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Fluro's Ironman Training (FIT)

Face your fears live your dreams

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Week ending 18/06/06



Photo.
Chris McCormarck on his way to winning the Honu 1/2 recently

Training has been consistent. I’ve managed 3 good weeks of running and I've decided to have more of a recovery week this week. As of next week I’m going to really start increasing the volume through frequency and plenty of low heart rate session. My goal is just to get comfortable knocking out 18-22 hr weeks without even thinking about doing any intensity work. Once I’m comfortable doing this I’ll then move onto the next phase of training, which will include inserting BG, hill work, and interval work at IMpace.

Monday
Total rest day

Tuesday
Bike 30min (14k). easy spin.
Run: 55min (10k). av hr 127bpm. 73% of FT. A good run. Whats going on. I should be in pain. My second run with an av hr of 127bpm. I never thought that would be possible

Wednesday
Bike: 2:30 (68k). av hr 119bpm. 71.7% of FT. Focused purely on hr today. kept hr below 120bpm as much as possible. Did 1x20min TT at 130bpm. Speed wasn’t too bad. Thought I would of only averaged around 25kph at this hr range.

Thursday
Bike 30min (14k). easy spin.
Run: 53min (10k). av hr 133bpm. Running on IM legs this morning. Felt pretty fatigued and heavy in the legs. Hr was a little higher then what I would of liked.

Friday
Bike 3:11 (87k). av hr 131bpm. (78% of FT)strong westerly this morning. Felt a little tired this morning. Hr has been up about 5bpm for the last 2-3 sessions. Will need to back things off slightly.

Saturday
Run: 1:16 (14k) av hr 133bpm. 76% of FT. right in the zone today. Had a good even paced run. Hr never elevated and I managed to keep the hr down on some of the hills. no issues with lower leg even the stretch afterwards felt pretty good.

Sunday
Swim: 35min (2k). Belmore Basin. A bit chilly in the water. Hands and feet were getting quite cold after 35min. did 2 laps around the basin and then a hard effort out to the island and back


fluro

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

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

Monday, June 12, 2006

week ending 11/06/06

Week ending 11/06/06

A good week of training this week. I managed to put together 4 runs without issues. I’m very happy to be back running again. My riding is coming along and the consistency of the last 2 weeks is showing through. I find there is something about doing 4 sessions in each discipline. Whenever, I hit a week where I have either run x4 or biked x4 there is a big kick in fitness, regardless of intensity or volume. I’m starting to believe now that frequency is a key component of improving your overall fitness. Even though I’m only running up to 45min I find that I’m getting some excellent gains just by running often. There is also a reduced risk of injury because I not breaking down as much by doing long sessions. Those long sessions are important and will come into play once I’m consistently riding and running at least 5-6 sessions PW each for a good 6-8 months. The volume will take care of itself and training often allows me to recovery well, because, as I said early I’m not breaking down by training too long for now.
Over the next few months I will endeavour to build my long run up to 1.5 hrs and my long bike up to 4-4.5 hrs. Between now and August I will aim to train with as much frequency as I can handle. The volume will obviously be there and hopefully I can comfortably training between 15-20 hrs PW without breaking down.

Monday
Bike 14k (30min). easy spin

Tuesday
Bike: 67k (2:20) av hr 133bpm. rode easy up to Stanwell then we did a 20k TT from bridge to bridge all into a strong headwind.
Run 7k (42min) av hr 135bpm. very easy recovery run today. focused hard on keeping hr below 135bpm. need to improve efficiency at those lower intensities

Wednesday
Swim 2k (60min). We did drill for the whole hour today. Worked on body position and hand placement in the water at the start of the catch.
Weights: 40min upper body.

Thursday
Bike: 30min easy spin
Run: 45min (8.5k) av hr 127! Bpm now that’s low. ran at a very easy pace. focused on holding good form for the whole time. Time to learn how to run slow and efficient, in order to get faster at IMpace. This will now be my bread and butter pace HR for a while to try and improve my efficiency at lower intensities.

Friday
Bike: 2:15 (62k) av hr 127bpm. very easy ride to Sandon point then lake Illawarra. Low av hr which is good
Saturday
Bike: 3:20 (101k). av hr 131bpm. good steady ride this morning. steady on the hills and IMpace on the flats (ie 145bpm). Phil cranked it up right at the end, managed to hold on then pull a turn at about 45-47kph. Hr was peaking out at about 177bpm. Enjoying my riding a lot at the moment.. Not being so obsessed with how far we ride is making riding fun.

Sunday
Run: 1:03 (12km) av hr 133bpm. My first run over an hr! No issues with the leg. I'm stoked at the moment to be back running. Keeping the hr right down is the key at the moment. I'm running slow but at least I'm running.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Week ending 28/05/06




Photo
This is one of our regular group rides. We start at North Beach (6am) and ride up to the top of Bald hill. After we regroup we then usually continue on through the RNP.


Feeling mentally fresh at the moment. Looking forward to building up the bike volume now and to start focusing on frequency. Now that winter is here, I’ll probably cut back on swimming and concentrate mainly on the bike and to run injury free. This will mean no hard running at all for a while, at least until I comfortably running around 60-80 k’s PW without issues.

Monday
Bike 83.4k (2:40). Av hr 145bpm. BT session. Big session today. The pace was on from the time we hoped on the bike til the time we finished. Controlled the effort on the hills, and TT’d for the last 1.5 hrs home (steady). A quality ride, with a bit of everything.

Swim: 3k (60min). Did lunchtime squad about 2 hrs after ride.
400 free
3-100 drill
20-50 on 45
16-50 on 55
12-50 paddles, band, buoy on the 50
Just made the 20-50 on the 45. needed to push quite hard towards the end to make base.
On the 16-50 I Bilateral breathed the whole time holding around 40sec pace.
Shoulders were really packing it in on the last 12-50.
Tuesday
Run: 6k (29:20) av hr 142bpm. Seem to have strained the arch of my foot after this run. Very sore to walk on at the moment
Wednesday
Run: 6.5k (32:35) av hr 141bpm. foot still very sore. It doesn’t feel too bad to run on but boy does it hurt afterwards
Thursday
Bike 38k (1:30) av hr 136bpm. Rode up to MT keira, gates were locked to the lookout so we did the Picton loop. Easy ride back home
Friday
Weights Upper body 45min
Saturday
Bike: 108k (3:40). Av hr 124bpm. felt pretty good this morning. Pushed the pace hard for the last 30min. Rode steady to mod-hard (ie 160bpm cap) on the hills.
Sunday

Total: 11:16.