Training Review - Week 10 - March 6 to 12

Monday the weather and the daylight tempted me to take the road bike and to actually put a bit of effort in. That made little difference on the ride in as the traffic made the commute about the same as normal. On the way home though I managed a much cleaner ride and despite a little addition at the end still got home in a quick time. 

Swimming was much better than expected. I thought that a third consecutive day of swimming on top of a tough week and recovering from a cold I thought I would struggle. Instead I put in an easy 7min 400m in the middle of a set and finished off with a 100m in 1:33 and 50m in a PB of 39.3.

Tuesday I started my run feeling empty and the first couple of miles were pretty average but from there I settled in to it and by the end I was cruising along at sub 8-min pace and feeling comfortable. 

Wednesday I took a pair of easy rides, even managing to get overtaken by an ironman on the way to work in the morning. In the evening I went to bucksburn with no session plan. I swam 100m but it felt too slow to be the first of a 100m set so I carried on. At 200m I still felt like it was too slow to be the first rep in a 200m set. So I went to 400m, and accidentally smashed last years race time. Then after 60 secs rest I did another 400m in under last years time. And then after another 60 secs rest I did a third rep, again in under race time. 3 reps in 6:40, 6:59 and 6:50 with only a minute of rest. For a fourth swim session in 5 days that is a ridiculous set of numbers. 

Thursday my run to work felt like a slog as my legs were still feeling Tuesday's run but the clock didn't reflect that. My underlying fitness level is now at the point where even a bad run is still just outside 8 min/mile pace. I still need to build some speed on top of that though. 

Friday I had another day off work. I started the morning with a trip to the park to do some running reps. I can at least tick the box that I have started to some speed work on the running front, but it wasn't much and it wasn't fast. Next week I have my first race of the season but I also have two more holiday days to do some more speed work. 

Saturday I went to the park for another reps session. I tried to do a set of 1km reps at 10k pace and managed 3, but only by taking 90 second recoveries between them. I have some opportunities over the next couple of weeks to do some speed work before going to Elgin to race the Moray 10k and I am going to have to make the most of them. In the afternoon I missed my chance to catch up on some smaller session as I went to watch the England Scotland rugby at the pub. Would have been less painful to do all the sessions. 

Sunday I went for an early swim planning to do a set of fast 100m reps but once my back stiffened and the pace slowed I decided to call it a short day. Closed half the gap to my stretch target and logged my biggest swim week of the year.

Before lunch I did the rest of my yoga for the week and took the TT bike round the block. Not at any sort of speed, mainly just to remind myself of the balance difference between it and my road bike and to check for any faults. None during the ride but the wet roads meant that it got filthy and needed a thorough clean and check over afterwards. The brake pads will need to be changed at some point this year, but they will be fine for a couple of months yet. I also took the di2 battery off and switched it for the spare and tidied up the ends of the bar tape.   

In the evening I did weights, core and stretching sessions to round out the week. My core session I upgraded to a tougher session that also included a 60 second plank at the end of it. I am overdue for that change anyway and a handful of minutes on the tribars in the morning reminded me that the shoulder and core positions on the TT bike are not properly replicated by my other training and need to be worked more specifically. 

This week was complete within itself but I didn't manage to make up for the carried core and stretching sessions from last week so they roll over again in to next week. 


Target totals - Swim 3.0 miles. Bike 30.0 miles. Run 18.0 miles. 2 short core, 1 short light weights and 3 short stretching sessions. 30 mins of yoga.

Monday - Commute ride to office 7.1 miles in 31 mins.
Commute ride from office 7.2 miles in 32 mins.
Swim with TPT 2,100m in 54 mins. 

Tuesday - Commute run to office 6.9miles in 56 mins.

Wednesday - Commute ride to office 7.1 miles in 33 mins.
Commute ride from office 7.1 miles in 38 mins.
Swim at bucksburn 1,600m in 36 mins. 

Thursday - Commute run to office 6.9miles in 60 mins.
Stretching and rollering session.

Friday - Reps run 3.6 miles in 31 mins.
Yoga session 16 mins.
Swim at bucksburn 2,200m in 45 mins. 

Saturday - Reps run 3.8 miles in 32 mins. 

Sunday - Swim at bucksburn 750m in 16mins.
Yoga session 15 mins.
TT bike check 3.2 miles in 13 mins.
Weights session.
Core session.
Stretching session. 


Actuals - Swim 4.1 miles (6,450 m). Bike 31.7 miles. Run 21.2 miles. 1 short core, 1 light weights and 2 stretching / rollering session. 31 mins of yoga. 

Cumulative (Cumulative target) [Cumulative Stretch target]
S 32.9 (29.0) [33.4], 

B 365.6 (290.0) [348.0], 
R 225.5 (185.0) [209.1].