Training Stagnation

I would like to say that training is moving along nicely. . . but it aint! The physio had been working well and my glute/hamstring injury was making progress. You will notice the past tense there! To cut a boring story short, there are med centre refurbishments and over-booked physios so appointments are cancelled until further notice. I find this most strange and very frustrating. I now have a bug that has stopped me cycling and swimming too! Oh well, many people have worse ailments, so I had best stop whinging!

The cross country season has started and the first Lincs league XC race was last Wed. Needless to say, I couldn’t do it. 2 x 20 min easy runs per week are my limit currently.

My move to Bristol may be happening early now. I have a house allocated and I have become a training pest to Frank Whittle. I am sure that he will deny even knowing me by the time I arrive banging on his desk for him to come out training!

Thinking ahead to July 10, my trip to the French Alps is confirmed. I think it may clash with the Inter-Services Tri Champs but we’ll have to wait and see about that. I am thinking of hitching a trailer to my van for the trip. Just think of all the luggage and bikes you could get in this:

Jack the Junk Miles. . . Tame the Turbo

I had my first ride out on the open road on Friday evening. It was wet, windy and not too nice really. Recently all my training has been on the turbo, so I was itching to get out. As I had to go to Cambridge, I thought I would ride there and back. It’s not too far at about 20 miles on the back roads. I have been doing some measured turbo stuff lately; mostly by heart rate and cadence. So, I thought that I would monitor my heart rate on the outdoor ride. I was on my single speed bike so I was expecting a somewhat erratic heart rate. To cut a long story short, my average heart rate for the entire ride was 102! The max was 142. What the. . . !! There were times when I thought I was riding quite hard. Obviously, I wasn’t!

This is where I am feeling more and more that measured progression on the bike has to come from turbo training. My recent sessions have been aimed at hitting my aerobic ‘sweet spot’ ie, it hurts a little bit, but providing I fuel correctly, I should be able to maintain the pace for a considerable time. The idea is that I raise my aerobic threshold. This, of course, is based on knowing your max heart rate.

Anyway, biking outdoors is dangerous



Here is an example of one of the longer turbo sessions I have completed:

BIKE 1:45
WARM UP
15:00 easy spin -- use a gearing pyramid to gradually build to 75%
-- 5:00 in easy gear, 4:00 in next harder gear, then 3:00, 2:00, & 1:00
DRILLS
3 x 4:30 Variable Gearing Set w/30 sec recovery after each
-- each repeat should be
3 x (40 sec in medium gear - 20 sec in easiest gear - 30 sec in hardest gear)
MAIN SET -- BIG TARGET!
This target set is meant to be performed in an aerobic state, which means that you need to be disciplined and hold your HR intensity at or below 75% throughout the set. It is optimal to be able to measure the distance that you are riding in order to record your time for this test.
2 x 8.4 miles @75% w/3:00 @60% intensity in between
-- make sure that you keep your HR under control for both repeats, and record both times (and average HR, if possible) for future reference.
COOL DOWN to 1:45 total, gradually bringing your HR
back under 60% by the end

As time goes by through the winter, I aim to spend more and more time in this 75% zone. This approach is very different to the system used last winter. I spent the winter of 2008 trying to up my threshold power. . . And failed (though I didn’t bike too badly come the summer)! This winter I hope to brake out of an increased aerobic threshold and move into some power threshold work ready for the race season.

Stroke Rate

Been thinking a lot about stroke rate in the pool lately. Check out this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiNkAMU8syI

It shows Jodie Swallow easily churning out lengths at 1:10 per 100m pace. She has a high stroke rate - the opposite to what most age groupers are urged to develop. We are always told to keep a long gliding stroke. Well, for me, I am going to experiment with a higher stroke rate. I often feel as though I have dead spots in my stroke; I sort of feel as though I am stuttering down the length sometimes.

Swim well folks.

Injury Management

Thinking of renaming this blog to ‘Sags’ Injury Management Blog’. My left hamstring and glute are still giving me problems. I had my first physio session last week and, as suspected, I may have a muscle imbalance. This is due to all the full-on bike TT action over the summer, followed by a return to running in the Autumn. I have reduced my running 20 no more than 20 min per session and it is all easy paced. I am stretching loads too. What with Achilles rehab stretching and glute/hamstring stretching, it feels like I spend more time contorting myself than training! I have another physio session today, so let’s hope the treatment starts to work!

That said, my swimming is coming along ok for this time of year. Compared to previous years, I am getting heaps of distance in. The main parts of sessions recently completed have been:

3 x 700
2 x 1000
10 x 100 (test set at pace)
3 x 500
8 x 200

Mixed in with these sessions have been drills and technique. I am almost confident of swimming below 6 min for 400m next year; I can’t be far off that pace right now. Amazing what 6 weeks of focussed work can do.

My turbo trainer is getting some stick too! However, 95% of the time is spent at 75% of max heart rate or below. Also, there are plenty of single leg drills.

A comeback to triathlon in 2010 is still possible – older, slower and a bit more creaky!

Here We Go Again!

Now which bit is it that hurts???? Well here I am concentrating on rehabilitating my Achilles, and what do you know, my blinkin left glute and hamstring start giving me grief. So much so that I am having trouble sitting down!

These nagging injuries that appear out of the blue are so frustrating. In some ways I would rather fall over and end up with a bone in plaster. At least I would know why I have hurt myself and what I need to do to get healthy again. When I hurt my Achilles back in April, I thought it would get better with rest; of course it never did! I didn’t seek treatment until July. So this time it was straight to the Doc. I have a physio appointment today; hopefully, I can get this sorted quickly. After reading up on hamstring injuries, the recurring theme is this:

By far the most common cause of hamstring injuries originates from an imbalance between the quadriceps muscles (located at the front of the upper leg) and the hamstring muscles.

So, I suspect that I will be taking on another rehab stretching routine. At this rate I will do no training but turn into a full time injury prevention training freak!!

I had been building my aerobic fitness recently, with a view to ramping up the intensity after Christmas. With a house move scheduled for March 10, I can more or less right off March in training terms. Hence my plan is to have a hard Feb and then pick up the efforts in April again. That way, I may be in some sort of shape by July.

That Was 2009

It’s the time of year when we look back at the season and reflect on what went well and what went not so well. Seeing as I could not race a single triathlon due to injury, I was going to give the end of season report a miss this year. However, a 2009 brain dump may prove useful for me and motivate me for next year.

2008 had been a decent year but my swimming had been dire! So, during the winter I completed a 10hr coached swim course at SwimShack. By Feb 09, the DVD footage showed that my balance and body position had improved. However, I had been doing virtually zilch full stroke swimming – drills and more drills! Hence, by March I was finding it very difficult to swim fast!

Lesson 1: Don’t neglect swim fitness during the winter!

During the winter I had also been trying to raise my bike power by gradually increasing the power output for threshold intervals sessions on the turbo. This is intense work and a bit of an experiment. I was hitting over 330W for 6 x 6 mins on the turbo during the 2008 race season. My goal was to raise that to 350W. You could say that the experiment worked, but not in a good way! Try as I did, I just gradually got slower! I ended up struggling to maintain 300W by Jan 09. It wasn’t all bad because, by April, I was biking as well as ever. By May, I was flying and posting PBs in time trials.

Lesson 2: Ease off the bike intensity during the winter and build back up.

My first race was the National Duathlon Champs at Milton Keynes. As I had moved up an age group to the 45-49 old git category, I was hopeful of placing well. A 3rd place finish made me very happy and things were heading the right way. A few weeks later I raced the Cambridge Duathlon and won my age group quite comfortably. I had ambitions of racing at the World Duathlon Champs but my Achilles had other ideas! I had tweaked it during the race and it didn’t feel good!

Between 19 April and 2 August I did not run – could not run! I really should have sought treatment straight away but I thought it would clear up. It wasn’t until July that I turned up at Headley Court for assessment and rehab.

Lesson 3: Injured? Get treatment asap!

During the 4 months of zilch running I hit the biking big time! I was sucked into the time trial scene and ended up riding the local club evening 10 mile TT every week and then, more often than not, a weekend early morning Open TT. My times started to tumble and I hit PBs of 21:23 for 10 miles and 55:49 for 25 miles. All the regular TT racers say the same thing: If you want to get better at TTs, ride loads of TTs! I was able to consistently ride under the hour for 25 miles, even on slow courses. One of my best rides has to be the evening TT 25 on the N1 course. I clocked 59:17, which is not fast but there are, wait for it. . . 16 roundabouts to negotiate! Mind you, I must learn to hide the pain when riding my bike!


Lesson 4: Do loads of TTs to get the bike form for triathlon.

In June I replaced my race bike with a lovely Specialized Transition Pro. I know I could be seen as copying Westy, who was ripping up bike splits in triathlons on his Transition Pro, the truth is I got a great deal at Grafham Cycles and it is a class bike. Can’t wait to race it in a triathlon next year!

My swimming really tailed off during that 4 months too. With no triathlons to train for, I just had no aim. Why swim for an hour when I could bag an extra 30 miles early morning on the bike?


I had a great week in the French Alps in July. It was a family holiday but rising early enabled me to bag a col a day!

On 2 August, after 6 weeks of rehab stretching on my Achilles, I started running. . . very slowly!! I built up gradually and was soon running 6 miles. However, my Achilles was not cured and I was managing it rather than free and easy. In truth, I am still managing it! But the experts tell me that as long as I continue to do the rehab work, and the pain does not get worse, I should still build up my running. I raced the Honington 10k at the end of September and was well chuffed to clock 37:49. I reckoned that I was 2 min down on normal run speed; I will take that for now!

Lesson 5: Biking keeps you quite fit for running but running may not keep you fit for biking!

For the last 6 weeks I have been swimming much more and it’s coming along fine. I am even enjoying it!! As for 2010, I am scheduled to move to Bristol in March, which is bad timing because I should be ramping up the training intensity by then. Moving always disrupts everything and I am normally absolutely pooped for a few weeks. As for races next year, I really am not sure. I would like to do Almere IM distance but I can’t commit right now. I may just wait and see what happens. As long as I can actually race triathlons next year, I will be happy!

Thanks for reading

Basics

It's been a week since my last post, which is quite a gap for me. My training has been back to basics, with little intensity. My swimming continues to feel good -it's not fast but I am doing more distance along with technique.

My achilles is good some days and not so good other days. The rehab exercises continue and I think I will be doing them for the next 30 years! Most of my cycling has been on the turbo with some heart rate stuff and single leg drills.

So there you have it! I am officially old and slow!

I helped with the Henlow 10 road race organisation last Wednesday. I coordinated the results and timing. Man, I felt as though I had actually ran the race by the end of the day! The race was won in a relatively slow 58:02. It turns out that most of the RAF fast boys had been racing at the Amsterdam half marathon the previous weekend; hence the reduced entry from the top RAF runners. I find it confusing that RAF Athletics requested that the Henlow 10 race be brought forward to mid-October (the day before the Spadeadam half-marathon) and then send all their runners to Holland the weekend before - why? it's a shame that Daz Sharpe couldn't make it (house conversion problems) as he is running well.

As for this weekend, it's more steady turbo stuff and a reduced long run to save my achilles. Instead of a 1hr 30min run I will do an hour run and 30 min turbo.

Best wishes to Mal Rose, who undergoes some hospital vein work on his legs. . . Yuk! Recover well and come back stronger next year (but not too strong dude!)