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Up, up and away
I’m back and I’m rearing to go. I’ve been running again for 2 weeks now and my leg injury feels good. I’m not experiencing any pain while I run, but I do feel quite sore when I stretch afterwards. I’ll need to monitor this quite closely.
I think my main problem with the injuries I’m getting is that I’m still training with too much intensity. My current Aets for the bike and run are 135 and 142 respectively. Up until this point the majority of my riding has been in the 140-150 bpm range and my running has been around the 140bpm mark. At this intensity it has been impossible for me to achieve my weekly targets without breaking down. My goal has always been to be able to train around 20hrs PW. However, I have only ever once exceeded 20hrs. I always seem to breakdown very quickly and am left training much less then I would like to.
To overcome this problem I need to seriously slow down and start training in the right heart rate zones. If I don’t I know I’ll just head right back down that same path of getting burned out. After reading a few articles and doing a little research I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to train around the 120bpm mark on the bike and 130bpm mark on the run, as a starting point. This is not going to be easy as I know it is going to feel frustratingly slow at first as I think my aerobic capacity to train and race with a low hr is quite poor at the moment. But it is something I seriously need to focus on if I’m to achieve the bear minimum weekly volume needed in order to achieve a PB at Ironman Japan next year.
Over the last 2 weeks I’ve been able to put together a good 8 runs around that 130bpm mark. To date my lowest av hr for a run has been 127bpm, while my highest av hr for the last 8 runs has been 135bpm. Running in this range is slow. I can just hold onto around 5:20-5:30 pace. While previously I would never run anything slower then 5min k pace. Even after 2 weeks of running in the above hr range I am already seeing some improvements. There are times when I’m able to run around 5min k’s and still be holding 130bpm. While this is only for very small periods of time, I can feel that I’m getting better and quickly too.
Every 4 weeks I’ll test myself with either the Aet run test on the track or do a 10k TT on my marked out course. Before I leave for Japan in 9 weeks, my goal is to be able to run 10km in under 50min with an av hr below 135bpm.
On the bike my new hr target is going to be 120bpm. This is going to take some commitment. I would suspect riding at around 120bpm will be like sitting on 25kph. That is pedestrian paces, but is something I need to do. Why? Because I can’t keep going down the same path as before. I know now I’ll never improve that way. To really improve on the bike I need to work on my aerobic capacity at that low hr.
Once again if I stick with this new plan or new approach to IM training I hope that this time around I’ll start to see some big improvements again.
Things that I will stick with that I find really work well for me include
• Hills: riding and running in the hills does really make to strong
• BG work: I’ve only done this for brief periods at a time, but when I do it really does convert that hill strength into good TT strength.
• Frequency: More or get out there the better I get. Looking back through my logs my fitness really starts to improve when I start training often.
• TT: plenty of TTing in the right zone works well. When I was training for WA04 I would TT 2-3 times PW on my own at 140bpm (still too high) I experienced huge success with this by riding a 2:30 at Forster ½ that year and then a 5:11 at WA. The only drawback was that I probably spent too much time TTing at Aet +10, rather then Aet to Aet +5bpm. Consequently my 3:58 marathon was around 20min too slow.
Things that I will do less of this time around
• Less intensity. Bring the hr’s down into there correct zones
• Don’t hammer the hills. I have a habit of smashing myself up any hill I come to, especially if I’m riding with other people. Time to let that one go.
• Don’t try to make up sessions. If I miss a session I need to let it go and not try to make it up somewhere else. This will drive me more in trying to be more consistent throughout the week.
• Don’t run the same courses. I have a habit of running the same course and therefore tend to run to a time rather then effort. I will make sure that each run is different and based on effort alone. Occasionally I will run my marked course to check that I making improvements and to control my efforts.
Well that just about wraps it up for me. Time to start knocking out as many 20hr weeks as possible. Let the games begin. Boy I love this stuff.
Paul
I think my main problem with the injuries I’m getting is that I’m still training with too much intensity. My current Aets for the bike and run are 135 and 142 respectively. Up until this point the majority of my riding has been in the 140-150 bpm range and my running has been around the 140bpm mark. At this intensity it has been impossible for me to achieve my weekly targets without breaking down. My goal has always been to be able to train around 20hrs PW. However, I have only ever once exceeded 20hrs. I always seem to breakdown very quickly and am left training much less then I would like to.
To overcome this problem I need to seriously slow down and start training in the right heart rate zones. If I don’t I know I’ll just head right back down that same path of getting burned out. After reading a few articles and doing a little research I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to train around the 120bpm mark on the bike and 130bpm mark on the run, as a starting point. This is not going to be easy as I know it is going to feel frustratingly slow at first as I think my aerobic capacity to train and race with a low hr is quite poor at the moment. But it is something I seriously need to focus on if I’m to achieve the bear minimum weekly volume needed in order to achieve a PB at Ironman Japan next year.
Over the last 2 weeks I’ve been able to put together a good 8 runs around that 130bpm mark. To date my lowest av hr for a run has been 127bpm, while my highest av hr for the last 8 runs has been 135bpm. Running in this range is slow. I can just hold onto around 5:20-5:30 pace. While previously I would never run anything slower then 5min k pace. Even after 2 weeks of running in the above hr range I am already seeing some improvements. There are times when I’m able to run around 5min k’s and still be holding 130bpm. While this is only for very small periods of time, I can feel that I’m getting better and quickly too.
Every 4 weeks I’ll test myself with either the Aet run test on the track or do a 10k TT on my marked out course. Before I leave for Japan in 9 weeks, my goal is to be able to run 10km in under 50min with an av hr below 135bpm.
On the bike my new hr target is going to be 120bpm. This is going to take some commitment. I would suspect riding at around 120bpm will be like sitting on 25kph. That is pedestrian paces, but is something I need to do. Why? Because I can’t keep going down the same path as before. I know now I’ll never improve that way. To really improve on the bike I need to work on my aerobic capacity at that low hr.
Once again if I stick with this new plan or new approach to IM training I hope that this time around I’ll start to see some big improvements again.
Things that I will stick with that I find really work well for me include
• Hills: riding and running in the hills does really make to strong
• BG work: I’ve only done this for brief periods at a time, but when I do it really does convert that hill strength into good TT strength.
• Frequency: More or get out there the better I get. Looking back through my logs my fitness really starts to improve when I start training often.
• TT: plenty of TTing in the right zone works well. When I was training for WA04 I would TT 2-3 times PW on my own at 140bpm (still too high) I experienced huge success with this by riding a 2:30 at Forster ½ that year and then a 5:11 at WA. The only drawback was that I probably spent too much time TTing at Aet +10, rather then Aet to Aet +5bpm. Consequently my 3:58 marathon was around 20min too slow.
Things that I will do less of this time around
• Less intensity. Bring the hr’s down into there correct zones
• Don’t hammer the hills. I have a habit of smashing myself up any hill I come to, especially if I’m riding with other people. Time to let that one go.
• Don’t try to make up sessions. If I miss a session I need to let it go and not try to make it up somewhere else. This will drive me more in trying to be more consistent throughout the week.
• Don’t run the same courses. I have a habit of running the same course and therefore tend to run to a time rather then effort. I will make sure that each run is different and based on effort alone. Occasionally I will run my marked course to check that I making improvements and to control my efforts.
Well that just about wraps it up for me. Time to start knocking out as many 20hr weeks as possible. Let the games begin. Boy I love this stuff.
Paul
posted by Paul Fleuren at 7:43 pm
1 Comments:
That's a great story. Waiting for more. »
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