After a busy weekend of racing & training it’s good to look back on what was quite a heavy week. My Training Peaks seems to disagree with the training stress scores but my legs definitely do feel the effect. My Garmin watch also seems to want me to have 2 or 3 days off too…but it doesn’t work like that, there’s boxes to tick etc.
On Saturday afternoon I set out to Newmarket to ride the Lea Valley 25 Time Trial. The course is based on the “E2” – a course code for one of the fastest courses in the area due to the high traffic count – “dragstrips” as the Time Trial fraternity call them. This may soon be a thing of the past as the Highways Agency are trying to ride dual cariageways of cyclists by calling them “express ways” which will seal the fate of all fast courses. At the end of the day it’s all comparative but it’s nice to have a pretty swift time on your palmares.
The startlist was pretty formidable to say the least, the country’s best coming from all over to ride this event meant I was, on paper, one of the slowest riders. This proved to be the case as I was considerably slower than most of the field. From the start to the turn, all 12.5 miles of it was a slog. A strong cross/head wind made holding the bike in a straight line difficult and the small drags, which you never notice at 70mph in a car proved too much for me at times and I crawled there in just over 32 minutes. This meant a 30mph+ ride had to be acheived on the way back for a decent time. The crosswind hindered in parts but I carried on regardless, hitting 35mph in places to record a time of 59:07. Several riders I would take minutes out of in normal circumstances scalped me and I sulked all the way back to my car and the way home! The winner clearly had forgotten there was any kind of wind and difficult conditions and rode the course in 47 minutes making it even more annoying.
Look at my data that evening it was clear that I wasn’t that crap on performance & power. My wattage was up 10 watts on the ride that earned me my “54” last summer. It just seems my “aero” position needs looking at as well as my ability to spin when when things get tough. I tend to get bogged down in low revs and just simply tie up.
Listening to my team-mates whilst in Majorca a few weeks back I should’ve not even entered, the point of going on this course is to get a fast time, my fitness levels (or lack of) and recent illness, weather conditions etc. really didn’t paint a good picture leading up to the event – but it’s another event completed and at least I went under the hour.
The following morning it was the Bungay Half Marathon – a good idea at the time of booking. My plan suggested a 10km run on Saturday and another on Monday – so I thought “why not do both in one day at the Bungay Half Marathon”. The main aim was to trundle round at Ironman Pace and not get too caught up in the numbers. Suzy was running (another reason to take part) and her aim was to also trundle round, I knew that although she was trying to be laid back about the times, she wanted to go sub-2hrs, but there was also that chance she could get injured as she hadn’t trained anything beyond 10kms. I suggested we sat on 5:40min per km and see how she feels – she agreed.
The event started and we set out hitting the Bungay – Beccles hills which aren’t fast for road running. I’ve ridden them 100’s of times on a bike but never ran them – even though I was taking it steady the heart rate still went high as I reached the summit Watchtower Hill, Shipmeadow and Barsham Hills but our pace by the time we got to Beccles (9km) was at 5:20’s.
At each kilometer my Garmin watch buzzed on my wrist and I looked at the pace for that last km. 5:20, 5:23, 5:23, 5:22…it all looked pretty good. I was talking to Suzy throughout, making sure she was ok as she was still recovery from a chest infection and her surgey last month – she was good…mostly. Her heavy breathing was an indicator I was getting carried away a couple of times and she did have a bad patch at 12km with some dizziness so we slowed down, just by a few seconds to get rid of that. There was a little slowing at the end, only by 10 seconds and we went through the finish line at 1:56 – a massive 5 minute PB for Suzy.
The legs didn’t argue too much during but now a day later I have quite a bit of muscle soreness – probably due to the mileage and impact damage. Walking down the stairs this morning was interesting to say the least! It’s quite hard to imagine what my legs will be telling me half-way round in Barcelona – I can only hope that the training in the next 6 months will alleviate that.
Other than that a fairly “ok” week. Swimming has been a struggle as always but I’m sticking to what Suzy is telling me to do – I’m adding another few metres onto what she is prescribing as & when I feel like it to get used to the longer distances. I still get dizzy so I’m trying looser goggles and a travel sickness tablet that many triathletes have sworn by (mostly sea swimming) but it’s worth a go. Total for the week was 2700m.
Cycling has been ticking along nicely, the event on Saturday was disappointing as I’ve already said but the numbers look better. I just need to be comfortable and keep those legs spinning. Just over 5hrs in total – quite low really in comparison to previous weeks but the Half Marathon got in the way of my normal Sunday ride.
Running has been good, the IM pace at Bungay was ok and the Brick run on Thursday seemed to be at a pace I can handle. My Garmin tells me I can do a 5k at 20:50, a 10k at 43:12, a half at 1:35:40 and a full at 3:19:00 but I’m not going to challenge that theory just yet!
TP Totals: 10 hrs of training. 688 TSS. Fitness 91. Fatigue 98. Form 1.
This week sees more of the same and an event-free weekend so some more volume perhaps?