Week ending 31/9/06

Photo 1
And you think your garage is small. I still can't work out how this guy gets out of his car, because on both sides he needs to turn the mirrors in.



Photo 2
This is the pool I finally found and guess what this is at peak hour 6pm!

Monday
Run: 30min (33:57), 5.7km, recovery run this morning. Lower back was stiff. Aim for frequency this week. Used Gmap to work out distance, not sure how accurate it is, but will stick with it

Tuesday
Bike: (1:40hrs), 47.2km, av hr 115bpm. Strong headwind going out (siiting on 26-28kph) and tailwind all the way home (sitting 37-39kph). Did 2 x 20/10 aiming for Aet hrs (130-135bpm). Feels good to be TTing again.

Wednesday
Run: (1hr) 11.4km. av hr 133bpm. 20min easy (126bpm), then 5min on (135-140bpm) 5min off (130-135bpm). Ran well today. feels good to be doing a few efforts at Aet. Legs are holding up well

Thursday
Bike: (1:10hr), av hr 110bpm, av sp 28kph. Easy ride. Did a little TT work for the last 20min. Feels good to have TT bars back on the bike again.
Swim (30min) 1.4km. 400, 2 x 200, 4 x100, 4 x 50 all free. Working my way slowly back into swimming after a 2mth layoff.
Bike: (30min) 12km Easy ride to and from the pool

Friday
Total rest day

Saturday
Bike: (4:40hrs) 131km, av hr 122bpm, av sp 28.1kph. rode as far as I could up the river. Made 63km before I ran out of bike track. hrs 1-3 easy, 40min at Aet -5bpm. 20min easy 7min mod-hard. Hit the wall at 4hrs due to lack of nutrtion. Need to start taking much more on these long rides.
Sunday
Run: (1:20hrs) av hr 128bpm, 15.8km. Found the Imperial Palace today. 25min there and then 25min to run around. 30min run back. Had a few stops to take photos (check out blog). Other then that a good run. Having buns come along on the bike is a bonus. I get an accurate measure of distance.

Total
swim: (1hr) 2 sessions
Bike: (8hrs) 3 sessions
Run: (2:53hrs) 3 sessions

Total: 12:23
A pretty good week of training. A little light on frequency but I got some good volume in with my LSD bike and run this week. My leg has pulled up pretty well. It feels good to finally be back in the water again. Next week I'll aim for more frequency and just let the volume take care of itself. From now to mid January will be all endurance work before I start my specific IM training in the lead up to Japan on 27th June 2007.
Well done Scotty H. A big PB at the Gold Coast 1/2 by around 15min. A 4:34 is a very solid day and you cracked the top 10 in your age group. keep it up.

Fluro

Week ending 24/9/06

Photo 1
Me running along the canal



Photo 2
Katrina on the bike. trying to keep up with me running ;-)



Photo 3
Map of the canal system I like to run through









Training log
Swim: 0hrs
Bike: 6.25hrs
Run: 3.37hrs



Total 10:02 hrs


Things are on the way up. My leg is feeling better after this week of intensive stretching. My bike hrs are slower coming back too. I haven't been able to swim as they are having some sort of national swim champs going on at the pool. I should be able to start swimming tommorrow.
The goal next week is to bump the volume up to around 15hrs. I'll aim for 3-4 sessions (9-10hrs) on the bike, 4-5 runs (5hrs), and hopefully 1-2 swim sessions (1-2 hrs).

fluro

P.S Next race IM Japan. May 07

week ending 17/9/2006

Final hit 10hrs of training in Tokyo. It only took me 4 weeks to do it, but it does feel pretty good. It has been a very hectic month, settling in over here. We have had to find a place to live, buy all our household items and start teaching in a new school. I think last week was our first week where we were actually able to start to find some normality again. The language barrier has been a bit of an issue and what would normal take a day or two to sort out takes around 1-2 weeks over here if you don’t speak the local language.

For this week I managed to do 4 rides and 3 runs. The big ride for the week was Saturday endurance session of 4hrs. It ended up being a hammer fest for the last 10-15k as two riders tried to blow me away. They were sitting on each other wheel while I decided to hang back about 100m and stay as long as I could with them. We were riding at around 36-38kph which was pretty comfortable. They were getting tired and I cranked things up to about 41-43 kph to see if they would go with me. They didn’t and I felt pretty chuffed with myself. My hr was sitting around 170-171bpm and it never gets much higher then that. I was definitely peaking out and could not possibly ride any harder.
I found a great Oly pool to swim in, but it is only open around 3 times PW due to competitions and bookings. So I didn’t get to swim at all this week. The pool opens again on Thursday. I’m looking forward to getting back into the water again.

fluro

Volume v's intensity

Below is a comment I have pulled straight from slowtitch, as I think this is good and worth sharing. For me personally to get better at IM racing you need to focus firstly on getting in the minimal amount of volume. This is the hardest thing to achieve in a single week. You then need to back this up week in, week out, for at least 3-5 yrs before you could even consider coming close to your potential. So what is the minimum amount of volume required each week to start moving towards your athletic potential. I think it starts by at least riding 2 IM's (approx 12hrs) spread over 3-4 sessions every week, running 2 marathons spread over 5-6 sessions(approx 7hrs) every week and then swimming at least 20k PW. If you can do that consistently and all, in and around your Aet, then you'll be well on your way to achieving your potential. Remember this is the minimum, this is where you actually start to train for the IM. This is hard to achieve for the working athlete as it will put you at around 20-24 hrs PW. Thats not easy and it will be near impossible if you start inserting periods of high intensity work. The recovery costs will impede your ability to get the minimum volume in each week to develop your long term endurance capabilites. Try it for a while, it will work for around 8-10 weeks before you'll start to burn out both physically and mentally. There is a time and place for intensity and the best time for that is during the peak period of 3-7 weeks where you get to reduce the volume and ramp up the intensity. Don't attempt to do both and definitely don't try to substitute volume with intensity, That one really mess up how your body adapts and grows. Think about it, you are putting in some consistent weeks of volume and then you miss a few sessions and need to cut some sessions short. You decide that inside you doing your regular medium run of 1.5 hrs you do a shorter 50min run and harder. All that will do is start the peaking process. No need for that during the base phase. Don't mess with you body by chopping and changing the sessions you do. Find a basic week that will maximise your bodies ability to make steady long lasting gains. Avoid hammer sessions. They will only confuse your body and give you little long terms benefits. That is why the peak period is so much shorter then the base period. High itensity sessions give you a quick fix that doesn't really last. It's the base endurance work that will have you working towards your true potential.

Slowtiwitch.

Cycling is a dumb sport. You have your feet tied to the pedals and those go in circles.

Because injury risk is low, training approaches that emphasize intensity can be as successful as those that emphasize volume. If you take the concept of IF and TSS, you can think of two different weekly routines with the same weekly training load (sum of TSS'), but one using training sessions with higher IF's (more intensity) and another using sessions with lower IF's (more volume).

While the results of these two approaches would be very similar, the long-term impact of them will be different based on the characteristics of each athlete, as the "mental load' of these approaches is clearly not the same. While it is easy to mantain Zn2, the concentration you need to mantain higher intensities grows exponentionally. The long-term mental impact of these approaches is very different, with the low-intensity approach being easier to sustain on the long term. While most athletes have difficult with either the extreme intensity or the extreme volume approaches, the great majority of athletes handles better a training approach that is definitely closer to having more volume.

I have important news for some people out there. Not every athlete looks forward to do a 2x20min Zn4 every week, trying to beat the power levels from last week. Some of them, I would even venture to say a lot of them, absolutely DREAD these sessions. This doesn't make them worse athletes without "what it takes" to realize their full potential. Some of the most talented athletes that I coach are like that.

Very often the approaches that emphasize intensity are termed more "efficient". However, if you follow the path that will lead you to mental burnout and posterior cycles of coming back to what "worked" before and burning out AGAIN, where's the efficiency there? Where's the long-term development?

So in order to get faster on the bike, the principle I stated some weeks still stands: More is MORE. But YOU (or your coach) have to find the balance between volume and intensity that both will increase your training load, and that can be mantained consistently on the long-term. The answer to this is obviously individual, as athletes' mental characteristics are far more diverse than their physical characteristics.

-
Paulo Sousa

Training environment

went for one of my typical rides this morning. That's the secenery you get along the river for 60k's one way and then 60k's back. Doesn't really matter what side of the river your on. The freeways over here are amazing. triple deckers are everywhere and they are full of traffic 24 hrs a day.
At least I had a good ride this morning even if it was raining. Feels great to be back finding some routines again.

fluro

Settling in

Photos

Here are a couple of photos that show my students working on a literacy activity.

Finally got my bike back yesterday and I was very excited about riding this morning. However, it rained for the first time since my arrival in Tokyo. I couldn't believe my luck. I don't care what happens tomorrow morning. I will be out there rain, hail or shine. After seeing how well Scott is training and the improvements he is getting, I'm pysched up now to keep up with him. It will be fun chasing down each other over the next 8-10mths and comparing our progress from opposite sides of the world.

You'll need to follow the link to my training log to follow us progress. Let the dual begin

fluro

I'm back

looks like I have access to the net again on a regular basis. Moving to Tokyo has not been easy. While some things happen at the drop of a hat, other things take ages. I should be able to start posting regularly again soon.
Training has taken a bit of a back seat over the last 4 weeks, but now I'm settled in, my weekly hours should start to pick up again.

The photo shows me second from the right. This was an open day at the school I'm working at. The owner of the school gave us a Yukata and shoes as a welcoming present. pretty cool

fluro