Coming To The End Of The Build
The basic principles of training are that you put your body under stress, and in doing so, when you recover, it repairs itself, but in a better state than before. This is know as supercompensation, and is the underlying principle in every bit of training that we do, as I’m sure most of you know. Many, including Joe Friel, also talk about extreme compensation, or extreme overloading, which basically follows a pattern of a short pattern of time, followed by a period of recovery, in which you put your body under extreme amounts of stress, well above what you normal undertake. During this, it never recovers properly whilst in this period, but when the recovery period starts, you get a massive spike in fitness, well above what you would get from normal training.
This type of training can only be sustained for short periods of time, otherwise you risk overtraining, burning out, or more likely injury or illness first. So aside from the little sports science lesson, I have been playing a little experiment on myself in the last few weeks, to see how much of this I can take. Before I started my main build, I was probably averaging around 15 hours a week, but had had a couple of weeks of reduced training due to my stomach bug. Given my age, and knowing I recover quickly (a broken collar bone in 3 weeks!), it has been an interesting experience, and confirms what I have suspected on past training camps (such as Lanzarote going from 7 hours a week to a 30 hour week): I can take a lot of training before I start seeing negative results. Ignoring the foot injury, which was a stupid mistake on my part, it took 2 and a half weeks for cracks to begin to appear. If I had the chance to do it full time, rather than fitting it around work, I suspect it may have been less as I could have done more. But it was good fun none the less. Lessons learnt include:
- Don’t do speed work with tired legs when you haven’t done any in months
- Sleep is paramount – when I was on less than 6 hours, I really felt it. When I got 8 I really noticed the difference the next day.
- Diet is just as important, eat well, ensure you get enough protein to repair everything, and eat soon after big sessions and you will recover much quicker.
Week 3 saw a return to some sort of running form as I ramped up the frequency, running 8 days in a row. The foot injury now seems to have subsided, and I haven’t had any problems from it for a couple of days so fingers crossed it will be ok! My long run of 2 hours went well, though I certainly need to do another one next week to get used to running long again. It is a bit annoying I never managed to fit a 3 hour run in, but I will just have to cope.
Swimming included a 3.8k tt to make sure I was comfortable with the distance, and resulted in a 1 hour 09 swim! Very pleased with that, and the training has really started to show and puts me in good stead for my 1 hour 5 target.
Cycling saw an ‘easy’ office ride, which ended up me doing 3 hard laps of Beacon Fell, turning the next day’s ride into a recovery ride. On Sunday we had the Manchester to Blackpool bike ride, in which I rode to the start (I live near Blackpool), did the bike at a good effort, then rode home, finishing up with an hours brick run! Very pleased with that session, and my running after.
So Week 3 Totals:
Swim – 9.3k
Bike – 322.17k
Run – 43.37
Total Time – 21 and a half hours
Including what I have done so far this week, I have managed over 80 hours of training in under 4 weeks, so very pleased with that. I know my aerobic fitness is very good, and my run and swim speed is where I want it to be. I know the bike speed is there, but it remains to be seen if I will be able to hold the speed I want at IM effort once the fatigue has lifted. The focus for the next 2 weeks is my taper. I have one longish bike, and a long run at the start of next week to finalise nutrition and getting used to it then I need to ensure than I recover fully. I am hoping to put in a big swim week, as this will only take a week to taper down from, and hopefully this will include a trip to a lake for some OW swimming! I just have to remind myself of the principles of training when I start getting restless to train! I have a basic plan to follow, but most of it will be played by ear, at the end of the day, I know how I am feeling.
Llandudno Triathlon
So on Sunday I am off to Llandudno to for my final race before Switzerland. Aims of the race re simple – PB and check everything for my IM. As such, I am racing in IM kit, with IM bike set up to check everything. The only change will be bike shoes, as I have decided to wear road shoes and socks for the IM, but it is not worth the hassle for an Olympic – given the mileage over the last few weeks, I am comfortable with that setup! A PB shouldn’t be too difficult given that this time last year I had done one swim in 6 weeks, having broken my collarbone and barely any running or road cycling. The only equal part could be the bike, but I am hoping the volume will ensure a good time. If the weather is bad (and rain is forecast) I won’t be taking any chances on the bike. It is a technical course with some nasty descents, and certainly nothing to gain a couple of minutes over crashing and putting myself out of IM Switzerland! The swim should be a guaranteed PB, and will be looking for sub 25 mins. The run depends on the wind and my foot, any twinges and I’ll back off, otherwise hopefully I will have a solid run.
After that it is only 2 weeks to go until the big day! I have got all my travel information through, and The Fear is beginning to creep up. But I love it, cannot wait, and am looking forward to it so much!
Tim
Injured, Ill and Fed Up
Well as I sit here comtemplating on all the training I am missing, I thought why not blog about it! It’s been a while afterall…
As you can tell from the title, I am not exactly having the best pre season so far. First of all, at the start of last week I stood on something in my room, which I think was an upturned plug (I didnt pay much attention at the time) and hurt my foot. Nothing major happened, just a small strain I think. However, with my usual sensible mindset I decided it would be a good idea to go for an hour and a quarter run the day after with one of my training partners who I am training up for the Preston 10 mile road race. Felt fine for 20 mins and then the muscles protecting my foot got tired and I was in a lot of pain! Consequently I still can’t walk properly and have done a 10 min run since to try it out. It is taking a long time to heal this, mainly as you can’t really get much rest as no matter what you do, you have to walk. But it is slowly getting there.
The other problem I have is I have gotten ill, for the 2nd time in a month and I think it is the same bug, certainly the same symptons. The reason for this I suspect was that I had possibly a bit too indulgent weekend with not enough sleep and a far too large binge on sweets at a party. I am rather hoping it is not a chest infection, but with the symptons and the recurrance it could be possible. Having asthma I think I may have to nip to the GP in the next week or so for my Swine Flu vaccine, so can ask him them. So I am off training for the moment in an attempt to recover quickly, and sticking to my diet to give myself the best chances. Slight problem in that I have the Tour of the Peaks, over 100 miles now of cyclling in the Peak District, on Saturday, which means I need to recover quickly!
There are a few positives from this however (though I am scraping the barrel a bit!):
- If I am going to get ill and injured, at least its at the same time at not seperately so I don’t miss even more training
- It explains why I have been feeling so flat recently, especially in my long ride at the weekend when my legs have just been refusing to fire
- It is the off-season, so not the end of the world missing a week of training or so
So when I am finally recovered, I will need to rewrite my training program. I am going to keep my runs short, and try and get some interval work in there. I have been doing a lot of runs at easy pace lately, mainly whilst I switch my technique, but as that is getting there, I need to inject some pace, because at the moment I have none! Whilst in the run block, I will keep my formula of 6 runs, 2 bikes, 2 swims and 2 weights a week. Oweing to me getting a tattoo (yes I am following the norm and having an M-dot tattoo done) I will be out of the pool for another week or so after the 10 mile race, so will continue my running for another week, or have a transitional week depending on how I feel. One thing I have noticed when I actually was training and running 6 times a week, was how my knees felt. Usualy I always have a few niggles in my knees, especially when doing lots of running, and in all honesty I haven’t been doing my knee exercises as much as I should. But I have had absolutely no problems from then! I think the reasons for this are partly actually doing some exercises, even if not enough, recovering properly from last major training (my IM), and my diet. With the Paleo diet I am getting enough protein in my diet, and I suspect that all my stabilisers and muscles can actually recover and repair themselves properly, saving my ligaments! So that is certainly good news. Another massive improvement from the diet is muscle strength, muscle strength in my jaw that is! Boy do you have to chew a lot!
I have alse finally got round to starting yoga, and it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. It is very easy stuff (well theoretically) so nothing too complex and I can get most of the poses, though I do need to work on my flexibility. Given that the room was full of middle-aged woman who look like they do it every other day, giving this 21 year old man with shaved legs dodgy looks as they wondered what on earth he was doing here, I was pleased that I could do all the poses and was more flexible than a few of them. I also found some muscles that were incredibly tight, most notably my lats, and it seems to have helped my neck a lot, so a trip to the doctors may not be required. Finally, I have found a new massage place, conveniently based in the gym which offer an hours sports massage for under 20 quid! I may need to ask for a loyalty card…
Anyhoo, that is all for now, hopefully next time I will be writing about settling back into training and how my running seems to be coming together… unless things take a turn for the worse, so fingers crossed!
Tim
Kona Krazy 
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