Big Run Week

I'm currently in Bright for the Alpine Classic but sadly I'm just a spectator because I'm banned from riding hills due to my knee.  Elaine has finished her ride up and down Mt Buffalo (70km) and is very happy with efforts.  The fact that she still looked relatively fresh at the end bodes well for her Olympic Distance at Geelong in 2 weeks.  We are staying in Bright with Jeremy, he is currently still out doing the 200km ride.  He popped back in after 130km (Tawonga Gap, Falls Creek, Tawonga Gap) to have a shower and change clothes before heading off to tackle Mt Buffalo.  He was looking pretty good (not as fresh as Elaine), but said the heat had been pretty bad.  It had taken him 7 hours for the first bit and was hoping to do Mt Buffalo in under 4 hours.  So an 11hr mountainous ride is pretty good training for the Ironman bike leg he will be doing as part of a team in Ironman Melbourne.  We suspect he'll sign up for the whole race next year.

The week is finished.  It only contained 2 bike rides totally 211km and 4 swims for 7.1km.  But other than the Race Simulation Event on Thursday, the focus for the week was on running and I did 6 runs in the week including an 18km run today bringing the weekly mileage up to 55km. I'll have to check through my records, but this may be my biggest ever run week.

I ran in my larger runners again, this time wearing the thickest running socks I own.  My left foot is fine, but the 2nd toe on my foot now has a huge blister.  I don't know if this has resulted because the blister started from Thursday's run or whether it would have happened anyway.  Maybe next time I'll try the run with medium thick socks.  Even though the blister looks bad, I never felt it on the run.  However I'm sure it would have grabbed my attention if I had of run 42km, so this is an issue I need to get on top of before the Ironman (I've since popped the blister).

My knee doesn't really seem to have improved, but more importantly it has not deteriorated. In fact my ITBs and quads are starting to feel worse - I'll definitely need another massage next week. I'm now starting to find that running no longer seems to bother the knee much, so much so that I did two 10km runs on consecutive days without a problem. The main problem at the moment appears to be the bike riding. However this might be aggravated by the fact that the seatpost on my Triathlon bike keeps slipping. I've put some tape on the post so that I can see when it has slipped and I now carry an allen key on my rides so that I can re-adjust it any time. The post only seems to slip about 3 or 4mm, but this seems to be enough to upset my knee.  Hopefully I'm now on top of this problem.

If all goes well, next week should be my biggest ever week and possibly the biggest week of the Ironman campaign.  Again the focus will be on running (planning a 20km run), but I'm hoping to get in several rides of around 100km and if I'm feeling good I may even do an extra long ride on Sunday.  I'm very happy with my swimming at the moment, but realise I have to get the training up to maintain my current form, so there will also be plenty of swim sessions next week as well.

The following week will end with the Geelong Long Distance Triathlon (2km Swim, 80km Bike, 20km Run).  This means a mini taper on the Friday & Saturday before the race and around 5 days of recovery after the race.

Race Simulation with Bayside Triathlon Club

Even though I had arranged alternative transportation to the event, my wife Elaine offered to drop me off (a one hour return trip).  This was especially generous considering that I needed to be at Sandringham by 6am and Elaine had her own 1.4km Swim event at Brighton which didn't start until 11am.  However the offer became even more generous when I realised I had left my drink bottles at home in the fridge, so Elaine had to make 2 trips that morning.

All up there were over 100 triathletes doing the Race Simulation which covered various distances - swim 1.5 to 3km, bike 40 to 150km and run 6 to 18km - or you vary the course as you wished and end up with any distance you desired.

My aim in the swim was to see if I could last the distance without fatiguing and affecting the bike leg and also to see if I could stay in the draft of other swimmers.  There were about 30 people doing the 3km swim and for the entire distance I seemed to be able to stay in the main pack (not always easy to tell whilst swimming).  I felt my stroke become a little laboured after about 1.5km and due to a minor mistake by the organisers the distance ended up only being about 2.5km.  But overall I was very pleased with how my swim went and I came out of the water with other triathletes that are usually a bit faster than me in the water.

The bike leg was another chance for me to practice my pacing to power & heart rate and this time I would be doing it after a swim.  It was also a great opportunity to practice my race nutrition plan, especially since they had a 'Special Needs' station (an esky containing water bottles) at the 45km mark of the ride.  I started the ride with a sports drink in one bottle and Optimiser in the other.  My bottle in the 'Special Needs' esky was another bottle of Optimiser - which is another reason why I was so grateful to Elaine for going back and collecting the bottles from home.  For the first 45km I took a few sips of Optimiser every 7.5mins, which worked out perfectly because I just finished the bottle in time to swap it for the new one.  After this my watch still beeped every 7.5mins, but I alternated between Optimiser and a Gel Blast.  This approach seemed to work out well, especially mentally, because I got a little treat every 7.5mins.  In between treats I took the occasional sip of Sports Drink, but probably didn't have enough as the one bottle lasted me the entire ride.  I managed to hold the planned power & heart rate (more or less).  It was difficult to the undulating terrain (Sandringham to Dromana and back).  I was certainly tiring towards the end and due to some very rough roads out near Dromana, my bum was extremely sore.  I averaged 30.4kph for the ride which I was a little disappointed with, but it is always much harder when you have to keep stopping at traffic lights and the Ironman course will be a lot smoother and not as hilly.

When I got off the bike my knee was killing me - it was the most sore it has been in quite some time.  The path down to the Bayside Clubrooms (where transition was setup) is very steep and as I hobbled down I didn't even think I would get to the end of the path let alone start the run.  Once at the Clubrooms I had a quick toilet stop and then set off on the run.  Amazingly after the first 100m, the pain in my knee went away.  I always run well off the bike and like usual I started off way too fast.  I sat on 4m40s pace for the first 4km and felt great, but reality soon hit.  I don't know if it was because I had just had a gel, but I started to feel pain in my side.  The pain started to fade, my I was not able to get any speed back and the feeling of running easy disappeared as I slowly dropped back to 5m20s pace (the speed I should have been doing from the start).  After the first 6km loop I had a drink and took 2 Gel Blasts from my bike for the second leg (deciding to skip the gels).  My original plan had been to run 10km (a nice round number) but with the loops being 6km, I thought 12km would be better.  But just as I was approaching the 8km mark I felt a very slight twinge in the knee and decided to the cut the lap short and only do 10km.  The knee twinge was probably all in my head, but better to be safe than sorry.

As I crossed the finish line I felt pretty good, my last kilometre was back at 5m00s pace (always easier when you know you are finishing).  I felt I handled the event really well - very pleased with the swim, a touch disappointed with the bike and satisfied with the run.  However fatigue is a funny thing, because 2 hours after the event I suddenly felt completely wiped out and ended up going back to bed for 6 hours.

Things I have learnt from this event:

• if conditions are good, I should not have any problems with the swim and should be able to sit on someone's toes for the whole distance.  I may decide to start next to my friend Steve who is also doing Ironman - he'll probably be a good candidate to draft off.
• my road cycling shoes are no good for fast transitions. They hurt my foot when resting on top and are quite difficult to get in and out of whilst riding.  I either need to put my shoes on and off in transition or wear my triathlon cycling shoes.
• the new tri-shorts I recently bought do not solve the saddle sore problem, but they are definitely an improvement over all my other shorts for doing long rides on the Triathlon bike. They also feel great to run in, so at the moment they are the definite choice for the Ironman. The only minor downside is that they are about 1cm shorter in the leg and I now have a 1cm ring of sunburn.
• my nutrition on the bike was pretty good, although I probably need to squeeze in some extra sports drinks. The extra bottles won't be an issue in the race as there'll be plenty of aid stations on the bike leg.
• still need to work out exactly what to put in my Special needs bag for Ironman.  Probably a bottle of Optimiser and maybe some Gel Blasts, or the Winners' equivalents that I think taste better.
• need to hold back more at the start of the run.  Going too fast early will definitely derail the second half of the marathon.
• I need to practise with gels more on the run to discover whether or not I have a digestion problem with them.  On race day, there will be Gel Blasts available at the many aid stations, so it may not be a big issue. But then again I may be sick of Gel Blasts after eating so many of them on the bike leg
• I bought new runners half a size bigger for my long runs, but I still got a small blister on the end of my 2nd toe on my right foot. Maybe I need to wear thicker socks when I run in the larger shoes.

Time to get back into the thick of it

Last week was my recovery week.  I did sneak in a long run of 16km and a 3.4km swim, but otherwise it was a pretty easy week.  After the 160km ride the week before, I took 5 days off from riding to allow the saddle sores to heal and then did 2 rides on the weekend - 90km on Sat and a very easy 33km on Sunday.  There were 6 swims for the week, but 4 of them were only 500m or less.

This week the plan is to up the volume again.  Originally I had planned to do a 5km Open Water Swim at the Australia Day event at Brighton, which would be followed by a long ride & run on Fri and another long run on Saturday.  But I have decided to do a Race Simulation event with the Bayside Triathlon Club instead - 3km Swim, 150km Bike & 10km Run.  The recovery required for this event will bring down the week's volume a little, but I think the experience of the Race Simulation will definitely be worth it.  And if I pull up well, I should be able to get in an 18km run on the Sunday.

Another Long Run

I started this week with 3 easy days.  Monday and Tuesday consisted of very easy Open Water swims, while Wednesday had a very easy, short run plus a swim.  After one easy day I definitely noticed an improvement with my knee.  There was no pain walking or even going up and down stairs, although I still could not do a single leg squat without pain.  However the second rest day did not see any improvement and by the third day I was starting to stiffen up and experience general aches and pains throughout the body.

As mentioned in earlier blog posts, I tend to experience aches and pains once my run gets to around 10km.  When I started to think more about this, I remembered I used to get the same problem when I first started trying to do long, slow runs (years before I suffered my current knee injury).  The problem seemed to be that when I ran accordingly to heart rate, my pace was uncomfortably slow.  This meant that I was not running with a natural rhythm and it was the bad running form at this slow pace that was causing the muscle soreness.  Back then I got around this problem by ignoring heart rate on my long runs and simply running at a relaxed, but more natural pace.  As a result, the endurance benefit of improving fat burning efficiency would be lessened, but my legs would be getting the conditioning they needed to survive long runs.  With this knowledge I decided to only run to heart rate for runs of 10km or less.  This is actually backwards to how most people would advise training, but sometimes you have to adapt to particular situations.

The short 4km run Wednesday afternoon (at a very low HR) felt great and gave me confidence to do a long run on Thursday.  Right from the start of the long run, I felt a slight ache on the outside of my left hip.  I'm not sure if this is the top of my ITB, my hamstring or something else.  The rest of my body felt good so I had no hesitation in completing the planned distance of 16km.  Running at a relaxed, natural pace saw my speed sit around 5m10s per km (about 15 secs faster) and my heart rate sat between 140 to 150bpm (around 10 beats higher).  I did not feel like the pace was too fast and when I finished the run after 90 minutes I did not feel tired.

There was no pain from the knee at any time during the run, but it has been aching a bit since, as has the hip that was sore on the run.  The 2nd and 3rd toe on my left foot is also quite sore - which may mean I need a larger size shoe for my long runs.

Last night I went to John Van Wisse's swim squad at the King Club in Sandringham.  These are great sessions and also a good way to gauge how well my swimming is going.  It was an unusually small turnout which meant the group only took up 3 lanes (it often takes up 6 lanes, sometimes over 8 people to a lane).  I began in the middle lane, but I was swimming so well John moved my up to the fastest lane.  He was very impressed and said it was the best he had ever seen me swim.  Very encouraging news, however my shoulders are a little sore today.  The session was 3km long, plus I also did an extra 400m before the session started.

I'm probably going to have an easy day today to let the body recover from yesterdays long run and swim.  How I feel tomorrow morning will determine how hard I train this weekend.  With this week scheduled as a recovery week, I feel no pressure to cram in training.

Recovery

It is only during rest that your body actually improves.  If you don't allow your body to rest, you will never improve.  Training overloads your muscles resulting in lots of micro tears.  During periods of rest, the muscle regenerates and becomes stronger.

How much rest do you need is the big question.  I like to leave at least 48 hours between hard training sessions.  However sometimes I may deliberately schedule two hard sessions in a row to add extra stress to the body, in which case I would look to follow these with at least 72 hours of easy training or rest.

Active recovery is usually better than passive recovery.  At rest, most of our blood is directed to our major organs such as the liver, kidneys, pancreas, stomach, intestines, etc.  During exercise, a large proportion of this blood is redirected to the muscles instead.  If you keep the exercise to a very low level you will not do any damage to the muscles, but the extra blood flow will result in the delivery of a lot of extra nutrients and the blow will also clear away a lot of waste product from the muscles such as lactic acid.  So very light exercise is better for recovery than complete rest.  I find recovery sessions especially useful between two hard sessions.

Mentally we also need a rest.  You are far more likely to burn out mentally than physically (physically overtraining affects the heart).  Elite athletes who experience heart issues from physically overtraining have typically been doing over 30 hours of training a week for up to 10 years.

Usually I plan each 4th week as an easy recovery week.  I will still train, but every session is easy and optional.  There is no guilt associated with missing a session during a recovery week.  A sure way to tell if a recovery week has been mentally refreshing is if you find yourself getting restless and wanting to train.

After finishing last week with a 14km run and a 160km ride, I am treating the start of this week as recovery.  At the moment I am planning 3 days of rest with the intention of doing a long run on Thursday before getting back on the bike for the weekend.

Today my knee is feeling as good as I can remember since the injury.  I originally planned to do some short recovery runs, but the improvement in my knee has encouraged me to give it more complete rest.  The complete rest should also give the saddle sores, from the 386km on the bike last week, a chance to fully heal.

I have a massage appointment today and a visit to chiropractor tomorrow, so hopefully my body will be in excellent shape to handle the next 3 weeks training leading up to the Long Distance Triathlon in Geelong.  Yesterday I swam about 500m whilst coaching an Open Water Swim session.  I'll probably do an easy swim today and tomorrow I may do a short recovery run before coaching another Open Water Swim session.

Naturally the weather has been perfect early this week (maybe a touch hot) and the rain is forecast to arrive later in the week just as I get back into training.

10 weeks to go

I usually start building the training load 12 weeks out from a major event and then become very focused and train hard for the last 8 weeks (that includes up to 2 weeks taper).  The Long Distance Triathlon at Geelong is 6 weeks before Ironman Melbourne, so it may change the way I usually formulate the those last 8 weeks, not that I have ever actually trained for an Ironman before.

Despite being greatly hindered by my knee injury, I consider myself to be well into the build stage, if not already in the focussed, hard period usually reserved for the last 8 weeks.  Today I completed a 160km solo ride in 5h13m.  This takes the week's bike mileage up to 384km and the overall week's training volume up to 18h20m (365 slowtwitch points).  Obviously the week was slightly dominated by cycling, but this is the first time I have completed what I would consider an Ironman training week.  Hopefully I'll be able to start putting down several of these sort of weeks in succession.

The running this week was a little light on with only 3 runs totalling 27km. but it did show promising signs with a long run of 14km.  I now need to continue building upon this distance every week.  Disappointingly I only did 3 swims this week due to general fatigue and some lack of motivation - not unexpected in such a big training week.  However Friday's swim was 3km and I was still swimming quite strongly towards the end of the session.

At the moment the knee is not ready for a long brick session (run off the bike).  It usually feels quite sore once I've finished my rides, but generally comes good the next morning.  As a result, I will probably work on increasing the bike and run distances separately.  The Geelong triathlon will probably be the first test of running off the bike (20km run after an 80km bike leg).

I also need to work out where to place my recovery periods.  Historically I've worked on 3 weeks of hard training and then 1 week off.  The timing of the Geelong race makes this approach a little difficult, plus I'm currently hesitant to have a full week off for recovery.  At the moment I'm leaning more towards having smaller 3 day recovery periods - during these days I will either swim or have a complete day of rest.  How I manage the recovery periods will probably have a major influence upon whether or not my knee injury heals in time.

A long run

I've been having problems getting a long run in.  I usually feel fine up to 9 or 10km, but then things start to ache and fearing an injury, I cut my run short.

This morning my knee did not feel great.  It was not feeling bad, just sort of OK, which seems to be becoming the norm.  The knee doesn't hurt when I walk around, but I can feel it a little going up and down the stairs and I can usually find a sore spot where the tendon attaches to the shin if I poke around.  I have had the occasional day when it feels great, but they seem to be getting very rare now that I've upped the training load.  I also get occasional days when it feels bad, painful to walk up stairs and very easy to find sore spots anywhere on the knee.

From the very beginning of the run I could feel my knee, but I was determined to finish my planned long run of 14km.  After a kilometre or so my knee came good and I fell into a comfortable rhythm.  Frustratingly my watch ran out of battery at about the 8km mark - another temptation to finish early, but I continued on.  Luckily I knew where I had to run to complete 14km.  As usual, I started to feel the knee again at the 10km mark.  At first it wasn't bad, but it slowly progressed to mild pain.  During the last 2km, my knee was more sore than any previous run because I would have usually stopped, but not today.

Once I stopped running, all signs of pain disappeared and I could not feel anything when I walked back home.  Even going up the stairs didn't cause any problems.  This was a big relief, but the real test will be how it feels tomorrow morning.  I'm coaching the club training session tomorrow morning, so I may turn it into a rest day for me.

I still don't run with a camera, but yesterday a Blue Tongue lizard made an appearance on the path right near our house.  So I went back inside to get my phone and took the following pictures.  The lizard has a nasty gash on its ear, probably by a dog, and it was covered in ants who were climbing into the wound - appearing to eat the lizard alive from the inside.  It was still mildly active, but sadly I don't think it is long for this world.  I now suspect the other lizard probably suffered the same fate - a lot of people walk their dogs along this path. I didn't really get a good photo of it and when I tried to put my hand near it to help give you an idea of size, it scuttled away into the bush.

Interesting Runs

Things have been getting interesting on my last few runs.  I might have to start carrying a camera when I run.

Last Sunday's run began with a bush rat drunkenly staggering across the path, I suspect feeling the affects of a snake bite.  On my return trip a few minutes later the rat was still hopelessly tripping over itself.  I didn't stop, as I expected there was a snake nearby waiting for its lunch to finally fall over.

A kilometre or so later I came across a very large blue tongue lizard.  Upon hearing me approach it initially started to move, but then gave up and decided it was my job to run around it.  It was around 45 minutes later that I came back past and the lizard was still lying in the middle of the path.  Sadly the next day Elaine discovered that the lizard had died - which does explain why it didn't feel like moving.

This morning we experienced some major storms with extremely strong winds.  When I ventured out on my run this afternoon, there were a lot of broken branches and fallen trees across the path making parts of the run more like an obstacle course.  Several hundred metres before the end of the path at Frankston the path was completely blocked forcing me to cut the lap slightly short.  However before I reached this blockage I ran past a couple having sex on one of the picnic tables - a sure sign that you are approaching Frankston (and not something I would want to have photographed).  Fortunately they were gone by the time I came back, but only 20 or so metres passed the picnic table, a huge brown snake (at least 2 metres long and very thick) was sunning itself in the middle of path.  I stopped about 5 metres short of the snake while it very casually slivered into the bushes.  It was not a scary encounter as evidenced by the fact my watch showed that my heart did not rise - it was simply interesting and far preferable than the scene I encountered on the way out.

Today's run was supposed to be 14km, but my body had other ideas.  Early on I felt shin soreness, but decided to continue and the soreness slowly died away.  However as I got closer to home my patella tendon started to ache and this was something I was not going to ignore.  So my run was cut short at only 9.5km, hopefully I'll feel good enough on Friday to complete the full 14km.

Once I stopped my knee felt fine and has actually felt better since the run than it did in the morning.  Am I now being over sensitive about my knee, or did my premature end to the run save any damage from being done.  I'm worried that my knee will always start to hurt around 10km, because at some point (very soon) I am going to need to press on, because time is running out.

A Good Week

The last week saw 15 hours of training involving 4 swims (7.6km), 4 rides (239 km) and 4 runs (31 km). It equated to 304 Slowtwitch Points which makes it the biggest training week so far this season. Unfortunately 300 points is what I look to do each week in the lead up to a Half Ironman, so I still have a bit of work to reach Ironman training levels. In previous Half Ironman training weeks I have achieved the 300 points in only 12 hours of training, which highlights how much slower my training pace has become.

This week has started off well with a 99km ride to Rye. But I'll be limited in what I can do over the next 2 days, as I'll be stuck at home with trades people in the house renovating the warbdrobe in our master bedroom. Hopefully I'll be able to sneak in a small run or two.

I'm planning to get my long run up to 14km this week and weather permitting I'm hoping to get that elusive 5 hour ride done this Sunday.  I have numerous coaching commitments this week (and the next 2 weeks following), so training sessions will be that much harder to fit in.

Mild Thigh Soreness

Headed out for a 5 hour ride early yesterday morning. The plan was to head south for 2.5 hours, return home and refill the water bottles before heading off north for another 2.5 hours.

The conditions were perfect, so I headed a bit further south up to McCrae. However on the way way home I felt a little bit of aching in the thigh muscles, mainly the ITB and VMO. Not wanting to risk any more injuries I decided to skip the ride up north and finished up with a 3 hour ride covering 78km.  Any tightness in the thigh will put extra pressure on my patella tendon, so I have to be very careful in this area.

I tried to capture the view of Safety Beach as you pass through the hilly section in Mt Martha, but I don't think I did it justice.  Hopefully I'll manage a better picture on one of my future rides - this is my favourite riding location, so I go there a lot.

Tonight I have a massage booked with Burkey, so hopefully he can loosen things up and I'll be back in business. Not wanting today to be a complete day of rest, I did a 3km swim session that included a main set of 20x100m Freestyle (every 2nd one was recovery).

81 Days till Ironman

The clock is ticking down fast.

Last week wasn't bad with 12.5 hours of training, but most importantly I got in 33kms of running.  Ideally I would be running 60kms a week by now, but 33 is definitely better a massive improvement over the last 3 months.

Today I ran 12.5km.  There is 5.5 weeks till the Long Distance Triathlon in Geelong that has a run leg of 20km.  I'm a long way behind where I would like to be, but I still think it is workable.  I also need to get in a 30km run before Ironman (in 81 days).

The bike is going OK, I did 75km on Monday and hopefully will get in a longer ride tomorrow morning (weather dependent).  Compared to other years my bike is going well, but this year I'm doing Ironman and really need to start getting in a lot more distance as I'm still fading very badly after 3 hours of riding).  The 200km Alpine Classic Ride on 29th Jan (3.5 weeks to go) now looks extremely unlikely due to my knee.  Therefore I'll need to schedule in an alternate 200km ride before Ironman (not looking forward to that - I'll rediscover how sore a bum can get).

Now that I'm getting in more running and riding, swimming has taken a bit of a back seat.  I still feel like I'm swimming well, but that won't last unless I start getting back in the pool on a regular basis and start clocking up 10km swim weeks again.

So in summary, up to this point I've done more swimming that I expected, significantly less riding that I hoped and way, way, way less running than I would have liked.  But I still think I can get in enough training in the next 81 days to be ready for Ironman - not as ready as I would have liked - but people very rarely are.