">

Fluro's Ironman Training (FIT)

Face your fears live your dreams

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

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

Friday, November 24, 2006

I am a Professional

For those of you who don't know. I'm a primary school teacher at K-Internationl School in Tokyo. We are currently doing a unit on transport. Today our principal was away at a regional cross country carnival. I couldn't resist the temptation and sent her this email today.

Hi Sasha,

I thought since you were out at the sports carnival today, I would like keep you update with the progress of grade 3. I like to consider myself a highly professional teacher and I’m very devoted to delivering quality teaching in the classroom. I never mix my personal life (ie training for Ironman Japan) with my work commitments. However, as the photo shows I may have strayed only! slightly today.


Paul





Good morning grade 3. Todays lesson will be on transport. It should only take 2hrs.



Excuse me sir, but what does Aero mean?

Saturday, November 18, 2006

I'm Back


It's been 9 days since my operation and I went for my first ride today. I'm pretty dam excited at the moment. I have endorphins running through my body again and my 1.5hr very easy ride went well. No issues with the leg at all.
On my long rides down along Akawarra river, I can usually get in a solid 5hrs of riding without a single red light to contend with. However, as the photo shows I do need to deal with these minor obstacles. There are around 7-8 on the way out and then the same again coming back. Each time I need to click out to get through these things. I really knocks your av sp right down on the bike. Overall though I would take these anyday over riding through the city.
Stay tuned. I'm totally pumped at the moment to keep ramping up my training over the next 6-7 months in preparation for Japan. I've done 4 IM's now and in all cases I only ever averaged around 10-11 hr PW. In most cases I have set myself back with overuse injuries and inconistent training. This time around I really want to boost my training up to over 15hrs PW on average. This will include recovery weeks.
I'm going to start my 20wk IM program next week with Scotty H. The only difference being that when he enters build 1 I'll stay in the base phase cycle until I'm 20wks out from Japan and then I'll run through the program. Prior to my operation I was focusing mainly on my running. I was up to running consistently around 5 times PW (5-6hrs)and once I'm fully recovered I think I'll continue with the run focus for at least another 2-3 months, before I move over to the bike.
Thats about it from me for now. Hope everyone is well

Talk soon

fluro

Friday, November 17, 2006

The plan: 20wk IM plan

I've now completed a 20wk Ironman training program. It details every session. If you would like a copy email me or post a comment with your email address and I will forward a copy to you. If you decide to go ahead with the program I'm willing to help you out as much as possible along the way.

By the way I'm not charging anything other then a beer after the race ;-)

fluro

Saturday, November 11, 2006

The Lance factor

Lance training

Lance Armstrong Alpe D'Huez
2001


Cycling moments to remember

Looking for some inspiration. Check out the glare Lance gives Jan before he blows him to pieces. Then wait for his comment about riding into 3m of snow, when the driver says he needs to stop, "whats that". Gold



fluro

Day trip down to Odaiba

The photos below are from a day trip Buns and I did to Odaiba. It's a nice place full of shops for the buns and artifical beaches for me. It's about the closest thing we have over here to the Gold Coast.



Photo
Aqua city and that amazing building with the big ball. Aqua city is full of restaurants and shops to keep the buns busy for hours and hours.


Photo
Just one of the many bridges that gets lit up at night. I really enjoy doing runs along this river. The views are forever changing


Photo
Rainbow Bridge














It's been 2 days since the operation and I seem to be recovering well. I can walk around again on my leg and the wounds seem to be healing well too.

There won't be any training being done probably until around Thursday or Friday of next week. Hopefully by then I'll be able to get back into some light runing and riding.


I thought it would be a good time to push those operations photos down the page a little bit.

Friday, November 10, 2006

varicose veins op

I hope the photos don't gross anyone out. This was the first operation of about 3-4 more yet to come. I had my veins stripped back in 1997 and as you can see they have come back. The doctor here said this should have never have happened if they actually were stripped. I'm bit confused and in quite a bit of pain at the moment.







I don't know why I'm posting this, but I'm bored at home, on my own, in Tokyo.

For those of you who don't know I been having trouble with varicose veins on and off for about 10years now and I decided to go in and have the operation.

It appeared to be a success except for the pain I'm in right at this moment. The drugs must be wearing off!

The doc didn't put me to sleep which was a bit of a suprise. This started to freak me out as I new what I was going to be in for. He pumped some numbing drugs into my leg to make sure I wouldn't/shouldn't feel a thing. Well I didn't for most of the time, and when things started to hurt, he just injected more drugs into that area.

I can't tell how stressed out I became when he made that first cut, even though I couldn't feel it I knew exactly what he was doing and when he was doing it. The first incision was about the length of my finger 1/2 way up my leg between my groin and knee. He then pulled out the pliers and started searching around for some veins. Once he found one in my leg, he then just pulled on it until it came out. He then clamps it close to the main vein to stop the blood from entering and then cuts it. He then uses the pliers again to pull the cut vein from the muscle. It wasn't very pleasant feeling someone tug away at your insides. Blood going everywhere.After a few tugs the vein rips off from whatever it was attached to inside my leg.
I just couldn't bring myself to sit up and look at what he was doing, too stressful.
This went on for about 2 hrs and three major cuts later and around 50-60 stiches, I'm sent home. No mucking around over here. I literally walked out of the hospital, jumped on a train and came straight home. I knew I had to get home quick, before the drugs wore off.
The worst part of the operation was probably when I got to sit up and see that they forgot to take away the tray with my veins. Man that tray was full. That freaked me out seeing all those veins and blood everywhere, knowing it was all mine. That was my ticket to get home ASAP.

Sausages anyone

Thanks for reading. I'll go back to being bored again

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

week ending 13/11/06

Here are a couple more photos from our trip away to Nikko.





















Goal this week is to maintain consistency up until Thursday anyway. Then I need to go in for a minor operation on my right leg (varicose veins). Hopefully, my recovery will allow me to resume training again by the weekend. Will need to see what the Doc says.

Monday

Tuesday
Run: (38min), 7km, av hr 135bpm. Almost didn't go this morning. The weather was horrendous. HR was higher then normal. Not one of my better runs.
Bike (2hrs), 54km, av hr 110bpm. man I was glad to just stay on my bike this afternoon. Probably not the best decision to go out and ride. apparently northern japan was hit by its worst ever cyclone. I'm wondering if this was the tail end of it.


Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Nikko, Japan


Photo 1
The Haiden temple, hidden amongst the giant red cedar trees. Words or pictures can't describe how this place felt.


Photo 2
Entrance to Tosho-gu, which is a five storey pagola built in 1650. The pagola is said to have no foundations and swings on a pendulum in case of an earthquake.



Photo 3
6am in the morning and I'm 1/2 way up a pretty steep mountain. There wasn't much running going on here. Thats the view looking back down into Nikko. This climb took me 45min to get to the top and was at the start of my 2hr run. Yikes!


Photo 4
1.5hrs into my long run and I came across this bridge. It's called the Shin-kyo bridge. Built in the 17th century and legend says it was actually two snakes spanning across the river to help the buddist monk Shodo Shonin cross. Check out the colour of the water. It was icey cold.






Photo 5
This was part of my run course. It was steep. It felt soo good to be out in the bush again climbing mountains with no-one around in icey cold conditions.













Photo 6.
Katrina and I(our first trip away together in Japan) as we hopped off the train at Nikko. Looking forward to dumping our backpacks and doing some sightseeing.












Had a great couple of days up in the Japanese Alps. Nikko was cold and quite high up in altitude. I went for an early 2hr run and found some incredible trails along the way. I came across temples,a 400year old bridge and hot springs. This was probably the most scenic run I have ever done. I will definitely venture back here again soon.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

School Holidays and the Life of Pi


Well katrina and I have a week off with school holidays. I went out and bought a book from our school festival. The life of Pi. I'll let you know soon what it was like.
We are heading up to the little town called Nikko. It's about a 2 hr bullet train trip north of Tokyo and we are thoroughly looking forward to getting up into the hills. A little down time and some trail runs is what will be on the menu for the next couple of days.
I'll post some photos over the weekend.

cheers
fluro
P.S Thanks Steve for the inspiration you have given me to start reading again.