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
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
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