"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
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
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