long time no blog...

Well – a few weeks ago, I reached pretty close to ground zero. I am reasonably sure I reached close to the lowest level of fitness that I have been over the last 6-8 years! I was thinking to myself 5-6 weeks ago that I was quite surprised that the cycling fitness was maintaining a reasonable level for having only done one ride over an hour and 45min since February. Of course that was the beginning of the end, and things started to drop off pretty much the next week! Swimming has been pathetic - topping out at around 5 swims per month over the last 3 months! Running was threatening to go OK, and sort of got into gear just as the cross country season ended. But then I tried to run a few weeks extra in tired running shoes and that just hammered the legs, and even a 35 min easy run left them toasted! To add insult to almost-injury, the calf gave a good twang to remind me I had not been doing my strength work, not been diligent with the massages, and had not really done any stretching either.

So to conclude the bike power output on the interval class is down around 20% from earlier in the year, run interval class efforts have got progressively slower and harder. And when I do go to swim squad – I feel good after the warm-up, mainly because at this point I feel I have improved my fitness significantly, but know that anything more is going to be down-hill.

There are a few positives, and I think that is what I need to focus on! I am reasonably motivated to train. There are a few things on the horizon, event wise that interest me. And I guess I can use the current start of fitness to experiment with how I can improve, given a relatively short time frame!

I have entered the Tauranga half Ironman, which gives around a 12 week build-up. That does not leave a lot of time to get things sorted -but lets look at this as an opportunity to see what can be done in 12 weeks!

A little further down the track is the prospect of a bit of an over-seas trip for an event or two in 2012 – as a few others appear keen on that. Also, with Auckland hosting the 2012 world triathlon championships – that is something that needs looking at. It will be a flawed event – and mainly for the national body and those involved organising to pat themselves on the back. I am sure the athletes experience will be a little way down the pecking order. The first sign that this is the case – is having the event in Auckland in October. The water will be cold, and there is a reasonable chance that the weather will be crap too. At least there will be less wind than if it was in November. But it is a world champs and it is in our back yard – so it really does fall in the must do category if you are a tri-geek.

Back to my training bender – or attempted mild bender. My thoughts initially were to spent a couple of weeks just doing as much easy training as I thought I could cope with, and still function – basically do the group sessions and tack on as must mostly easier training as I could. Get the long run and ride into gear, and then 3-4weeks of a little more solid training finishing off with a few test sessions (at 6weeks in) to see where I am at. My initial estimations of what I thought I could do (around 15 hours per week) were quickly shattered. As I got more tired and much slower. So maybe it is now 4 weeks of “as easy as I can” training with the harder bike and run group in there, and hope like heck I can get up to a reasonable level without too many tears. Recovery and adaptation appears to be in the very slow lane currently! Being in week 3 – the average run speed is getting progressively slower, and I really struggle to get past 1 hour 20min running. The easy runs have gone from around 5min/km to closer to 5:30/km. That might not be a true indication – as I am trying to do a bit more off road – which is slower, and the garmin does not pick up lots of small variation up and down and side to side that you get on trails. On a positive note the bike power levels have stopped sliding down, and stabilized. They may have even come up a little – or stayed the same and the perceived effort is slightly less. Swimming is still pretty sad – one or two per week. Just hard to get more squad sessions in logistically. I cant quite cope with battling the public lane swimmers yet…

So at the end of the first 3 weeks (almost), the long ride has gone from 1hr30min or so to 3hr50min and feels OK (at an easy pace). The longer runs are still a bit of a challenge – the HR starts to climb, not matter how slow I go after around 1hr. The run intervals do feel a little more controlled, at a similar pace. So perhaps the slide has abated. Now I just need to slip in a few more easy sessions (or perhaps just more time at an easy intensity), get the weights going and try to crack 15hrs per week training, oh and get more swimming in. My feelings at the moment are that I can set a few key session goals for the second half of the build-up if I get through the next two weeks OK. I just need to see how the body adapts to the increase in training. As long as there is improvement, I can start aiming a little higher. If the body does not adapt – then it might be a week of backing right off, and just re-assess the goals, and look a little longer term.

Cruising on the chopper might be the new past time if I don't get A into G :-)