Susie the Grinch

Dietician Susie Burrell publishing tips to not put on weight over Christmas. Includes "don't eat any pastry over Christmas, it goes straight to your arse". Miserable cow. What, just stop pane au choc all tougher, just because it's Christmas. Oh please. Or this little piece of wisdom, "stand away from the table. You will eat less if you simply stand away from the food". No shit Sherlock. Argh, zealot. I'll start eating more fruit after Christmas. By then I'll be eating Mango for breakfast.

GoLo Coconut rough

Have completed the cycle of whinging over my busted freakin' leg..... Nearly. Well not at all really, there are tweeny girls who's parents won't them go to Justin Bieber concerts who carry on less painfully than me. Knocked out a handy hour of 10 easy > 40 tempo> 10 w/d tonight. Was intended as a recovery ride after sitting through the monthly Westlnk Board today, but spotted 4 Panthers up ahead and hooked-in to catch and then pass. Felt like a wanker unless I went on with it so kept the hammer down for two full laps. Nice going in the end. Would rather spend 4hours deni Hines than the westlink board. Feel like I have some giddy up coming in the bike legs, but no empiricals to support that, and could he just a passing delusion. Will wait and see what falls out of Canberra. Mrs j getting Yr6 party stuff at GoLo today noticed large bags of coconut rough for $1.50. Davies brand? Not bad, but if you are serious about a little bit of rough, then there's really only Darrell Lea. Never skimp on coconut rough. Can live your life on a motto like that. 35k, including some quality. Tick

Ka-boom

5.5k of river run. Ka-boom, calf gone again. Frustrating times

For the love of SRAM

Monday PM – 65 min on bike with 34:34 tempo in the middle for two laps of the extended horse-shoe course.

Did it on the Colnago/SRAM combo. Beautiful. It just works, and works significantly better than either of my two Ultegra bikes. The drag on the running gear is noticeably lower, and it is clearly freer when you flick the pedals backwards by hand. Just a nice ride.

Tuesday AM – Pool. Running late so session curtailed a little. Probably just as well, my arms are rooted.

1200m in all with efforts of:

Ø  300m 0:05:27  (18:10)

Ø  250m 0:04:23  (17:32)

Ø  200m 0:03:25  (17:05)

Ø  150m 0:02: 30  (16:40)

Will try to recommence running again tonight.

Weekend good, bad, ugly and swearing fits.

Saturday - bucketed down in the morning.
AM: Gym for 60minutes
PM: Swam 1.6. 1.5

500m Splits of 9:18, 9:22: 9:16, so not fading at this point

Very happy with that frankly. First time I can ever remember swimming 2 consecutive days.

Sunday

Solo (but for 6k with Gordyl) for 75km - On the aeros most of the way.

Windy from the South-West. Felt like Cancellara heading out. Cracking across the turf farms, but the residual of an over-enthusiastic start, and the reality of the head-cross wind coming back left me pretty shagged. Slow and very fatigued by the end. Really turned quite ugly.

Leg still shitty. Will try running again slowly on Tuesday. Really feels as though I cam going to have to limit runnign speed to 5:15ish for the whole of this IM thing if I am going to find any sort of consistency at all.

Monday

AM gym after flatting 2km into the planned ride. could have fixed it, but was already running late on a 75min planned ride. Spat dummy, cursed and said fuck a lot.

W

Week 2 Totals

Thought I was headed for my first 10+ hour week this week, but have picked up a minor injury where the knee bone meets the top of the calf tendon on the anterior, and that will curtail any running for a week or so.

PB for 1km in the pool
Good swim in the lake this morning (in the suit)
Best run for a couple of years on Tuesday (at which point I got injured) so all in all, a very good week.

3 swims => 3.75km
4 rides => 142km
4 runs => 24km
1 Gym

8hours 40min.

This weeks score = Score 64.3

Starting with the weekend is a mental winner

Loving the idea of starting my training week with the weekend rather than ending with it. There’s a big mental lift from being “in front” by the time training starts to get locked up in work and other commitments.

Giddy up.

Chug a chug

164 days to go. Just a smidge over 20 weeks of training time - allowing for a 3 week taper.

Wednesday: 1.5 in the morning including 1km trial at 18:27 (best yet) - laughably short "sessions" by most people's standards - but still feels like good progress.

Nothing in the evening – legs still DOMS riddled from Tuesday night run.

Thursday: am 30km, all on the aeros, including 20km at tempo.

Tempo treadmill with a 4:00

Tuesday rounded out with 9.05km in 40min on the treadmill. Still getting cardio drift at 4:45. Keep pluggin' 2 x easy kms, then tape out 4:16s and the last km in 4:00. First 4:00 km in a while. Now to start stringing them together. W

Darrell Lea - Coming to my emotional rescue

Have cracked and gone mental. Twice-a-day training is more than I can manage mentally. Seems like I am always preparing for, doing or recovering from a training session. Stupid, just stupid.

Will invest in a large bag of Darrell Lea choc covered honeycombs tonight.

Monday:

Ø  AM 35k ride with 5 x 5min tempo efforts

Ø  PM 7km downhill run from Glenbrook to home. Quads under some good pressure.

Tuesday

Ø  AM Gym (Substituted gym for pool as an injury prevention strategy to ensure that I straightened everything out ahead of an effort run this afternoon).

Hopefully continue the run improvement curve this afternoon. Aiming for 28:30 – 2.2% improvement, which would be pretty big week on week given that I went eye balls out last week – who knows.

W

A good training weekend not sttopping panic from setting in.

Have moved for this plan to starting each “training week” with Saturday. More mental than anything, the objective being to set up the week, and work out what changes might need to be made across the subsequent days depending  on where I got to over the weekend.

Washup from the last weekend (start of this training week), is similar to where it was last week after the Nepean.

My run is crap & I’m not tolerating extended periods of intensity, ie I’m weak through the first part of the bike and then coming off the bike I’m weak from the very first step. This probably makes sense given I haven’t been consistent with running, and haven’t run consistently hard for an eon.

Saturday:

Ø  Solid Hawkesbury loop with 12 * 200m on a jog recovery

o   Hawkesbury climb in 11:58 followed by a nice push up to the water tanks. Some nice riding all round

o   Followed with 12x200’s in 45-50 (48 = 4min k pace) followed by recoveries of 70-75 (72 = 6min km) so that each interval kicks off on the 2:00.

Good session.

Sunday:

Club tri for 1:11:08

Ø  Swim a problem, but coming along

Ø  Bike is in order. Just a case of keeping it going and extending the endurance element over time.

Ø  Run is in big trouble. Nobody that finished ahead of me ran slower.

W

Week 1 - Week's Wrap

AM: 1.5km lake swim 31minutes – no suit. Bit slower then I had hoped for, but was having goggle trouble on the return leg and stopped a few times to try and get the seal back, but no significant time loss.

5k run straight after. Felt much better than yesterday’s effort. Running with a group always seems easier. Only about 26minutes, but calf muscles still in tact – so no complaints.

Week Wrap

S – 3 swims for 3.5km

B – 4 rides for 164 km

R – 4 runs for 30.1km

Total time 9:08:30

Intensity included on the Sunday tri and Tuesday run. Rest quite cruisy.

Score for this week 69.1

How does the computer know who I am

How does the computer know who I am. My given name isn't in either my email address or my registration, yet it addresses me when I log in as Welcome Wayne. Well fuck-off blogger you nosey sod, we aren't that close yet.

Thursday AM: Scheduled as my weekly long run day in the Tubby master plan (Week1 has now commenced) - And so it was. A long 8.5km, bloddy hell, felt like a marathon. Legs heavy, puffing like a pack-a-day man, just aweful. Lucky to break 5:30's. But you get those days don't you. Nothing to stress over. Pull up stumps and come back to fight again another day.

Wednesday AM: Rolled out 35km wil Pat. Was a bit hammered from previous day, so neither long nor intense.

A couple of easy days in a row - ready to go hard for the next three.

W

Keep ticking the boxes

Am- 1k straight in the pool. I know this doesn't count as a session in most people's minds, but it will do for now. Next step is to knock out 1.5.

18:34 I'll take it.

Pm- busted my ass for a 29:06 river run. Couldn't have gone any harder. Like the swim, the time is thoroughly uninspiring, but I'll take it for now.

It's about 4:25 per k for what I think is 6.6k.

W

Where the #$%^ is Excel when you need it.

AH CRAP!!!!

Told myself that if I got through Nepean OK I would start to plan the next part of this thing – which for me is essentially getting strong enough (fit enough) to be able to undertake a peaking period from mid January (without falling apart).  TICK

But the parameters don’t work.

P1 – Can’t seriously expect to run a marathon on less than 55km and 4 runs per week (And at least one extremely successful running doctor I know reckons this is more like 70km per week “bare minimum – just to undertake it safely”)

P2 – Need to swim at least 3 times a week, but particularly if you are starting from where i am.

P3 – Need at least 3 bike sessions (3 is really not enough is it), including at least 1 x 120km+

P4 – Everyone seems to recommend strength and flexibility gym sessions x 2 per week

P5 – Want to see the family before I go to work in the mornings.

P6 – Don’t want to come home - say hello to the family - and then leave the house for training any more than 1 or 2 times a week.

IT DOESN’T FIT. I need more days in the week. It just doesn’t fit and is going to require some creativity.

I will get back to if I find a way to solve for X, where x < a small number AND sum(P1:P6) > a small number.

Is anyone else having this problem??? Where the #$%^ is Excel when you need it.

W

Nepean - Tick

Monday – Trying to work out what Sunday’s result actually means.

Ø  Bike - At the start of this bloggy thing I noted that I didn’t have any bike speed and didn’t even have the leg power on the bike to elevate my heart rate past 130. While there is always room for improvement, the problem is largely in the process of being solved. I will be OK for this by January/February.

Ø  I don’t feel that my stroke mechanics are all that bad. The problem really is a function of too few sessions, with each being of too short a duration, and  with too low an intensity. Current training plan should see this OK enough to get me through the events that I have planned.

Ø  Run. Run is a big problem. Technique seems to be holding up OK, but the extended period (years now really) of calf and achilles problems has made me gun shy about both distance and intensity, and it showed on up badly on Sunday. Wasn’t all that tired or fatigued, but was dropping places everywhere. This will be the primary focus of my next 3 months

Sunday – Nepean Tri. Good to be out there racing again, actually really freakin’ good. Not a very flash result but not the total disaster that it well could have been, and certainly better than I was entitled to. But for a “Dude where’s my car” moment in T1, and a very weak run, I’m happy with my result. Rode pretty well I recon,

Only realized on Sunday that Canberra is also likely to be a non-wet-suit swim. 1.8km, oh dear God.

My first thoughts are that my swim result from the weekend is only 11.9% worse than my best. Given I have not done much swim training, I thought that was pretty handy. But then a quick check of the old training records reveals that my current swim training pattern is only marginally less than normal.

The Canberra swim would be 80% further then I have ever swum without a wet-suit – Will be cramming.

Saturday – Good solid ride through the turf farms with Ads, Mango and Benno 68km round trip. Nice enough

Friday – Am run around the river. Only 7.2k, slow as, and it is telling me that Sunday’s tri-run is going to be ugly.

                Pm – 45min on tt bike. Legs are blasted from this morning’s slow 7.2k run. This is shaping up badly

I think I can see my penis

Thursday – Favorite session in the world. 1km lake swim. Made a “K” sans wetsuit. Happy days. I am probably not going to permanently scar those in the grandstand as I draw a final breath and submerge into the reeds on Sunday.

Swim suit has been a long while out of the water though, and could leave a nasty after-taste in the mouths of a large section of Sunday’s crowd if left unattended. Note to self, get new swimmers.

W

Swim, ride, run, physio

After the chuck on Monday morning's ride, I squeezed out 6k in 31:36 at 9:00pm. Not a good time to run, unfair on Junior trying to sleep with me leaving the house. Harry whined also as it is our scheduled dog play time. Ah the guilt.....

Tuesday - feeling better. Still can't string more than a couple of laps together in the pool. Most people suggesting Sunday will be sans wet tie, so a whole world of ugliness is waiting for me there.

10 x 100m with near enough an hour rec time between each

River run this afternoon. Steady for a 31:56. Will do, at least I'm not busted.

Robert Standen in the morning. He thinks there's some hope for my legs. We'll see, I've broken other physics before him.

W

A post ride hurl

Tried for a 10k run last night. Could only get to 5 before having to pull the pin. Legs and lungs shot.

30k on tt bike this morning. Whacked a 20k solid effort int he middle, and threw up afterwards on recovery. Not a good sign since the effort was all that hard.

Will make a decision on Nepean on Thursday after hopefully getting to the lake swim in the morning.

W

Recovering the hard way

Feel like I am at the trail end of last weeks infections.

Tried to ride Saturday morning but had to pull the pin after 5km. Coughing up lungs, and associated messiness.

Tried again in the afternoon with the warmer dried air. 15min easy > 60min TT > 15 easy. Not a bad session. On the hot dog beside the lake, 56:36 for 30km. With turnarounds that'll do.

12 x 100 this morning. Wanted to do a continuous 1k, but was too chesty.

A late evening 10k would make me a happy camper all things considered

I may be morphing into Jana Pitman

Lately I seem to have any number of ailments, I'm whinging so much that I'm starting to shit myself, and coming up to a race (Nepean) I'm laid up. Plus I think Tamsyn Lewis is a moaning self indulgent princess. There you go, proof. I've become Jana Pitman.

Monday and Tuesday a complete write-off. Tonight I at least got to the gym for 50 mintues of weights and ROM exercises. Still coughing up fur balls if I breathe too hard, and pumping out snot like Jabba, but will shoot for a little indoor spinning on the bike tomorrow morning.

Week and a half to Nepean. A world of ugliness heading my way I suspect, but would happily take it now rather than in 28 weeks if it was a choice.

Hangin' in.

W