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.

Week IM – 17 : The Joy of Noticeable Gains

I’d usually take a rest week on the 4th week of every month – doing half the distances at a higher intensity, but I decided to keep it long after the lax week last week.

 

We went for an 80Km spin similar to this one on Saturday. It was a great route, one I didn’t know until now – thanks Brian Duggan!

I’ve had a bit less time in the mornings this week so two of the sessions I’d usually do in the morning, I did in the evening. One of these was one of the 2/3 weekly weights sessions. I’ve been loosely following a weights program from here.

The basic guide of it was to get a baseline of weight that you could do 20 reps of in relative comfort for all but the last few. Once you had your base line, weight should be increased every month or so, at the same time as decreasing reps per set, but increasing set numbers with higher rest times between sets. I’ve been following this without a huge amount of thought for the last 4 months but I realised on Wednesday that I was lifting comfortably 3 times the weight I was when I started, and doing three/four sets where I had been doing two. Let pull-down for instance, I’m doing 4 x 16 x 40Kg where I had been doing 2 x 20 x 20Kg.

This seems like quite a substantial gain. Am I twice as “strong” as I was when I started? I’d imagine it’s closer to the truth to say that I’m twice as good at lifting these weights as I was when I started. Even then, it was a great realisation to see these gains. I see noticeable improvements in my strength in the water in the last month or so, which I mostly attribute to the weights.

As for the cycling and running, well I haven’t gotten injured yet so the muscles are doing their job. That’s probably the biggest gain I could have hoped for.

Week IM – 18: The Break

This week was a week off. I was skiing in Sweden. A week “off” isn’t in the training plan I’ve been following, but I felt safe enough taking it. I still consider myself to be on target.

It’s interesting to think that such a high volume training plan could absorb a week with a lot less work and remain unaffected. I think it will though. I wonder where the point is where one too many breaks throws performance into an un-recoverable spiral, where you’d be below the point where training could get you up to the level of the race you’re aiming for.

It essentially all comes down to discipline. The more disciplined you are, the more you can deviate from your training plan – that is; if you postpone a workout early in the week, will you fit it in on Friday morning when you’re tired, before the other workout you had planned? It’s generally easy to tell the people who would – and funnily enough it’s the people who’d never postpone a session to begin with.

I got to the gym in the hotel in Stockholm on Friday and got one good session in, at least. As well as two cycles on Saturday and Sunday when I got back. No swims left the weekly total at a restrained 86Km bike and 14.5Km running.

Week IM – 19: The Short Week

It was a 5 day week this week as I’m heading off to Åre in Sweden for a week later today.

I decided not to take a rest week in the last week of February as was in the plan, because I knew these two weeks would allow for a lot less training. I did notice the difference in the first two weeks in March. I was getting the same distances, but not as well. I’ve been doing a 1000m Time Trial in the pool towards the end of each rest week, each month to keep track of progress. In the February TT, which I did just in a normal week, I swam it in 19:43 which was more than a minute slower than January (18:35). That’s a good vindication for the taper before a race (doing a lot less in the few days before a race so the body has time to overcompensate for all the training).

I’ll be skiing and climbing next week so hopefully that’ll be a good chance to let the main triathlon muscles recover and build some others that may play a part.

Week IM-20: The Physio Necessity

Having grown up playing team sports, I was never a stranger to physios (as in physiotherapists), running onto the pitch with the magic sponge and such. I’m always surprised at people who go to their doctor (or worse, just ignore) knee or back pain when often it’s just a tight muscle a physio could sort out in a few minutes.

And so, when the knees started to get sore after the long cycle and run sessions, it was to the physio I went. It’s now become a regular occurrence, every 2-3 weeks. One perspective is that physios allow the body go further than would otherwise be possible – loosening out muscles that would naturally become unusably tight when you push farther than their natural limit. Another perspective is that once you get used to going to physios to loosen out muscles, you become dependant on them. Runners in the 70’s never had physios and they were fine (..apart from the arthritic knees upon retirement in their 30’s).

Either way, it has been very useful to have the luxary of a physio who can trace certain problems to specific tight muscles and loosen them out. This week, one of the quads on the outer side of both knees had tighted up. I noticed afterwards that I wasn’t stretching it when I was stretching my quads. She loosened it out over a very painful 30 minutes.. I always seem to forget how painful those sessions are! 30 minutes pain for 6 days 23.5 hours of looseness, it’s a good trade off.

The big swim was on Monday this week – 16 x 100 meters @ 84% effort. I averaged 2:10 per 100 meters. With warmups, that was 2.4km. I did 19km of running over the week, broken into 3. I’m still trying to keep the running to short and frequent.

The cycle on Saturday was a 70km spin down to Blessington and Lackin, which worked out well. It took just over 3 hours. The weather was good, although it’s still cold. There’s still snow on most of the mountains.

The weekly totals. Twenty weeks to go:

Week IM – 21: Psychology Benefits of Sun and Rugby

This was a big enough week. Two long swim sessions on Monday and Thursday and one short speed recovery day on Wednesday of 500m swim and 5Km cycle. 4:25 on Saturday between bike and a run.

I did just one weight session this week but I’ve been concentrating on stretching a lot again. Stretching and the foam roller to make sure the ITBs don’t stiffen up again. It seems to be working. My knees were a small bit sore on Saturday after the run but were fine again by Sunday. Perhaps the Irish victory over England in the 6 Nations had a part to play in this quick recovery also. I’ve never underestimated the psychological influence on the physical aspects of the body. Brain Training for Runners is basically a book on how to use your head to improve your body.

He uses techniques such as mental queues that you implement in training to keep your concentration on certain aspects. For example to practice 10km runs where you concentrate on “falling forward” to avoid heal striking.  He also categorises different types of feedback (say subjective (“that was 8 out of ten in difficulty”) versus objective (heart rate, power)) in a constructive way which allows you to consider all forms of perceivable feedback to get the best gauge on what’s going on. Basically, too often people rely solely on HR.

It’s recommended quite a bit - or maybe more, it’s done quite a bit by long distance athletes, especially runners- to take anti-inflammatories during or after long runs to prevent the knees becoming inflamed. I’ll consider this in the future for longer runs. I’ve also been advised that dehydration and AIs don’t mix well, so to take a lot of fluids at the same time.

Saturday was a relatively big day of 4 hours 25 back to back. That was 3 hours on the bike followed by a 1:20 run – 14Km at an easy pace.

Here’s the bike route:

The weather was really nice for this one, which was great. Physiologically, it makes a huge difference when the sun is shining. It’s substantially easier keep going on long cycles, as opposed to the mild frustration that just doesn’t go away when you’re cycling into wind and rain.