Form and intervals

Last week went quite well in the end - not quite 14 hours total. Maddog got married - a very nice wedding too! My lack of training for "after match" functions showed! But I did actually survived quite well. Even managed a bit of a bike the day after!

This week I feel a little tired in general, rather than just "stuffed" after training sessions. It is a good tired now, sort of a semi runners high, and I think this is what I quite liked early on - when I first started training for triathlons. It has been a good swim week, with 16km total for the week. I am starting to feel OK with back to back sessions - not great, but surviving OK. Performance overall is a little down, to be expected initially, but in a couple of session where I have felt a bit average to start with, I have improved through the session - which is new (and good)!

In the next block I need to decide how much effort to put into improving technique. Cycling is not much of an issue (except bike position), but I am not a picture of perfect form in swimming or running. There are a couple of issue here for me - it has taken me 20 years to develop the technique I have, and change will not be that easy, and my ability to perform a more optimal technique will also hopefully change for the better as I get stronger and fitter. The technique I do have, while not pretty, does propel me along OK at the moment. I am already finding technique changes as my strength and fitness is improving - by be able to do more of what I should be doing technique wise, as I am more able to do so. Sometimes when the fitness and strength is not really there, you just do what you can to get through!

I struggled with last Fridays run intervals, with not being able to get into a good rhythm, feeling like I was sitting down and not pushing off properly (it was hill reps). I am trying to make sure I don't push too hard on the harder sessions at the moment. But the negative feeling was not helped by having young Alex (50kg- young- Alex) scooting off up the hill will comparative ease. At the start of the session there were a few complaints about the previous weeks session, and that I was starting out very fast (relatively) and stringing everyone out before settling into the interval! It was a fair call to be honest, as my natural tendency is to get to speed quickly and try to settle in to the desired pace quite quickly, especially as I get fitter (rather than meander up to speed over half the effort)! Criticism noted - but it may not change things in reality :-).

After the intervals, I went back and had a look at the training log and data. For the hill reps last week I averaged around 2min 15sec, and the last time we did these, I averaged 2:28 (although it was 4 reps this time verses 6 last time). So even though I felt worse, I was a little faster! Something is going right - the lesson here is don't feel bad running hills with someone in great shape that weighs 2/3 of your weight! I also checked on how severe my "initial accelerations" were for the previous week. The polar file of the intervals is shown below. You can see there is a bit more speed initially (blue) - especially on the last 2 efforts. A couple of things to note - it is point to point and there is a bit of a hill, and a head wind in one direction. This means the speed will vary with terrain, as opposed to being more consistent on the track. The speed is around 10% out (foot pod not calibrated correctly in this run!), and given the different altitude profiles for the same course, the altitude feature on the watch may in fact be on the blink! The HR responses are almost smack on what I would want, although the first rep was probably a bit slow (which is better than a bit fast!). I expect a little lower HR for the first rep and the HR to rises over the next couple of reps and then stabilize to just below threshold. Ideally the run speed is similar (target speed) or rises a little through the intervals.