week ending 8/10/06

Photo: This is probably the biggest Bonsai tree I have ever seen.


Photo: Me running along the Imperial palace. Its a beautiful 5-6k loop with loads of people running and cycling. The moat on the left circles the whole palace. Its a pretty amazing feet of engineering during that period of time.

Photo: On the way to the Imperial palace we came by all these painted cows in the business district. Apparently companies buy them and the money is donated to cancer research. This was Katrina and I's favourite. We cannot believe they don't get vandalised or stolen. Try to leave these out on the streets of Syndey one night and see what happens.

Goal for the week.
keep increasing volume. Absorb as much endurance work as I can in the lead up to the start of preparation for IM Japan. Focus on improving efficiency and economy at low hr's. Goal is to be able to run regularly at 125bpm and ride regularly at 120bpm. From there build

Monday
Swim: (45min) 2.2km. 1000 straight free. 700 drills. 2x100 mod hard, 4x50 hard. starting to get the feel back in the water. Will need to focus more on bilateral breathing to improve cardio fitness
Bike: (30min) 12k. Easy ride to and from pool

Tuesday
Bike: (1:5hrs) 43km, av sp 26.3kph. av hr 109bpm (-26bpm Aet). had a great ride this arvo. Glad I didn't go out in the rain this morning, things cleared up nicely. rode easy for 50min, then TT Aet -5-10bpm. was holding 34-35kph very easily with a low hr. Could be fatigue, but swimming really seems to hr my av hr's down across the board. legs felt strong and put in some surges sitting around 42kph for a couple k's at a time. let HR drift up to mod-hard (ie 148bpm)
Run: (1:02hrs) 11.8km, av hr 129bpm (-11bpm Aet). Heavy legs this morning. wasn't floating along. Probably still recovering from last weekends long ride.

Wednesday
Run: (41min) 7.5km, av hr 127bpm (-13bpm Aet). I'm starting to see regular runs under 130bpm, must be getting fitter. The pace feels the same but the hr is coming down. Goal is to do this run at the same pace with an av hr of 125bpm. Once I'm at 125bpm, that will be as low as I want to go with these easy recovery runs.

Thursday
Bike: (2:25hrs) 61km, av sp 25.1kph, av hr 108bpm. Endurance ride around Tokyo bay. Pretty hard to get the av sp going as there are quite a few stops with lights etc. Other then that legs feel good. Av hr seems to continue to drop with the same RPE. Things are looking good at the moment. No need to change anything yet.

Run test: (1hr), 11.27km, av hr 136bpm. 60min run test today. Decided to run as far as I could for 30min with a hr cap of 140 (Aet). Happy with the results at this stage. Rode 2.5 hrs easy this morning, probably had a little fatigue in the legs. Goal is to get my 1 hr test up to over 12k i the next 2 mths. I'll be doing a run focus period between now and then. My av hr was 5bpm below aet which is good and tells me a have a little top play with there and I need to start dialling into Aet effort better.
Friday
Typhoon hit tokyo. No training today.

Saturday
Run: (1:20hrs),15km, av hr 130bpm. Good endurance run this morning. Focused on holding form. HR seemed to drift a little high in the middle of the run and then settled back down again.

Swim: (45min) 25m pool. don't really like 25m pools, but this was one nice establishment.
10min free. series of 200m. 4-50 mod-hard, 400m drill. 2-100, 4-50 hard, 2-50, 1-50 very hard, 200 easy 1-50 max

Sunday
Bike: (5:04hrs), 135km, av sp 26.5kph, av hr 120bpm. Rode south to Yokohoma for 2hrs and the found the industrial 9km loop site on the way back. There must of been at least 300 riders out there. Awesome loop cyclists and triathletes every where.

Run off the bike: (30:40) 6km, av hr 138bpm. First run off the bike in months. legs are feeling great. Gmap this course and it is exactly 6km. RPE, pace and hr all right where I want it to be at this stage. happy to be running 5:06 off the bike with hr still under Aet pace (ie -2bpm)

Total for the week

swim: 1.5hrs
Bike: 9.38hrs
Run: 4.33hrs

Total: 15.41

My best week of training in a long while. This is the first week in probably close to two yrs where I haven't had any injuries to deal with. I hope I can keep this up week after week.

Fluro