Tag: Triathlon

Training Log – Week 42 (2018)

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Another green week! It was harder to maintain the streak early this week, as I overslept on Tuesday morning, and had a couple of two-a-days. But a holiday on Friday allowed me to make it all up.

Ankle and lower calf started to hurt after a somewhat high intensity run on Wednesday. Had to nurse it through the week by (1) massaging the Achilles myself (2) some foam rolling (3) lots of heel and calf stretches on the edge of a step. A rest day and a swim session coming up early in the coming week – so hopefully the rest and some more stretching will help me get back to normal.

I successfully tracked a lot of my food intake this week using myfitnesspal. I don’t trust that it’s very accurate, but like a weighing scale, I think it allows me to compare one day with another. Since I’ve been aware of the need to log it, I’ve also been more conscious of my food intake through the day. Even so, the odd meal out and some mindless eating result in huge spikes.

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It’s also really driven home the point that the calories I burn as part of my training are the only reason I can stay in reasonable shape despite the caloric spikes. Of course, this also explains the rate at which I put on weight (and girth!) when I stop my training even for a few weeks – like when I broke my collarbone earlier or the vacation in Aug/Sep.

The week ahead is a recovery week, so I’ll focus on:

  1. Resting, stretching and eliminating the pain in my leg
  2. Doing a 20 min FTP test on the bike
  3. Continuing to track my food intake to see if I can stabilize it

On to week 4.

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Training Log – Week 41 (2018)

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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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

On to Week 3.

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Disappointment

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

 

 

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