Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: End of Week 7

Soon it will be a countdown, but for now the heavy training continues. 

The 7th week of my preparation coincided with week 4 of the 5 week training program I have been following published by Lance Watson in the August edition of Triathlete.

Monday, as always was a blessed rest day.  Given that it was Hari Raya holiday in Singapore it was also a great day to hang out with the family.  We very pleased to accept an invitation to one of my co-worker's home for Hari Raya lunch with we shared with members of her family and some other of my work colleagues.  Claire said it was the best food that we had eaten since we came to Singapore and was a tribute to Emma and her mother who spent many hours preparing this very important meal.  We were very grateful to be part of the day.

Tuesday was back to work and back in the pool for a morning session.  After 400 m of warm up I got into the session proper which consisted of 30 X 50 m.  I did these on 1 min 15 sec.  To be honest, the program called for a 10 to 15 sec break, but I somewhat surprised myself by being able to keep every single rep under 55 to 57 sec, sot the rests blew out a bit.  After a 400 m warm down I skittled back onto the bike and on to work. 

In the afternoon I was back on the bike and peddling out to East Coast Service Road where I had a crack at the Lactic threshold Bike session.  The plan for this is to ride 20 to 30 minutes at an easy spin and then pick up into 5 sets of 4 km at lactic threshold, which is a speed of 34 km/hr.  (It turns I mis-converted miles to kms.  1.5 miles is 2.4 km, not 4 km.  No wonder this session felt so very very bad!). This was to be followed by 5 X 800 m of speed work (<36 km/hr) Any way, conditions were not quite conducive, Rain in the afternoon made for wet roads and I had no brakes.  Wet weather, around the world, induces drivers to do mad things, so my session was somewhat constrained by conditions and my legs.   I did the lactic threshold set, but struggled to get into the zone beyond rep 2, and the speed sessions were just too dangerous.  However, I did ride over 60 km which is a good hit out nonetheless.

Wednesday I rode to work and in the afternoon headed for the track at Queenstown Sports Complex.  I love running intervals on the track.  This was to be a testing session.  An easy 3.2 km warm up, 3 X 1600 m at 4 min/km pace ( 6 min 24 sec) was my goal, with 400 m jog recovery.  This was followed by 6 X 400 m. My goal for these was 3 min 30 sec km pace (84 sec).

I was, on average, a minute off the time for the 1600 m, but was able to get the last rep of the 400 m runs on target.  This is by far the fastest pace I have run for a good while and it felt really nice to roll along at that pace.

Thursday, I squibbed a bit.  But I had to get to the City in the evening to get some supplies for Claire's birthday.  I did ride for about one hour over the course of the day, 30 mi in the morning and 30 min in the evening. However the proscribed 20 min run was reduced to a short jog up Orchard Road, through the evening shopping crowd from Takashimaya to The Ion Building where I picked up wrapping paper and ribbon for Claire's Birthday present.

Friday, I was in the pool.  I was a bit pressed for time so I cut out the warm up and focused on the main set of 6 x 150 m aiming for 2 min 45 sec and a 45 sec recovery.  I absolutely missed the objective of this session altogether.  I went out too hard on the first rep, but worse my form was terrible.  Lots of short fast strokes, no extension and as a consequence I used up huge amounts of energy and got nowhere.  I started getting the hang of the pacing about rep 5, but by this stage the set was in tatters.  I was able to redeem the session somewhat with the 10 x 50 m which I kept at 50 around sec/rep.  For me this was a good pace. I was able to achieve this by really focusing on form, and not worrying about speed.  I will take this lesson forward or hit myself should I revert to this bad habit in future pool sessions!

Saturday.  I could not believe what I read when I looked through this session on paper.  20 min easy riding, followed by 3 X 16 km a race pace with about 10 minutes recovery between reps.  Then, off the bike and 5 X 1600 m on the track at race pace.  I expected this to hurt and I was not at all disappointed.

I worked pretty hard on the bike and was very happy that I rode my fastest passage up the East Coast Service Road since I have been in Singapore.  I was however a little under race pace for most of the set and got to the track at Evans Road feeling pretty shattered.  So I was pretty surprised, and very happy when 4 of my 5 X 1600 m reps were well under my training goal of 5 min/km pace.  On the 5th rep, I got to the 1 km mark at 4 min 59 sec and knew my session was over.  I lay down on the track for a good while to recover, eventually meander home to recuperate.

I finished up the day with a bit of dancing at one of Claire's friend's 40th birthday party.  I am happy to say I did not get home after 1:00 am on Sunday morning.  Lucky Sunday is an easy day in the program!

Sunday.  This was programmed for an easy, 2 hour recovery ride in the afternoon after a long swim in the morning.  The morning swim consisted of 1000 m of easy freestyle, followed by 1150 m of pace swimming with 1 lap faster followed by 2 laps easy.  In the afternoon I set out for a 50 km ride that I planned to cover in 2 hours.  It is a strange thing, that sometimes when you take the pressure off, even though you are feeling quite worn out, you can produce quite unexpected results.  For this 2 hour recovery ride, I covered 60 km and at a pace not very different from the session I rode the day before.  This was a very satisfying outcome and left me with very positive feeling of having completed a great training week.

Distances for the week:

Swim:  6.8 km

Bike: 242 km

Run:  18.8 km

  

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: End of Week 6

Monday was a rest day.  Thank goodness.  My legs are weary from the past 2 seeks of training.  I took it easy around the office and in the evening headed out for a 1 hour Tango lesson.  Dancing is helping me no end in developing resilience in my ankles and lower calves.

Tuesday I set out for the Queenstown sports complex where I did a very short session of 3 x 200 m on 4 min 30sec and 6 x 100 m on 2 min 15 sec.  I finished my commute to work on the bike, still feeling very heavy in the legs. 

Tuesday evening I set out to Turf City where I played soccer with the folk from work.  Unfortunately while doing an easy warm down ride round the back of the old race course, I got a puncture.  As I didn't have a spare tube in my pack I was forced to taxi home.  Total distance ridden for the day, 20 km.

From there the training went profoundly down hill in distance and intensity.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were very much work focused with a huge push to finalise planning for 2013 and complete budgets for the end of 2012.  So I dreamed a little of training but did not get it onto the park.

The weekend was the Hari Raya long weekend, so another 3 days to bum around.

Saturday night I went out for an easy run, circumnavigating the Botanic Gardens.  49 min 25 sec for 8.9 km felt quickish, but I worked it out that this was the pace at which I ran the last leg of the Bintan triathlon!  And I felt rubbish during that run.

Sunday morning I took off for an easy ride.  I covered 51 km in a little over 2 hours.

What I realised this week, particularly with my run on Sunday night, is that I need to reset my internal perceptions of pace. I am getting a great opportunity with the current program to mix the pacing up in all three disciplines of the triathlon.  Fortunately the base I developed over the past 18 months is good enough and was well managed enough that my body is able to take on the greater stresses involved in increasing the training intensity.

So now I am absolutely looking forward to week four and five of the five week program that I have embarked upon.

Distances for this week

Swim: 1.2 km
Bike: 91 km
Run: 8.9 km

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: End of Week 5

So much happened this week it is hard to imagine that only 7 days has gone by since the last entry.  Firstly and most importantly, Singapore celebrated it's 47th Birthday this week on Thursday.  Happy Singapore National Day. There were celebrations around Marina Bay on Thursday night, but I decided to stay home and drink red wine.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

This week was week 2 of the 5 week program set out in August Edition of Triathlete and put together by Lance Watson. 

Monday, thankfully, was a rest day.  I took it totally easy and did a Tango lesson in the evening.  This is a really good session for building strength, stability and flexibility in the ankles.

Tuesday the week started proper:  Started the day with a swim session that included a 500 m warm up, followed by a set of 15 x 100 m on 2 minutes 20 sec.  At this rest I was able to keep almost all of the reps under 2 minutes, the pace for which I am realistically aiming.  200 m warm down completed the set.  I hopped on the bike and finished the commute to work.

Wednesday: easy ride to work.  On the way home I stopped off for a track session at Queenstown running track.  As this was the eve of Singapore National Day, I had the track pretty much to myself.  I started the session with 3.2 km warm up and then got into the session.  12 x 400 m at 4 min 10 sec/km pace with 50 m walk, 150 m jog recovery.  This was followed by a series of 8 x 200 m at 3 minutes 20 sec/km pace.  This was a great session, as my whole body gave out after the 5th rep and I staggered through reps 6 to 8.  Feeling utterly exhausted I set off on my bike to town to pick up my younger daughter Sophie who was attending a maths tutorial. 

Thursday:  Singapore National Day.  This is a national holiday in Singapore.  I did not train, although the program called for an hour bike and a 20 minute easy run.  I elected to play an hour of squash and an hour of tennis during the afternoon.  In that way I got some movement in and worked in a little family time, essential for my overall well being!

Friday, Back in the pool at my favourite "Buona Vista Swimming Complex".  400 m warm up followed by a set of 16 x 50 m all under 57 seconds, starting on 1min 15 sec with an average of 54 sec.

This was followed by 12 x 50 m with 25 m sprint and 25 m easy and 30 sec rest.  I skipped the warm down and jumped on the bike to get to the office.

Saturday:  Up early and out on the bike.  30 minutes ride out to East Coast and then 5 x 8 km at ~31 km/h with 5 minutes rest in between.  I finished up at the Department of Physical Education Sports Field where I transitioned into 2 x 3200 m (2 x 2 miles).  I rode home very slowly, I found the second 2 Mile rep very taxing, however the average speed was on target for 50 min 10 km, which again is on my personal pace target.

Sunday was an easier day with a 1900 m swim set in the morning and a 16 km LSD run in the evening.

I slept fitfully Sunday night, but very happy that over the past 2 weeks I have kept essentially to the training plan set out by Lance Watson, I have really picked up the pace and distance trained and I am not injured though I feel that I have trained close to the level I currently have the condition to manage.  The bonus is, I can look forward to the prospect of an easier week ahead.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: End of Week 4

"I love it when a plan comes together"

So this week I set out to ramp up the intensity of training so that I moved from endurance to speed and strength training, and the Universe has conspired to help me out.

While walking back from lunch I had at the Hawker Centre at Holland Village, I stumbled across the August 2012 edition of "Triathlete" and there on pages 102 to 106 is a five week program to build up to a 2 hour 30 min Olympic Distance Triathlon!  Well worth a read I thought to myself.  Maybe I could get a couple of ideas, I mused arrogantly.

My biggest concern about putting a program together for myself is getting the right mix of intensity and volume, what I realised in reading through the program put together by Laurence Wilson is that there was before me a rationally structured program.  Even if it looks a little light on swimming volume for my current status. So I thought that I should give the first week of the program a try out and see how I felt at the end of that first week.  If I felt too underdone and not tired enough, then the program would not meet my needs.  If however, I couldn't finish the sessions then I would have to back it off a bit.  What I have found is that at the end of the first week of the program I am walking around tired but with nicely tingling muscles that I know I have worked close to capacity.

Tuesday morning I started out with a swim, riding to the pool and swimming 400 m of warm up, then 3 x 400 m  on 9 minutes followed by 600 m of warm down.  On Tuesday evening I rode to play soccer with work colleagues and then rode home, using the opportunity to do some Pick Ups to about 37 km/hour. 

Wednesday was a big track session with 2.8 km warm up, 6 X 800 m at 5min/km pace and 6 X 400 at 4 min/km pace: 2 min recovery between reps.  I warmed down with a short ride home.

Thursday had an easy ride scheduled.  I rode roughly 20 km back and forth to work.  Legs were pretty tired from the session the night before.

Friday found me back in the pool swimming 6 X 100 m reps in around 1min 50 with 40 sec recovery following a 500 m warm up.  This was followed by 12 X 50 m in 50 sec with 40 second recovery. I found this session very enlightening as I picked up speed as I progressed.  This indicated what I suspected was so; that I was deeple in the habit of swimming slow and I was very one-paced.  Mixing it up with these "quicker" sessions will definitely make an impact on my speed over the longer distance.

Saturday was really fun.  Went out on the bike to ride 8 km intervals at a pace consistent with a 1 hour 12 40 km ride.  I rode most of this session out along the East Coast Service Road, and as I wrote in a previous entry, there is no road in Singapore that conspires against the man-on-a-bike more than the East-bound section of the East Coast Service Road.  There was a lot of digging deep to keep at pace.  The end of the ride found me back at the running track near the Northern end of the Singapore Botanic Gardens.  There I quickly transitioned into 4 X 1600 m.  (1600 m is the "Metric Mile" consisting of 4 circuits of the 400 m track).  I kept these reps well under 5 min/km pace.

Sunday was recovery day with a 1 km morning swim incorporating lots of drills and easy swimming, followed in the afternoon be an slow and easy 42 km ride.

I am very happy with the routine so far and felt very happy to keep all sessions well under the pace that I need to perform at to meet my goal of completing the Singapore Triathlon in under 2 hour 40 min.

Total Distances for week 4

Swim: 5200 m
Bike:  184 km
Run:  17.3 km