August 5: 11 weeks to Goa | Weight: 80 kgs | CTL: 63
Another long work week (2x 10pm dinners and 3 nights of 6-hours sleep) and a sick kid, along with appointments at the passport office! Nothing dramatic, but just enough to put me off my game. Missed a swim on Tue and a run on Thu. The positives: my longest trainer ride in a long while – 2 hours at 200W average – on Saturday. Followed by a Sunday long run of HM distance, where I felt like my legs were dead from the start. That I managed to stick it out to complete the run is what I can take away from that one.
Some intensity over the weekend
If watts/kg is the metric to go by, then I am hoping that the watts are creeping up (managed a 228W 20-min effort in the midst of a 2-hour long session). Nothing to write home about, but a slow creep upwards. I’ll take that.
10 weeks at the end of this training week. Need to make the next 8 of them count (before a gradual taper). Time for an FTP test this week or next – for some confidence-building?
July 29: 12 weeks to Goa | Weight: 80 kgs | CTL: 65
Started the week slowly – the Olympic Tri and a good end to July were followed right up with a bit of work travel, and a rough work week. All this meant that I didn’t get to back up the tri with a ramp-up in training. If anything, it was a small step back.
Too much red for my liking
A missed swim set and a missed long ride on Sunday (due to work travel) were the main problems with the week. Of course, I did manage to sneak in a couple of short, but crucial (for my training momentum) runs over the weekend. This meant that I was just about able to keep my head afloat with the training plan. A cheeky little brick session was also a nice positive.
Not much to say about this week. Time to build up the volume and intensity.
July 22: 13 weeks to Goa | Weight: 81 kgs | CTL: 62
Another reasonable training week to cap off a good training month (by my recent standards). In fact, this is the first month since Jan ’19 (main training block for Colombo) that I crossed 35 total training hours according to TP & Strava. If I were to take a month-end health-check: Run: Reasonably good month – did a hard 10km and a hard ROTB during the Oly Tri. Bike: Good month – did a couple of solid outdoor rides (even if they weren’t too long) after a break of about 4 months, and with the Tacx and Zwift setup, some of the indoor sessions are also a bit more enjoyable Swim: Not satisfactory. I aimed to do at least 8 hours of swim time per month during this 16-week block. And this month, I’ve only managed about 4.5.
Highlight of the week: I did a practice triathlon (Olympic distance with a pool swim). I have close family visiting me this week, so the weekend leading up to it wasn’t ideal race prep. But given that it was a casual practice race, I didn’t stress too much about that. The aim of the race was twofold: (1) Get some hard outdoor riding practice, including hills and headwinds. Nearly all of my riding has been indoor of late, so this is an important element to incorporate, and (2) Do a proper run off the bike since I haven’t started doing brick sessions and I need to do them.
All things considered, it went reasonably well. The weather was good – overcast and not hot. The pool swim went as planned (no real surprises in a pool), the bike went quite well, and the run was a touch below par. Most importantly, the bike leg introduced me to some really hard riding outdoor after a really long break, and I got some practice keeping the intensity up in the face of some brutal cross-headwinds. I also managed to throw in a last 200m sprint to take 2nd (just edging out the guy who overtook me at the 6km mark). I also didn’t focus on transitions, and changed attire – bike jersey, and a run vest. Total transition time added up to 6:40 or so. Lots of room to shave time there.
25-30km cross headwinds, and swirling gusts of 50+ km/h!
The coming week will see a bit of a drop in intensity due to some family and work commitments. I need to make August really count, so I’m aiming for another 35+ hour month, and to get my CTL up to 70+.
Finally, a big shout-out to TriBLR, a fledgling, informal triathlon community in Bangalore. This was a largely self-supported triathlon organized by the group. And 32 volunteers turned up to support 32 racers! Truly grateful for the support, and I’m hoping to return the favour soon.
July 15: 14 weeks to Goa | Weight: 81 kgs | CTL: 56
This week, I broke the 10-hour training barrier for the first time in months. It wasn’t easy, particularly with a 2-day work travel trip thrown in, but some advance planning meant that I could squeeze in a ride the day I flew out, and a run on the treadmill at the hotel.
This week, I also made sure that I’d get two swims in (and going for 3 in the coming week, including the training triathlon on Sunday) – the second of which was a no-watch affair. The focus was not on times, but on form. I tried to swim long, extend each stroke, and do a proper catch. I tried to go by feel, and after about 5 such swims, I’ll take a video and see how it looks.
Back in the pool – twice this week!
This week, I also ventured outdoors and did my first outdoor ride since February (Colombo). It felt good, and boy, is it easier! I didn’t push the pace as I was navigating a bit of traffic and some head/crosswinds. My HR never went above 145 or so and averaged only about 133. In contrast, a typical Zwift ride would have me averaging 155-160. It was also such a joy zipping down some mild rolling terrain.
After the first hour, though, it wasn’t quite as much fun. Exhaust from passing trucks stifled my progress and a bus that overtook me at speed – passing just an inch away from me. And when the roads turned to gravel, the pace came right down. All of it made me appreciate indoor training, and the ability to hold the intensity when on a trainer. Of course, nothing beats a nice, rambling outdoor ride, but it isn’t always practical (or optimal training).
Happy to be out, can’t tell from my face since I just inhaled a lungful of exhaust fumes
July 8: 15 weeks to Goa 70.3 | Weight: 81 kgs | CTL: 52
First 9-hour training week in this block. And boy, It took some effort!
Traffic light weeks aren’t ideal. More green, please.
A few interesting firsts – I managed to start using my Tacx Neo trainer and connected it to Zwift (which meant getting off TrainerRoad – don’t see the point of paying for both). This also meant a first Zwift ride, which was a lot more fun than I’d expected. [My favourite feature is the bumpiness that’s transmitted when I’m going over cobbles or wooden bridges – so cool!]
No longer a Zwift virgin!… and I can climb indoors now
Swimming took a hit – as it always does when the training ramps up. Strength and swimming sessions are the first to take a hit. And I need to make a more concerted effort to make sure this isn’t the case anymore. The goal is to do a minimum of 2 swims a week, and at least 10 weeks where I do 3 a week.
The wins for this week – did a 2+ hour ride for the first time in months. And a ~20km run for the first time since Feb. Time to slowly dial it up.
July 1: 16 weeks to Goa 70.3 | Weight: 81.5 kgs | CTL: 48 The last proper block of training I did was for Colombo 70.3. In the 4 months since then, I’ve gone through a mix of the off-season, low-key events, and work-life balance shifting decidedly towards work. The events themselves have been quite fun. While Goa Swimathon 5km (March), Thonnur Swimathon (June) and Bengaluru 10k (July) have ensured that my fitness doesn’t roll all the way back to zero, the intensity has dropped sharply. The last 3 weeks leading up to this 16-week training block has helped me ramp up slowly. Now, it’s time to ratchet it up.
Bengaluru 10k last weekend was a nice, hard effort (10km is such an enjoyable distance to run. Short enough that you can do it and still have enough in the tank to have a full day for family and friends, long enough for it to feel like a proper effort if done well) given my limited fitness at the moment. It was slower than my 10k split during my HM PB in Dec ’18, but faster than I’ve run in the last 6 months since. So, I’ll take that as a good time-trial to establish a baseline.
I also managed a nice 2.5km open water swim at the Thonnur Swimathon the weekend prior. It’s a bit of a trek 6 hours of driving round-trip, but well worth it. Beautiful, scenic waters and good open-water practice close to home! While the pace I swam was nothing to write home about (finished in about 57 mins at 2:16/km), it was a great practice swim and I’m most pleased with how little I deviated from the straight lines.
Swimming in (almost) straight lines! Getting better every day.
I’ll see if I can sneak in a couple of swims at Thonnur in this training block – get some sighting and open water practice in.
Week 2 didn’t start very well – had a cold (sneezes, runny nose… the works). So, I took a day and a half off to try to recover quickly and not let it linger. Given that I needed to travel for work, and this is early in the training block, I didn’t want a sustained, low-grade malaise bothering me. And it seemed to work well. By Wednesday afternoon, I felt better and I finished the second half of the week strong.
The training is still pretty light, and while the runs are a little harder I am actually looking forward to a harder overall load. I’m tweaking little things on my run (and run prep) and what I’ve seen this week is that:
Not eating anything before the run that could give me a heartburn is proving to be effective. Even when I do runs a bit later in the morning (10am, 28 deg C), I didn’t have any heartburn and didn’t feel out-of-breath.
I’ve typically never used any race nutrition while training. This week, I actually used some Gu Chomps before my ROTB and Sunday run and felt strong. Not sure if the two are related in any way, but I’ll try it some more and report.
I missed my only swim for the week, and am a little worried that I’m losing touch with my weakest discipline. I’ll see how this week’s swim feels.
The rides were actually quite comfortable, and didn’t feel like I was being pushed. I’ll try to do an FTP test this week and see how I match up to a few months ago.
Doing a relatively easy trainer ride on Saturday meant that I was much fresher for the ROTB and could match the planned pace. Last week, I pushed a little harder on the bike and the run felt much harder (heavy legs!)
My #1 focus for this week is on what I eat. I have a strong suspicion that it is the biggest thing holding back my fitness, training and overall health. All the training won’t help if I eat poorly. This week, I’ll monitor my intake, and mainly watch my snacking.
New month. Start of a new block of training. Run-focused block with the aim of dropping my time for the run, and being able to run a 4:30 – 4:40/km half marathon. If this is achieved, then hopefully a HM time of 1:45 within a 70.3 tri will be achievable.
It’s always nice to see all green on TP. Of course, this was week 1 after a bit of a break, and I wasn’t traveling. So it’ll be much harder in the coming weeks when the training load picks up, and work/travel start to get in the way much more. But for now, I’ll take this good start.
A few things I learned:
1. Running late in the day (even if my last meal was a few hours ago) tends to give me a heartburn. This probably has more to do with what I’m doing than the time of the day. Also, the motivation needed to get out of the door for an evening run is much, much higher.
2. The tiny brick session (just a 70 min indoor ride followed by a 5km run) was surprisingly hard – because it’s been nearly 2 months since I did such a session. Also, the difference between a straightforward (just turning the legs over) run off the bike and a reasonable tempo run is quite stark.
3. An evening ride followed by a tempo run in the morning is not that easy. It’s probably good to simulate some tired legs, but I definitely hadn’t recovered enough. This likely also means that my overall fitness is low. As I get fitter, I’m hoping my recovery time will also get better.
4. I’ll have to work on dropping some of my excess weight if I have to get better at the run.
This August, for the first time in nearly a decade of running and triathlon events, I did not finish (DNF). In February, I crashed at a local mountain bike race on Lap 1 of 5. Even there, I got up and finished – and only later realized that I had broken a collarbone. But at an IM 70.3 race in the Sunshine Coast in Australia, I couldn’t quite deal with stormy weather and choppy waters to finish the swim event within the cutoff time. I was allowed an hour to complete the swim, and being disoriented from the swells, I doggy-paddled and breast-stroked and held on to the support crew’s paddleboards… and took nearly 1.20. So, not even close, really.
Now I’m not going to pretend that this is a defining moment in my life. It was just poor preparation – a pool never really simulates an ocean swim, and bad luck (I’d been sick the week of the race, and this was the first and only rainy day in the sunshine coast that month!). And after a couple of days of disappointment, I got over it. But I was really upset about the fact that I had spent a boatload of money, taken the trouble to lug my bike all the way to Australia, and then failed spectacularly after all that build up.
The race post-mortem led me to a conclusion. I need to infuse a little more structure and reflection into my training. So, I plan to post periodic updates about my training here. While Training Peaks does a fine job of tracking my progress and relaying that to my coach, I hope to look back on every week, add some commentary and think ahead a little bit.
As I write this, I’m starting a roughly 11-week run-focussed training block. So, it’s as good a week as any to start.
Upcoming Events:
Jan 2019: Goa Triathlon
Feb 2019: Colombo 70.3
Harish Subramanian 