My training week sort of went to pack a little during the week, loosing a little with organizing the weekends training. The main cause of "going to the pack" though was too much intensity and not enough easy! Pretty much every day had something solid or hard in it, and the sessions I missed were generally the easy ones! I don't really cope that well with that scenario. Once I am doing over 8-10 hours training per week, I need 2-3 days per week that are just lower intensity days, or at least half the training time is quite easy, and my easy is quite easy! So for the last week, Monday had a solid swim, and an easy run, missed the Tuesday swim and did the Tuesday spin class (hard), Wednesday morning swim was also quite solid - with a solid 1500m pull, trying not to get lapped more than twice - and just achieving that. Thursday was probably the killer, with the school team time trial training in the morning - with a few solid-steady efforts there, and then taking young Katie out for sprint training in the afternoon. That power graph looked good - plenty of recovery effort and then plenty of "supra-max" efforts too. Friday run intervals early Friday morning, duathlon race on Saturday, and finished off with a long ride on Sunday. The HR in duathlon was not really that high - 157, so I suspect I was a little fatigued at that point in the week. I should really be able to average high 160's or low 170's for an hour and 20min of racing.
The Duathlon itself was the first race in a while, and while I was a bit toasty going in to it, I still gave close to the best I had on the day. I knew the first run was going to be fast, and I was not up to pace. I chucked a pair of racing flats on in the hope it would give me a few extra seconds that might help get me into a better group on the bike. Well that plan went out the window in the first 200m when I was behind about 30 more people that I wanted to be behind (and that is without huge expectations!). We will move to plan B - move steadily through the field - hopefully. Narrow trails sort of cut that plan to shreds a little, and the un-even off road terrain did not lend itself to racing flats. Hmmm - I should probably race a bit more so I remember these things... I finished the run with a couple of others, and thought they might be useful to get up a little further, however I did manage a good transition, and was not waiting! The bike was draft legal, and went quite well. I think I actually rode OK, although riding on your own in a drafting event is usually not a good thing! Caught a few slackers toward the end of the bike, and another OK transition put a little distance on them going into the second run. I was pretty sure they would come past in the first 500m of the run, and was stoked to hold them off for at least 800m. Not sure if it is good or bad when people you coach pass you - I will take it that I am doing an OK job - perhaps they should have been in front of me all the way though... :-) All in all, I did enjoy racing - it was a nice day.
This coming week is the last week of the school cycling training. I will sort of miss that a little. Perhaps the time and a few of the frustrations will not be missed, but watching them improve and get good results when they do is kind of cool. So this coming week will be the last of this current block and next week it will be time to move to a new phase. I do need to improve my running, so that has to come on a little more and be a bit more structured. I probably need to do a few more injury prevention things with that - bit more stretching, massage, weights, and core strength. I know if I don't - I simply will not tolerate more training without getting injured at some point.
The HR graph for the Duathlon - not really revving freely and there were a couple of hills in the bike...
The Auckland city Tri club team photo - we even managed third in the teams!! where are our prizes Boys??
Here is the power profile from the cycling sprint session - probably not a threat in tour de France. The latter ones were in limited gears, adding to the diminishing power outputs...
2 comments:
I was quite disappointed that I missed it. Would have been fun to have another go.
On the plus side I had a forced rest of about 10days, lost my appetite, and lost over a Kg of weight! Although I am not too sure whether that is a good thing - although isn't loosing weight the best way to go faster uphill?
Those sprints are not too bad – lots over 100W – I think I could manage maybe one or two over 900W.
A few people were asking after you at the Duathlon Ant's - you would have enjoyed it I think! Not sure losing more weight is actual a performance booster for you anymore though! Eat more pies :-). Sprints were OK - I was surprised in the last few as they were in the 16 with a tail wind, and the very last was 39-19 (170rpm)!!
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