Welcome

I started this blog in 2010 when there were 11 weeks to go before my next Ironman triathlon. People have found it interesting (mainly my Mum!) so I continue to write.
The Ironman is a long distance triathlon; Swim 2.4miles, Cycle 112miles, Run 26.2 miles (marathon). I have competed in one every year since 2004. I hope this blog can help others see what is involved. I find the process of writing it makes me more accountable and motivates me to do the harder sessions when i'm not feeling like it!

Thursday 20 May 2010

Plan today is 10km run this morning, and 80min run in afternoon/evening.

Decided to do the 10km as an incremental run - the idea is to select your desired 10km time and run at this pace in intervals with 30second breaks with the total distance adding up to 10km. You gradually increase the distance of the intervals week on week. This has worked really well for people at my running club.
So the plan was to Run 50 x 200m at about 40sec each.
All went well for 20 but got some calf pain and decided to stop, didn't have a choice really! First time trying this.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/33899759

The idea behind this is that to get fast you have to train at these speeds, it's asking a lot to do a lot of slow long miles and expect to run fast on race day. If you were starting out just do these sessions at recovery pace concentrating on form rather than speed.

Will see how leg is for this evening - if dodgy will swim instead.

22:00
So calf still sore - has reminded me that aerobically our bodies adapt really quickly, it's the strength that takes a lot longer. Training for ironman gives you lots of time to think about all these things!
A useful way to think about injuries is why it happened on the side it did and not the other - what was out of balance etc etc
I have only really been forefoot striking for six months now and the calves are taking a while to adapt.
Probably also went too fast to start with!

Did 30 mins stretching and core work at the gym then 40min swim session
10 min warm up
then swam 8 x 200m at critical swim speed (CSS) on 25 seconds recovery
5 min cool down

Critical swim speed - this is concept is taken from the land based training regimens
One of the best intensities to exercise at is "tempo" this is a speed that you could just maintain for an hour and be absolutely wiped out at the end (cycling or running). This is the speed that the kenyans do 80%+ of their running at. Finding this intensity in the pool is harder.


CSS (m/sec) = (400 - 200) / (T400 - T200)
Where T400 and T200 are your 400 and 200m times in seconds.
Essentially if you slow a lot on the 400m your CSS is slower.
My CSS is 1m/sec which means I try and hit the wall every 25sec in a 25m pool in this session
I have been doing one of these sessions a week for the last six months and have learnt a lot about my swimming. My bad technique only really shows itself when pushing hard and getting tired, at less intense sessions it's easy to convince yourself that it's fine. 


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