Winter has hit with vengence

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 302

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 114

Program

AM: Swim Session

PM: Cross country race: 6km (Queensland Athletics)

Today's Journal
To say that its is cold today is an understatement. It was a good start to the day...it wasn't an early start. Late morning made my way to the pool via the bike shop to pick up a pair of leg warmer for the ride tomorrow morning as I would assume it will be a little chilly.

The swim session involve a little bit of strength and core control work along with some drills.

5 x 100m warm up

1 x 100m drill

2 x 100m drill

1 x 100m drill

Then we did a pool circuit that involved 25m hard swim, then out of the pool for 5 push ups back in for another 25m and out again for 5 crunches (by 10). Then we did another version of this circuit. The session ended with some alternate drills which were a hoot! the 100m warm down.

From the pool a number of us went out to Carseldine to compete in the 6km cross country. This was obviously something different for a cold windy Saturday afternoon but a worthwhile training session.

The stats of this run are as follows:

Session Evaluation: The swim session was a positive session, one of the drills we do, which I am not a particular fan of, is one that I am gauging as to the progress of my swimming. This drill involves body in torpedo formation (hands out in front) then every 6 kicks turning the whole body from back up to back down, focusing on maintaining head position and hold core stable. Today I found particular success in the drill, a lot more confident and lot less uncoordinated (looking). A bit more of a fan of this drill now. I am still persisting with the bi-lateral breathing and it is improving slowly. I find with my swimming I do rely on my arms alot for the momentum through the water; however, I believe my kick is also improving.
The cross country session later in the afternoon was a bit of a challenge. The previous swim session a little on 1 1/2hours ago and cold windy conditions made this session even more challenging. But in saying that it is good to train in these types of conditions and at a level of fatigue to condition the body for these types of stresses in races. The race started at a far quicker pace than what I would of liked and this is a continued area of my running that I need to address, throughout the race the pace slow dropped to, at one stage 4:40min pace. The finish time was a credible 25min25sec. I completed the first 3km lap in 12:30. The legs (in particular the quads) were feeling it on the second lap. Aerobically I was feeling OK.