week ending 28/01/2006

Photo 1
Yep here I am. It's Monday morning at about 8am and this guy walks by and offers me yesterdays Sunday Telegraph from Australia. That is Siagon for you.












Photo 2
This is one of the reasons why I didn't get to run much in Vietnam. There was just nowhere to run, even at 6am in the morning. No footpath, nowhere to cross the road and soo many bikes.


Photo 3
We loved this cafe on the corner. It was a great place to sit down, have a cup of coffee or two and just watch the world go by. So much goes on in Siagon the place and its people just never stop entertaining you.






Rest period this week. Will take it easy from Monday to Friday as I have been training for the last 14 days straight. Will have 2 zero days on Monday and Friday. I'll then resume my normal training again on Saturday (long ride) and Sunday (long run). There's no reason to back off from these two key sessions each week if you are getting in enough recovery during the week.
I'll probaly aim for around 12hrs this week.

Monday
Total rest day

Tuesday
Bike: (1:17) 30.8k, 120bpm. W/T. Did 30min easy spin then 5 x1min single leg drill with a 3min RI. Finished off with some BG (53/11) work, 4 x 1.5min with a 3min RI. HR was rising up to the mid, cad was around 63-64rpm.
Overall cad was 84rpm.
Run: (34.35), 7.3k, av hr 148bpm. Ran a solid run off the bike. av hr was 3bpm over my current Aet. Pace is sitting right on 4:45min/k's. very pleased with how I'm running at the moment in terms of fitness. Just need to nip this burning left foot when I run.
Stetching: (20min)

Wednesday
Run: (26:24), 10.5k, av hr 130bpm. left toes went really numb then the foot on fire comes on again. May have to see a podiatrist. Apart from that I'm running well. RPE is good and recovery is good.

Thursday
Bike: (1:50), 47km, av hr 113bpm. Managed to do 200m of climbing near the imperial palace. Theres just no hills in Tokyo and not sure how I'm going to address this with IMjapan being a hilly course. freezing again this morning. Rode what little hills I could find in a BG.
Yoga: (1:15). Big improvement from last week. Hips are still soo tight it is almost embarrassing. Felt stronger through the core and could hold some positions for longer then last week. need to control my breathing patterns better. Must do continual breathing.

Friday
Total rest day. See if having today off will settle down my left foot. It's a long shot but we'll see.

Saturday
Run: (1:16) 15km, av hr 135bpm. pace: 5:04min/k (8 min miles)Ran very well today. RPE was low, hr was low and the buns was on the bike to measure the distance. Foot began playing up after 1hr. Will definitely see a doc to see if I can get some sort of injection.

Sunday
Bike: (3:30), 94km, av hr 120bpm. Rode to odiaba then did 4 laps of the imperial palace. Hooked up with two other roadies and we were racing each lap. I made sure I stayed out of there draft zone and I tried to really put the hammer down on the climb which is about 1k long and the longest climb in tokyo (grade about 3%). I wasn't able to drop them at all and they weren't able to drop me either. I was losing one guy on the decents but I pulled him back on the flats. It was fun
av sp for each lap was 32.1 (141), 29.1 (139), 32 (143), 34.5 (161). That last lap was areal hammer fest even on the decent. 161 av hr is getting pretty close to my threshold of 164. Felt good to finally ride with some other people.

Summary
Total: 11:57
Swim 0
Bike 7:27
Run 2:45

Pretty good recovery week. Did some harder MSS training just to test out the fitness and to give me some goals for my next reocvery period. Ran a good 7.3k off the bike in 34min at 4:45min'k's. RPE was low for this run which tells me my running is improving across the board. On Sunday I cut my ride back from 5hr to 3:30 as it was my birthday and Katrina wanted to have a good day out. Managed to hook up with some roadies doing laps around the Imperial palace. While they kept switching turns I stayed around 30m back and tried not to let them get away on me. It worked although I had to really put the hammer down at time (ie 40-42kph) just to keep them in touch. Kept bridging the gap on the climb (1k at 2-3% grade) but they got away from me on the decents. Overall a good ride.

The goal next week is to start building up the volume again. last cycle my biggest week was 17hrs. This next cycle I would like to start cracking 20hrs. time management is going to be very important here.