beam me up scotty

Power is the way forwards. As a keen ironmanner but neccessarily limited by time due to the other stuff like wife, children, work house refurbishment etc I have to maximise my training efficiency. While I would love to spend my weekends knocking out century rides sat and sun there is a fair chance I might find the keys to the house changed if I did this repeatedly. the alternative apart from previously mentioned time management techniques is to maximise the benefits of each session hence my recent post about using my turbo.

The next step is to maximise the benefit of the long rides and other sessions. To do this I plan to start using a powermeter to try and get used to working in the right power zones and ultimately to race according to power. Will this improve my overall racing? I do hope so.

So I have emailied powercylemeters.com and will hopefully be learning the wonmderful things that power can do for me. This I hope will be money better spent than a new bike (which is kyboshed due to the pound weakness anyway).

Did a solid weeks training of

Monday rest

Tuesday 2hr bike(30miles) commute 4000m swim(10x400) 75 min turbo threshold set

Wednesday 6 mile run

Thursday 2 hr turbo

Friday 1hr swim (speedwork) 6mile run tempo

Saturday 85 mile bike steady

Sunday 45 min continuos swim 2hr (15 mile) run

for about 17hrs training.(which is about one third of what steve did!)

Next week is a bit less but have the Hell of Ashdown at the end to put some spice into it.

And I feel good.

Hard work and drinking

It is time to start getting stuck in, weather permitting to the hard work that will see me through to Lanza in May. As was the case last year I am currently firing on all cyclinders if a bit gently and under distance for the running. The ice cold weather has made cycling somewhat hazardous and christmas also had some effect on regular training. Nonetheless I feel good about the prospects and have decided to go the month without any alcohol (well except for the first 3 days!!!!).

The aspects of alcohol and training are quite interesting to me. Clearly large volumes of alcohol and good training are not easy bed fellows though I have always found a 2 hr run one of the most effective cures for a bad hangover (once you can overcome the nausea and headache and provided you have large quantities of ribena - the perfect sugary rehydration fluid). The most significant impact of excess alcohol are, I think, the dehydration and the fatigue. Fatigue because the only times I stay up the wrong side of midnight these days are if I am raising hell (or more perhaps more accurately spilling curry into my lap after a night reminiscing about the good old days) or I am working. This fatigue makes successful training the following day unlikely (2 hr runs not withstanding) and eats into free time that could otherwise be put to different use.

Of more interest is the value of alcohol when used in moderation alongside a regular training programme. Does a glass of wine a day really have a dramatic effect on training? Is there any reason why it should impair our benefits from regular training. There is lots written about how harnful alcohol can be but almost none of this refers to moderate or low intake of booze and there has been little research into this. anecdotally the tour de France competitors used to drink heavily during the race. They were almost certainly using the anaesthetic effects of alcohol to help them overcome the pain of extreme fatigue and it is quite a good source of calories too!

Clearly I argue from the basis that a little of what you like is not gonna be to bad for you (is it?). Hence my normal training week consumption of a glass of wine or two on most nights, but I hasten to add not proceeding on to the rest of the bottle which used to be the case. If I abandoned all booze whilst on my training programme, say for the next 20 weeks, would I get fitter? I am not sure but I feel the quality of my life would be lessened so I shall resume a glass or two of wine with my supper from february.

Til next time

Oh and by the way if anyone wants to know what to get me for my birthday, or any other occasion, a bottle of the above would be fine.