week ending 13/01/07

Photo: This is Sapa with the mountains in the background. It was just a good place I wish we could of stayed longer. Damm Tours!



Photo: This was the other tribe we met during our 6-7 hr hike. We only ever saw women as the men where generally off hunting for bears and pig. Plus the men don't speak any english and apparently have no desire to be westernised.



Photo: As you can see these girls were tiny. Not even 5 ft tall. Katrina is walking next to a girl called Lily and she could speak a little english. She was 23yrs old and has 1 child. We were told until recently these women would get married at 12-13yrs and have around 11-12 children. Lily stayed right by Katrina's side for 4hrs. In the end Katrina bought a little bag and blanket off her for a me $2.00. The minute the transactions was complete she started making her way back up the mountain to meet the next lot of tourists.


Monday
Run: (45min), 8km, av hr 137bpm, First run back since Vietnam. hr was a little high and feet felt hot running.
Stretching: (30min) of stretching and core work

Tuesday
Run: (45min, 7km, av hr 130bpm. Terrible run. The pain in my left leg this morning was severe. Could only manage 5min of running and 1min of walking to get myself back home.
Bike: (1:18) W/T, 30km, av hr 118bpm. 40min easy 5x1min single leg drill, 3min RI 3x3min of MSS with a 1min RI. (140bpm, 250watts). leg felt better the more I rode. Kept cadence up around 90rpm for this session.
Stretch: (20min)

Wednesday
Bike: (2hrs), 52km, av hr 126bpm. 40% easy, 40% Aet, 20% TT @ ateady, av cad 84rpm. First road ride back. Legs felt good. Alot of stops with trafiic lights today

Thursday
Bike: (50min) W/T, 22km, av hr 119bpm. high cadence session. 30min of high cadence ie 95rpm, then 7 x 1min 110+rpm, with a 3min RI. hr was climbing to around 145bpm in my 39/17.
Run: (46min), 8.5km, av hr Much better run today. legs felt great. 2 days of stretching has helped. kept hr right down and made sure I ran on soft ground to lessen the impact
Stretch: (20min) stretch and core work

Friday
Run: (51min), 9.5km, av hr 125bpm. felt great running today. No issues at all. Stayed on soft surfaces for the majority of the time. This seems to help with the recovery. Picked up the pace in the last 10min and finished off with some surges.

Saturday
Bike: (4:05hrs), 108km, av hr 129bpm. Damm cold this morning. left at 5;30am and couldn't feel my fingers or ears for a good 2.5hrs. man my ears were killing me.
Hit the first 3hrs of this ride pretty well. did a 50min TT at Steady in that last hour. Then between hr 3-4 I fell apart. Neck was really sore and I was sore on the saddle. 4 weeks without riding caught up with me.
Found a new path to get out of Tokyo. So many less lights to contend with.

Sunday
Bike: (1hr), 25km, av hr 108bpm. Very easy spin around town.
Run: (1:03), av hr 136bpm, 12km. Main set 5 x 1km repeats at Steady with a 1k easy run inbetween. legs felt good running. Good way to finish off the week.

Total 14:33
Swim 0
Bike 9:13
Run 4:10
Core 1:10

Good week to resume training. Managed 5 bikes and 5 runs this week. Its a good platform for me now to start building on. The aim next week is to ride 4-5 sessions again but increase my running up to 6 sessions. The body is holding up well and I put alot of this down to doing 3 solid stretching sessions with a little core work at the end.

For those that are interested. here is a link to epic camp NZ and there has been some good quality training going on once again from the boys. These guys just don't seem to have any limits to how much they can absorb. Boy I would love to do one of these one day.
Epic camp NZ

Also if you want to listen to some good interviews with Gordo Byrn and Scott Molina try this link Gordo interview He has some pretty good insights into training for IM's Make sure you listen to episode 40.
fluro