After a relatively easy week in Canberra, and having recovered from teh mild cold I had, it was back in to the pool for a unch-time session yeasterday. The session was a little all over the place as the regular coach wasn’t there and the guy who took over just copied the morning’s session and adjusted it to fit the shorter time frame.

400 FS SKPS
2 * {
    100 FS on 1:50 (1:18)
    100 BC on 1:50 (1:28) }
4 * 25 FS Sprint on 30
6 * 50 FS K, 10s/50
100 BS easy
3 * 200 FS on 3:20 (2:37)
100 BS easy
4 * 50 Choice on 60
300 FS Cool Down
Total: 2500m

Went for a run when I got home which felt pretty good. However, i’ve been trying to get my run cadence up to 90bpm (180 footstrikes per min) and though I was doing well. Decided to test it yesterday and see what I wasa actually doing and discovered it was as low as 75bpm! I already felt like I was taking babay steps, but I’m going to have to shorten my stride further as a high cadence is the easiest way to avoid injury and significant pounding on the legs.

S: 2500m – R: 5.1km

Well, it’s Friday and I’m about to leave Canberra for the final time this year. Good news is that my contract has been extended for another six months so there’s no worries on the job front. Bad news is that I’ve managed to acquire a cold, so training is out the window. I got another run in on Tuesday evening, then went mountain biking with Dean and Tom on Wednesday, ending up at the pub splattered with mud. It was Christmas party time yesterday, so many more beers were had, so it’s been an active week on all fronts. No more training for the rest of the week, but I’m collecting my new MTB this weekend, so we’ll be out for a ride in the Royal National Park.

S: 3300m – B: 20km – R: 8.9km

Got a good run in last night on the treadmill in the hotel. Felt a bit shitty after about 3km, but decided to stick it out and it came good in the end. Still recovering after Frantic on the weekend! Got up at 5:15 this morning to go swim training with the local triathlon club, Bilbys, here in Canberra. Although the last time I got up this early to go swimming was about nine years ago, it wasn’t that hard to get out of bed, though I’m sure I’ll pay for it this afternoon. Felt pretty sluggish in the pool, which was to be expected given the hour. The session was pretty easy, as none of the rest of the squad came from a swimming background, but it was good to get a session done. I had intended to go to last night’s session, but managed to leave teh hotel without putting a towel in my bag. Everyone was very welcoming and invited me along to other sessions, so I might take them up on that if my contract gets renewed. In the meantime, I can lie-in until Friday morning’s session.

300 FS warm up
2 * (100 FS/ 50 BC) on 3:00
2 * (100 IM/ 50 FS) on 3:00
4 * 50 FS build on 60
2 * {
    2 * 300 FS @ 70% on 5:30 (4:15)
    2 * 100 FS @ 80% on 2:00 (1:20)
    4 * 50 FS Hard on 2:00 (35) }
200 FS cool down
Total: 3300m

S: 3300m – R: 5.1km

Cycled into work yesterday and did a couple of Centennial Park laps on the way home as well. Once home it was a quick change then out the door for a run. I upped my run/walk intervals to 7min running, 1min walking and it felt fine. Four of those totalled 5km and my legs are in good shape today, so things are looking up.

Run session:

5min walk warm up
4 * {
    7min R/1min W }
5min walk cool down

S: 2800m – B: 22.6km – R: 5km

Went for my first session down in the Boy Charlton Pool. The session didn’t start until 6pm, so I got a run around the Domain in beforehand. It’s a nice area of Sydney to be running in. The pool is salt water which made a huge difference on swim pace due to being more buoyant. I reckon I was up to 5s/100m faster. Still, this was going to be the longest session I’d done to date so I was taking it easier than I might have otherwise. Plus I kept bloody cramping and salt water doesn’t taste good!

300 Reverse IM
10 * 50 Stroke Count on 60 31 strokes, 37s
5 * 200 Paddles on 2:50 (2:35)
4 * 400 Pull on 6:00 (5:48)
10 * 50 Drills on 1:15 (55)
300 Easy FS
Total: 4200m

On a positive note, this is the first week I’ve done 10000m of swimming so I plan to do at least one of the 1.5hr session per week in order to keep the distance up. Off to bed now to get up at 5.30 for my long bike ride. Yawn!

S: 10000m – R: 10.25km

Got another run in last night, this time a shorter 3 laps of the park rather than 4. Legs still feel good this morning so it looks like I’ll be able to pull off the 4 runs/week. Today’s a day off then I’ll get runs in on Thursday and Friday too. The weather seems to be improving so hopefully I’ll get out on the bike tomorrow.

S: 2800m – R: 6.55km

Got a long run in fairly blustery conditions in this evening. 4 laps of the local park, then a bit fo stretching to finish off. Took it nice and easy with an average HR of 143 or so.

S: 2800m – R: 3.75km

Another run on the treadmill last night. Again it was nice and easy so things are progressing nicely. I’ll try and get another run on tomorrow morning before work and that will give me my three runs for this week.

B: 20km – R: 7.5km

Right! Last week was a bit of a waste, so training has recommenced once again. I’m in Canberra again, so it will still be a relatively quiet week, though we have a couple of MTB rides planned. Hit the gym last night for a treadmill run and a distance increase. After two weeks without any issues doing 3 * 5R/1W I’ve upped it to 4 repetitions for a total distance per run of 3.75km. After two weeks of this, I’ll increase again.

5min warm up
4 * {
    5min @ 10kmh
    1min @ 6kmh }
5min cool down

R: 3.75km

Got the usual run in last night, this time with the HR working perfectly. Got run into by a growling dog, though I think it was only protecting its elderly lady owner as once I stopped it became very friendly and docile. She was teaching it to fetch a ball and was very apologetic. It was some sort of sheepdog-type breed, so it was fairly obvious that it wasn’t dangerous. Other than that the run was uneventful and fairly easy.

S: 2800m – R: 2.8km

Got another good run in this evening. Figured out the issues with my HR monitor, so it’s working almost perfectly now. The runs are feelign nice and easy which is good, with no muscle soreness the following day. I plan on doing the same again next week, then up it to 4 run/walk reps from the week after that if all is still going well.

Weather forecast lookks good for the rest of the weekend, so it looks like I’ll be riding to Kurnell tomorrow and then mountain biking on Sunday after all.

S: 8300m – B: 85.2km – R: 8.4km

Went for a run again this evening and attempted to get the HR monitor to behave. You can tell it the HR range you want to stay in, and it will beep at you when you go outside this range, either above or below. I was doing 5min run, 1min walk and had switched the HR range off, so it shouldn’t have beeped at all. No chance! I’d do the 5min run, then slow down to walking pace whereupon the watch would stop as my HR was now too high for the recovery portion. I’d get it going again, then at the end of the walk I’d start the next run segment. Sure enough, the watch would stop because my HR was now too low for the run. I’ve just read the manual and it would seem that I’ve set everything up correctly, so a bit more research is needed methinks.

S: 5400m – B: 36.4km – R: 5.6km

My new Polar 720i heart rate monitor arrived today. It comes with a speed sensor for the bike, and I ordered the optional cadence sensor as well and I can also download everything to my laptop for post-exercise/race analysis ;-) Overkill? You betcha!

I took it out for a run this evening and it kept beeping at me. About half the beeps were expected. Not sure what the other ones were about, but I’ll have to spend quite a bit of time reading the manual for once. I’ve just finished fitting all the bits to the bike and lights are flashing where they’re supposed to flash, so I’ll be checking it out on tomorrow morning’s ride to make sure it’s all working properly. Fingers crossed.

The run was the standard 5min Run, 1min Walk, three times. The local park is the perfect size in that it takes me about 5mins to run one lap. Finally I found a suitable place to run that isn’t a road or footpath. I used to run past this park all the time, but I always assumed that it would be too small to run around. I’ll be doing quite a bit of running up there from now on. Knees are feeling good too.

S: 2400m – R: 2.8km

Went for another run on the treadmill last night. Same as yesterday. Legs felt OK, but they’re a little sore this morning. Well, tired rather than sore.

Also went to see Resident Evil: Apocalypse – don’t bother!

R: 5.6km – S: 400m

Right, I’ve decided to restart the whole running issue and take it very gradually since it’s by far the easiest way to injure myself out of the three disciplines. I bought and read Jeff Galloway’s Book On Running which talk about the benefits of a run/walk approach. The basic idea is that you start taking short walk breaks right from the start of your run, which leaves you fresher towards the end. He has documented cases of people using this method to run sub-2:30 marathons, so it should be adequate for my purposes!

Anyway, I’m adopting the run/walk method for the forseeable future, specifically 5mins running at approx. 10kmh followed by 1min walking at 6kmh. This results in 933m every 6mins. Last night I hit the hotel gym and started off with 3 reps of that and felt pretty good. All is still well this morning, so I’ll give it another shot tonight. I’ll stick to 3 reps for a couple of weeks until I can get used to running outside again, then gradually add more and more reps.

Got up this morning and went for a swim. Didn’t really feel like it though, so only did 400m.

R: 2.8km – S: 400m

Went for a 10min run after getting home from work, then did a little bit of weights after that. I’ve also found a convenient swim squad at a reasonable price. It’s in the Cook & Phillip pool near work. They have sessions from 5:30 – 7:00am Mon – Fri, 12:00 – 1:00 Mon, Wed & Fri, and 6:30 – 7:30pm Mon, Wed and Thurs. I can go to as many of those sessions as I want for $115 per month, which is only a little more than it would cost me to do 3-4 swim session per week on my own. They typically swim around 3000m/hr so it will force me to do a bit more than I’m doing now. I’m looking forward to it.

R: 10mins – W: 1 session

Well that didn’t go very well at all. Just attempted to go for a 20min run, but knew within the first 200m that my knees were having none of it. I think I’m going to have to go back to basics on the run. Forget about 4 runs per week and just do two, spaced well apart, then build up gradually from there, maybe even adopting a run/walk protocol at first. Also, no more running on paths/roads – only grass or something soft – as that just seems to be asking for trouble. The question now becomes where do I find a grassy area that is within walking distance, and doesn’t involve running around in small circles? I think I’ll also have to up the swimming & cycling distances to make up for the lack of running.

Went for a run when I got home last night, and this time I got the full 20mins done without any knee issues. Someone told me that it takes 1 day per km to recover fully from a marathon. Coincidentally, yesterday was 10 days since I did my 10K. I doubt the same rule normally applies to a 10K, but given my untrained running state, it probably does in this instance.

Got out of bed for a bike ride this morning. I had no issues with the new pump, unlike Tuesday morning, so it was off to CP for 3.5 laps before continuing on to work. Made it just in time as there were a couple of spits of rain as I pulled up outside the office. It has warmed up considerably in the last few days so my new arm warmers are almost out of a job!

B: 50.3km – S: 2400m – R: 20min

Picked up the Sunday Telegraph this afternoon as it had the result of last week’s 10K race. Myself and Jacqui got the same time crossing the finish line, but since she was a bit keen to get going, and crossed the start line two seconds before me, I beat her by two seconds on adjusted time! I did 1:05:47 for 5126th place, and she did 1:05:49 for 5127th. Both times were a little faster than I thought we had done too., which was a little faster than I thought we had done. Niall finished 297th in 43:16, just outside his best of 42:48. Gotta be happy with that!

Just back from what was supposed to be my first run of the week. My legs felt OK walking around today so I figured I’d be OK to go running this evening. Rather than focussing on speed, or distance, from now on I’m just going to go out and run for a certain time at a pace I find reasonably comfortable, which is usually 10-11kmh. I had a 20min run down on the training plan for today, so I set the timer on the watch for 10mins and set off on an out-and-back run. I managed about 12mins of it before I stopped, as it became increasingly apparent that my legs weren’t ready for it. I’ve a bike ride scheduled for tomorrow evening, so that should loosen them out a bit, then I can try again on Friday.

B: 10km – S: 2000m – R: 12mins