Week Seven Dec 4th – Dec 10th

This is very late report, life has become somewhat disorganized with all sorts of other issues taking over the last week, so training and writing reports taken a back seat.

I enjoyed the varied schedule this week and all seemed quite relaxed. I got to get down and dirty with my new Kickr Turbo trainer again, really can’t get enough although my long bike at the end of the week was painful, so definitely need to find a way to mix that up a bit. This was my last “complete” week in one place for a while, so I was eager to try to stick to the schedule, as I know will fall apart from the following week

Monday – Today was marked down as a day off, but knowing I had stuff to do later in the week, I put in a swim. Kinda fucked up on timing the laps etc, all completed but without the numbers in terms of minutes and seconds. Had some cramping scares although I managed to keep them at bay, so guess was from weekend long bike/runs.

5 x 100 easy warm up
10 x 200 at just faster than IMRp
2 x 100 easy c/d

Gym – strength session for 60 mins

Tuesday – Swim
6 x 100 building warm up
6 x 300 just easier than IMRP
2 x 100 easy c/d
I am enjoying the interval swims, rather than my old way of cranking out laps, although all the pacing still goes over my head. Had pain in my shoulder, hardly surprising considering the increase in mileage.

Run. 15 minutes warm up, 5 x 3, 2, 1’s , 5 mins easy cool down
First 3 mins easy, straight into 2 mins moderate then straight into 1 min hard, repeat 5 times straight through.

Loved this, it’s fun with lots of recovery and one minute to just let it all out. I cheat a little as I do the recover up a slight slope, then go down for the faster sections, but this is Salisbury plains, and there isn’t a flat road in the area!

Set 1 Pace Easy 5:34, Moderate 5:11, Hard 4:21
Set 2 Pace 5:35, 4:57, 4:26
Set 3 Pace 5:41, 4:42, 3:57
Set 4 Pace 5:35,4:35, 4:23
Set 5 Pace 5:14, 4:43, 3:59
Set 6 Pace 5:23,4:39, 4:10

Gym – 60 minutes strength and conditioning

Wednesday
Bike – Turbo
15 min warm up
5 x 7 minutes hard off 3 mins easy. Hardest pace possible without blowing up
10 mins easy
I am in love with my Kickr. I have discovered power, so I have a real measure of what I am doing. I don’t train to power, I use it as a guide, to make sure I am not slacking off and to give me something to aim for each interval. I watch the 20 second, the one minute and the five-minute average power as well as the lap timer, always try to get at least one watt higher than the previous mark. By only on the shorter timings, I don’t worry about the whole rides average, so I am able to relax better on the recovery phase, and go all out on the interval.

Thursday
Swim
2 x 1000 straight through no warm up
2 x 100 c/d
Of course, I enjoyed this, even though the 20m pool is beginning to piss me off. Turned in a negative split of 26.01 and 25.35, I am looking forward to seeing my times in my “normal 25m pool” in Japan.

Was interesting to use my “other side”(left) to breathe on the cool downs, and actually sped up!

Bike
15 minutes warm up
3 x 15 mins at top of Z2 at 70rpm off 5 mins easy
10 mins easy

Yay! Fun fun fun, lots of endorphins and a new-found appreciation of the Club Dance Music channel on TV, that trance music beat works brilliantly to keep my cadence up. I like the combination of cadence and power, even if the power is just between me and the machine and nothing to do with the Z2 level that coach laid out.

Friday
Run
45 mins easy no efforts. Exactly as it said, although was pretty bored.

Saturday
Long Bike
3.5 hours
Include 4 x 30 mins bottom-mid Z3 at 80rpm. Rest all Z1-Z2

The bike was tough! I did indoors as couldn’t start until late, first time I’ve done a long bike on the Kickr, and I followed the plan exactly as written, but really struggled to keep at 80rpm. By the fourth set I was knackered … the Computrainer I used until now had various courses, so I was always at different resistance and different effort, whereas just fitting in 4 x 30 minutes at 80rpm is all about focusing, and seems a long long ride. I need to get Zwift or suchlike if I do this again

Main sets
30 min – 80RPM. 163w
30 min – 79RPM. 161w
30 min – 75RPM. 145w
30 min – 73RPM. 141w
I did various easy paces between sets and as warm up and cool down.

Sun
110 minutes long Run

YES
Was gale force winds and heavy rain in the morning, and I decided to wait till afternoon, especially as I still felt the previous day long indoor ride in my legs. By afternoon the rain had morphed into snow and I was tempted to give it a miss, but decided to get out and do 30 minutes to “show willing” to the coach.

Of course, once out I just kept running, it was already getting dark, so I ignored any thoughts on pace as was too cold and wet to think about anything other than running fast enough to keep warm while avoiding puddles. But I got the run done!

I feel really hard arse now 😊

And amazingly enough, I didn’t feel tired, thought I would from the previous days exertions.

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