Taitung or Bust (Challenge Taiwan 2014)

So today I am finally declaring my intention to the world. On Saturday April 18, I will be competing in my first full ironman distance event (Run by The Challenge Family) in Taiwan.  (http://www.challenge-taiwan.com/en)  More about the event and the venue I will provide in subsequent posts.

The reason that I am so excited about this event and am so keen to talk about it today is because of the fantastic day I had yesterday in preparing for it.  The girls all returned to Sydney about 5 days ago and they have been settling back into their Sydney routine.  Meanwhile I am staying over in Singapore to finish off my work for the year.  As I know I had time available, I laid down Saturday 21 December for a big ride.  My goal: to cover 200 km in a single day.  Any of you familiar with the geography of Singapore will know this entails criss-crossing the island 4 times.

This was a totally crazy goal, as my longest ever ride to date has been about 120 km.  However, if I can not do 200 km at this stage, then I am real trouble come April.  Happily, I did it.  It took about 9 hours with a few stops, but I covered the distance and did it in reasonably good shape.  It was pretty painful, but not as bad as I feared.

This was also set down to be my last ride on my faithful Tri-bike and 2 wheeled companion of the past 3 years.  I picked up my Polygon 450 tri-bike when I first came to Singapore in Feb 2011 and together we have covered almost 9000 km around the Island of Singapore, with a brief sojourn to Bintan.  I am soon to be the proud owner of a De Rosa Cycle when I take delivery from Santa in 3 days!

The Polygon in action

The coolest thing about the day, apart from setting an all time personal distance record, was that on my first circuit of the island as I rode onto Changhi Beach Road, which runs parallel to the Changhi Airport runway, I was joined by another cyclist who struck up a conversation with me. Much to my surprise and delight, he asked me if I wanted to sell my bike.  He is a Tri Coach here in Singapore and he has a young fellow in his squad, who he thought would do well to step up to my bike.  I said, "well this is a coincidence, as this is the last ride I will make on this bike, and I will be very happy to sell"  We stopped up near Changhi Beach, he got my details, sent a photo of my bike to the boy's father and the long and short of it is that I had offloaded my bike by 8:30 pm the same night.

I think that this is an omen, and a very good one at that.  2013 has been a bit tough for me as a triathlete.  Personal bests did not come, I struggled with soreness, particularly in my left knee, but I think I have got most of those issues sorted out.  My swimming is getting stronger, I have a new bike and recently I have been able to put in some good consistent runs.  I am looking forward to the build up to and preparation for Challenge Taiwan, whatever it brings.  And I have had a number of really positive outcomes from my landmark training event giving me a real confidence boost.  April 19 2014, bring it on!

Singapore Triathlon: The Outcome

Well I did it! Did I achieve my target time I hear you ask.  We shall see....

I had taken a long period of taper from the time that I finished my big block of training as set out in the Triathlete magazine August Edition.  Those who follow my blog will see in fact that I spent a few days in Bali.  I did not train at all that weekend, but I did 3 lots of 2 hours straight of lugging a big old training surf board through the beach break.  I can tell you by the end of day 3 I could barely get my arms out of the water when I was paddling.  This was great training and it was a lot of fun. 

The other trip that I had anticipated for the month of September did not arise, so I did not lose the extra week of training that I was planning at the beginning of the training blog.  But I must confess that I was pretty beaten up by the 5 week block of training that I did follow and I did take the full 5 weeks to loosen up and get over the worst of the fatigue that the training block had caused.  My legs were very tired and I was starting to get some pain in my right elbow from the swimming, particularly, I think, from the adjustment to my stroke that put strain on a whole new set of muscles in my shoulder and around my elbow.

To counter some of this I went for quite a number of massages, with a big focus on my deltoid muscles.  I also had a massage that was focused on loosening my legs up.  So you could say that I was pretty banged up in the time leading up to the race.  That said, I was training really well.  The weekend out from the race I went for an easy ride and blitzed 40km at an average speed of 30km/hr, all the while just trying to hold myself back.

On the Sunday I did a run session of 6 x 1 km all at an easy 4:30 km pace.  To make sure that I built up some level of heat tolerance, I started this session at around 1:30 pm to capture the heat of the day.  This may seem crazy, and it is.  However, my race was scheduled to start at 9:50 am, which means I will be running at mid day.  It is hot at mid day in Singapore.  Again, during this session I was just holding myself back in order to ensure that I did not wear myself out, while still getting in a decent session.

Swimming in the week leading up to the event was also pretty easy.  I did my regular session with Louise Tang on Monday morning and on Tuesday I did a session in which I swam 1100 m in 22 min 36 sec.  So all three disciplines I was able to go through at race pace with very little effort.

Tuesday night it went a little pear shaped. While running on my favourite track around the Botanical Gardens, I started to get a little pain in my left hamstring.  I endeavoured to run through it, but it got progressively worse and after about 5 km, I had to pull the pin.

I resolved to get myself ready for the race on Saturday at any cost.  First thing on Wednesday morning, I got myself an appointment with one of the team at intouch physio.  Luckily I was able to get an appointment for that evening.  The Physio there is a young English guy called Paul Richards.  He was able to do some work to release the hamstring and also my left hip, but he did worry that the problem was originating, not from the hamstring, but from a torn meniscus in my left knee.  Not exactly what I wanted to hear. 

He advised me not to do any more exercise, or even stretching between the appointment and Saturday and just see how it went.  I felt OK about this, but I was a bit worried that the I would struggle with the change in biomechanics of my leg because my hip had been loosened up. Thursday night I went for a short walk/jog session, to build up my confidence.  I also made an appointment with an acupuncturist on Friday.  They put a few needles in my hamstring and ankle and then massaged my ITB and thigh.  After all this treatment, I was able to get myself to the starting line, with a relatively high level of confidence that I would get to the finish line.

Saturday morning, I headed out to the race venue on the East Coast, nice and early.  Mainly because Sophie was competing early in the morning.  My race was not to start until 9:50 a.m. so I had plenty of time to get prepared and watch Sophie going around in her event.

All things must come to an end and so it was with my preparation for this event.  After an easy warm up swim, a short wait at the starting area, it was time to rock'n'roll!

With the confidence that I had developed from my swim training over the past few months I got myself to the front of the pack for the start of the swim leg.  My plan was to get out well early and hook myself in behind a stronger swimmer and swim easily in their wake for as long as possible.  The plan worked well for the first 20 m or so when I was in the lead group.  Alas, the swim course was only 750 m long, so that each swimmer had to swim two laps of the course.  I got boxed in behind a group of slower swimmers from one of the earlier waves and by the time I got myself untangled, the lead pack had escaped me.  However, after about 100 m I was able to hook onto the thigh of another swimmer and there I cruised for the next 600 m. 

I felt good at the turnaround at the 750 m mark and all the way until about 1100 m.  Then I started to fell sluggish but picked up for the last 200 m.  I finished in about 32 minutes, which is by far and away my best open water swim and a great confidence booster.

T1 was good, but there is a long way between the swim and the bike at East Coast Park.  The transition area was not very well set up I am afraid to say.  The rack my bike was on was prone to fall over, which it did as I pulled my bike out during T1.  I had discussed this with the officials before the start of the race when I found my bike and a number of others sprawled out in the transition area, but their efforts to correct it were feeble.  I was lucky that I was out of the swim in a good position and first to pull my bike out of the rack. I am afraid those that came after me fond a tangle of bike and rack.

Onto the road and I made pretty good time.  The bike course consisted of 6 laps of 6.67 km and from my training and racing over the last year and a half I knew every of teh circuit meter intimately.   I wanted to set a pace of between 32 and 33 km/hour and keep it there for the whole race.  It required discipline not to go out faster for the first lap.  I felt really strong and my legs wanted to go somewhat faster.  However, I was very conscious of the fact that there was a long way to go and I wanted as much as possible in the tank for the run leg.  It turned out that there was very little difficulty keeping the pace and I averaged 33 km/hr. My only problem is that I ran out of fluids with one lap to go.  When my bike fell over before the start of the race, my water bottle must have leaked, and I came in off the bike leg a little dehydrated. At the end of T2 I was at 1 hour and 50 min, right on schedule for a 2 hour 40 min standard distance triathlon.

All I had to do was run the 10km in 50 minutes.  I had trained at this pace and better, consistently over the past 8 to 10 weeks and there was no reason I could think of that I couldn't do it on the day.  I was very confident that I had done the training I needed to pull it off and I was sure that the discipline I showed by not going out too hard too early on the bike was enough from me to get home at the required pace.  I was wrong.  A 58 min run leg led to my overall time blowing out to 2 hr 49 min 15 sec.  A personal best to be sure, but not my personal goal.  I am happy to say that there was nothing left.  When I finished, I was absolutely finished, so given my preparation, whether it was good or bad, I performed as well as I was able.

My thoughts about the training I did for this triathlon.  I guess the training block that I undertook was pretty good.  It truly tested me throughout the 5 weeks that I did it.  The last week was very tough and I did not do the final week of training justice simply because I was so tired.  I am pretty proud of my week 4 of that block when I did 6.8 km of swimming, 242 km on the bike and 18.8 km of running.  That is up there as being one of my biggest weeks of training ever.  On the down side, it may have been too big a leap from where I was at before taking it on.  It took me a full 4 weeks to recover in the period leading up to the race and that included reduced training and a fair bit of massage.

Perhaps this recovery period was too long?  Maybe I didn't do enough during the recovery period to carry the full benefit from my training into the race.  I will need to think about this as I plan my next effort.  For all of that, the thing that I will focus on is that I trained pretty hard, and I improved and that is a very good outcome.

The fall out.

So now I get to take a short break from running and cycling while I wait for my knee to recover from whatever it is that seems to be ailing it.  Possibly a minor tear of the meniscus.  I have also been having some physiotherapy on my right shoulder as it has tightened up p[robably as a result of the modified technique that I applied to my freestyle during the last 2 months of training.  Even though it gives me a lot more power, it does work muscles that haven't been doing much for a long time and this could well have caused an imbalance in rotator cuff muscles leading to restriction of the shoulder joint.  I have had some initial treatment on the shoulder and it is feeling pretty good.  The knee I will try out again in early November and see if time alone has enabled the body to repair any injury.

Thanks to all for reading this blog.  I hope there are many more to follow.

Bali Dreaming

Bali, what can I say.  I have hesitated so long to visit your vibrant island and now I can not wait to return.

This was a special birthday treat for my wife Claire and I.  We celebrate our birthdays within a week of each other so this year it was arranged that we celebrate together on Bali.

Why did it take so long for us to get there?  Well, I guess in the first place, money was an issue.  We didn't have enough!  Then there was the Red Gum song, "I've Been to Bali Too", which is a very catchy tune but makes one feel very uncomfortable about the general behaviour of Australians when visiting this very devout Hindu country.  Finally, there was the bombing in 2002.  In that year we had our tickets booked to travel to Bali, but pulled because of the bombing that took place about one month before we were due to travel.  We changed our arrangements and holidayed in Fiji instead. 

So now at last, we were on our way!  The girls left a couple of days before me and stayed in the Village of Ubud. 

The hotel that they stayed at was beautiful. A tropical oasis with very large rooms, wonderful outside bathroom areas where one could commune with nature and gorgeous, landscaped gardens.

I only got to stay overnight in Ubud, because I arrived on Friday night and early Saturday morning we packed up and headed down to the beach at Legian where we had booked ourselves in for 3, half days of surf lessons with Rip Curl School of Surf. What was best about this is that all of use put our hands up for the course, my wife Claire and Gabriella and Sophie.

I have always wanted to surf and have tried it a few times, but I always thought that it was pretty hard.  I had been churned up in the past and to be honest, I was a bit scared at the thought of being gnarled up again. 

My fears were ill founded.  The course run at the Rip Curl School of Surf was excellent.  The instruction was very well structured and clearly presented by our teacher, Made.  Within an hour or so all 4 of us were up on our boards and riding waves to the beach, albeit without much style and very little grace.  But still we were surfing during our first lesson. 

Day 2 found us taking our boards through the zone where the waves were breaking and we got to spend some nice quiet time out beyond the break.  We were shown some easy techniques for rolling under our boards and allowing the waves to crash over us, while not getting washed back to shore.  Day 3, it all came together.   Taking the boards out beyond the break and getting a bit of a push onto the wave I got to ride my board in green water.  It was fun.  So after only 3 days, I was able to surf.  Though the style and grace are yet to come. 

In the "Green Room"

Our evenings were equally well spent.  On Saturday we got picked up from the surf school office by our driver, whose name is also Made, and taken to dinner at the Bali Legong Restaurant on the beach at Sanur to the south of Kuta.  The views were stunning and the seafood feast we had was excellent.

On the second day, Sunday, we made our way north  to watch the sunset at a 16th Century temple, Tanah Lot, on the Ocean to the north of Denpasar.  The Temple, the name of which translated into English is "Temple of Land in the Middle of the Sea"  is a spectacular site, especially at sunset.  Certainly this is what we were led to expect, but as it is across the beautiful island the traffic from Legian was hell, we made it to the site with but a few minutes to spare before the sun dipped beyond the horizon.

We had time for a quick scour of the markets where Claire picked up a traditional craft work in the form of an elephant shaped teapot in a most beautiful jade green coloured porcelain. Then we headed for the ocean cliff tops to view the setting sun as it descended behind the western horizon.




 

After sunset, we drove back home and had dinner in our hotel restaurant.  The menu consisted of modern Australian Cuisine.  We loved it!  It has been so long since I had eaten some well prepared Australian style cooking and I have missed it, though I hadn't realised just how much.

Dinner on the last night was very low key.  We picked up some supplies from the local supermarket and had  light meal in the hotel room.  By this stage, after 3 days of sun and surf we were all completely worn out, so low key was what we all needed and frankly, all we could manage.

Tuesday we flew home.  We were cared for most wonderfully by our driver, Made while we were in Bali and he became more than a driver for us. More like a tour guide and a lot like a friend.  The surfing was great. The girls loved their visit to Ubud and I think that all in all were are pretty keen to make our way back to Bali as soon as we possibly can.

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