29th Jan - 25th Feb 2018 - (Weeks 5 - 8, Barcelona 70.3)

Where is time going!!!

I have now completed 8 weeks of the 20-week training block I planned to do for the build-up to my first “A race” of 2018. If you don’t know already that is IRONMAN Barcelona 70.3 which is on the 20^th of May.

It’s scary to think that the next time I sit down to write a summary I will be over the half way mark!!

The last 4 weeks has by far been the best to date. This is for one reason, I have managed to Swim, Cycle and Run!! I feel like a Triathlete again.

So here goes….

Week 5 – 8 in high level numbers

	Weeks 1 – 4	Weeks 5 – 8
Swim	24.7	26
Cycle	810	970
Run	7	80

I have spent an average time of training each week of around 14 hours.

I have also managed to keep myself on my 4-week rotation of 1x medium, 2x hard, 1x easy weeks.

As for each discipline….

Swimming

I started this 4 week block with a “swim week” the aim was purely to get in the water 4-5 times and ideally hit 10km+. With a trip down to Cornwall over the weekend it proved tricky. It meant showing high levels of commitment and walking 3.5 miles each way to the pool. But I did manage it and hit 10km exactly!!!

I have some way to go to get to this distance on a regular basis, but this has led me to realise that can hit 6-7km average a week which would be a huge improvement on last year.

Unfortunately, in the last 2 weeks I started to gain to a niggle and a little bit of pain in my right shoulder.

I haven’t yet managed to work out why this is….

·      A decrease in upper body work in the gym

·      Slept awkwardly on joint

·      Spending more time in the TT position while riding

·      Starting to use paddles when swimming

·      Historic injuries/surgery to the shoulder.

The last point is probably the most likely. Over the last 5 years I have had my left shoulder operated on twice, once to have a titanium plate inserted to fix a broken collar bone and the 2^nd to repair a double dislocation from a rugby injury.

When being operated on for the 2^nd time I had a small portion of the head of the Humerus removed, this means I’m likely to have some discomfort from high usage forever and something I will need to manage.

I’m certainly going to add back some upper body work in the gym and cut the paddle swim work out of some sessions…..

Running

This is the exciting bit!!

I’m finally back running regularly. In the 3^rd week of the 4 I finished the return to run programme I was following. This was essentially 8 levels of varying time spent running/walking. I repeated lots of levels and would only progress once I was pain free during and post run.

I have now set myself the goal of running 3 times a week and I’m aiming to increase the duration by 5 mins for the longer runs, and start to increase the pace/intensity for shorter runs. Again, I will only increase if I’m pain free.

Two aims for the next 4 weeks;

·      For the longer runs build up to an hour of constant running.

·      For shorter runs work out my lactate threshold

First 10km completed of the year on a muddy Tooting Common.

 Mike and I finally completed the hat-trick and have now run, cycled and swam together.

Cycling

Still my favourite!!

With a bit of Strava/Instagram stalking I can see that I spend a lot of time in the saddle compared to others of the same ability. My excuse to date has been the fact I’m still limited with how much I can run and I’m still enjoying my new turbo and the benefits of training with power and Zwift.

I’m certainly going to have to address the amount of time spent cycling in the next block of training. I don’t want to gain fatigue for the sake of it as this will then hamper my swimming and running sessions. I have been guilty of getting obsessed with distance goals and perhaps racking up “garbage mileage”.

Following all the hard work focused on setting a “good” FTP score in January I introduced base rides to my programme. Based off Heart Rate and Power zones I have created a few Zwift files to do either 120 or 90min base rides.  

To mix things up a little I also completed 4 of the 5 stages of the Giro De Castelli. These were my first experience of group riding on the turbo, jury is still out…. I just did my own thing and didn’t get carried away with “racing”.

In weeks 7 & 8 as the weather improved I managed to get out on the road. This involved some laps of Richmond Park and one long ride down to Brighton.

I intend to find some time to do London to Brighton again soon but this time on my TT bike. It’s 85km door to door and includes 1000m of climbing, almost exactly what the bike course is for Barcelona. I don’t intend to race down to the south coast, but the route I found certainly does lend its self to opening up the big gear for 5-10km stints and doing some race efforts.

Within this 4 week block I was able to get myself a slot at FreeSpeed London Since purchasing my TT bike I had adjusted nothing and was very aware it didn't fit me well. Below is a picture of a before and after...

Hint: the bottom one is after

Now that I have a TT bike that fits I was able to test the position on the road!!

Future events

So I have signed up for a couple of events pre 70.3 Barcelona

1^st April – Woking Sprint – 600m-23km-5km

7^th April – Wiggle sportive

8^th April – 10mile TT

29^th April – Swimathon 5km

6^th May – Tour de Yorkshire 130km

I’m also going to look at doing a 5km or 10km event to try and post a time to benchmark off for running race pace.

Couple of events later in the year

Ride London – Charity place – July 100miles

Velo South – September 100miles

Weeks 9 – 12

So objectives for the next 4 weeks…..

·      Complete British Triathlon coaching level 1 course

·      Start to include brick sessions

·      Monitor my fatigue score closely

·      Start to include perceived effort scores with session (rate 1-10)

·      Increase to FTP of 10+ watts

As you will see from the above I have committed to another FTP test. I’m planning on doing this in the first week of my next block and I’m confident that I can squeeze out a couple more watts. This will help me then calculate some projected race strategies and create turbo trainer files to try and replicate race pace efforts.

Finally, I have taken some time off in March to have a “training week”. I have seen other age group athletes do this and as I have some annual leave to use up before the end of March, I thought I would give it ago. I have yet to work out exactly what I’m going to do, but I expect there will be a lot of low intensity work to add the base I have built with the hope of maintaining it throughout the year.

Although, I’m trying to move away from distance and hours spent training as targets I’m hoping to do 30+ hours.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Get in touch via Instagram if you have any questions.

Thanks

@Triathlon_Ross