25km Trail Run &... a swim session

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 253

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 64

Program

AM: Glasshouse trail run 25km. Keep heart rate under 155 for duration of run. Practice taking fluids and food during run.

PM: Swim Session

Personal Data

Weight: 84.4kg

Sleep: 7hrs

Mood: Little tired but good

Food Intake Summary: 4-5L of water, chicken roll, garlic bread

Today's Journal
It was again another early rise and up to Beerburrum for the 25km trail run in the Matthew Flinders Tour.

Race Report - 25km Trail Run (Glasshouse Mts.)

The mood going into the race was reasonable, it got better over the drive up to beerburrum. The race started at 7.30am. The morning was cool and fine, but not as cold as it had been. The goal of the race today was to keep the heart rate under 155bpm and practice with hydration and food over the 25km. For the race I used the 4 bottle fuel belt (2 with sports drink and 2 with water). I also had 3 Hammer Gel with me. The strategy for today was to strictly drink every 15min and to have a gel 15min prior to the race and then at about the 50min mark of the race (about halfway through the race) This worked out well. One of the adjustments to this would mabe have 2 gels throughout the race 1 @ the 45min mark and then another @ the 90min mark. In Hydrating every 15min I could feel the pick up in performace after the intake of fluid.

The part of the race involved going partly up Beerburrum Mt, a nice little warm up. Of course things that go up must come down. From the 2km to about 10km the trail was relatively flat with some gradual hills/gradients. From about 12km mark there was a fair steep gradient, at one part it was about a 6.5% gradient for about 300m. This was a good challenge, but one where the gradient got the better of me.

At about the 16km mark the course became less taxing on the body. At about 3km from the finish the was a hill that was another challenge, firtsly it was a hill and secondly it had a lot of loose golf ball size rocks over its surface making it a little uneasy under foot.

The 25km was completed in 2hrs and 3 minutes, I was very pleased with this effort. I did a 15min stretch after finishing the race. The legs and feet were quite sore. The feet took a bit of a battering but when you are running over such terrain you should expect this.

The PM session was in the pool, to say that I was struggling would be and understatement. However, there is a a goal to be achieved and going back to bed was not an option. In fact the swim session helped in the recover of my legs, but I still struggled throughout the session in terms of overall energy.

Wednesday's Sessions

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 256

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 67

Program

AM: 30 min spin w/u; 5 x 6 min in 53/12-14 along flat sitting up with 3 min rec & 15 min w/d

PM: Swim Session

Personal Data

Weight: 84.3kg

Sleep: 7.5hrs

Mood: Good

Food Intake Summary: Fruit, 2 x Sml Garlic Bread, 1x Spinich Cannoelloni, 2 x 600ml water

Today's Journal
Up and going early again leaving home and travelling down to Sandgate for the bike session. Conditions were very good. No wind and it seems to be warming up a little...only just. Due to time constraints had to reduce the warm up to 10 min and warm down to 5 min.

Session Evaluation

AM Session: Coming shortly

PM Session: Coming shortly

Enviro Training Day (ETD)

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 257

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 68

Program

AM: Ride Session: 60 mins in 39/16-19 @ 95-105 cadence and 70-75% max hr.

PM: Run Session: 30 mins @ 70% max hr followed by 8 x 50m strides and 15 min stretch

Today's Journal
Its been a while since I've been on the blog...slack really. Well I am into the 3rd week of the Coomer Half Ironman Campaign and would like to be more regularly blogging than I have been....so it is going to happen and I am planning to back date a number of days to get a better picture of hoe the preparation is progressing.

Today's session and many like it are going to be labelled as Enviro Training Days (ETD)..Why you ask?....well it is a day of training that involves travelling around without the car...pretty cool huh....At least its a day without adding to the greenhouse gases.

The morning session involved a 2hr ride before work, head out on my usual out and back course. I woke up with a little dampness around and at first was apprehensive in venturing out but...as Mark would say its about the 'big picture'. This preparation is now serious so its means getting out and training in all conditions...good mental, physical and conditioning preparation. The conditions that I may ride in may not be always ideal...blue sky...no wind...etc. This was one of these mornings, wet and cold....in fact at times dam miserable, but I persevered.

Rode home to complete the ETD this was a 40min ride home. In all spent about 2.5 hours and 64km on the bike today.

Got home and within 10min was off on my run session...The 30min run was around the usual hill circuit and then completed the 8 x 50m strides in a local park.

Session Evaluation:

AM Session: Thought the legs would be a little less responsive than they were, so was happy with the way I have recovered from the weekend. The wet and cold conditions were a good experience to endure, there were a couple of things that were learnt, mainly, needing to look at the options of glasses (I was wearing ones with clear lenses) as the rain was making visibility very difficult at times. The traffic on the way home was manic to say the least.

PM Session: I began to really feel the legs during the initial part of the session; however, once the session progressed and I got into a rhythm, things improved. A little bit of a niggle in the right knee; however, nothing of real concern. Feet are still getting use to the new shoes, top of left foot still feeling a little bruised.

Day of Rest

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 275

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 87

Program

AM: Rest

PM: Rest

Today's Journal
A well earned rest after a reasonably hard week of training.

Darn Motivation

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 284

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 96

Program

AM: Ride- group ride 5.30am. Ride there and back

PM: Run- 30 min easy followed by 5 x 50m strides and 20 min stretch

Today's Journal
Today there was no training. This morning I went to the physio again to have my right shoulder worked on, it is improving slightly. I have come to the conclusion that this shoulder maybe something that requires ongoing treatment and it maybe something I just have to live with...but we will see. I have another appointment on Monday.

Spent a bit of time working on, and carrying out some maintenance on my bikes. Kitted up both bikes with spares and bought another pump for the race bike (with CO2 cartridge attachment) I decided I have to do something about this motivation problem and sat down for the rest of the afternoon and watched the 2007 Australian Ironman highlights and a couple of DVD's Mark had lent me. I have to say that they did the job.

With someone in the family competing at a National level for the first time, I have found that I am being caught up in the emotion of this experience and that it is affecting my training. I believe that it is important to be supporting Karen in her preparations for this 'big event' (week of competitions). Hopefully that when this event is over things will go back to a relative normal level of stress and saneness. However, it has been good in one way, in that we both gain a good understanding of what it means to prepare for and compete in a 'big' event.

Double Session - Bike/Run

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 286

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 98

Program

AM: Ride: 90 -120 mins in 39/16-19 @ 95+ cadence on flat terrain @ 70% max hr

PM: Run: 30-45 mins @ 65-70% max hr followed by 20 min stretch

Today's Journal
Up and off for a 2 hour ride. The details of the ride were as follows:

Session Evaluation:

Bike Session: The session was probably a touch longer than it should of been, but it was good to spend a little more time in the saddle. Having days back to back on the bike has been a good conditioning exercise. The legs are relatively fresh and still feel good.

Sunday Ride

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 287

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 99

Program

AM: Group Ride - Including a 20km Time Trial

PM: Rest

Today's Journal
Up at 5.00am to be greeted with rain still hanging round from over night. Quickly jumped on the radar to check what the weather was doing and decided that it wasn't going to hang around much longer and that the ride would be a good option...in the end a good decision, it was a great morning. Initially went for a spin for 45min then ended up at the Criterium track to do a 20km TT and then a spin home.

Session Evaluation: The full TT kit was put on the Trek (including the race wheels). I am taking the opportunity to test all the setups over the coming months. The conditions were reasonable; however, there was a decent head wind down the front straight. Throughout the TT I stayed in the small chain ring at the front. The overall time was 33:40. This time is very similar to the other times I have ridden a 20km TT at the Crit Track; however, there wasn't the head wind on previous 2 occassions.

Super Saturday

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 288

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 100

Program

AM: Swim Session

PM: Run - cross country race Sherwood Forest park 2.45pm 4km

Today's Journal
Todays sessions were both in the afternoon. The swim session started at 12.00pm. I am currently struggling with my motivation at the moment, a number of factors may be influencing this; cool mornings and holidays. Decided that it would be in my best interest to go to the swim session; however, it was to be one with very little stroke action as to give my shoulder an opportunity to heal. The session was taylored just for me, (maybe not) it was focussing on improving leg/kick strength and conditioning.

The second part of today's training was a cross country run out at Sherwood. Initally I was not keen on the idea...there is that motivation thing again...really needed some friends to come too. In the end a 5 of us ended up running. Well was a challenging course particularly when we had just done a focus session on kicking/legs in the pool. The Sherwood course has a number of challenging hills...hmmmmmm. The distance today was 6km...2 x 3km loop...doing the hills twice....hmmm...nice. (tongue in cheek). Thanks goodness we had Muffy there earlier who had done the sensible thing and just run the 3km race and warned us of the things to come.

Below are some stats from my race:

Session Evaluation:

Swim Session: A positive session, was good to be able to do a good session while being injured, The focus on the kicking/leg side of my swimming is one area that could improve. I struggle with maintaining a constant kick throughout the swim. The session today went in improving the strength and conditioning of my legs. At the end of the session my legs were quite fatigued but I walked...stumbled away from the session happy with the outcome.

Cross Country Race: Its was ideal condir\tions for X-C running, cool, no sun and very little breeze to speak of. The focus for this race was on the first 2 km to control my pace at which I go out from the start. I set the Pace alarm on the garmin to go off when I was going faster then 4min pace. This work particularly well. Worked araound the 4:15min pace throughout the race. The hills in some parts challenged this notion. Over all I was happy with the race and found that my legs had a very good work out today. Still, there is a goal to negative split these races...still to be worked on...try and get the pace right first.

Overall Time 6km X-C : 0:26:02

Unscheduled Day Off

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 291

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 108

Program

AM: Bike - 5.30am group session with Byron cnr Victoria St. & Riverside Dve, West End

PM: Swim Session

Today's Journal
Today saw the coldest Brisbane day in nearly 80 years. Throughout the night we encountered high winds of in excess of 70km an hour which continued into the morning. Tuesday evening saw me preparing for the ride; however, due to the high winds and cold temperatures I chicken out. I am a little disappointed that I missed out on one of Byron's bike sessions.

After Monday's swim I have been struggling with a particular pain in the upper right pec/shoulder, this pain has been ongoing on varying levels over the last couple of months. It appears to get worse after swim session that focus on the upper body.....not sure really. Tomorrow off to the Physio to see what he thinks.

Tuesday's Training

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 292

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 104

Program

AM: Run - group run 5.45am from Centenary pool (Hills session)

PM: Ride - 75-90 mins in 39/16-19 cadence 95-105 under 145 hr

Today's Journal
The run session began in quite cool conditions; however, once we began to get into it, we began to warm up. The session was made up of:

Warm up

Steps set (5 x quick/light steps & 5 x 3steps at a time - Core)

3 x varying length hill sets with core work in between

Warm down

Session Evaluation: AM Session was the first time I have done this session and it was great to run with other people, helps with that motivation. Enjoyed the stairs set; however, did find the quads tightened up a little afterwards...bit of stretching and all were good. The hill sets were a great challenge the gradient wasn't that steep however, it allowed the legs to build up some strength.

800m Swim TT

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 293

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 105

Program

AM: Rest

PM: Swim Session

Today's Journal
This morning was well earned rest after the super Saturday and Sunday. This was a great weekend of training, it's when you've completed it and sit back and reflect that you realise that the whole thing was very worthwhile.

The PM session was at the pool, and yes it was a little cool, but once you were in swimming it was a reasonable temperature. Warm up was 3 x 100m easy then 3 x 100m pull bouy. Then some drills 1x25m easy, 1x25m medium, 1x25m hard we did this 4 times. The we went on to do a time trial, the distance was 800m. A warm down followed 300m of choice.

Session Evaluation: The swim session was the first time we had done a time trial in the pool. After/during the warm up struggled a little with sore shoulders, particularly the right one. Todays distance was 800m. I completed the fisrt 400m reasonably well, probably a little too hard, could of eased back on the pace during this time as to maintain a more consistant pace over the full 800m. From about the 400m to 600m began to fatigue a fair bit, particularly aerobically, the shoulder were also became a little more noticeable during this period. I began to try and relax a little more throughout the section and dropped the pace off a little more to enhance this. From the 600m to 800m I picked it up a little still working on keeping everything relaxed. Througout this TT I had not used bi-lateral breathing.

800m TT - 14min16sec

Super Sunday

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 294

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 106

Program

AM: Trail Run- 6 AM Slaughter Falls Car Park, Mt Cootha (ride there)

PM: Stretch Session (20min)

Today's Journal
Sunday morning rode to slaughter falls, 30min/12km ride with a number of hills. The trail run this morning entailed a similar route to the last trail run.

Session Evaluation: This was an enjoyable but challenging trail run, particularly after the sessions that I did yesterday. The legs were feeling rather fatigued before the trail session, and particularly that I had cycled to the start venue of the Trail run. Throughout the session I worked within my limits; however, that was until we reached that hill. (Just working it out from the Garmin, the hill has a 28% gradient for about 500m) Initially we did well to run up the first part; however, after about 200m it became a lost cause and walking/striding was the only option...even that was tough, the quads got a good workout.

Super Saturday

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 295

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 107

Program

AM: Swim - group session Suttons Beach Redcliffe 9.00am ride there and back
PM: Cross country race 4km ride there and back

Today's Journal
Started off the day a little later than usual...only 7.30am. The morning was a little chilly rugged up with undershirt, leg and arm warmers and set off. On the Gaint today.

The ride out:

I arrived first at Suttons Beach to find that so far there were no takers, after a while Mark turned up and then a few other joined me for the 'fun'. The water was flat and calm, a big change from last time; however, thank God for wet suites, without them we would of froze. To be truely honest, once you began swimming the water wasn't too bad, it was when you stopped that it got a little chilly. I was really happy with this session it was approximately a 2km session. I seem to swim a lot better in the open water then I do in the pool.

The ride home:

The PM session was another Cross Country race that QLD Athletics were holding. Today's race was 4km. This was Race 2 of the 'Challenge Series' between Pete and me. After today it was 1 a piece. Again I began the race way too fast, probably got caught up too much in the hype of the start, I really need to still work on maintaining a consistent pace over the complete distance. Looking at the split times below it may be realistic for a 4km race to aim at a 3:45min/k race pace.

4km X-C Race - 16min19sec

It's FRIDAY....guess that means holidays

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 296

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 108

Program

AM: Ride - 75 -90 mins in 39/16-19 @ 100+ cadence hr under 145

PM: Stretch Session

Today's Journal
Coming Soon

Session Evaluation: Coming Soon

A momentary lapse of reason

Days to Australian Ironman 2008 - 297

Days to GC Half Ironman 2007 - 109

Program

AM: Core control 20 mins

PM: Run - 15 min w/u followed by 10 x 150m strides up slight hill @85% with jog back rec and 10 min w/d

Today's Journal
It was back into training today...after momentary lapse of reason. A good solid session of core control, integrating a number of gym ball exercise into this program now...a bit of variation. A little more focus on the obliques.

This afternoon I did the stride session, the first of this type of session I have been able to complete. I really enjoyed the session and followed it exactly as detailed.

Session Evaluation: Felt good in both sessions, however, at the end stages of the Hill strides I felt a little niggle in the right thigh. With stretching and a bit of ice it should be fine. Think it may of been caused buy the way/course I was running...there was a sharp bend to the left at about half way and also may have been caused by the sudden change of direction at the completion of the 150m. But a worthwhile session and aerobically felt good. Would like to get hold some tips on reducing heart rates throughout the session.