week ending 29/04/07

Pictures
Elvis is in the house. These guys were a crack up.
Imperial palace gardens on a very nice warm day


Monday
Total rest day
Tuesday
Swim: (1:20), 4km, 25min easy free100, 200, 300, 400, negative split, 400, 300, 300, 100,
12 x 25m max effort on 1min 200 cooldown. Big main set on the ladder. Swimming is coming along but fatigue still sets in at around 50min mark.
Weights: (1hr) Upper body
Bike: (1.5hrs), 46km, av hr 127bpm. easy 30min W/U5 x 1min FT efforts (hitting around 43kph), 2min RI10min easy30min Steady10min 'stomps' with the traffic lights. Solid ride today. It's the first time I've been able to average over 30kph in tokyo. Achilles was okay foot was poor.



Wednesday
Total rest day
Thursday
Swim: (1hr), 3km. I can't remember what I did today. Brick session (S/B)
Bike: (1:09), 35.5km, av hr 133bpm. part of a swim bike brick. felt like I was riding with a tailwind the whole time. It was effortless sitting on 38-40kph. 10min warmup5min hard. 43-45kph (154bpm)6min standing6min BG (53/11)6min TT (38-40kph)Rode steady to mod-hard for the next 20min. Not sure if thechange of cleat position had anything to do with it, but I felt like I was on fire today.

Friday

Swim: (1hr), 3km. Not to motivated today. Did a mix of drills and then some 50-100's.

Saturday

Bike: (3:05), 85km, av hr 116bpm. Rode 2 hrs before swimming and then 1 hr after. All easy to Aet. Not ready to start inserting main sets here yet. That would wipe me too much at this stage.

Swim: (1hr), 3km, 200-400 w/u. ladder set with every second with buoy and neg split 100, 200, 300, 400, 300, 200, 100. Worked hard on this set and still got lapped by the fish (Dave) by the 500m mark. Damm he is quick, 200-300 cool down. 15min drill. learn't some butterfly today. Solid swim

Sunday

Bike: (4hrs), 119km. Rode out to Yokohoma. Bike battery went flat. So just relied on HR. Did around 1-2 hrs of steady. TT'ing well. Moving the ball of my foot in front of the pedal axle has given me some new found power of the bike especially in the TT position. Picked this tip up on cycling news.

Swim: 4:25

Bike: 9:45

Run: 0

Weights: 1:30

Stretching 1:00

Total: 16:30

Summary

Swimming fitness is improving every week. We start to aim for 4k sessions now. My bike strength has also improved alot recently with the changes I've made to my cleats. Achilles is about 80%. I'll probably take another 1-2 weeks off running and wait til I get my achilles feleing 100%. I don't want this injury to hamper my run training.

fluro

week ending 22/4/2007

Photo
This is the indoor 25m pool I swim at. As you can see by the photo no-one is swimming. This is because every couple of hours they blow the whistle, get everybody out for 10 minutes and do a sweep of the pool. What it is they are looking for, I have no idea. It gets annoying, along with the fact that you are not aloud to overtake anyone while your swimming. Apart from that this facility is pretty awesome and has a great weight room (top right corner of the photo), indoor sports courts, aerobics room, spa and sauna.







Monday
Stretching. (30min) focused mainly on tight Achilles
Tuesday
Bike: (1hr). W/T, 26.3km, av hr 116bpm. 20min easy, 10min steady, 4 x 1.5min Hard (150bpm cap), 3.5min RI. Raining outside so I hit the W/T. Achilles felt much better today after 2 days rest.
Swim: (1hr), 3km, 20min straight swim (LSD)100 free, 25-50 hard200 free, 4-50 hard300 free, 6-50 hard400 free.4-25 fast on 55sec. Was meant to do around 20 of these but I start getting cramps in my calves. Ended session there. Too much caffeine and not enough water during the day.
Weights: (1hr) lower body.
Wednesday
Total rest day
Thursday
Swim: (1hr) 3km, 20min free easy10-100, 15 sec RI, 10- 75, 15 sec RI, 10- 50, 15 sec RI, Every fourth was swum hard, the rest were B/L holding perfect form.
Bike: (1hr), W/T, av hr 121, max hr 161bpm.
30min easy
Build to 130 down to 115
build to 135 down to 115
build to 140 down to 115
build to 145 down to 115
build to 150 down to 115 (starting to hurt)
build to 155 down to 115
build to 160 down to 115 (labouring now) FT is 164bpm.
Good session. each build effort took about 2-3 min to get to the target HR. It then took another 2-3 min for my HR to drop back down
Weights: (1hr) Upper body.
Friday
Swim: (40min). 500m TT in 7.20.
Not bad was expecting to be around that pace. 500m easy then 20 x 25m max effort. I was doing these on 1min and coming in right on 15sec. Good for building strength and speed in the water. Only had 40min available to swim.
Saturday
Bike: (2.23), 65km, 114bpm. Easy ride around the palace before swimming. Foot wasn't feeling too good today.
Swim: (1hr), 3km. 200m easy4-50 of drill 4-100 IM 400 buoy 4-50 drill 200 build 200 build15-20min of drill in the 25m pool. learning alot from David at the moment. Stroke is feeling better. i can feel my lats activating alot more now.
Sunday
Swim: (1hr), 3km. 200 free, 2-100 free, 4-50 free, 8-25 (25max, 25 left arm, 25 right arm, 25 catchup, x2)I repeated this set 4 times, trying to build on each set. The more I swim the easier it gets. I gave myself around 10-15 sec rest between each interval.
Weights: (40min) lower body
Bike: (1hr), 26km, 120bpm. did 40 easy then 5min lower steady, 5min easy, 5min steady, 5min easy, 5min upper steady, 5min easy.

Swim: 4:40
Bike: 5:23
Run: 0
Weights: 3:10

Total 13:13

Summary
No running this week. Achilles is still sore, although it does seem to be getting better slowly. Decided also to cancel my long ride to give the Achilles some extra rest. managed 5 swims this week. Improving my swimming seems to be directly related to how much I swim. The more I swim the quicker I improve. I'll probably start swimming up around 4k's now as I'm finding that I'm recovering well after an 1 hr swims now.
I've been reading some article on cycling news and have discovered that people who suffer from hot or numb feet while riding can actually help cure the problem by moving the ball of your foot to around 10mm past the pedal axle. I went ahead with this theory and I'll test it out this week to see if there will be any improvements.
Congratulations Mike on your Boston marathon result. After reading your report it looks like your were putting in the hard yards towards the end, well done.

Week ending 15/4/07

Photo
This is the leg that has been causing me all my problems since 2004. It started out with plantar fasciitis, then I developed a lateral Tibial stress syndrome. This then turned into an overuse injury with my peroneal nerve. Finally I now have mortons neuroma and achilles tendinitis. In essence all these injuries are result of me having a short left femur, very high arches, sprayed toes (notice my toes don't even touch the ground) and I'm a supinator. I'm not giving up though as I love to train and I know I have a good IM result in me. My dream of qualifying for Hawaii will one day be realised.

Monday
Total rest day
Tuesday

Bike (1.5hrs), 35km, av hr 109bpm. 15min easy, 5min steady, 15min easy, 5min BG (1min on 1min off)15min easy, 5min single leg drill (1min on, 1 gear harder), 15min easy, 5min high cadence (1min on 1min off).Good workout. I was struggling to get my heart up on the trainer. RPE always feels much higher then what my hr says???

Run (33:15), 7km, av hr 143bpm. did 1 k on then 1k off. Averaged around 4:30's with the on's and 5.00min/k's on the offs. Ran pretty well and the run was too short to really upset the foot.

Wednesday
Total rest day
Thursday
Bike (1:36), 44km, av hr 118bpm. Rode out for 30min and then back. headed to the Imperial Palace and TT'd 1 lap as hard as I could. Time 8:15, av sp 36kph, av hr 157bpm. Had to contend with 3 red lights
Swim: (45min), 2km, 15min straight swim bilateral. then 20-50 on the 1min every 4th hard. aimed for 42-43sec on the steady's and 37-38sec on the hards. Long recovery allowed me to hold pace. finished off with some drill
Weights: (1hr) Whole body workout
Friday
Total rest day
Saturday
Swim: (30min), 1.5km. very busy today. Bailed after 30min there were just too many breastrokers. did mainly drills and hard 25's and 50's.
Weights: (1:15). Upper body. Decided to split sessions up into lower and upper body now.
Sunday
Total rest day



Swim 1:15
Bike 4:06
Run 0:33
Weights2:30
Total 8:30



Summary
My achilles is very sore at the moment. When I first wake up I can't put my heel on the ground. Throughout the day the pain comes and goes. It appears to be getting worse. I decided to stop running altogether until I can sort this out and I'll jut swim and ride over the next 4-6 weeks. If the riding still aggravates my achilles then I'll have to start cutting back there too.


I stopped wearing my new orthotics as this is what was hurting my achilles too much. I put my old ones (made in Australia) back in and already after 1 day things feel better around my heel. Although they do nothing to help my neuroma.


So the next step for me is to get myself back to the orthopedic surgeon and see if he can refer my onto a good foot podiatrist. In the meantime I keep swimming as much as I can and I'll watch to see how much riding I can do. I'll probably cut back on my long ride (down to 3hrs) for a while and I'll keep doing weights. The weights do seem to help stretch and strengthen the achilles which is good.





Fluro

Week ending 8/4/07

With the Cherry Blossom season upon us there has been alot of this being drunk of late........SAKE!


Those two little statues were bought in Sapa. North Vietnam near the chinese boarder in a very small remote village.




Monday
Swim (1hr), 3k,
500 free, 5-100, 10-50400 free, 4-100, 4-50, 200 free, 2-100, 2-50100, 100, 2-50. Not too comfortable with my stroke at the moment.
Tuesday
Run: (48min), 9k, av hr 129bpm. very easy run to the bike shop. Picked up some new cycling shoes, one size bigger, to try and give my toes some more room. Fingers crossed. Both achilles were quite sore at the start of this run. mmmmm
Wednesday
Bike: (1:43), 51k, av hr 122bpm. No choice this morning. Bailed on yesterdays ride because of the rain. Well it rained solidly on my new shoes. Crap all over them. Oh well. Main set 3 x 6min BG (53/11) 3min RI. Held around 38-39kph. Finished off with 30min of steady TT (lower range ie 130-135bpm).
Weights: (1hr), First session in the gym. I thought I kept everything light, but when I tried to walk down the stairs to leave, both quads just cramped up on me. I couldn't get down the stairs. It was so embarrassing.
Thursday
Run: (31min), 6k, av hr 132bpm. Legs really stiff after gym last night. Left achilles is still sore when I first wake up then it settles down. Run went well. No pain.
Yoga: (1:15). Good session tonight. I can definitely feel myself getting more and more flexible.
Friday
Bike: (1:53), av hr 113bpm. 30min easy then did a 10K TT at the bottom end of my steady zone. Nice tailwind made sitting on 38-40kph @ 130-135bpm feel easy. Rode around 120-125bpm for the rest of the ride. feeling stronger on the bike, av sp is climbing.
Swim: (1hr), 3k, It was abit crowded tonight with slow breatstrokers and not being allowed to overtake made it frustrating. Settled in to 25-50's of mainly drills and some harder efforts. Was doing my 50's just under 40sec which was pretty cool for 1st week back in the pool.
Gym: (1hr), whole body workout. Increased the weights slightly and kept the reps in the 15-25 range. squats, leg press, leg curls, calf raises. incline press, upright rows, lat pulldowns, biceps curls, tri ext, abs x3 sets
Saturday
Bike: (2:20), 60km, 113bpm. rode easy to Aet before swim. feeling fit on the bike
Swim: (1hr), 3k, did 8-100 breathing every 5(buoy). then various drills and 25m hard effort. Swiiming ha picked up already in 1 week
Sunday
Bike: (4:45) 140km, 130bpm., Man I was in the world of hurt today. The french guys decided to start up a paceline and it was on. I think we did around 3-4 laps of a 8k circuit. Av sp for this was 38kph and av hr was 157bpm. Boy my legs were shattered. Not used to the high end paceline work. Foot was quite numb and sore towards the end. Was searching for coke at the end of this ride

Total

• Swim: 4:15


• Bike: 10:47


• Run: 1:19


• Yoga 1:15


• Gym: 2:00

Total 19:30

Summary
A good week of training. Stroke feels better already. The bike is coming along nicely and the hard efforts on Sunday were a real shock to the system. Running was a little low but thats to be expected with the way my foot is.
Next week I'll enter into a slight recovery period just tov let the body absorb the last 2 weeks of training. May even do some TT efforts to start recording my progress on the bike and in the pool. This will probably be a 20k TT bike and a 500m TT swim.


fluro

week ending 1/4/07

Monday

Run: (1:01), 12km, av hr 137bpm. Bloodly achiles, enough said. Foot was hot and numb but tolearble. Will restrict myself to just 3 runs PW now to see if I can continue to train.

Tuesday

Bike: (2:40), 80km, av hr 130bpm. easy 40min then I did a 20k TT heading down the Aka river. Time 31:35 (av sp 37.8kph). Av hr 154bpm. pretty happy with the time and av hr. Couldn't really get my hr up much higher. Early days yet. Goal is to break 30min for a 20k TT.

Wednesday
Bike: (1hr), 24km, av hr 105bpm. Very easy recovery spin
Run: (55min), 11km, av hr 138bpm. Foot was okay today. managed to run a pretty comfortable distance.

Thursday

Bike: (2:47), 70km, av hr 113bpm. Man it was windy out there. Coming home I was almost thrown off the bike twice. It was just getting too hairy in the tokyo traffic so I bailed on riding any further. kept most of the ride easy to Aet working on endurance

Friday

Run: (1hr), 11.5km, 129bpm. Had my orthotics adjusted yesterday. More support added to stop me supinating. This seemed to help as I was able to run quite comfortably today with only minor burning. Lets hope this continues. The specialists wants me to resume normal training in order to test that the orthotics will hold up.

Saturday

Bike: (2:07), 55km, av hr 107bpm. Very low av hr. Easy aerobic ride before swimming. Teaching the body to burn fat.
Swim: (1hr), 3km. mix of drills and some harder efforts. Good session

Run: (55min), 10km, av hr 130bpm. very easy run around the canals

Sunday

Bike: (2:50), 80km, av hr 120bpm. Rode really well today. did a 40min TT in the middle of this ride and was comfortably sititng on 36kph at around 130bpm. Tailwind of course made things a little easier.

Total

swim 1

bike 11:24

run 4:00

Yoga 0:30

Total 16:56

Pretty good wek of training. Foot held up quite well with 4 runs and I was happy to get in 5 rides this week. After watching Ironman live on Sunday and psyched up now to start focusing on my swimming again. Bring it on. Time to start punching out those 18-22hr weeks.

fluro