Week 38 'There is no off season'

After much faffing about with training plans and major head-space mash up, I decided to create my own for purposes of my Ironman event. Kinda. Not sure if what I did was a good idea or not but I plan to stick with it for a few weeks and see how I get on. My basic idea was to view as many training plans as I could, mix them up, take the bits I like and plot my plan week by week. If better plans, advice etc come my way, then I will be able to modify as the weeks go on. Blah! My training for IronMan has begun! And I have a plan! Kinda...

My training plan. Kinda sorta.

On Monday, my plan kicked into action. I started off with a swim - my least favourite discipline. I stole a training schedule from an on-line training plan (trifuel). There was so much information to remember that I stuck it to my water bottle and carried that into the pool with me. Good thinking, eh?!

This was considered a 'short' swim but my calculations suggested I swam 1,600 metres. Such training should have taken 30 minutes. I was in the pool for 1 hour and 13 minutes! Just goes to show how poor my swimming is. Let's hope it can only get better!  This session featured a debut appearance of my float which Lin had gotten me - cheers Lin!

Immediately after my swim, I went for a run. A long run too! I covered just over half-marathon distance.

Long run, 22k

I stopped at about the half-way point to buy water, take ibuprofen and snack! Man, mulberry tasted so nice. The second half of my run was quite hilly. Felt good to do so much training on day 1 of the week and better yet - I was able to meet my wife for lunch as soon as I had finished.

Why did I include such hills?

Cycle commute took place on Tuesday. Not quite a perfect ride because it was raining on the return leg. All the same was nice to pedal about 60k.

Went swimming Wednesday afternoon and managed to cover 1,350 metres. Was a tad disappointed really as I wanted to swim a further 1,100 metres. Problem was it took me 45 minutes to swim the distance I did and I simply ran out of time and energy to continue. Used my float again for a few lengths. A few lengths were back stroke and a few breast stroke but regular swimming for the most part.

On Wednesday evening, I hooked up with my buddy Ron and we took a moonlit cycle ride. This was a lovely evening, despite being a little chilly. We cycled our familiar 'deer route'. As chance would have it, we were both cycling the same bikes we used for our PBP challenge (my bike is now converted into a single-speed). This day gave me chance to test my new Garmin heart rate monitor too. I have yet to test the cadence thing. The heart rate monitor and cadence sensor will probably have a bigger part to play in my future training plans.

My average heart rate was 100 bpm during this jolly and rose to a maximum of 159 bpm. That didn't really mean an awful lot to me. In the passage of time, it just might. I cycled 28.9k - that made sense!

Thursday was a run day. 10k. Interval style. Followed the formula 10 mins warm up; 6 x 800m run (with 1 min 30 seconds rest); cool down to finish. A nice, hard work run along the tow-path.

Friday was an awesome day. My dear wife SJ allowed me to set up my new Cycleops Fluid 2 Turbo Trainer in the spare bedroom. Bonus! Don't plan to give a detailed review myself but all the on-line reviews say it's awesome and I have to agree. It came with a sweat guard, riser blocks and a mat too which was super. Couldn't wait to set it up and take my test run. In my haste, I didn't read the instructions properly and did not secure my bike. After about 10 mins or so, the bike came out and I raced across the bedroom floor! I felt like I was starring in a spoof movie or something! SJ thought I had fallen off. Ha! For my debut cycle I essentially cycled a total of 50 minutes. First 20 mins easy cycling, next 20 mins harder (much sweating) then 10 mins to cool down (all easy really, stayed in the small ring). Used my heart rate monitor and really should connect my cadence sensor soon. I really liked all the extra data I was able to look at (but didn't record). I used my 'best' bike which really is in need of a new bottom bracket. Maybe I'll get bike fixed and try an alternate bike on the trainer just for fun.

Went for another run on Saturday, just before work. Ran just over 10k along the Birmingham - Wolverhampton canal plus a couple of laps around Edgbaston reservoir. Lovely!

10.8k Run

Missed tri-club on Sunday so that I could spend more time with my family. Still managed to get out and exercise though which was a bonus. I went for a relatively early morning swim and swam for about 50 minutes. The pool was quite busy and I didn't really follow any plan as such. I just swam length after length, occasionally using my float and pull buoy which Lin got me (just because I had them). Continue to find swimming hard but pleased I managed to swim on 3 different occasions this week. I think my muscles are weak and hope in the passage of time that I toughen up a little and my swimming improves. Time will tell!

Sunday afternoon was great. I snook another bike into the spare room and set it up on the turbo. trainer. Better yet, I fitted a cadence sensor. Greater still, I cycled indoor style for 40 minutes.

This was so cool - my new cadence gadget worked out how far I cycled too. I cycled 16.5k without moving an inch! Think I will keep my retro bike permanently set up on the trainer and retire my best bike until the summer. Am still to use a bike on my new trainer in it's large chain ring. So much sweat from relatively easy cycling in the small ring.

Finished my training week in style by marching my family over the fields of Studley. Had a great week training. Had a great time with my family.