Total Volume was down by 4 hours on last week. But I am more than happy with this week, even though I didn’t originally plan for it. Why did I drop by 4 hours? Easy. I had the opportunity to help out a mate that runs the Real Food Oliver’s Road racing team in the Sunshine Coast National Road Series race. So Sunday my originally planned 4 hour ride was scrapped to have the day watching some high quality road racing and helping out where I could in the team car. You want to talk about fast bike riding. These guys on the 3rd day of racing did a 90 km bike race and averaged 46.5 kmh. At some stages in the race on the flat we were having a bit of a laugh when the speedo was showing 60kmh. While missing the 4 hour ride I was so pumped when I got home Wendy and I jumped on our bikes and did a 30 km ride.
But I also missed 2 swims and a gym session this week. I did do some gym and didn’t record it but the structured session didn’t make it in to the weeks straining. The 2 swims were a bit of a timing issue. Monday I just didn’t want to go swimming and then Friday’s was actually meant to be on Saturday but I chose to move it to Friday because Saturday I would be helping out with the Road Cycling and then I missed it anyway. Not my proudest moment but it happened and I have moved on.
On a positive note though the training I did do was top notch. Tuesday’s intervals were very, very good and showed improvement on previous weeks. And my running is ever so slightly improving. I even did my very first ever double run day on Thursday with a 30 minute run in the morning, and then a 30 min run on the treadmill after my afternoon swim.
Friday’s bike ride was a ride out to Garmin hill and then do 4 repeats up the climb and then a ride home. I was really happy with the consistent output on the climb, I have found that I am so used to doing sustained efforts on a trainer that doing the very same effort on a road or even up a hill presents different challenges and really enjoy the work. The slight variations up the climb make a steady output near impossible, and little crests and slackening of the climb can lead to power dropping rapidly and it makes it hard get it back up.
But my favourite session for the week was my long run. I woke with pretty tired legs and honestly contemplated shortening it. But as I got going the legs came around and was really happy being able to hold a steady pace and steady heart rate for the entire time. What was the best though was the fact that it was quite warm. Previously even a little bit of heat would make my heart rate steadily rise. Not Saturday morning though. It is only a small thing but to me it was a sign that the training I am doing is beginning to work.
Monday this week was another double run day. Both again were 30 minute runs one being on the road first thing in the morning. the other a 30 minute treadmill run after my swim. I can tell you at the moment in Noosa Aquatic centre, the water is so warm at around 30 degrees Celsius it makes it very hard to push hard paces. My second run of the day on Monday was a very easy run on the treadmill and I was able to make sure heart rate never went over 120 BPM for the duration. Come Tuesday for the Trainer session was a 5 efforts of 5 minute @ VO2 power with 4 minutes recovery between. I was actually a little nervous for this one. I haven’t done a 5 x 5 session for a few years. I remember they used to hurt like hell. Well they still hurt like hell but I go through them pretty well. But there was a definite drop in condition on the 4th interval and my average power dropped a few watts. I managed to rally a bit for the last one but it was still down a little bit. So given the rule of progression. I will be attempting to do those 5 x 5 minutes better next week than I did this week.
The rest of the week looks pretty simple and similar to last week. Except that Saturday this week is Christmas day so I will be doing a ride with Wendy which is our tradition. It will likely be a bit closer to 3 hours rather than the 5 and a half I had originally scheduled.
Overall there have been a few distractions but I have managed to keep it together pretty well. There seems to be some positive trending with my running which I am keeping my fingers crossed continues to build. Given the COVID crap that is going on all around us keeping the training up and consistent for the most part has helped keep me a little bit sane and like everyone else in the world can’t wait for things to settle down a little bit and let life return to something we can move around in our own country stress free and entertain the possibility of heading overseas. Right now it is hard to fathom moving around too much anytime soon.
It is an interesting time which we live in and I hope to be able to look back at this one day and say it helped me build resilience in me and those I care about the most in the world.
So for those still reading and those that aren’t.
Merry Christmas.
Stay safe. Stay happy and stay up right.
Mick