Week 2

Week 2

I'm really pleased with how this week's training has gone. Although the total training time is a bit down on the planned total I did manage to swim, bike and run 3 times. One of the runs was just training with my kids at the track across the road for their Weet-Bix triathlon but we did do 400m repeats ... albeit mine were extremely slow (2:48!). They both beat me that day.

The other two runs were on a 'hilly' course and Friday's run must have been in 80 degree heat. The sweat was just continually dripping off my eyebrow. Slow pace but I can feel my legs getting stronger on the hills. Speed work will have to wait till I can trust my calf a bit more. I've had no reaction from it at all this week which has been such a positive for me. I've been using a calf support as well as the compression socks (not a great idea probably) and it seems to help. I am deliberately taking shorter strides to minimise the strain on the calf muscle. Again, this seems to be helping. Really hapy with where my running is at the moment. Slow but strong. That'll do me.

My plan with the bike is to ride three times a week with the 'traditional' long ride on Saturday morning. At the moment it's at about the 2 hour mark but I'm going to gradually increase it up to about 3 hours over the next few months. Although I used to ride further I didn't work as hard as I do now. Amazing the 'truths' told by a heart rate monitor. I definitely do not work hard enough if I don't have a goal like getting to the top of a hill or trying to beat a time on a certain bit of road. If I just go out and ride I'll just do enough to keep a half decent speed but when I've seen my HR at this kind of intensity it shows that I'm barely in Zone 2. That has got to change. Especially on my mid-week bike interval sessions.

I'm using the local toll road for these. It's ideal to get my head down and just try to ride as fast as I can for the interval. I did 2 sessions this week and managed to get within about 45 seconds of my 'record' time with race tyres. I'm hoping the training (and a bit of weight loss) will see me beat this time in the next month. That's the plan anyway. The fastest this week was just over 12 minutes. Hoping to go sub 12 soon. The race tyres record is 11:40 something so a bit of work to do.

The big thing that I have to work on at the moment is my swimming. I am really struggling without the wetsuit ... although I 'felt' a great improvement just over the three days that I swam last week. I didn't get particularly faster but by the end I was actually swimming rather than fighting the water. I'm still having my long running internal TI/Normal stroke argument/dialogue in my head. It's even harder to call without the wetsuit because I use the same amount of strokes per length using both ... although the normal stroke is still faster ... and I'm just as shattered at the end of a TI interval ... I'll play with them both next week. My swim golf scores were 117 (TI) and 112 (normal) - both 50 strokes for 50m ... too many but at least there's a nice symetry about it. My plan for the swimming is to do plenty of drills one day, intervals the next (50's and 100's - play swim golf) and then go long on the third.

The fourth thing I have to work on is my weight. It's been going down steadily this week form the 200lb mark but I won't officially weigh in until tomorrow. Hoping for a big 1st week loss. It will mainly be due to me going back to work and not having access to the fridge and cupboards 24/7. I've also managed to avoid eating too mang goodies this week at home. Actually said no to buscuits and tea today. Wonders will never cease.

I'm trying a new idea to document progress with the swim, bike, run, weight thing. The current situation is as follows:

Swim

50m - 51 seconds
100m - 1:02
Golf - 112
250m - 5:32

Bike

Toll Rd 6.8K - 12:12
Reid Rd Hill Climb - 12:39
Fraser 10K - 20:09
Rotorua Half - 3:05

Run

5K - not tested yet
Fraser 10K - 1:03:02
Flat 10K - not tested yet

Weight - 200lbs

The plan is to calculate a 'factor' that can be used to normalise these figures to 100. Easiest one is going to be weight. If I divide 200 by 2 I'll get 100. This is my starting point. Every weight will then be divided by this number and it'll be easy to see a percentage decrease/increase. I can do the same thing with the swim/bike/run times and hopefully see some progress over the next few months. I'd like to lose 5% (10lbs) of fat ... not sure how realistic is would be to lose 5% off the other times but I'll make that the goal for now. Obviously there will be graphs to follow once there is some movement in the scores :)