2020...

I intend getting back with them but I'll leave it a few weeks. I made the mistake of joining them for a swim a while back and my arms and lats were destroyed for days!!

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!

Cheers, I remember that day too well!

Thursday
25mins strength/core work followed by 37min easy run again. Pace has really started to pick up the last few sessions now for same effort, body seems to be adapting. Am about 20s/km quicker than I was 3/4 weeks ago for same effort. Ill look to build in some 15 sprints in another week or too, going to keep things 95% easy to then.

Friday
Just had time for a short cycle (40mins) before driving to Galway. On zwift again, did 1 5min steady to warm into a harder 4 (110% of estimated FTP) and 3 min (120% estimated FTP) rep with short break between them to wake the body a bit.

Saturday
Some core work with lunges etc before another easy run but for 1 hard 1.5km in the middle. Into a woods beside my mother in laws again. It has a nice 1.5km loop which I went for again. Didn't hurt myself as much as I did when I did this last week but still hurt enough! 03:40/km pace feels a whole lot harder than it used to!

After some food and a few coffees headed out on the bike for just an hour. Spun away for the first half and then threw in a hard 5 min, 10min and 30s near then end.

I had a lot of driving to do with family things Sunday so Id no chance of any more training. Ill aim for 1 day off a week anyways. This week might have a few more as I'm groomsman at friend's wedding Friday which starts Thursday, ends Saturday. Im also away at a college course Wednesday and Thursday in Nenagh but the hotel we stay in has a pool so at least ill have no excuse for not swimming this week!

Finally managed to get to a run store for an analysis and recommendation on new runners. Id worn Saucony Fastwitchs for training and racing for years but was mindful I was at the upper weight limit recommended. Considering issues with the plantar facia I wanted to get something different, or advice at least.

So yesterday I picked up some ON Cloudswifts adfter trying on a number of options. I wore them for the first time last night for a 40min run and I'm in ribbons today!!! Left achilles is particularly bad to the point I was limping this morning, its slowly loosening out now! I normally do some heel raises after a run (as well as before) and I couldn't manage one last might afterwards!! Ill be consulting with the store before running on them again (the guy I dealt with is off today).

This week going ok so far, for what little has been done. Ive set myself a plan on Training Peaks and have put in some tentative goals for next year. Whilst I am trying to get back to triathlon I wouldn't mind a good shot at the Gorey 3-day stage race. Due to injury, and not racing this year, (hence picked up 0 points as an A1) I'm expecting to be downgraded to A2. Gorey isn't open to A1s so I would like to give it a good shot all going to plan. I'm not exactly going to say I want top 10 etc as anything can happen and there aregenerally some serious riders there (junior etc). All I would expect of myself is to be in good condition to be able to get into/create and survive in breaks as I'm zero sprint in me. The TT is a bit short for my liking but will suit me more than most. I know I can sustain 450+ W for 7 odd mins if I get myself right. Ill need to see what the club are thinking too, there's a few more A2s now so they might prefer Ras Mumhan but I'm hoping there might be a good team interested in Gorey. Its a long time since the club has had good riders, a fair few have developed in the last 2-3 years with some more on the horizon. The nearest goal however comes 30th November! The prestigious hamper race!!

I know trying to do both disciplines will mean I wont perform at my best in either but I don't mind that. I will probably maintain a bike focus as its my preferred sport of the three.


So this week:
Monday
Bike - Tempo intervals (short still) of 6mins on/2 mins off. I upped zwift's recommended power target slightly which was still easy. the session is labelled as "foundation" which is aiming at top of easy zone but I see zero benefit in that so i've been adapting it to tempo. I might just up the FTP to get it into high tempo range next week as HR is still only sitting around 130. I'm aiming to do a proper test second week of December before really getting into a plan. For now the aim is to get fitness moving in the right direction and get used to near daily training again.

Tuesday
Strength Work - Did 25mins of stretches, planks, lunges, squats, rolling etc. Left heel is still tight. I'm not going to run until that is 100%

Wednesday
Swim - I finally made it to the pool. I just did 1000m in 20mins consisting on 5 x 200's. Going to do similar and up the distance slowly and start introducing some drills once a little fitness returns. I certainly felt better than I did a few weeks ago when I had my first session. 200s started out at 03:10 for the first and then 03:20-03:25 for the other 4.

pgibbo wrote: »

This might be of interest. Brad Beer posted it on Insta yesterday. He's a running physio in Oz but seems to work with a lot of top athletes.


I run in on shoes and love them and found that they gave me some relief when I was starting to develop foot pain from Saucony shoes.


P.

Cheers Paul, good read. Ive had the shockwave and acupuncture previously and am currently doing the calf raises and stretching along with some standing on the old hockey ball so hopefully they keep it at bay. Those dreaded night socks would never stay in position for me! I sleep belly down and hook my feet over a pillow now as I found the soreness was amplified if I slept toes and feet stretched out. Unfortunately I cant sleep on my side of back so the pillow at the ankles seems to help a bit. Its a habit now as ive slept like this for about 5/6 years!

When the calf goes back to normal ill be starting running in short durations in the new runners to see how it goes. The season is a long way off so I'm not going to push it!

And for the rest of the week:

Wednesday - evening
Bike
A "strength" session as described by Zwift. It involved 10s reps just below 600W at a lower cadence than normal. Not sure 10s is really enough. If I was in proper plan mode i'd probably up those reps to 30s and lower the power a bit. It was a decent session anyway. No fatigue yet, but I'm not really doing enough hours to warrant fatigue, for now I'm just getting back into routine of training 6/7 days a week and keeping it consistent. The Zwift plan helps with that at least. Ill get to proper BG/low cadence sessions of 4-6/8mins in December. The knee seems fine and able for them but ill start small (Z3/short) and build. Id have done them in zone 3 previously, I might play with upping this towards threshold this year. I understand Bradley Wiggins used these (threshold low cadence) along with the T to build towards his hour record.

Thursday
Strength work
It would have been a strength work followed by run day but left achilles is still tight! I've also a very minor sensation on the base of left foot. Core/strength work went fine, I always dread the single leg squats the most but got through it all.

Friday
Swim
Did a mixed 1000 of long and short (300 / 100) with some intensity involved in 2 100s near the end. Swimming is starting to come along, ill lengthen to 1200/1400m next week build to 2000 by the end November hopefully. From there I hope ill be ok to start real swim training again. I'm not swimming all that slow, just don't have any fitness but its improving! Generally around 01:37-01:40/100m. The few "fast" 100s were sub 01:30.

Bike
Zwift FTP Foundation rep today again, again I upped the intensity from high Z2 into low Z3 (260s). Looking forward to longer higher Z3 efforts which ill be doingwhen I get down to things. I like to keep an eye on HR and it can be interesting to see how much it varies across the reps. Here the first 6min averaged 120BPM, the 6th (and last) averaged 134BPM! A fairly big drift.

Saturday
Zwift FTP Tempo day (officially tempo!). This is actually a nice session, a series of 4 min high Z3 (285'ishW) and then into 3 sets of backing Z3/Z4/Z1 3/3/3mins. I upped the last one to threshold. After this are some 1 min threshold efforts which I maintained the +10% difficulty so they came in at 360+W's. Enjoyed this session. I wont say I'm looking forward to the 120% reps for longer durations but they work! This session feels like a small taster of what those sessions are about. Not an overly hard session but enough work to remind the legs of what lies ahead!

Sunday
Bike
It was to be a run day but on account of little to no improvement on the foot/Achilles I did a 50min easy spin out on Zwift again.

I'm a little concerned on how slow the tightness is to go away on the achilles! I noticed its a little stiffer early morning and loosens out when I bring the dog for his morning walk. I've stopped stretching it as there must be some minor strain present, not just DOMS! Ill hold off on running until midweek and try 10/15min run to see how it goes.

Biking is going fine, swimming ok too. Ive taken out the TT bike as it needs an overhaul before season starts. I hope to do some duathlons in Jan/Feb. The bike has been completely neglected for 4+ years now. I hadn't bothered doing any work on it the past few years, what few TTs i've done with the cycling club involved basically just pulling it out for the day and back to storage. Itll need to be stripped and I also need to work on my position. I know some work to it along with some positioning work will help. Id love to beat my 10miler (21:23) and 40km (55:39) times next year regardless if I'm involved in tri or not so some time on the turbo and road on the TT bike will be on the cards anyway.

sconhome wrote: »

Did things settle down afterwards or any change?

Just today now I feel that the Achilles stiffness is gone! Ive been walking in the shoes at least once a day for 15-20 mins so will try a run over the weekend. Fingers crossed!

And with that the Ras for 2020 is announced!! Decisions decisions!!! I wasn't expecting it to be held in 2020! Although seems like its a 5 day to start which isn't as appealing but its better than nothing

An ok week, some sessions not hit (run/swim). 5 bikes, 1 swim, 3 strength sessions and just 1 run for just 10mins to test the waters. I reckon I've got mild tendonitis on achilles. Its stiff first thing n the mornng and slowly loosens out. To still be stiff weeks after issue means theres definitely something going on that i need to be careful with. From some brief reading i should give it a little break but not too much, continue strength exercises and minor running, if it gets stiffer then pull back and if same or improves continue and slightly lengthen running.

Bike is going fine, I reckon FTP about 335 now. Swim slowly returning although theres still no grá there! Ill start to set swim sessions from December as ill never get back to it if im just dipping the toe in the water for 20mins here and there. Now that Ras is back im siding with going for it again. Im not sure if my own club will enter but if not i hope i might be able to get a spot with another team. Thatll mean a bias towards bike for early part of the year, likely to involve 5 bikes a week, 3 runs and 3 swims. Ill need to maintain, and develop, the 5-10min big repeated effort power range which is of little benefit to triathlon but vital in bike racing! I still reckon ill hammer my previous tri bike form regardless. The biggest issue will be the run though, i can get swimming back for 22-23min 1500m but pushing the run will mean i wont be able to push the bike to the degree ill need to so next year will likely be about just getting reasonable on the run and swim and making up with the bike.

I wont go listing every session as there're prob of little interest to anyone but this week involved some decent effort on the bike for once. Todays high tempo to just over threshold to tempo to just ovver threshold for 14mins was a nice little effort! Legs are definitely starting to feel like they are being worked again as theres been some fatigue there on the morning commute. The commutes are great, im only 6-7km from work but have never cycled slow! I enjoy the little sprints and 2-3min efforts here and there!

Next week has a race i it!! I cant wait for it, its a social race about 40km but i am just looking forward to absolutely destroying myself whatever happens! The race is normally too heavily handicapped so a win isnt likely but i hope to test threshold and see if i can break from the group im in and try to stay away (not likely though!). Hopefully the weather plays ball! These sort of races in very cold temps can destroy the lungs!

Interesting seeing the reports of Ras recon by the organisers over the weekend. Seems to be going south west again. I thought I might be based around a few counties but seems not! 15 counties, 3 provinces and long stages (148km, 155km, 174km, 154km & TBC) means it must be a point to point race again.

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!)

So a last minute 9 days in Gran Canaria booked for Feb A cousin reached out and approval granted. Heading over 6th to 15th Feb with the plan being to train train train . Good timing for Gorey too

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!

By later I mean later this week....:o

Still working here at the office, and busy busy unfortunately!

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!

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.

Recovery has been good. I seem to have form now so seem to be recovering easily enough. the efforts are generally short enough, all under the hour, so they dont seem to affect me the next day, certainlynot two days later anyway. Went for an "easy" run monday and I'm suffering more from that!

I try to focus on something in all other rides too so if I'm in a group meet I'll do some strength or sprint work etc. When I'm really really tired I'll spin very very easy that day. I'm writing a plan weekly with an overall periodisation plan in place and adapt it very slightly depending on how I'm feeling. Tracking the usual metrics on trainingpeaks too so fatigue doesn't get too deep! Had been skirting a lot of negative values through feb and march!

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!