Week IM – 13: Active Recovery > Nothing

 

The week started relatively easily this week. On Monday and Tuesday, I did short swims (750m) in the name of “Active Recovery” after WAR. From my own experience, proactively healing an injury is always more effective than doing nothing. That may mean stretching it few times a day,using a foam roller, Physio massage or low intensity swimming. It has been proven to speed musculoskeletal recovery times and the accompanying endorphin increase has the all important mental boost.

I went to the physio on Wednesday morning to get my calfs loosened out. I had tight feet also, apparently. I’ve been instructed to stand on a tennis ball to loosen out the feet and lower leg muscles. On Thursday, I was back to a normal 2.4Km swim set.

This weekend was a big weekend. The first classified as an “Iron Weekend” by Going Long. On Saturday, I did 115Km on the bike and a 15minute sea swim in Portmarnoc. I’d organised to cycle out to Portmarnoc strand with two other hardy souls at 10:30am, so I got up early and did 60Km down to Enniskerry/Bray before that. When we got to Portmarnoc, the sea was mighty cold! Colder than I remember it on Christmas day (and I had no wet suit on then... Perhaps the obligatory yule-tide hot whisky effected the heat perception).

On Sunday I did just over a half marathon, 23Km, in 2:16:00, at an average HR of 67%. I was surprised how tired I was afterwards on Sunday. Perhaps it was the cumulated tiredness of the two days or perhaps I just need to work a lot on long runs over the next few weeks. I’ll do the latter and hope for the former.

This is the half marathon in the Pheonix Park:

In total this week, I did 5.4Km swim, 199Km bike and 23Km running.

Week IM – 14: The WAR

This week was the start of the competitive season. I raced in the Wicklow Adventure Race. This was 18Km mountain running, 55Km bike through Wicklow and 2Km kayak in Loch Dan. And it was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

I had forgotten the excitement that comes with racing and standing on the start line on the crisp but sunny Saturday morning, it all came back. The atmosphere was fantastic – a lot less competitive than most triathlons I’ve done.

I started in the non elite group of about 250 at 8.20am. The 120 Elites started at 8. I stayed with the leading group of about 10-15 for the first run (about 11Km) over the ridge up to the top of Sprink Mountain and then back down around the upper lake. We were going at a fast pace and we started catching the elites towards the end of the run – which was essentially flying down the mountain cheese rolling style. There was a ~20km cycle then to Loch Dan for the 2km Kayak. Those both went well. I was still with the leading group on the cycle to the second mountain run about 15km from there. The group was dwindling at this stage. The cycle went up from Roundwood to the Sally Gap which is fairly punishing. After climbing for 10 or so minutes, we rolled over the “BEGINNING OF THE 10% INCLINE.. OH YES!” with a slight grin (read:grimace). By the time we got up there, 2 people had cracked and the group was down to 3. Another dropped off during the run where I was pushing very hard to keep with the other guy, he was a strong runner. It was starting to get very tough on the second part of that run where it gets very steep. The view around the top was really good though – it’s funny, you spend 20 minutes looking down, concentrating on the next step (because the ground is so uneven) then you look up and notice an amazing view all around..

We were still together at the end of the run and started the bike together for the last 25km cycle up over the Sally Gap and back down into Laragh. On the climb to the Sally Gap I got a fairly bad cramp in one of my calves. The leg locked up so I spent about two minutes trying to get it to loosen out. I’ll try and figure out whether this was to do with salt deficiency or just exertion. I’d fallen behind quite a bit at that stage so I spent the next 30 minutes or so pushing hard to try and catch up. I eventually did with about 10km to go, on the last climb before the descent into Laragh, so I decided not to slow but to go for it.. so I took off like a bat out of hell up the rest of the climb and flew down the last 6 or 7km over the other side down over the tri-bars (66km/ph was the fastest I hit). I finished in 4:28:35,  62^nd out of 422 and, I think, first (or maybe down one or two if someone passed without my noticing) of the 250 non elites.

The lake at Glendelough:

I was happy to have the legs to attack on the bike after 4 hours of hard work. Now I have thirteen weeks to get strong enough to attack after 12 hours of work.

My training volume for the week is lower because I tapered for WAR. Tapering essentially means doing less than the usual training volume in the hope that the body will overcompensate in recovery – repairing muscles and so on. “Carbo-loading” is also practiced in the build up to races – this allows muscles to build up as much glycogen as possible (glycogen is the body’s way of storing carbohydrate, which is the most efficient fuel, followed by protein and then fat). In practice, a few extra plates of spuds and pasta.

Week IM – 15 : The Real Fun Begins

I mentioned that I had completed the base period in January – that was effectively the grunt work – weights, swimming and runs in the dark. January, February and March was Build 2, where I was starting longer cycles, still keeping the running distance down. With 4 months to go, I started the Build phase this week: probably the type of training regime that you would most associate with an Ironman program: long, hard sessions – long cycles, long swim sets, mountain running and increasingly long runs. The hope is that the technique, strength and efficiency I concentrated on developing over the last 6 months will materialise to make the super-long distance stuff possible.

Next week is the start of my competitive season – I’m doing the Wicklow Adventure Race (WAR!). It’ll be ~18Km mountain running across two mountains, 55km cycle through the Wicklow Mountains and 2km Kayaking across Loch Dan. It’ll be a good, tough start to the season.

We went out for a 70Km spin on Monday which turned out to be an epic battle in gale force winds.

I got a puncture also, the first I’ve gotten on the La Pierre bike in about 3000Km- fair enough. It’s no harm getting the cobwebs out of my tube changing abilities also, lest it happen in a race.

 

 

 

 

 

I had some shorter evening spins during the week and a good run on Wednesday.

On Saturday, Kevin and I ran Lug na Coille, the highest Mountain in Leinster at 925 m (3,035 ft). We ran from the bottom to the top in 1:08 and back down in 43 minutes for a total of 1:51. I was happy to break 2 hours, although the IMRA record for the mountain run is an unbelievable 48 minutes. Unsurprisingly, a Kerry man set the record. The mountain is covered in bog so running down uncontrolled is both a lot of fun and not much impact on the knees. It’s like running on a giant sponge. There was still snow up at the top:

I learned that mountain running in cotton socks gives solid blisters:

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all a big week this week. As the title suggests, from here on in, things get serious.

Week IM – 16: Crossing the “He’s Crazy” Line

Sometimes when talking to people that aren’t hugely into sport (or whatever you want to call endurance racing), they’ll ask about distances or training regimes. As you begin to talk, it’s often possible to observe an interesting set of stages in their reaction.

“I usually swim in the mornings before work”

-“So you’re a swimmer? That’s good. You must be tired in the evenings”

“I go running some evenings also. I do most training at the weekend”

-“Oh.. And how long is this race?”

“Fairly long – 3.9km swim, 182km cycle and a marathon”

“Oh…kaaayy”

At this point, the empathy at the start of the conversation is gone. At first they appreciated what you’re doing. A bit of a challenge perhaps. Then they hear a bit more and think they’d certainly have no wish to do such a thing.. Then they ask the distance of the IM race. At this point, there is an obvious transition. This is the point at which they think to themselves “Yeah. He’s as mad as a bag of spiders”. And that’s usually the end of the conversation.

I know this because I used to think it myself while reading a similar blog by an Irish female training for Ironman Hawaii. She was getting up between 5 and 6 am to run, before swimming before work. I thought it unbelievable at the time.

The reason I noticed this a lot this week is because of a cycle on Saturday. I was staying in a hotel for the weekend with a buffet breakfast. It seemed like the correct course of action to go in hungry. I got up at 6:45am and met Vinny down on the coast road near Dublin city. We cycled through Dun Laoghaire and along the coast road through Killiney, Dalkey, Shankhill, Shanghana and Bray. It wasn’t windy and there were no cars on the road at all. It was the perfect time to cycle..

It was somewhat of an experiment but it worked out very well. You can take my word for it!

I did a lot of swimming this week. I did three sessions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday covering 5.45Km.

On Friday, I headed up to Tibradden and Three Rock mountain to run. I’d forgotten how much fun mountain running is. The top is still covered in snow, which made for some fun stepping-stone running through it in runners. There’s a great view from the top. The Wicklow mountains still look like they’re stuck in an ice age and there’s a view across the whole of Dublin and Dublin Bay.

4 Months to Switzerland.