Post sickness and TT'ing...

The training this week has been quite badly affected with last remnants of the flu from last week. I was quite glad it was only really 3 days of bad fever and really no chance of doing anything, although I took 5 days off and have been taking it quite easy on the intensity front. I felt OK Monday and went for a squad swim to get back into things. Unfortunately the main set was 20x200m with 4 of them IM (individual medley), so I thought I would do half, and actually did 11 (finished on an IM), and sort of felt OK for taking it quite easy. I was glad I stopped when I did, as I was stuffed a few hours latter, and skip the planned run and weights. The bike intervals on Tuesday I held back on, with the average power for my steady efforts at around 275 watts and the harder efforts around 300 watts - which would normally be low 300's and mid-to-high 300's respectively. The HR's were a little lower, in the high 160's for the harder efforts (I normally hit 170 or 175 if I am reasonably fresh and motivated). It did feel like a relatively harder effort than last week, when I felt more in the grips of the flu - which did not affect performance or HR much. Normally the heart rate goes up 5-10 beats as the bugs hit, which is a good signal things are about to turn pear shaped - but not this time... What did surprise me was how empty I was after. At swimming on Wednesday morning, there was Mr cramp coming to visit very early on, and pushing off the wall was pretty hard work! The arms were sort of OK, but the legs were totally empty. I have not felt that for a while (typical bike racing feeling!). I have just got a couple of runs in, 1 hour easy and 1 hour of intervals on Friday morning (only went to 85-90% of what I should have), and the legs are pretty sore again! Thoughts of slipping in another 30-40min run went out the door as I hobbled around the house!

Hopefully back to semi-normal training next week. Although might have to take weights a little easier as I have missed this week and last week. I was planning on doing the peoples sprint tri next weekend, just to see how things are going, but I think that maybe out the window now. I will decide the day before...

For quite a few I coach, the next month involves doing a few time trials - to set a baseline performance and to check on training zones. Then over winter these will be semi-regular. I will also do a couple of these, although will wait to the bugs are all gone, and the legs can cope with 1hr30min of running again. In general I do OK at time trial for my fitness level. Usually my pace judgement is pretty good. I am finding it is at little up and down at the moment, and I think that is just with a change in training load, and the fact I now have good days and bad days. Hopefully this settles down soon.

Back to time trialling. The thing with doing a good time trial is not starting out too hard. Most world records are set with even splits or negative splits. So you want your pace or power output to be the same or increase slightly throughout the TT. This is where power meters really come into there own. You can do the same with splits running or swimming too (slightly longer averaging effect). When you go for a target output/pace, the initial pace should feel quite comfortable and controlled. while the pace stays the same the perceived effort (and HR) gradually increases through the TT. I find the 3/4 mark the hardest, as there is still a reasonable portion to go and the hurt is making itself very known! The last kick to the finish is not so bad, as the finish is in sight!

Here are my last two 25km TT's on the bike. The first is my latest (Decemeber) - which is also the fastest I have gone, the second is in October 2007, which has a higher average power - but is slower. In the first (faster) graph - the power output (yellow) is quite steady all the way through, and the HR climbs gradually for the first 10 minutes. In the second, the initial power is higher, but starts to fall just before halfway. The HR is similar to the other (unfortunately the powermeter did not pick up the HR signal). There were a couple of reasons for the difference - in the 2nd TT the fan stopped just at the end of the warm-up, so there was a break before starting the TT - well two breaks in fact. The first to try to fix the fan, and the second to break the fan into 700 pieces for failing at the critical moment! Around halfway through I did over heat, and could not sustain the output, a little spurt at the end to try to crack 30 minutes was to no avail...

The other point to note from these graphs is that the power is very constant - which is possible on an indoor trainer (as these were done). However on the road, there is usually far more variation - even if you are trying to maintain constant output - just as a result of changes in terrain, wind etc. Some people do not cope very well with very constant output...

first (faster) TT

2nd TT (slower but with higher power)