to 1hr in the past week so it seems my peaking for Easter was fairly spot on! Ill try keep this going but itll likely be 99% biking for now. Ive decided to aim for mid August in the hope that there are some races, but i have my doubts! Im aiming for about 10-14hrs a week and am using a 3up 1 down phased approach. Ive started to look at some weaknesses ive never really sorted previously (sprinting!) and have stepped back to sessions done January/February etc.
Im still working in the office and have been fairly busy so dont have luzury of training during the day as i see many doing!0 -
Without trying to capture too much old ground ill just give an idea of races to date and here I’m at and what I’m doing now.
I completed the 2nd Naas duathlon and 2 bike races which might be the extent of actual racing until the Christmas bike races at this rate!
Naas Duathlon
I was a fair bit happier with this race. I tried to control the effort better in run 1, letting a load run off ahead. I came through a heap in the bike for a very quiet and uneventful ride and ran a bit better in run 2. The run and bike times on results include transitions which they didn’t last time but overall about a minute quicker. Happy enough.
On 7th and 8th March i had a nice crash weekend of bike racing. The primary aim was to have two hard days and i had that!
Mick Lally Memorial Race https://www.strava.com/activities/3162291205
I’ve started this year as an A2 on account of no racing and hence zero points in 2019. This meant we had a slight head start on the A1s. Id hoped to have a good hard race but I wasn’t expecting to go from the gun! I hit out hard with two coming for company, we dropped within a few km and hence was left with myself and a UCD guy for guts of about 25-30km, looking back i was at threshold AP for this! Finally caught by small bunch of A1s, survived there for abut another 10-15km and couldn’t hang on up Doreys, blew my lights out soon after chasing and rolled in with remnants of A1/2 pack.
Seamus Kennedy https://www.strava.com/activities/3166345127
I like this course and there are a few points where you really have to give it everything to stay in the group! I’ve never been one for cruising along in the peloton and hence as usual was at the back having to do too much to get back in around tight corners and make my way up on the climbs so as to not lose the front group. Rode relatively ok for the most part but missed the opportunity to get away with what seemed like a splintered few front groups. In the last 10km or so i decided to ride hard and get some training out of it to find i dropped the group i was with and rode in for €20 and 5th A2 Id done a few other 10-15min efforts here and there riding through a few groups to find they all came together in the last 25km. Didnt really mean to jump out of groups, I just wanted to ride hard and it meant others couldnt hold my wheel. These were good signs considering id also raced the day before.
I got what i wanted out of the two days but all for nothing now!
I did about 2 more structured weeks before Covid hit everything, took a week or so of no real aim before getting back into some form of structure the last few weeks. Ive been dipping into the Cycling Ireland Zwift races, doing a Monday night club league race with CLontarf and have now joined in with an 8 man TTT on Thursdays. Around them ive started to focus on some weaknesses, sprinting being the main one!
The Zwift races have bene good but im not going to get trapped into killing myself just doing those. The CI races in particualr have been brutal! Here are my files for the first 5:
Race 1 - https://www.strava.com/activities/3226897129 - 9th Irish
Race 2 - https://www.strava.com/activities/3252758995 - 4th Irish
Race 3 - https://www.strava.com/activities/3282979017 - 5th Irish beat Thomas de Gendt
Race 4 - https://www.strava.com/activities/3315394419 - 8th Irish
Race 5 - https://www.strava.com/activities/3349561462 - 10th Irish
A summary of these races are - near 5 min max effort for first 4-5mins, ride threshold for the next 70% of the race, respond to hills at max effort and then empty myself in the last 5/10mins! There's only 2 of us who have scoed in every round so far (myself and Kieran Jackson) so at least im showing consistency!
One thing that my consistency in these races has informed me is that my plan to Gorey went well. Ive recorded power records from 5s to 60mins the last few weeks! Threshold up to 380W now from about 320 starting out but more importantly im finally climbing over 1000W for short sprints and my tolerance for agony is good Im happy enough it is a true threshold hs ive held near it for a 60min effort twice as well as a few 20min efforts in the 390-400W range. Going to monitor how im feeling though in the easy/tempo ranges as if im struggling i might bring it down slightly.
So for now im peppering a structured plan aiming towards mid August with Zwift races being used as interval type sessions. Going back to a big of strength work for now with the hope that there might be a Ras in August/September! Im finally trying to tackle my inability to sprint!0 -
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Last week was good, it was the first week after a recovery week and whilst I still felt a bit tired the legs were working fine!
Monday
Clontarf CC Club League - TT
Did just over an hour at easy to steady with a group on zwift and then into a virtual TT with Clontarf CC. Won the 40k TT in 55:58, 357W AP 363NP, hard course as it was pan flat and then a 7ish minute effort on the volcano climb and in to another shorter climb, worked them as best i could but lacked a bit of zip tonight. Only realised about 3 mins before the start that it was TT night! I was suffering bad at the end and definitely didn't approach it too well, I had about 2 mins on Paul O'Reilly about half way in but he closed me to within about 10s by the end! He paced it much better than I did!
Tuesday
Bike
I had hoped to do about an hour with some short full gas sprint efforts but legs were in trouble on the first sprint so just did another 1 before spinning easy. My sprinting has been coming on but need to get these sessions in more regularly, ill have to see where I can slot them in as the day after a race isn't ideal! I'm committed to doing those Monday evening races so might move the sprint efforts to Wednesday allowing the body to recover a little more. I want to be able to hit them as 100% sprint efforts.
Wednesday
Bike
Got about 2 hours in on zwift between 2 meetups. Both done easy to steady with a few surges
Thursday
WRTL TTT
Team Time Trial day on zwift as part of the WTRL series. Its an 8 man TTT with 4th counting as our time. Its a hard session to get right. We have a few on discord chatting away saying when they will pull but a few who are not so it means at times we're fighting one another. I generally try to do about 1 min efforts at about 115-120%. With 8 on a team you do get some rest which is typically around 80-90% so not too dissimilar to an over/under. By the end I am normally swinging. We felt we could have gone better with some better tactical riding but still finished 16th of 550 odd teams! I ended up riding 360AP, 376NP so a hard enough hit out for the 37mins.
Next week we hope to break into the top 10 which would see us compete in the Premier Series which is live streamed with commentators etc on YouTube The team captain is after bringing in some serious firepower to next weeks team so I expect we will be in with a good chance of that top 10.
Friday
TI TT
I decided fairly late to give the Triathlon Ireland TT a go on zwift. It coincided with a little competition going on within Zwift Team Ireland and was a short enough so figured id be ok for the Cycling Ireland race Saturday. I went out a bit too hot but was feeling pretty good. From memory I held 425W for the first section and the remaining sessions around 400W with a little push at the end. It was a full gas effort for me, legs were feeling it a little but I seem to be able to push on tired legs these days much better than I can remember! I briefly saw that I was faster than Bryan McCrystal at one of the early intermediate checkpoints so that encouraged me to dig in and embrace the pain. In the end I won the thins clocking 22:21 recoding all time records according to TraininPeaks of 10 and 20min power (425/413)! Also recorded 2nd best all time 5 min power at 450W! Whilst it was great to bag a virtual win I was really pleased at the numbers and the ability to really suffer! The races are fun but I'm more motivated at the power increasing over the last few weeks. TP saying threshold is now 392W but as I didn't have a clearance 5 min effort beforehand I'm not taking that and have left it at 380W, which is al all time high for me anyway!
Saturday
CI Race - Bike
The 6th round of the CI league and what should have been a course to suit me. I approach these races like I would any race and caffeine and gel up beforehand. They are the only session I use energy drink on all week too. All other rides are just water. I did my usual 40-50min warmup and was looking forward to it. So race started and I'm pedalling like crazy but only doing 50-100W! I dropped to the 54/11 but no change! All of a sudden I realised my feckin garmin had a workout on it that was controlling the Kickr! I frantically shut it off and at about 45s in I finally got going. I had dropped from about 100th to 850t and knew I was going to be in trouble now. I put in a big 7/8min effort to make my way back up and was at about 100/150th when I started getting dropouts! A few only last 1-2s but then started lasting about 15-20s which means you get no draft effect and I kept yoyo-ing from about 100th to 150th as id come back online. In the end I aborted. Was raging! As stupid as it is I really look forward to these races now and had to this week been only 1 of 2 to score points in every race. After an hour of self pity I finally came around and laughed it off. There's always next week! Id had the Garmin setup to record the Kickr and have been using my P2M to use Zwift. I wanted to see how they differ after reading up a bit about this and seeing the zwiftpower data analysis tool. Next time ill make sure its not set to a workout!!
Sunday
Bike - Slovenian Zwift Spring Classics 2020
As I missed the CI race Saturday I found a nice longish race for Sunday morning on zwift. It was a much smaller event on a course not suited to me at all (>10% short sections!). I was having to work really hard to keep in contact on the laps over a the hardest gradients and in the end I was in for the sprint for 2nd from a group of 4. I came in 2nd in this group but had launched my sprint a little late. Still though I was happy to see that I managed >900W 10s effort in this. I had to chase back on a few k earlier which left me in a heap so I was surprised id anything in the end.
A good week overall with nearly 11.5 hours done.0 -
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Another decent week last week, bit of fatigue building as lacked some at the very top end but happy overall. Last week was week 2 of building up the hours with recovery week due next week. Ive a few focuses going on each week with them building over a 3 week phase into a recovery week. At the moment focus is on sprinting
Monday
Run
Went for a run for the first time in ages. was running a lot better than i expected. A lovely warm day and really enjoyed getting into the nearby park for just over 7km at 4:20/km pace. Run pace a lot faster than i was expecting whilst keeping HR in check. Prob ran a little harder than i should have but was enjoying myself too much! Did 20mins of core work afterwards
Bike
I joined a meetup and in this did 4 x 4mins sweetspot with a slightly harder 2 x 2 mins near the end. From this i went into the weekly Clontarf CC league. Legs were feeling heavy tonight from the session before this so i was fairly useless in helping catch those ahead. In the end i managed a few hard efforts on short climbs and broke away from who i was with, caught a few and came in for a minor place. 336AP, 356NP tells all - well below threshold with HR also on the low side. Body just not able. Thankfully i didnt force it though so no damage done.
Tuesday
Bike
Had intended to so some short sprints but egs were not feeling it so used it as an easy/recovery ride knowing the end of the week was fairly crammed with zwift races.
Wednesday
Bike
Two Zwift meetups back to back so over 2hours of solid riding, mainly aerobic and i threw in the sprint efforts which were intended for Tuesday. Spritning is definitely coming on a little, still a lot to go but managed an alltime 5s record of 1065W accoring to TP. Need to get that to at least 15s. Id only gone over 1000W for 1s a handful of times up until a few weeks ago so its encouraging to see some minor gains here.
Thursday
Bike
WTRL TTT night. A bit of pressure on this one as the team captain brought in some real fire power in the form of some of Ireland's best roadies! Big push this week to qualify us to the Premier League the following Thursday with its live streaming and commentary etc. This meant a top 10 needed. We finished 16th the week previous so was within our grasp. A hard enough circuit with volcano climb and another climb soon after, both at the later part of the route. It went very well, we had a really good system going and ended up 2nd overall 374NP for the 54mins showed it was a hard effort
Friday
Bike
Triathlon Ireland TT tonight on the BOlogna course. Legs were really tired at this stage and i knew i was going to suffer.I hadnt done the course before but did plenty of reading and had a strategy with the route split into about 10 parts. Getting it spot on though would have needed fresher legs and n the end i just didnt have them with me! Still though 412NP for the 15mins wasnt a bad effort and seems to be good enough for 4th overall (official results not out yet)
Saturday
Bike
Cycling Ireland race day! Innsbruck circuit with that nightmare short climb. ITs about 1 mins off effort and i was trying to not do too much in laps 1 and 2 knowing the 3rd time would be the most important. I managed to stay with the lead pack with a few dangling out front. In the end there was about 20-30 of us sprinting for 4th ish. I managed 16th and just didnt have the power needed. Max i reached was only 916W, over 200W off my most recent peak. I was happy though to place 6th Irish as the legs were tired heading into this race! The race is good craic and i was happy to see Declan Quigley gave me a few mentions when i looked back at the commentary later
A few AG2R riders present with Tony Gallopin prob the best known, dont know where he went though!
I also managed to get out for 80mins in the evening, first time n the bike outside in along time! Enjoyed it a lot.
Sunday
Did a fairly aerobic effort on zwift qith a short sprint at the end managing to clip over 1000W again
All in all a good wek with 13hours done. Im enjoying zwift a lot but could do with cutting backon the amount of crap im eating! Whilst many are losing weight on it these days im putting weight on Ive gotten into a bad enough habit of dessert almost every evening. Really need to nip that habit! 0 -
Another decent week. Aimed for about 13hrs and managed 12 so happy enough, 95% of it was on the bike with some core work and rolling out the legs today. It was week 3 of 4 week cycle so i should be heading into a recovery week but im not feeling all that tired. Ill still take it a little easier this week with the hope of pushing on again for another 3 weeks of work after it (depending on when the new member of familty arrives!)
Monday
Bike - Clontarf CC Club League Race
Handicap race this week, this time on the Richmond course. Its one of my favourite courses with a nice solid 1 min effort up the main climb and another 30s or so of allout on the short climb. I hit the climbs hard each time and gapped everyone to take a comfortable enough win A solid hour with 353NP
Tuesday
Bike
Did just over an hour of mainly aerobic work, tried to hold it to high easy with a busy end of the week race wise coming!
Wednesday
Bike
Two hours mainly aerobic with 4 x 10s allout sprints in the second hour. Nice to get over 1000W in these, hopefully hold the 1000W for the duration soon enough
Thursday
Bike - WTRL Premier League TTT
We (IRL NagaBOMB) qualified for the live event this week and really did well to finish 2nd overall again, onl beaten by a team featured Magnus Cort Nielsen of EF Pro Cycling! Their team also featured a few more conti riders. That said we did have Chris McGlinchey and Daire Feeley who certainly did their fair sahre of work!! The lads are horses which made the final 10mins or so really hard going! 46mins at 388NP and plenty of hard 30s to 1 min efforts when my turn at the front! Really enjoyed it but was empty b the end. We have qualified for PRemier League again next week too. We're a new team and made some mistakes so really did well to beat some of the best teams around.
Friday
Bike - Triathlon Ireland TT
Back to the 17.5km course which i won two weeks back. I hoped id ride well again and thought i was comfortable enough in the opening 10mins for the second half was torture, as was the last time i suppose! Legs were feeling the TTT from the night before but happy out to win it again, well 2nd by 1s but first of TI. 410NP this time and only a few seconds slower so not as bad as it could have been. I had to really push in that alst 3km to keep it going! Aim was over 400W so happy to manage that.
Saturday
Bike - CI Race
Three Sisters curse and not one that suits me at all! I was worried legs wouldnt have anything in them but in the end i went well, a lot better than i expected! I got a good warmup in again and got to the start line early. The fact its now split by category helps a bit with the madness of the start and i made sure to just do enough to be wit the front few over the first climb. I knew i wasnt going to last the duration of the main climb and had to let the leaders go about half way up. I got into a nice small group from there and worked hard to stay in it. I managed to down a can of coke on the descent and that helped me over the Volcano climb. Our small group caught a few out front and now i knew i was in for a top 20 again, knowing that there was every chance of a top 10 Irish again. In the end i mucked up my sprint, going a bit late but im not sure it would have mattered too much. ZP tells me i was 3rd of the 6 in the group and i think im 8th or 9th for the points again. Happy iwth that considering two hard days leading into it! IT was good to get a long course for once too. 371NP for the 01:11:06. Did an extedned cooldown after really low W's!
Sunday
Bike
I wanted a longer ride today and managed just over 2 hrs mainly in easy zone but with some efforts here and there. Legs were good again. Afterwards did some coe work and rolled out the legs.
Happy with the week, not as tired today as i thought id be and slightly down on the TSS i aimed for. Glad ive all these Zwift races to keep my mind occupied during this lockdown!0 -
Almost two months since an update :eek:
Life has been hectic the last few weeks. My wife and I had our first born on 9th June (baby boy!) so any form of training or exercise didn't happen for about 7-10 days, sleep was non-existent and life was, as expected, all over the shop! All good but different Id always known my season was likely to end around June and id accepted that but with Covid delaying things I'm hoping I can still do some races.
I'm not going to get too hung up on dedicated, structured training and right now and I'm trying to get some of the form back that I had from late April to May. I was stronger on the bike than id ever been, seeing an FTP 30W above anything id ever reached! The body fell off a cliff however in June with the lack of sleep and the few zwift league races I did were atrocious. There was no chance of defending the lead in the Triathon Ireland Zwift league and I'm glad that's done! Its a horrible feeling seeing power way down from what it was just a few weeks back. I've barely been able to hold that May FTP for 10 mins since but life is getting back to some form of normality, a new version, now and I'm staring to feel a bit better. Now that I'm back at work I'm in the spare room during the week so I do get some sleep now! I've started getting efficient with time again, something I haven't done since triathlon days! I cycle to work and try to get an hour done at lunchtime every day now. Training will be 8hrs a week tops now as opposed to the 13-15hrs i had been getting done. I'm not likely to do any triathlon events though as I don't see myself getting to any pool! Hopefully things get back to normal there and I can get going in the winter.
The cycling club start the reduced club league tomorrow with a 16km TT and goes on until end August. I'm looking forward to that and hope to do some open races too. Nothing planned as of yet but I would love to get my form back for the club TT champs which are late August. Id love a crack at a very low 20min 16k TT and sub 54min 40k TT but will have to see how the body comes around over the coming weeks. If I can get my power back they should be achievable so goals are going to be simple and basically train well when I can!0 -
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