Ok so what happened in September... well I guess the biggest feature was a holiday to Lanzarote... I say holiday although clearly I took my bike!! Think I got the balance on the trip right - some good training and some good down time by the pool. Alcohol was on the menu as was ice cream - so not the diet of champions but I did have a lovely time. Thanks go to Jules for the invite and the Pope for sharing a lovely time... and the rest of the gang of 9 ... we all had a lovely time :)
Anyway..... So stats for September;
September
- Run - 16 - 64.0 mi - 10.1 hrs
- Swim - 7 - 9.9 mi - 5.1 hrs
- Bike - 14 - 254.4 mi - 17.1 hrs
- Cross - 5 - 0.6 mi - 2.4 hrs
- Total - 42 - 328.9 mi - 34.7 hrs
Swim: Thanks to one long swim and several shorter ones in Lanzarote my swim meters are still holding good. My focus for October is getting at least weekly 3.3k+ swims in.... The race distance is 4k, but last year for Challenge Barcelona I didn't got over 3.2 and found the almost 4k I swam there ok.
Bike: I had a couple of good rides in Lanzarote and certainly felt the strongest I've ever felt on the hills over there (this is relatively speaking - usually I am worse then weak, I still would not say I'm strong on the bike). My mileage was down for the month but I'm ok with that given the run time went up which is my biggest concern really.
Run: So my hours/ mileage was back up after my calf strain in August. I feel like I've lost some of the speed (not that I am fast) that I was finding earlier in the year before the injury. My main concern is how I am going to somehow get by body around 30k of running for the race. I did a horrendous run at the end of September, barely managing 1hr 20 (8miles) ... but it was at the end of a high volume run week, straight after a 1.5hr easy ride and also in perhaps the hottest day of the year (I am not joking, it was over 80!).
I have about another week or two of "panic training" before taper. Nervous for the big one for sure but at least I have casino's to drown my sorry arse in and family will be there to weep on after ;)
Aha... so I have just written this blog utilising bloggers new interface and it didn't save and lost the lot. Rubbish. Although I have no excuse for not blogging recently! I am not back to the trusted previous interface and have successfully "saved" this so far... so I shall continue!!!
Have you ever had one of those training sessions which just weren't meant to be? I think sometimes you can take "signs" to mean something like "stop" or "forget this and try something different".
Yesterday was a prime example... honest...
I had planned a 2.5 - 3 hr bike (with some hills for fun) and then a 20-30min run off the bike. The weather forecast was for grey skies and bright spells and the remote possibility of occasional light showers.
So I looked outside whilst getting my bike stuff together to note there were grey skies and wet roads but no rain. Still I took precautions and put on my shower proof light bike jacket just in case. I stepped outside and it promptly started to rain. SIGN 1.
I took my usual route out of Finchampstead, through Arborfield Garrison and up on to the A327 which can be busy but usually not too bad. Just going up a slight incline a lorry decided that this would be a good place to overtake me. Given there was a white van parked on our side of the road towards the crest of the hilll which we were approaching fast, I wasn't so sure. To compound this a 4x4 appeared from over the hill and thus left little room for either a lorry or me, and certainly not both. The lorry driver thankfully realised that squashing me wasn't such a good thing and backed off until the crest of the hill (and white van) and overtook - I'm glad he could see more of the road ahead then me as I didn't have a clue what was coming. Still sort of close but not really but enough for SIGN 2.
Just after the lorry went past I felt a gradual squishyness of my rear tyre, luckily there was a shop with some parking spaces up ahead so I glided into the car park and indeed my rear was flat. So I calmly set about replacing in the inner tube. It was still raining (ie this was no quick "shower")... SIGN 3
Having reinflated my inner tube (quite successfully using a gas cannister which is a first for this year), I discovered a rather deep and long gash in the tyre. This was the sort of thing you can't ride on without a puncture happening. I guess I must have rode over some glass or something. Despite the face that I still had another spare inner tube (I usually ride with 2), I decided that this was the final sign to head back home. Having ridden for a whole 11mins!
Rather then riding straight back the way I had come I decided to "risk it" and take a rather circulative ride back and managed to get in 30mins. I then headed out for a quick leg stretch around the local "new" park/ woodland for a nice 3.4k 17min run... and then for good measure got out the turbo for a rather boring 30mins.
So my 2.5 - 3hr ride + 20-30min brick turned into a 1hr ride with a 17min brick. Oh well.
Less then a month to Vegas so still time for some more panic training :)
Yes - I owe the Little Woody DNF race report... but first as it is quicker ;) .. August Stats!!
This reads pretty good, despite the calf injury and subsequent days off...
August
- Run - 11 - 38.7 mi - 6.7 hrs
- Swim - 9 - 12.3 mi - 5.0 hrs
- Bike - 10 - 340.7 mi - 23.3 hrs
- Cross - 3 - 0.7 mi - 0.2 hrs
- Total - 33 - 392.4 mi - 35.2 hrs
My main concern coming in to August was the distinct lack of swimming which had plagued my training, either through laziness or illness or fear of getting ill from catching something in the water... So I wanted for August to get back in the water and get some consistency. I am having some issues with my Garmin in Open Water mode since the last software update (it defaults back to "other" not swimming each time I turn it on and thus doesn't use the algorithm to calc the distance properly as I forget to set it up... so the distance is probably more like 10+mile rather then 12).. but still ....5 hours of swimming was 3 hours more then July so progress, the distance probably more like 10miles then 12. Anyway, I'm happy with the swimming still conscious I should now be swimming longer as I have yet to do anywhere near to the race distance (4k) in training.
I'm happy also with the consistency I achieved on the bike. With the most monthly time spent in the saddle this year. My focus for September is to maintain this consistency whilst introducing some more speed work and also some continued work on the hills. The course in Vegas still daunts me with the stats of climbing, they are saying 7000ft in the 73ish miles.... although every map I see that people have tried to recreate in mapping tools shows less then that. Still it is going to be hilly so hills are the order of the training, going to Lanzarote for a week should help with that :)
On the run side, clearly with the calf strain the stats are down, which is fine. The calf is on the mend and I managed a long run of just under 10miles yesterday with no strapping, no gimp calf guards and with no reaction today. So I just need to carry on with the program of tempo, brick and long slow with intervals. The one thing I must do though is to restart my core & stability routine. I neglected this somewhat through July into August and I think the weakness in the stabilisers may have contributed to the problem with the calf (that and wearing new trainers on a 10k tempo session.. ha ha ha)
I'm expecting my stats for Sept to be flat with August, maybe slightly down as a results of the week of complete rest I took off after Little Woody.
The way I see it is I have 6 weeks of focus before 2-3 weeks of gradual taper now leading to the race .... Long Course is nearly here... GULP!
