Blog 9 – 23rd May 2013
It’s been nearly a month since my last post and how time flies!!
Arrgghh, only 136 days until Challenge Barcelona Ironman. Lots have happened
within the last month, mostly training but everything is still moving in the
right direction. On the 13th of this month I had to return to
Hertfordshire University for a testing update. No one ever enjoys being tested
but I had mixed emotions as I wanted to see if all that hard work has been
paying off. To be honest, I was a little disappointed with the results, the
changes were all positive but they weren’t as good as I would have liked them
to be. Now we can all make excuses and mine is that I rode for 4 hours the day
before testing, on my birthday I might add. Hence, training waits for no man.
Anyway back to the results, in hindsight, I will definitely avoid doing a long
ride the day before the next testing session.
We are nearly half way, in fact the lab rats and I have been
on this journey for 122 days and the training has certainly started to ramp up.
As my friend and fellow lab rat Dan mentioned the other day, yes we are nearly
half way in terms of days but we are nowhere near with regard to the training
volume. Cheers Dan, glass half full, cake half gone!
So how am I doing? Well, as mentioned the physiological
assessment despite my excuse was still positive:
- My resting heart rate is lower than the previous testing
session
- My VO2max (oxygen uptake) has improved
- My exercise economy has improve
- The all important lactic acid production against intensity
has improved but still lots more work is required
From an actual event perspective, training weeks are ranging
from 10-14 hours. My swimming is getting better, I’m up to approximately 2-3km.
Although I still need to work on maximising my catch and pull, and ideally I’ve
come to the conclusion of chopping my feet off as they are like a pair of
anchors, slowing my down on every lap. Just in case that isn’t a request as I’m
going to need my feet for the rest of the race. For the bike, I’m regularly
doing 4 hour rides which are getting easier each time both from speed
perspective and the way I feel afterwards. Months back I would have been fit for
nothing after 4 hours in the saddle but now I’m feeling like I could probably
go on if I needed to. That’s lucky hey, as I’ve got just the small matter of a
marathon after the bike. Which brings me on to the run; this is also going
well. Up to now most of my running has been trying to get used to running off
the bike. There’s been a few long runs in the programme and strange as it
sounds but I’m pretty confident that I could go out tomorrow and run a half
marathon fairly easily. Please note that this doesn’t mean that I’m going to.
It’s another swim session for me tomorrow.
Training for a long distance event is funny, especially when
I talk to my friends about their weekends, mine of course are training
orientated but it’s funny when someone asks, so what have you got on tomorrow?
I reply, oh just a short bike tomorrow, it’s just a 3 hour ride. My friend’s response
is then one of laughter followed by, 3 hours!! Just a short ride! Are you mad!
Do you know what, I think I might be.
One last thing to say before I sign off, I went for my first
Open Water swim in Hyde Park’s Lido the other day. I was down there with work
and fortunate enough to get some hints and tips from GB Olympian and all round
nice guy, Stuart Hayes. He was very nice to disguise rapturous laughter after
watching me either drowning or swimming diagonally across the Lido. Glad to get
my first open water session out of the way but I’m definitely going to be
getting back in there as much as possible.
