week ending 26/11/06

Photo
This was part of a 6min standing session. Katrina caught me off guard here. These really burn your legs.



Photo
Not much room. But at least we have a balcony in Tokyo











Photo
I was pedalling so fast here, the photo couldn't even capture my speed. Only joking, slower shutter speed to try and get some of those city views in.













Why you need a Windtrainer.
Last night I did my second windtrainer on my new Elite Fluid trainer. I managed to do 1hr and 40min out on the balcony overlooking Tokyo. One thing I have already noticed is that the amount of work you can achieve on these things compared to riding on the road. My total calorie expenditure confirmed this. Last night I burnt 1250cal in 1hr and 40min at an av hr of 121bpm. For me to burn the same amount of calories with a road ride at the same effort, in terms of hr, I would need to ride for 2hr and 20minutes.
For those of you out there who are time limited a windtrainer is for you. I would say a 2hr session on a windtrainer would be equivalent to a 3hr road ride in terms of effort. That will give you some extra mileage, especially during the week. While it may not appear that way on paper, in terms of effort, it can definitely be seen and felt.
There’s more. If you have a windtrainer, there is no reason to ever miss a workout again due to bad weather. Just ride the windtrainer. Put on a good DVD or your favourite music and away you go. Last night I got home from work at 5pm. It was already dark and cold outside. So I set myself up on the balcony, put on Superman returns (which was crap by the way) and set off on a very high quality uninterrupted session. It can be mentally challenging sitting on these things, but, with a little variety in what you do, you be well on your way to improving your overall bike fitness.

Monday
Run: (38min), 7km, av hr 138bpm (79% of FT). High hr today. First run back since operation. A bit disappointed that my hr was so high. Legs felt a little awkward and achy running. I think I was trying to protect my leg injury. overall, I'm glad to be back running again.

Tuesday
Bike: W/T (1:40), av hr 121bpm, 40.3km. (72% @FT). Mental challenging to sit on a wind trainer. Comparing it to the road it is a much tougher workout. On the road I burnt 750 cal. On todays session on the W/T I burnt 1250 cal. Good time management here.
Workout summary
50min easy
5 x 1min single leg drill
10min easy
6x6x6min (ST/BG/IMeffort). hr was really climbing on the BG so I dropped it back into the 53/14 to let things level out a little.
need to still get my head around doing W/T sessions. Time seems to move sooo slow.

Wednesday
Run (49min) 9km, av hr 137bpm.(78%@FT) hr is still elevated by around 5-7bpm at the moment. I think I might still be recoverying from the operation. Will need to check morning hr. Other then that legs felt much better then Mondays run. No soreness in the feet and ITB was good today.

Thursday
Run: (1hr), 11.2k, av hr 135bpm. (77.6%@FT). I confirmed my suspicions this morning. My resting hr is around 7-8bpm higher then normal. I'm sitting at 49bpm whereas I'm normally 41-42bpm. Body must be still repairing itself after op.
ran better. decided to head out on a new course so I would be concerned with time and pace, just ran off RPE and hr. Did 45min easy then 15min at Upper steady 145bpm.

Friday
Run: (46min), 8.5km, av hr 129bpm. (74%@FT). Nice easy recovery run this morning. hr was much more settled today.
Bike: (1:02hr), W/T, 26km, 113bpm. (68%@FT). Rode the first 30min easy. Then did 20min at Aet (lower range 130bpm). 215 watts av for the 20min. Struggled a little tonight with motivation. Its a Friday!

Saturday
Run: (1:30), 17km, av hr 129bpm. (74%@FT). Good run today. Form felt good and was running relaxed. Inserted around 10-15min of fartlek efforts towards the end at 140bpm. legs started to get tiered at around 1:20. I'll need a few more of these runs before I start running longer.

Sunday
Bike: (5hrs), 135km, av hr 121bpm. (72.9%@FT). Solid ride today. Did the first 2hrs easy, then a 1hr TT at IMpace (140bpm). Picked up some cyclists and then did a few hard surges around 150-160bpm. Finished off the ride with a bit of strength work when I found some small climbs in Roppongi.
Run: (31min), 5.8km, av hr 134bpm. easy run off a pretty solid long bike ride. Tired today and hr was up.

weekly summary
swim: 0
bike: 7:42
run: 5:14

Total 12:56

My running is right back where it left off. It took a few days for my hr to settle down though. I did 2 W/T sessions during the week and 1 long bike ride on the weekend. I'm very happy that I have kept the long bike ride over 5 hrs going for 3 months now. It's starting to feel pretty comfortable mentally and physically riding that distance each week.
Once Scott enters base 2 we'll benchmark our long bike ride at 5.5hrs. It only gets easy and easy the more you do it. I've had my long run floating around 1:20-1:30 and I'll now start bumping that up to around 1:45, for the next 2mths.

Fluro