Training Review - Week 38 - Sept 16 to 22

Last race of the season at the weekend so the rest of the week is just an easy ramp down towards that. 

Monday, I should have read the session before I went. It was all single arm drills, which my shoulder and back can't handle. So I ended up just paddling up and down trying to work in the spaces between other swimmers. The fatigue from last week is even worse. I managed to cover enough that I will get my swim target easily enough, but it felt terrible and has hammered my confidence for a fast swim at Huntly. 

Tuesday was an easy run. Just over 5 miles, nothing too exciting. 


Then I went on a resting binge. Wednesday, I just did nothing. Had felt a bit sniffly through the day and the weather didn't look great for the TT bike. Thursday I also did nothing. Bit of the weather again and just being a bit tired. Did manage to clean and check the bike though. Friday I did nothing again. Although I did do a bit of DIY. This is going to leave me under all my totals for the week. 

Normally at the end of racing season I end up on a bit of  DIY kick as I try to make up for not doing anything beyond the minimum cleaning and tidying for the previous 6-9 months. I have a bad habit of starting the day before my last race and going into that knackered. I tried to be more sensible about that this year but somehow I still ended up painting the ceiling in the office, painting the radiator in the kitchen, digging up all my potatoes and refilling the beds with compost. 

So targets for last week (Week 38) were: 

Swim >2 miles. Bike >50 miles. Run >12 miles. 2 short core, 2 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions.

Actuals were:

Monday - Swim with TPT. 1,850m in 55mins.

Tuesday - Easy run 5.1 miles in 44 mins

Wednesday - Rest Day.

Thursday - Rest Day.

Friday - Rest Day.

Saturday - Rest Day.

Sunday - Huntly Standard Triathlon.

Result - 

Target totals - Swim 2.1 miles (3,350m). Bike 22.6 miles. Run 11.5 miles. 0 short core, 0 short light weights and 0 short stretching sessions.

Training Plan - Week 39 - Sept 23 to 29

No plan this week.

Season finishes with Huntly, so an easy-ish couple of weeks now. Maybe nothing at all depending on whether it feels like I am recovering from my end of season fatigue. As I suspect that is more emotional and psychological than physical I don't expect it to improve any from taking a rest. It could even get worse instead of better.

Huntly Standard - Race Preview

Here is the output from the previous two attempts:

2010

Split Name Leg Time Pos Cat Pos Gen Pos Dist Done Race Time Swim 00:31:23 45 19 37 1.5  00:31:23 T1 00:00:59 16 8 14  00:32:22 Cycle 01:24:45 51 20 41 40  01:57:07 T2 00:00:53 32 11 23 01:58:00  Run 00:51:50 30 16 27 10 02:49:50

2012

Split Name Race Time Leg Time Pos Cat Pos Gen Pos Swim 00:28:26 00:28:26 32 14 22 T1 00:29:52 00:01:25 36 14 28 Cycle 01:47:30 01:17:38 42 19 37 T2 01:48:09 00:00:39 27 12 20 Run 02:39:13 00:51:04 29 12 23

I missed 2011, probably because I wasn't able to deal with the crowd at that point, but I may not have even realised it was on. Reading back through my blogs from around then I was in no state to be racing anyway.

So in between the two years, I took off 10 minutes, spread over the swim and the bike. I expect to go almost another 10 minutes quicker this year. I doubt my swim will be much different. There is certainly no way I am making another 3 minutes. Anything about 27 or 28 minutes would be really good. Any quicker than that and I am probably tiring myself out too much. The bike is another matter I could take a big chunk of time off, the new bike should be quicker, as are the legs. Another 7 minutes off is unlikely but there could be 4 or 5. The biggest gain could be on the run. On neither previous attempt have I run particularly well. I know I can go a lot faster than 51 minutes on what is a very flat 10k course.

If I could get in under 2hrs 30 I would be really pleased. Under 2:35 and I would probably be happy enough. 

The weather could be a big factor though. Depends what it does on the day. Current forecast is light winds and cloudy but no rain.

I have been a really up and down all week. I nearly rewrote this on a couple of occasions when I felt down through the week. If I wake up on Sunday feeling down I could struggle to get to the race, and registration and briefing could be tough, never mind getting round the actual race. During the ups I have purposefully tried to add to my chances of going and racing. This has included doing a few things that are really useless for anything except racing. I put a chunk of time into cleaning and servicing my TT bike (although technically that is beneficial even if I don't race as that is the condition I want to leave the bike in over winter). I also shaved my legs. It has been a long time (9 years?) since I did that for racing. I am unconvinced as to the physical benefits but the science says it should help my swim speed, and I have almost convinced myself that it might be dryer, and consequently warmer, on the bike. On that note I have replaced my toe covers on my bike shoes.

Paying for paying

I wrote this one in July and now I have a better idea of what I was getting for my money I still feel it is worth a public airing.


£82.95!

It is annoying enough that this is the entry fee for a single race. It is more annoying that it is £4 (5.3%) up from last year for the same race. But the final straw for annoying me enough to write about it was that the top £3.95 (another 5%) of the total is a charge for paying by card, when the only option is to pay by card!! Paying for paying pisses me off, and just for the record the Office of Fair Trading don't like it much either. 

But let us look at the price of the whole race. £82.95

For the same money:
I could get groceries for three weeks.
I could fuel my mondeo for over 480 miles. (I could even fuel the supercharged Range Rover for over 350 miles).
I could enter the next 4 most expensive races I have planned for this year.
I could completely replace both pairs of hydraulic brakes on my mountain bike, and get a spare set of discs.
I could use my cineworld pass to go to the cinema every single day for 6 months.
I could buy an ipod nano.
... and so on.

That is just the race entry fee. It doesn't account for the day I have to take off work to travel and register. At least one night, and probably two in a hotel. Fuel. And so on.

So by now you are thinking, fine but what are we comparing to? Surely the organiser are using that money to provide a Rolls Royce service?

So let us look at the numbers from their side.
370 entrants at £79 each (plus add ons for card payments, non-TS members, relay teams etc which I will gloss over for this post). That's an entry income of around £30,000. Plus all the money from sponsors.

So where is all that money going?

On the race? Well that is pretty unlikely. It wasn't closed roads, the boat safety and most marshall were volunteers. The course wasn't heavily marked. The feed stations weren't particularly regular. The electronic timing costs a bit, but barely 4 figures for a single day hire.  A few portaloos and some barriers maybe run a few hundred for the day. There are no serious financial commitments to hosting the race.

On the venue? Unlikely, all open roads or within the council-owned gym hall.

On the goodie bag? Again, unlikely. The hoodie is nice enough (before it shrunk in the wash) but it is maybe £8-10 worth. The swim hat costs pennies if you order them in bulk. The number stickers maybe cost a bit to get them printed but when you order in bulk they were probably pennies per head again. The rest of the goodie bag is all freebies from the sponsors that cost them nothing.

Profits? They are a not-for-profit company that is a registered charity. So it isn't going to shareholders. But it is going in someone's pocket.

So the final decision on whether to pay it comes down to whether I think what I am getting is worth the money. And the first thing that I am not getting is honesty from the organisers. Trying to slip in extra fees at the end after you have completed all the forms is just ridiculous and that £3.95 has held me up from entering for over a month. 


So here we are a month on from the race. I did pay it, but I am still not happy about the cost. The race certainly doesn't justify the price. Even before you factor in hotels and fuel and the like. So I won't be doing it again. And I won't be paying that much for any race again. Back to local events at sensible prices for me.

Training Review - Week 37 - Sept 9 to 15

Monday started with a surprise time trial at swimming. Felt absolutely terrible during the warm up. Was all set to call it a day and go home. Decided instead that I would do an easy 750 time trial and see how I felt from there. Took a nice easy start and was soon getting a great steady tow of the girl in front. Sat on her feet until 750m. By that point I was feeling much more comfortable but felt a bit guilty about taking the free ride so I passed her and took a turn at doing the work. Pushed on and ended up clocking 27mins 10. That is a comfortable PB. It is over a minute under my time from Huntly Standard last year. And Huntly was set in my tri-suit, with race adrenalin, in a very clean race, with a nice tow....

Tuesday was a real struggle. Went out for what should have been an easy run and was completely empty. This has happened a few times lately, including just before Monday's swim. Sometimes it goes away, sometimes it doesn't. Today it didn't. Felt absolutely terrible for the whole drag around it. 

Wednesday was a trip to Knockburn. I could give this a whole blog to itself. I was really tired when I got there so I decided to skip the run and just get in my swim and go home. I had the whole loch to myself and it was picture perfect. The water was smooth as polished glass and the only sound was me. I took the first lap easy as I tried to deal with the cold, but somehow I came round in 12 mins 30. I had planned to go next week but since the water was so smooth I decided instead to see what I had left in the tank after Monday and put in a fast lap. If it went well, I could call my outdoor swimming season done and end on a high. If it was slow I could come back next week for one more. I got round on 11:42. Not quite my fastest lap ever of Knockburn, ... by 2 seconds. And the cold was worth a lot more than that. Pretty pleased and going to call that a year for outdoor swimming. Did a short light weights session as well.

Thursday I went out with a friend for a run in the rain. It was surprisingly warm. Clocked the rest of my run miles for the week though. Weekend plans are set to ride both days. So I can have a proper rest day on Friday.

Saturday I went to Alford for the KT Bike Run. They have changed the course slightly from last year which adds on a couple of miles, and makes direct comparison a bit pointless. Probably wouldn't be a fair comparison anyway as last year I was riding fairly hard on my own while this year I pedalled round with a friend. We took it relatively easy for the first half and then upped the pace a little on the way back in. 

Sunday I was going to test ride Huntly bike route for next week's race but my car was giving me problems on Saturday and I didn't want to risk trying to put 2 hours into it with the engine management light on and a slow puncture. (You would think at least one of the tyre suppliers in a city full of 4x4's would carry big enough tyres, but apparently not so I have had to order my own off the internet). So I replanned to just ride 20 miles from home. But the weather wasn't playing along. Wind in the morning was horrendous, BBC weather has it dropping in the afternoon, just in time for the rain. By the time it calmed down in the afternoon I felt terrible and couldn't even drag myself off the sofa. I was totally exhausted and had a headache for most of the day. I did a late set of the core, stetching and light weights just before bed.

So it looks like a fairly poor week on the numbers. But to be honest it was probably just a bit more sensible. I haven't had a proper rest since Aberfeldy and I am in serious need of a proper rest. With the weather changing and the clock change coming soon as well I am really starting to struggle a bit with fatigue. Another week to get me through Huntly and then I am going to try and take a more sensible break.

So targets for last week (Week 37) were: 

Swim >2 miles. Bike >50 miles. Run >12 miles. 2 short core, 2 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions.

Actuals were:

Monday - Swim with TPT. 1,500m time trial in 27mins 10.

Tuesday - Easy run 5.6 miles in 50 mins.

Wednesday - Swim at Knockburn. 2 laps in 24 mins 40. Short light weights.

Thursday - Run 4.5 miles in 41mins.

Friday -  Rest day.

Saturday - KT Bike Run. 29.6 miles in 1 hr 47. Stretching and short light weights.

Sunday - Rest day. Core, stretching and light weights.

Result - 

Swim 1.9 miles (3,050 m). Bike 29.6 miles. Run 10.1 miles. 1 core, 3 short light weights and 2 stretching sessions.

Training Plan - Week 38 - Sept 16 to 22

Last race of the season on Sunday: Huntly Standard Triathlon. I missed the chance to test ride it on Sunday after some car problems. Very frustrating, but I have ridden the course four times before so I should know it well enough. So it is a fairly easy week to ramp down into  the race. The totals for the week are the same but half of everything is Sunday.



Monday - Swim with TPT.

Tuesday -  Easy run 6 miles or fast 5k.


Wednesday - Easy ride or brick. Mtb?


Thursday - Rest day. 


Friday - Easy bike. Just roll the TT bike for 10 miles or half an hour to check it over.


Saturday - Stretching and race prep.


Sunday - Huntly Standard Triathlon.


Target totals - Swim >2 miles. Bike >50 miles. Run >12 miles. 2 short core, 2 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions.

Training Review - Week 36 - Sept 2 to 8

Monday was back at Inverurie pool. The month long revamp has gone really well. The showers still don't work, and two of them have been removed. The whole pool has been retiled, which is great, but they have fitted a stupid set around the top of the waterline that are laid on top of the others and create a stupid little edge just where I put my feet to turn. Despite this I managed to get some turn practice in. They are getting slightly better and are still slower than my touch turns but I am at least able to put them in whenever I feel like it.

Tuesday was a trip to Offshore Europe. It comes to Aberdeen every two years. I didn't go last time round as I couldn't handle the crowds. Managed to get through it this time. I was a bit stressed from it though so decided against going out to train in the evening.

Wednesday I went out to Knockburn. It is getting a bit chilly, but should survive at least one more week of it. As I came round to finish my second lap I caught up to a guy who was doing his laps in just his dookers, so I can't really complain about the cold yet. Forgot the watch but think the cold and the waves made it fairly slow. Had the very light weights out.

Thursday, I have agreed to go mountain biking at the weekend but haven't tested my new brakes. So took the mountain bike out for a quick spin around Dyce. Just an easy 5 mile roll around town. everything seems to be working. Bike position feels ridiculous after 8 months on the road and TT bikes. And the brakes being soft for half the pull before they grab is not how I like it, but they do work, so no excuses. Had the very light weights out again.

Friday, I went for a quick run round Dyce. Did my 3k loop in under 23 minutes. I should be really pleased with this as it is the fastest I have gone since 2009. But it is just really frustrating that I can do that, on a a windy day, still with the knee giving me problems and not feeling particularly fast, but as soon as I get near a race I run like a complete donkey.

Saturday was first real mountain bike ride of the year. Went out to Loch Muick and did a very hilly 15 miles. Changed the wheels on Friday night, and apparently the brake issues are linked to the wear on the pads as the newer pads on my other wheels behave much more how I like them. I also lubed the chain. Should probably have paid more attention to the condition of it and the gear alignment though. Snapped twice during the ride.

The route was a lot tougher than I am used to though. I was ok on most of the Land Rover tracks but my mountain biking skills were pretty rusty so I was struggling on anything on the rougher tracks and was struggling with my nerves on all the descents. That got gradually worse instead of better. Will need to go back to somewhere closer to my skill level for a bit of a spin soon.

My knee and back were a bit twitchy as well.

This leaves me looking for 30 bike miles and 7 run miles tomorrow. Don't think my legs will be in any state for that size of a brick so it will probably be one or the other. I could take more credit for today's ride as it was almost 4 hours of hard work, which would be the equivalent of about 60 road miles.

Sunday, started with the stretching session that I have been avoiding all week. Seems lots of mountain biking muscles have not been used recently and needed some work before I could even think about doing a proper session. I decided to take credit for the hours on the bike against the lack of miles yesterday, so went out to run. Planned 7 miles on my out and back, snuck in under an hour. Then the very light weights again.


This week I passed 520 miles of running. That is my end-of-year target passed already, with 17 weeks left to go. 600 looks like it will be comfortable, 700 looks possible.

I also passed 1,700 bike miles. My original target for the year was 1612, so that is comfortably done. My revised target was 1820, which also looks like it will be comortable, the next possible target would be to go for something like 2000. That looks possible at first glance but depends how much I have to shift to mountain biking for the weather.

So targets for last week (Week 36) were: 

Swim >2 miles. Bike >50 miles. Run >12 miles. 2 short core, 2 short light weights and 2 short stretching sessions.

Actuals were:

Monday - Swim with TPT. 2,100m in 55 mins. 150m reps all between 2:32 and 2:40.

Tuesday - Offshore Europe.

Wednesday - Swim at Knockburn. 2 laps, 1200m. Light weights.

Thursday - MTB 5 miles, in 31 mins. Light weights. 

Friday - 5k run, in 23mins. 

Saturday - MTB 15 miles, in 3 hours 42 mins.

Sunday - Run 7.2 miles, in 59 mins 30. Stretching and light weights.

Result - 

Swim 2.1 miles (3,300 m). Bike 20 miles. Run 10.3 miles. 0 core, 4 short light weights and 1 stretching sessions.