The third Brownlee brother...

Blog 6 – 17^th March 2013

Happy St Patricks Day!! Hold the Guinness, Irish Stew and all things potato, for today is testing day....cheers! The funny thing is that I only have myself to blame, as I picked the date; it’s not my first mistake. Ok let’s pause the celebrations and get on with this. It’s the end of training block 2, 8 weeks down and time to see whether all this training is working. With the pub on speed dial and the green silk suit on standby, off to the University of Hertfordshire I go (didn’t mean for that to sound like a song by the seven dwarfs).

To replicate the battery of tests conducted back in January, I will be getting my basic body compositions measured, functional analysis, power measurements, biomechanical assessment, running economy analysis, lactate sub-maximal cycle test and then the unavoidable pièce de résistance, the VO2max test. Sounds a lot, right? It is! Well I’m not going to sugar coat it any longer, how did I do? Well, Alistair and Jonathon can breathe a sigh of relief; first, third and hundreds of other places are safe for now. I did however see some improvements in:

 

ü  Body weight and fat reduction

ü  Jump height improvement

ü  Running economy improvement

ü  Heart rate reductions for relative work

ü  VO2 max increased

 

Great news!! So it’s all going in the right direction but as discussed with the head of the study Dr Justin Roberts, to keep things on track I need to work on improving my endurance economy and capacity, working at a lower intensity with minimal changes in my blood lactate accumulation. In the words of Dr Roberts, I’m an acid producer. Rub litmus paper on my forehead and it’ll turn orange – not quite but you get the idea. It’s great that I can keep exercising during high levels of lactate production but ultimately fatigue and the will to stop will take over. This fitness component, although important, is more akin to high intensity exercisers but far removed from the world of an Ironman.

 

To help, Justin has given us all homework - heart rate training zones to follow, stick to and live by (see chart below). For me, I need to become more accustomed to working in those lower ranges, trying to make a rightward shift of the lactate curve... Brrr that reminds me of my physiology lectures back at Brunel. Basically, I need to train my body to lower the acclimation of lactate – work more in zone 1-3, a closer representation to the intensity that I will be following during the Ironman, slow and snail like.

 

Training Zone	Heart Rate (bpm)
	Cycling	Running
1 – Recovery	97-110	108-123
2 – Steady State	110-123	123-137
3 – Lactate Threshold	123-136	137-152
4 – Tempo	136-143	152-159
5 – Intervals	143+	159+

 

Ok well, I better get back to my post testing recovery, sat drinking tea contemplating the training week ahead and putting the heart rate training zones into practise. Anyway have a good week and thanks for reading... [GN]

The strange world of triathlon training...

Blog 5 – 15^th March 2013

Almost 8 weeks complete and I’m starting to be consumed by training. Not in a bad way, quite the opposite but it is funny how you can become addicted to training. Of course I’m being mindful of overtraining and following the structured training programme that I’ve been given but I think it’s a little funny how I can become strangely fond of getting out in the wind and rain for a run or cycle.

That brings me on to my second disturbing worry about the psychological ‘damage’ that triathlon has on a person. So last night I found myself dressing up in all things lycra and heading out in the dark. Now, if that’s not a bit weird then I don’t know what is. Seriously though, I went out for what I thought would be an hour or so, little did I know the ‘so’ part was an extra 45 mins. After a short sit down and the obligatory cuppa, I logged on to the internet and to my excitement I’d clocked up 11.5 miles. Ha good news, that’s the long run ticked off for this week. ‘Glass half full kinda guy’.

Although I’m still relatively new to the sport of triathlon I will definitely be recommending to all and sundry. I really enjoy the training variety, yes the duration of some sessions can get a bit boring but by breaking  the week up with weight training, running, cycling and swimming, getting bored of doing the same old routine just isn’t possible. It’s great sport for people that struggle with the monotony of the gym or need a new challenge. Anyway I’m getting off the soap box, I’m only 8 weeks in, let’s just see if I’m this enthused with triathlon in a few months time. ‘Glass half empty kinda guy’.

Right, that’s it from me for now. I’ll report back after the testing day at the weekend. Oh and sorry I got my weeks a little muddled. On my last post I wrote that my testing session was on the 10^th but I was wrong and it’s actually on the 17^th. Anyway, I’m off out in the dark ;-)... [GN]

Micros to macros – into block 2....

Blog 4 – 26^th February 

One month down, with many more to go...Thankfully! Each month has been split into training blocks of four weeks (or micro cycles). This helps to focus on particular training objectives and slowly but concisely, work towards peaking at the right time; in my case the Challenge Barcelona (Ironman) on the 6^th October 2013. With a background in sport science, I understand the application of training periodisation; the aim of splitting your training into cycles, towards a long term goal or event. Periodisation involves a combination of smaller micro cycles that form part of a larger macro cycle. In a way, it’s a bit like having a 12 sliced pizza. You would be pretty annoyed if the pizza delivery man dropped off your eagerly awaited take-away but there was only 11 slices. Each slice represents a micro cycle but the whole pizza; all twelve equally valuable slices represent a macro cycle. You want them all; you need them all; and they all work together. Hmm, think I’d quite like some pizza.... Anyway, back to periodisation.

A periodised training plan is split into phases:  phase 1 is the General preparation, phase 2 is the specific preparation, phase 3 is the taper and competition and finally, phase 4 is the transition (recovery), see the diagram below. Not to bore you too much, I know I already am, yawn yawn, but at the minute the training programme is about building my base fitness, ‘the general preparation’. In this first month of the general preparation phase specific preparation sessions have been included to build the drills and skills to improve technique in the three disciplines.

Adapted from Trent Stellingwerff, Ronald Maughan & Louise Burke, 2011

So I’m into week 6 of the training plan provided by Dr Justin Roberts of Herts University and hand on heart, I’m actually really enjoying it, including the swimming. Swimming is clearly my weakest of the three disciplines; probably in part due to the fact that I always found it really boring and wanted to get out of the pool quicker than I got in. Fortunately my thoughts have changed; by no means am I going to threaten Michael Phelps’ reign as a swimming legend but I’m getting there... slowly, tortoise and hare spring to mind. Speaking of which, yesterday was my first official swim in a 50 metre pool, very interesting I thought, just 77 laps and that’s the swim cracked. 77!!! Holy crap, that’s a lot. Not forgetting of course that you can stop in a pool, no such luck in the sea..... Haha, you’ve got to love a challenge.

Putting the distances of each discipline aside for a moment, something else that slipped my mind when I agreed to this challenge is weather conditions that I would have to endure whilst training. As the sessions get longer, training in the gym just isn’t feasible but facing the great outdoors with the cold and wet wintery weather, well hold the excitement. I now understand why many triathletes venture off to places like Lanzarote to train.  I did however manage a 2 hour turbo session (indoor) the other day but it was incredibly tedious and quite a drain on my motivation. Fortunately, I had the athletics on the TV and my ipod on the stereo but 2 hours felt like 2 days, stuck in one place on the turbo. Oh well, hopefully the weather will brighten up and get warmer, it needs to.

For my next post, I hope to tell you that my fitness levels are improving. I’ve got the next set of physiological testing to go through on 10^th March. For now though I’m off for another swim in the mini ocean. Thanks for reading! [GN]