The last week and a half have not been too bad. I think ideally I would be getting 2 to 3 solid training days in, but have really only been getting one in, and a few reasonable sessions in, but nothing startling. I am still missing at least 1 or 2 key sessions per week, which is quite frustrating. I would feel much better if they were not key sessions I was missing.
Last week I did get a new toy - a Garmin 310xt - which is basically a GPS heart rate monitor. I was quite keen to get something to measure running speed reasonably accurately, and the polar RS800 was hopeless. So after a few hiccups, I got my hands on one of these. I have had a few runs with it now, and my initial thoughts are that the speed is accurate in the open and reasonably flat/ rolling terrain (as I would expect), the web-based data analysis is quite good at a basic level, and has some quite "fun" features. Trying to drill down to the details is a little frustrating - I have not quite figured that one out yet. The altitude is not very accurate - the first run I did was an out and back, and the altitude profiles (by distance) should be a mirror image, which they are far from. I am not sure why that is the case with GPS - as pretty much the same maths is required for vertical change calculation as horizontal. The initial HR's are also a bit erratic (unrealistically high), but then it does settle down and appear to be good. Polar has the same issue, so I suspect that is that the initial water is not as conductive as good old sweat. I was good to do a run interval session knowing that the pace displayed was accurate. It will also need to play around with the display a bit - as it will be good to be able to have a more instantaneous speed display, rather than the default lap average, but I have not opened the instruction book yet!
this was 6km out and 6km back, even pretty much running on the same side of the street each way. As the bottom graph shows, the altitude profile is quite different for the first 6km and the return 6 - which should be a mirror image.
So that is where I went...
Last week was a reasonable week on the bike - well it was what most weeks "should be", but I did get the sessions in that needed to be done! That included the first long ride out doors in at least 6 weeks. A glorious day it was too! In an ideal world I would like a 3-sessions-in-one-day day, but with my current schedule coaching wise this is not really feasible. However, last week I had Thursday morning off - so I could - and I did! So this day went like this: swim squad - started out pretty easy and rolled through 3km at a pedestrian pace, then got roped into doing some sprints with the surfies so there was a few hundred meters of solid at the end, and went home with 3.5km done. around lunch time I jumped on the trainer with the TT bike set-up, and did a solid steady state ride. This was 9x9min steady with 1min easy between. This was about the third ride on the TT bike, so there was a bit of adjustment, and I ended up doing around 2min aero/30sec non-aero during the efforts. slightly less as the under-carriage got a little "distressed" toward the end. The first effort felt a little bit of a struggle and the perceived effort was quite high relative to the power output (slightly under my target), leaving me wondering if I was pretty stuffed. The second effort I went a gear harder and into the power zone I should have been in and the perceived effort was probably slightly less, so I stuck with that gear! This session pretty much went as planned after the first effort, although the legs did protest a bit toward the end, but not in such a way that I was going to drop off. The HR responded as I wanted to - increase over the first few efforts then slightly dropping off. If I did not get the drop-off, I would think the power was too high for the "steady-state" session I was after. Then early evening I took the garmin out for a test run, and ran out 6km and returned. This also went quite well. In the previous 3-in-1-day I have only got to 30minutes in the run and really felt like crap! But I felt comfy on the run, and ran 4:45/km on the flatter terrain through the middle. I finished wondering if I should have pressed on a little more, but as I sat on the floor in front of the TV, the hami cramped up quite nicely, so I figured that was certainly enough!
Here are the bike intervals - there were two sets - with the main efforts a 5minute hard effort and a 3minute hard effort. the other shorter spikes are 4x40sec hard/20sec easy.
Here are the 9x9min steady efforts - just under 300w. Not the best "steady-state" session I have done, but one of the few on the TT bike. So I was quite happy the way that ended up.
Fridays run intervals were 6x1km, which was after a solid Thursday, and these went OK. Speed has not really been forthcoming on the running front, even though I am sure I am getting fitter on the running front. They did start out a little slow, but did manage to get some semblance of pace toward the end (still by no means anywhere near fast!).
Saturday was long run day - which ended up being sabotaged. I was at school cycling champs for the hill climb through the middle of the day after taking the morning training session. I was then reminded I had a birthday dinner appointment that evening, so basically only had just over an hour to get in some exercise. I did what I could.
Sundays long ride was a pearler. Nice to be on the road and feel the sun you your back. There were a couple of un-anticipated efforts at the start and end of the ride. the pace was on a little more at the start as we tried to avoid being intertwined with another cycling group. Toward the end we also had to contend with an angry Ginger - not sure what Hannah said to upset him, but he was angry at us! So after being attacked a couple of times I apologized to the group and made sure he was not going to attack us again (hence the steadier pace at the end).
The average power was quite high for the speed, and the HR was a little low for the power - but that has been a trend...
Today was probably the best swim I have had in a while. Wednesday is usually a struggle after Tuesday night bike intervals. But I think I was sort of blessed with a combo of not-quite-so-hard a bike interval session, swimming improving a little, and my lane leader Jo feeling pretty average and swimming like crap (for her - which is still faster than me). That basically meant I could just keep up, and get a bit of a draft, rather than flounder along at the back on my own. It did make the session a little harder, as I tried to continually keep up, but it was good.
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