Cross country time

I have sort of started phase 2 of my training, although really it is finishing phase 1, and waiting to kick the next block into gear. The first block of training was to get fit enough that I could do a block of good training, and cope with it. Also to do the cross country season – get practice at racing. Both for getting tactical practice and just some race hardness! Here we go on how the cross country season went – five races in all.
I sort of left the start of my run training 3-4 weeks too late, and was a little less run fit for the first cross country race of the season, than I was hoping for. I had no one to blame for that but me!

I lined up for the first race which was 3 laps to get 7.5km. The plan was to be a little conservative at the start and build through the laps and set a benchmark for where I was at. So the gun goes off, and we are underway. 200m later the lungs are on fire, the leaders are almost out of sight already, and I am already wondering what has gone so badly wrong! Am I just running on the spot? There was a good group of masters me ahead, me, and then a good group behind. I was running solo between the groups. It was just plan hard the entire way. I think relatively I did move up through the field a little as the race went on, but I think it was more that the others took off very fast. At the end I was 3^rd in my age group, 1:36 behind the winner, and 8^th masters men, a long 3minutes behind the fastest masters winner.

Two weeks later and it is a little over 8km (suppose to be 8.2), and a flatter and faster circuit this time. Again the front group take off and I am well left behind, and not really running with anyone. Felt I went as fast as I could on the day, but not quite the same “oh my god what is happening to me” feeling that I had in the first race (which I was happy about). I did feel I ran the slightly down hill and tail wind parts of the course well. Second in age group and 7^th Masters, but a couple were missing from the last race., 53 seconds down on the age group winner and 2:19 down on overall masters winner. A good improvement over the last race.

Another 2 weeks later and it is 10km on a muddy course that is going to chop up badly (5 laps). This is going to be hard! A few short steep climbs and quite variable under foot on this race (bog and hard packed tracks). I manage to hang on a little better at the start this time, but on the short up hills I lost around 20m each time, and struggle a bit on the boggy stuff. Slowly drift off the front group to watch them run into the distance (again). I do feel stronger, and pick up a few others that blow up through the middle of the race. But it is just 40 minutes in the hurt box. Each lap gets slower as you sink further into the bog. Another 2^nd in age group, and 7^th masters overall. 51 seconds off the age winner, just under 3minutes off the overall masters winner. Probably an OK result, it was not a good course for me.

Next up is short, flat and fast, 4km (2 laps). I was feeling a little tender on the stomach for a couple of days before this, so was not sure if that was going to be a factor. The gun goes off, and I stick with the front group for around 800m and feel OK. Then at a sharp turn around I get dropped (not so good a line and no acceleration out of the corner). Can’t do anything to bridge back up, and drift back. I try to use parts of the course to my advantage, and focus on running good lines. Push the tail wind and flat even sections, and a little less effort on the rough stuff. The second lap is more on keeping the pressure on so I don’t get caught – it is a struggle today. Another 2^nd in age group and 9^th master overall. 30 seconds down on age group winner and a long 1:25 to the overall masters winner. OK for the way I felt in hind sight, but don’t think I actually did the best I could on the day which I was a bit frustrated with. Sort of battle against myself and made the effort hard, rather than trying to go fast and be relaxed. Must do better in that regard next time.

There was a bit of a break and then there was the final race, back to the bog circuit, but only 8km this time, and they took a few of the nasty short climbs out. But it was still wet underfoot. The training between races had not been spectacular, but had been quite consistent, so was keen to see if that had an effect. Underway again, and this time I am sitting with the leaders quite comfortably, in front of the guy who has beaten me soundly all season. Feel reasonably relaxed and in control – this is good! Then around 1km in, I am not sure if I popped a bit, or the pace went up, but I got dropped! It was on the part of the course that I would have thought I was good at, after getting comfortably through the undulations and boggy part of the circuit. It was quite windy, so I eased up and let the 2 behind me through, and sat on their shoulders. They both happened to be in my age group. The front group eased away and started to split up, so I guess the pace was on (3:20 pace cross country might have been a bit hot for the first km...). So the plan is to stay with these two guys as long as possible! One of the two lets a bit of a gap go, so I quickly went around him and on to the others shoulder, making sure I was always getting good wind protection. The middle two laps were quite comfortable (still hard) and I felt quite a bit stronger in the wind, but was not going to take the lead into the wind! I did not feel much faster with the wind, so didn’t see any point in going past there either, as that was probably not going to put him under pressure either. It was now clear it was going to come down to a last lap show down. I spent the 3^rd lap trying to work out the best way to beat this guy. There was a short steep up-hill into the wind with around 600m to go, and I thought that might be the place to attack, get a gap and try to hold off a finishing sprint. Option 2 was to just keep the pressure on until 200m to go and try my hand at a sprint finish, given I had sat on his shoulder and drafted the entire run, I would possibly be slightly fresher. Shortly after the start of the last lap (2km to go) he put in a surge – which I actually felt good with. No problem. A little while later the next surge comes, ouch – that was solid, but no problem, still comfortably on his shoulder. Then around 200m before the point where I was planning to go, a 3^rd surge comes, much harder than the last 2 and he gaps me. I am 20-30m behind with 600m to go. Decision time – how deep can you go?? I dig deep and really go for it, and manage to catch up, but at significant cost (lactic acid running out of my eyes..). In the last 150m and the wind-up to the finish begins. I have nothing! Second it is again, but a great battle and tactical race. Happy with that! 5 seconds down this time, and 1:50 down on the overall masters winner. But as it was a bit more tactical than straight best effort all the way, perhaps a little more in the tank for a faster time was there.

I think I have improved around 1 minute to 1:30 for the ~8km cross countries through the season. Got in some great racing, and got faster. Mission accomplished!

Next up I will review the first block of training and the plan for the next...

2011/2012 season wrap-up

Then the season went a bit pear shaped. I cracked a couple of ribs out running. Not a very exciting story at all, just a dumb trip and tried not to land on my hand – and ended up taking the full force on the edge of the concrete on the rib cage. After 4-5 days I could do around 40-50min of easy swimming or cycling but running was murder. Sleep was not a happening thing either! Kinloch was wiped as even the thought of someone taping my ribs made me cringe – mass swim start in a sprint triathlon was not going to happen! By mid February I could get back into training again, mostly normal. Running was still a little uncomfortable – both breathing and lost fitness wise. I was still hopeful of being able to roll through Ironman, around 10 hours I thought – under with a good day, over with a hard day in the office. Around 12 days out I got a dose of man flu – so that killed my main (and only) long run I had planned. Just had to get well for the start.
As race week unfolded, Ironman became a half Ironman and a day later. That was really a get out of jail free card for me. I was still a little flu-ie, but felt much more able to get through a half than an Ironman. I felt if I had a good day, a kona spot was even possible. Mostly because half the field would have thrown their toys because the race was now a half, and I was just going to get on with the job.
Race morning and conditions were pretty good really. A little cold and a bit of a breeze, but that was better than a little hot and calm (for me at least)! 200m into the race I knew things were going to be a struggle. I was operating on half a lung still and there was just no top end. I battled through the swim and just tried not to lose too much time. I did manage to get some good feet for around half the swim, but when I needed to bridge a gap, there was just nothing there, so ended up drifting back a bit, quite a bit in the last 400m or so. To add insult to injury a random encounter with another swimmer managed to rip my garmin off my wrist – adding another $500 expense to the day. I went out reasonably strong on the bike, and did feel much better than in the swim. Passed a few and though I could make 3^rd grouppo, or possibly 2^nd after seeing where people were at the fist little out-and-back early on. Unfortunately behind me there was a large pack developing that was swallowing up everything in its path. When that rolled along, it was time to sit in. Non-drafting was not a term a number in this group were familiar with. I decided to sit at the back a little more and wait for people to tire a little, and see what opportunities arose. At around the 35km mark the Matt Illingworth express opportunity arrived. He rode straight passed the “bunch” and no one followed. I thought a few would try, but they just let him go. So after he was 2-300m up the road, I popped out of the bunch and bridged up to him. I sat at legal distance and held on for around 5km, in which time the bunch I was in was out of sight! But the pace was just too hot for me! I probably could have held on longer, but it would have added 40minutes to my run time. I sat up, had a drink and a couple of gels and waited to be swallowed by the bunch again. Pretty much just sat in for the rest of the ride, with a bit of an effort up the last hill with 10km to go, which did shell out quite a few. I was pretty stiff and a bit sore when I started the run, but felt OK within myself and just tried to be controlled. At around 7km things started to feel a bit wobbly, so figured it was survival now. The flu was taking its toll and a few cramps were appearing everywhere. Fingers, legs, chest, all over the place – little spasms rather than crippling cramp. Downed salt and gels to try and stave off the worse of the cramping. Then, just to add a little more to the equation, it was toilet stops almost every aid station. I am sure I lost a vital organ or two in those port-a-loos. At one point I could not see how I was going to finish, but just focused on one foot in front of the other. Each step was a step closer. Finally I got to the finish line, and was happy to survive. I am sure if it had been an Ironman I would not have survived the bike. Ticked off another one – sort of anyway.
So that was the season. A couple of good results all things considered, and one crappy day in the office. I then decided to take it quite easy for a couple of weeks, which turned in to 5 weeks. That did mean I was well recovered, or “reconditioned”. I did manage to pack on 5kg in 10 days post race, which was pretty good (probably more like 10 kg from when I crossed the line).
Next is the build-up to world champs in Auckland October 2012! First up is to be regular with the training, aiming to do 15 hours per week, excepted for the easy weeks. I will also hopefully do the cross country season. And hopefully it is better than last year, missing most of the season with injury or sickness. 

I also plan to be a little more committed to the blog! 

 

Input vs output vs intensity

One thing that has been quite variable throughout sport has been the definition and interpretation of intensity. There are a few scientifically defined  intensities, such as lactate threshold, and a few accepted scales, such as Borg scale of perceived exertion. There are numerous devices now available to measure heart rate, blood lactate, speed, power, cadence and other outputs for the exercising athlete. A major issue over the years has been how to communicate the “same” meaning of intensity over a range of variables. One persons easy is not the same as another’s, and the varying definitions for degrees of hard are also numerous.
A number of years ago, John Hellemans brought this issue up at a coaching seminar, and promptly recommended everyone use the definitions for intensity that he was using, so that when athletes did change coaches, that there was a semi-standard intensity definition. A few years later, he produced “the training intensity handbook”, which tries to align the various intensities used (a good little manual). I certainly agreed with the philosophy of aligning the definitions of intensity, but I had been using my version of intensity scale, which I had developed  from various sources over the years, and to change what I was using was not going to be easy. I am sure many other coaches were in the same boat! Most training systems use 5 levels of intensity – and most are similar, just slight variations and different terms. It is important to understand what the various levels mean in a practical sense.   
There has also been a number of trends and perhaps fads over the years on measuring intensity for exercise. Many years ago perceived effort was it. If you asked a cyclist what there training metrics were for a session, it would be “a few hours pretty easy” or “quite long with heaps of hills that were hard”. They left after breakfast and got back sometime after most others had had lunch, and that was all they knew – as well as how tired they were after. Now you can have exact splits, GPS data, HR data, power data, normalized power ISS, TSS, surges, climbing data, and any number of other metrics, without even having to go to the lab!  
I think some people are after a single metric that tells them how hard they have gone. The reality is that the human body is a very complex machine, and no single metric can tell you this. Many of the available metrics have their own strengths and weaknesses, and only tell part of the story. You need to look at a few pieces of data to start to construct a picture of what is going on. In some circumstances, some metrics are more appropriate than others. For example, in my opinion, speed is a good metric swimming and running for the harder sessions, and power for the bike is the equivalent. HR and to a  certain extent how that interacts with speed/power is more appropriate with easier sessions.  Perceived effort needs to be an important attribute at all levels, so that you do get a feel for what is going on in your body. Also if the toys fail – you need to be able to fall back on the basics!
Adding to the complexity, and perhaps showing that a single metric is not the solution, is that if you do use a speed or power and a HR (or lactate or other physiological measure), the training zones often do not line up when you look at the data after a training session (assuming you have set your training zones correctly). Most good training software will tell you the time is each training zone for a particular training session (or as a weekly/monthly breakdowns). And seldom do the profiles look the same, unless it is a very easy session or very hard one. My feelings are that the way the actual output (speed/power and form) varies with physiological output (HR, lactate levels, breathing etc) is a very important indication of where you are at. The absolute ratio and the trends through a session or between sessions shows how tired you are (or recovered), how your current endurance is, and how you are adapting to the training. Some also feel that the trends are an indication of a need to change training phases (or ability to move to the next phase).

this ride might indicate fatigue - as the HR profile is further to the right of the power pofile

So what does it all mean? When you go out the door to do a training session, you should have an idea of what you want to achieve in that session. Intensity is an important component of that, and how you are going to measure or assess that you are at the appropriate intensity. If you have a coach – you also need to communicate intensities – both in prescribing a session and reviewing sessions.  Some people have an extremely good perception of effort – either naturally or through years of experience. A good swimmer should be able to swim 100m at a variety of paces, and be able to tell you what time they have just swum, within a few seconds (or better). Some need feedback on effort to give guidance on effort – and HR has been a common tool, and pace or power is the other standard. Physiological measures give no indication of how fast you are actually going or your real performance. They given an indication of the stress the body is under. If you are very fatigued, you may be stressed at a relatively slow speed. Outside stress, apart from exercise intensity also affect these measures (altitude, heat, general stress etc). I also see that a number of athletes that have used HR as their base measure of intensity can tend to make an effort harder by subtle means that doe not increase pace. If you make the body tense, or more inefficient (eg bad technique) , you can get the HR up higher without having to go faster! Not quite what the performance athlete is after though. This is where pace and power come into play. If you are doing a key session with target pace/times, and you cannot make therm – why? Are you too tired and should just go home and try to recover, are the targets too hard, or has your technique gone and you are just very inefficient on this day? HR (and other physiological measures) also has a delay – so you put the effort in and the HR response maybe seconds or even minutes (to equilibrium at least) behind the effort. By the time you have gone over the limit, particularly for shorter efforts, it is often too late to adjust.
With any measuring device – you need to be aware of the accuracy of data, and any averaging that is going on. You do not want to put a lot of faith into inaccurate data, and if there is significant averaging – you need to consider how that affects your effort and response to the information. Not all data is equal. Two exercises with the same average may be very different in the detail. If you compare two runs that both average 4min/km, one is a steady 4min/km all the way, and the other is alternating 1min at 5min/km and 1min at 3min/km. The averages maybe the same – but one is definitely more difficult and more stressful than the other!
Don’t be blind to a single number – look at the bigger picture, and gather all the information that is useful to you. For some, this maybe disregarding information that is not useful. Food for thought hopefully… 

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 :-)

Tour 2010 – first punches…

Well the first week of the tour is over, and the body is almost adapted to very late nights and early mornings. I hope the tour riders understand the what we are going through to follow them!

There have been a few strange happenings prior to the race. Mechanical doping has reared its head, with a youtube clip basically accusing Fabian Cancellara of having a motor in his bike. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nd13ARuvVE

Then a few other ex-pro cyclists piped up and said – “see I told you that you should be checking for motors”. The engineer in me looks at this and goes – sure it is feasible, but I really doubt that it is happening. The big problem I see is not in putting the motor and gearing in – but the batteries to actually give enough grunt to make it worth while. Using the battery off my “dazzle all other road users” rechargeable light battery, and assuming 100% efficiency, you get 35w for 1hr. So you either need to be able to carry quite a few batteries, or your don’t get much return for lugging an engine and battery pack around a for a while. The other problem is the risk of getting caught. It is a bit different to drug doping (or blood doping) – where it can be just one persons decision. Mechanical doping would need to be a team decision – the rider, the mechanic and others associated with the team would need to be involved.

Another doping related idea also emerged. Basically if you do a “super human performance” you must have cheated. So if you climb a hill faster than what someone thinks is physiologically possible, then you must be a cheat. While I think changes in performances should be a red flag for the drug testing system, performance as such cannot be used. Cyclists are already very highly tested, and that should be the way they go. Here are the rules, break them and you are out. Just because someone is good – that does not mean they are a cheat – there are plenty of physiological “freaks” out there!

So on to the racing. The flat and cobble stone stages caused some havoc – as anticipated. Perhaps not quite where expected though. One of the down hills was ridiculously slippery – and probably not from the water falling out of the sky. After several big names had crashed, the yellow jersey - Fabian Cancellara – enforced a go slow across the finish line. There was talk of a strike due to the courses being dangerous. This did not eventuate and really they knew about the courses well in advance, and in most cases it is the way the riders ride that makes them dangerous! The first few hill stages have now passed and the contenders are being whittled down to a few. It is exciting racing – both from a team and an individual basis. In tours, it is seldom about gaining time – it is more about trying not to lose time. That is certainly the case so far. Two of the contenders prior to the start have effectively been taken out of contention due to losing big chucks of time when they have had a “bad day”. Lance Armstrong and Cadel Evans have gone from looking like strong contenders to making up numbers. Crashes have not helped their causes, but at this point most of the contenders have fallen during the race. To a certain extent, you can make your own luck also. If you ride at the back of the bunch – you are more likely to be involved in a crash. If you push your handling limits going down hills, you increase the chance of crashing. You have to make choices – do I push the pace to try to catch-up or get ahead, with that the increase chance of a crash. Play it safe, with lower chances of a crash and lose some time (potentially). That is what racing is about!

All in all it is great stuff!!

Getting into gear… cross country gear…

Motivation to kick some change in form has been quite high for the last few months. I decided that the running needed a good kick in the pants – as I have not really done any proper run training for almost 10 years, I was very much on borrowed time for reasonable performances running wise.

Last year was similar. I registered for the cross country season, and did two races – the first and the last! I think the season was interrupted with a couple of injuries and a couple of trips over seas. This year will be different (he says with fingers and toes crossed). I even took the spikes out at did a couple of short runs in them, just to get use to them, to try to minimise the injury risk. The first was out at Pukekohe, a nice undulating course. I still felt well under done on the start line– a little bit like the fat kid that gets picked last. I thought I had managed to hide well in the middle of the pack at the start, and with about 10 seconds to go, the guy in front of me panics as he realises he is at the front and should not be there. I was quite funny watching him turn and barge through the pack in the opposite direction. However, the funny side soon turn to dread as I was the one that was shoved out of the way, and was now right up the front. My plans for a building effort were now radically changed to “dam – I better get out of here fast or I am going to be trampled to death!”. I did manage to see the front runners at the first corner, and then it was slowly drift back through the field, to my rightful mid-pack position. As the race progressed everything was hurting. The lungs were burning, the legs were screaming – especially the calves, and it felt like I was just plodding along. Normally I feel like I take corners and gradual down hills quite well, but on this day I was struggling to run around the corners and the down hills got slower and slower. The frustration level went up a notch when the guy in front of me had his spikes fall apart, and he was still running faster than me with the sole of his shoe flapping all over the place! The torment finally ended, but the pain did not subside. The legs were at about the same pain level as post Ironman – it was ridiculous! The only redeeming features were that it must get better and I found out I had somehow burgled 3^rd place in the younger vet category (would have been 4^th in the older vets category!).

Race 2 of the cross country series was a flat and faster affair, but at 8.6km, and reasonably soft underfoot it was not going to be easy. Especially when my longest run has been around 14km (eek!). I managed a more sensible start this time and settled in to a small group. I quickly decided I was the weak runner of the group and should sit on the shoulder of the best wind break there was. I was probably the biggest pain in the butt of the group, sitting really close in behind. I ended up with a few cuts in the knees where I got clipped by the spikes of those running in front of me. A couple of times I had to pull the guy up in front of me as I half tripped him up. He was pretty good about it – I think if it was me I would have said something! I felt a lot more in control and felt I did have a choice in speed – it was not just survival. When there were surges, I could react, and I was happy going a bit slower when the pace did drop a little (in fact I was quite happy!). The last 1km was always going to be interesting. Our group was down to three, and one took off with a good 800m to go, and he was gone. I was still sitting on the shoulder as we turned the last corner and preparing to launch what sprint I had. The guy in front slowed a little, so I went full speed – with a slight feeling of guilt as I had sat on him for the last 7km or so. But that guilt was soon cleansed, as he then rolled me with 50m to go with easy! It was actually good fun – we had a great little race within the race. I managed another 3^rd – so in the money again – so to speak!

I missed race three – as I was full of the flu. Which basically took me out of action for 2 weeks. And getting back into training was a fairly slow. So rather than progress forward in June, it was a case of back up a couple of steps. The first few runs back were pretty ugly to be fair.

Race 4 of the series was a flat and fast race at Long bay – just 4km this time. I was only just starting to recover from the bugs, so was net expecting too much. It was a little soft underfoot, and there were a few good down pours during the warm-up. I was going to be a fast start and see how long I could hold on for. The gun went off – and I went out strong – but not too silly. Could see the front of the race, and was even in front of a few guns in the first km. But then went back a little and settled into a solid pace. The top end was certainly missing, better than it had been even earlier in the week, but when I pushed on the gas pedal – the body just laughed and said “– yeah right, who are you kidding…”. Got a bit ass kicked, and had the lungs well and truly cleaned out. But it was motivating to get out and do more run training. So not all bad…

So where is the training at now? Well, here is a summary:

Swimming – 2 swims this week, which makes 4 for the month of June (ouch), and the local pool is closed for 5 weeks to do the maintenance that they should have done last year when it was closed, rather than just tile around the edges! So fair to say it is quite a sad state of affairs.

Cycling – two class rides and a couple of rides with the school girls (weather playing its part). The last long ride was February. Power levels at the interval session where dropping, but appear to have stabilized a little. Cycling is at a maintaining minimal level of fitness to “do the job” at the moment. I think 4-6 weeks of long rides and one other easier ride and that will come back a bit. So not too bad.

Running – have tried to do at least 4 runs per week. This is going OK. Long runs are still lacking, and struggling to get over an hour and a half. The flu certainly knock me around a bit, but with a good couple of weeks of running I think I can start to lift the running up a little. I am almost at a point where I can now run fit enough to do some good run training. I would like to get in a few 70+km/week training weeks. Mostly just need to organise my ass into gear to do this I think.

seminars...

I have been to a couple of seminars in the last couple of months. Last weekend was a power training seminar by Hunter Allen - co-author of "Training and Racing with a powermeter", and before that was by Jack Daniels - Author of "Daniels running formulae". Both were good talks, although if you have read the book and associated literature on-line, there was nothing new at the talks/seminars - for me at least.
Jack Daniels comes from a modern Pentathlon background (Olympic level) and is well in to his seventies now. He has a huge coaching reputation, and certainly knows his stuff. He told a great story, and easily transferred the mostly information the clearest in the time he had available. He seamed to be a really nice guy too!

One of the opening anecdotes that Jack gave started with a Q & A he had with an athlete. Something along the lines of: What is the biggest training run you have done? Bit over 100km (did this more than once). What is the biggest training week? 600km (yes - running!). Highest average mileage for a 6 week period? 500km per week. Greatest average mileage per week for a year? 400km per week. This person was an Olympian, and only had one injury as a runner - which was when he was hit by a car while out running. The moral of this story was that everyone is very individual and you can't just copy what the good guys do! Thank goodness! Does put hard weeks in perspective though.
The big thing I like about Jacks book and philosophy is the Mdot tables. These are basically forcing everyone on to a VO2 max line based on your current performance. You put in a current performance (any performance over a range of distances), and the tables give you an Mdot value. This is basically an estimate of VO2max. Your training paces are then set from this value. The training zones that he uses are easy, marathon pace, threshold, intervals, and reps. He basically recommends a mixture of intensities in a training program for everyone. What mix you use depends on what you are training for

Hunter Allen was a very different presenter, and came from a different direction - a little more commercial angle (buy my book and software), but still presented plenty of information, and he did it quite well. He was quite focused on a “training is testing and testing is training” mantra. It was almost to the point of what can we test and how many ways can we test things. This is all very interesting, and I am sure plenty of people love to see where they stack up on the various tables and rankings. I have found the power profiling table interesting – and this is a table of power-to-weight tables for power outputs for 5sec, 1min, 5min and FT (functional threshold). You can see if you are world class, very good, or just plain unfit! They have also just developed a table on power drop-offs for the various energy systems.
I don’t think the absolute numbers are that accurate – good for general trends, but from my experience, the numbers are a little off. I would guess that the data used to develop the tables is quite selective (from those associated with training peaks and with power meters), rather than a true representation of the population. The other issue for some, is that there actual peak powers for different times may not be that representative. Certainly for the shorter power outputs, motivation is a key component to getting good numbers. A bike race is going to get different peak powers to a bike leg in a triathlon (well – should do anyway!). That aside, you can see where your relative strengths and weaknesses are, for the different energy systems.
There are plenty of graphing options, and one of the bigger things promoted was the performance manager. The aim here was to “quantify your training load and plan your season perfectly to maximize your training”. The formulae behind this comes from Form = Fitness + Freshness. The more training load up put in the fitter you get, but you reduce your fitness. And the more you rest, the better your freshness is, but may compromise the fitness. Fitness is from training stress, which is made up of “chronic training load” (longer term – workouts up to 6 weeks ago) and “acute training load” – which is the more recent sessions (up to 14 days ago). Then the “training stress balance” is the balance of the total training stress and rest, and trends in this should indicate whether you are looking at performing well or a bit tired from a high training load (or potentially overtraining). My feeling was that this does give a good indication of training load, but does nothing to indicate how you are actually adapting to the training load, or what training load is optimal for you. So in short, you still have to decide on what you think will work. I guess over a long period of time with a few results in there, you could get a good idea of how the training load correlates with various performance. However I would suspect there are many other factors that also need to be considered, and not only training load dictates performance.
So overall it was great for those that love graphs and to analyse as much data as they possibly can. How ever this can lead to Paralysis by analysis – especially when you spend more time analysing than actually training. Next on the problem list is the quality of data – garbage in and you get garbage out. If you have low quality data going in, the results you get out are also low quality.

From a philosophical point of view, I think too much testing and too much “best possible effort” is not optimal for the best increase in fitness. Then if you follow on from that point, the data you are putting out (best powers) are not truly representative of your current fitness. If you are using that data as if it is your best, the analysis based on that data is incorrect. Finding the training mix that that does give the optimal increase in performance that you want is the tricky bit!