week ending 8/7/07

Goal this week is to swim as much as possible. Slowly add some more sessions on the bike and keep focusing on nutrtition and recovery.
Monday
Swim: (1;10), 3.5km.
20min free B/L
20min drill
15-25's max no breathing on 45sec
5- 50's hard on 1:15 coming in under 35
4-100 negative split (1;30, 1:28, 1:26, 1:23)
easy 200. shoulder were tired by this stage.
Tuesday
Bike (1:23), 38km, av hr 116bpm. Rode easy to Aet most of the way. Did some TT efforts (Impace) at the end and finished off with 4 stomps, new PB is now 48.3kph.
Feet felt very good.
Wednesday
Massage (1hr). Toe problem felt really good today, but my left PF is still killing to have massaged. I'm starting to think the arch support on the left side is too high.
Thursday
Swim (50min), 2.5km,
20min free mix of aet and mod-hard
15min drill
10-50 hard keeping everything under 40sec. 20sec RI
200 mod-hard
200 cool down
Friday
Bike: (1:40), 45km. 115bpm. Easy to Aet ride.
Saturday
Swim (3km), 50min. Kamakura swim race
Had a great swim. Managed to get into the front pack after but 500m. I had to work hard to get up to them. Glad I did though. For the next 40min everything felt comfortable and I was holding feet the whole way. Worked past the pack with 500m to go and was in 2nd place. Took a wrong turn and had to be redirected back onto the course by a guy on a surf ski. I was in around 5th spot with around 200m to go. Kicked hard and moved up to 4th place. Very happy with my extra gear I have in the swim. Alot of srpint work has helped with the changes of speed and direction you get in ocean swims.

Sunday
Bike (2:43), 75km, av hr 117bpm.
Very easy for the first 1.5 hrs and then we picked up the pace laping around the warf. Managed to do a break away with two other guys and I hit a new PB TTing at 48.3kph. We held off the pack for around 5km sitting on 45kph whenever I took my turn. It's the highest I've had my hr (177bpm) on the flats in a very long time. legs and feet felt great.

Happy days at the moment. My feet are feeling better.

fluro

I'm in. Ironman Germany 2008

It's official. I just entered Ironman Germany today. I hope I can pull everything together over the next 12 months and achieve a new PB.
As I have said previously I'll start concentrating on doing single sport focus periods between now and Christmas. The first being the swim. The carrot is now dangling in front of me and I'm psyched up to start focusing on improving my swimming, cycling and running over the next 12 months.
My foot problems have been improving and I'll start to slowly build up my bike volume again, while I'm concentrating on my swimming. Once I have my swimming where I want it, the plan is to then do a big cycling block followed by a consistent period of high frequency running before I start my IM specific preps.

I think the key for me to aim for a PB next year is to do these periods of one sport at a time and get myself into all time best shape in that particular sport. This will mean doing more volume in each sport and then once I'm satisfied with that sport I will then drop back the volume back into my regular IM training hours.
For example, over the next 2-3 months I want to slowly increase my swimming from a regular 8-10km PW up to 20km PW while I'm not running. Once I'm consistently swimming around 20km PW I think I should see some big gains in the water. Once I have those gains established I'll slowly reduce my swimming back down to 8-12km PW and then I'll start my bike focus for the following 3-4 months. I usually average around 10hrs PW on the bike but during the bike focus I want to slowly build this up to around 15-20hrs PW. Once again once I have my bike fitness established I'll then drop the volume back down to around 10-15hrs PW and then start my run focus. The plan is to run as frequently as possible with the aim of building up to around 6-8hrs PW. I'll do this for another 2-3 months and then drop the volume back down to around 5-6 hrs PW as I enter my IM specific preps.

I'll try to keep updating my blogger every Wednesday and Sunday for anyone that might be interested in following my progress.

If you have any questions about IM training please feel free to post on here or email at anytime. I love talking about this stuff.

Fluro

week ending 8/7/07

Photo
This is my grade 3 class having a little fun on the last day of school. They are a wonderful group of students and I'll miss teaching them.

Didn't get to start my swim focus last week. For some reason the local pools were closed over the weekend. Hopefully, I'll be able to kick things off this week. My foot is starting to feel better. I managed a 3hr ride last Saturday and my feet held up pretty well. I may be back.