Its all about the bike

So training has officially started in earnest. I've opened up a new xcel spreadsheet and logged in some key events on the way to Lanzarote. I am now almost running without niggles and managed to swim 4 times last week. The winter solstice is gone and I have plans. Key in all of this is as ever the bike training.

At lanzarote last year I felt disappointed with my bike (6hrs) and even IM austria at 5.04 was not quite what i hoped for (sub 5) so what are my plans to go faster. Looking at last year I think I peaked a bit early for Lanza on the bike, this year I plan to keep going large up to 20 days out. I also did not do many 5hr+ rides and this year aim to remedy this (but this means an even earlier start to fulfil family commitment to be home by midday). To help I am considering doing the tour of flanders but its proximity to Lisbon half IM in April is not gonna sit to happily with family commitments. Failing that I think a few more reps of Box Hill will probably do it.

My key weapon this year however is to get a bigger power base under me to try and improve the climbing. To this end I have started on my own pyramid sessions (actually they are more blocky than pyramid but hey). I start with a 30 min TT on my imagic and take the average power out put for this (currently about 270 watts on the imagic- not sure how accuate this is).

Using this is my base I then undertake the following sessions (every 5-7 days)

Warm up 4 mins pedalling then (3 x 1min high cadence 110+ at max power then 2 min recovery) then I do

Week 1 3 x 12 mins 270 watts with 2 min recovery between each set

Week 2 3 x 15 mins 270W

Week 3 5 x 10 mins 270W

Week 4 2 x 20 mins 270W

Week 5 CP30 (30 min tt based on weeks 1 -4)

then go back to week 1 on new wattage.

What I learn is that

a) my first tt is always way under what I can actually do

b) the first set often is the hardest

c) the jump from 3x12 to 3x15 is the worst

Using the imagic I can look historically at performance although calibration is an issue. Each step is designed to be doable, just! Last year I did this for dec jan and feb but then started riding outside all the time and lost this session. This year it is gonna stay all the way to taper time- I hope it will give the extra top end power and stickability for climbing... yeah I know you can go and climb hills but none of those round here last 12 mins or greater. Climbing at steady state is a power based issue and one I need to learn better, perhaps I should angle my turbo too!

Last year I saw a good 15% improvement in power for the CP 30 teast across 2 cycles, so this year I plan to do 4 cycles should make for 30% improvement ;-)

We all need Friends

It is with great sadness that I realise two of my most motivational training partners and friends are about to embark on a journey that will take them out of my sphere perhaps indefinitely. Steve and Jo are both hardcore IMers who introduced me to the concept of early morning training on a weekday (like 0400hrs and earlier) and in whos company I have had the pleasure of whiling away many an hour circumnavigating regents park (somewhere around 1500 laps I would guess).

I must say I am distinctly jealous of their plans including a visit to New Zealand and a chance to do another epic camp. The idea of setting out on a cold winters morning to go around on my own does not appeal but hopefully some of the newcomers will stick around a bit when the season kicks in.

My training is currently all about the bike. I am riding a steady 75 miler every weeekend and trying to start pulling it together. I start to feel quite excited about the prospects of another hard build and maintain endless positivity towards the whole process. the only issue at present is swimming since my beloved lido is beset by darkness and therefore closed more often than not when I want to use it.

More regular posting to follow as i develop a theme for this years training...

More more more

I dunno what it is about IM events but the more I do the more I wanna do. Once you have done one you go one of two ways I reckon. Either you back off and go back to something less time consuming or you want more. (But sometimes you have to call it quits, peel off the dodgy lycra and curl up with a pizza and dvd because that's more fun. edit by Mrs runtilyoudrop). Is it the overdose of endorphins that some of us become addicted to? Is it the order and demands of a tough training schedule that brings discipline to our daily life? Maybe its just having an excuse to buy some new kit, on the subject of which the assos 3 layer winter glove system is comfortably the best I have yet encountered if a bit pricey.

Point is I have already committed next year to 2 IM races and sit here contemplating entering Norseman an event that sits out there lurking desperately waiting for me to do it!! On the same level there is the New Zealand Coast to Coast, IM Japan, IM Brazil, Elbaman.......

... is this an illness, an addiction perhaps or just a passing phase?

Well who cares. After 3 weeks nursing a dodgy achilles the running has recommenced, swimming is starting to feel like something I like rather than a chore and I spent 5 hours out on my bike on sunday morning in the continuos rain and absolutely loved it. The hunger is back and I want more power!

Feck Achilles

September has been distinctly challenging. Work, family and trying to run everyday have left me worn out. The goal of running every day through September was worthy but not achieved. I managed 27 out of 30 days. The desire to start putting in the long runs led to the day after a long run when I found myself trying to run around Victoria Park on legs that felt like wooden stumps. The consequence of this was due to my stubborness I did not stop and walk but ran on and paid the following day when my achilles flared up.

Trying to stick to the rule of no more than a 10% increase a week I may have taken a slight liberty but thought my background training would help. The bruised heels and flaming achilles I sit here with right now speak otherwise. Do I stop and sit it out or do I stretch, do my heel raises and carry on? I have never found that rest got rid of my AT so I run on and use some brufen.. the running is considerably less enjoyable though.

So it seems that I cannot run every day or at least not yet and perhaps it has been quite a while since I did any serious training (I guess August was mostly rest!!)

I am still trying to rationalise the voice that says I should stay in bed, drink more beer and hey just kick back for a bit. It all sounds tempting but I have a goal to achieve and I am going after it. October will see some interesting running and a gradual build back up to cycling every Sunday at least 4hrs. The programme begins in earnest after I have recovered from Luton marathon (2weeks without running but a kick start to the swimming)so that is December.

Need to get the buzz back first though.

Its called the Maff, The Monster Maff

Everybodys talking bout the new sensation, come on baby do the Maffetone. Better than slice bread and twice as good for you. The answer to all your training woes and soon we will all be able to race like Mark Allen.

At least thats what it says on the tin. Essentially the maff strikes me as doing a controlled period of base training whilst undertaking an objective test of whether your training is working every 4 weeks or so. The key point is that at no time do you go into the threshold zone and above, or level 3 and above, or Borg >13 or >5 if you like new Borg!, or whatever other measure of exercise level you wanna use. The point, I think, is that this allows maximal training effect with minimal downside of injury and so on. The question is who is it most likely to work best for.

If you are an elite top-end AGer the reality is you probably train too hard too much of the time (at least thats what the Maffia will have you believe). By allowing a period of base where the body recovers and probably develops that all important aerobic base, you are then in a position to build on this with your natural talent and top end speedwork (like Mark Allen). If you are a middling time limited AGer is this gonna work to get the speed up come the new season?

More and more I feel that a genetic component is huge part of this and to some degree no matter how hard you train if you aint got it you aint ever gonna have it, and a naturally high VO2 Max is always gonna be an advantage. In addition I also think that response to training is also hugely variable (and firmly based in our gene pool) and there is lots of evidence out there to support this but most importantly I think IM also has a huge component of self determination.

Nietzsche's "will to power", the idea behind superman and the belief that the only thing that holds us back from superhuman efforts is our psyche, is another way of describing this. In other words personal belief will get you a long way in IM racing. Would also make a dead cool race nutrition brand.

If I did not think this, then the idea that my genetic limitations may never allow me to achieve my goals would lead to rapid disillusion.

But back to me and the Maff. I am gonna try it, sort of. Being a bit of an iconoclast I could never do it in the fully prescribed way. For a start the method of choosing you HR limit is pretty random, take 180 subtract your age add 5 for good behaviour and so on. Not terribly scientific whether empirical or metric. But I am gonna do all my runs at a HR of less than 145, except for the 10KM on the first sunday of every month and after 10 weeks I think I might start to sneak in a bit of speedwork if things are going well.

My target is to get up to 8 hrs running a week by early October which will be 2 hrs more than I have ever averaged before. This should be around 60 miles a week. To facilitate this I am backing of on the bike riding to max 6 hrs a week and swimming 2 x weekly. This should put the volume in place to see me through my first marathon which will be hilly (Snowdon Marathon) on Oct 25th. I aim to run this at training pace so somewhere around 8 min miles with the idea that I can recover quickly to get back in training. I will not race but use this as a key session in my build to the second marathon in Luton. If the plan works then I should then have 1 week recovery and a 4 week build including some speed sessions followed by a 2 week taper.

All being well I should be able to run a solid 3.10 marathon and possibly faster. The leap of faith required is 1. to avoid injury. I am ramping up the hours quite quickly but think I should have the base to tolerate this so long as I stick to the Maff. I will need to exert caution around the 10km races since these have caused me trouble in the past. 2. If I can get the hours in will they enough give me the endurance to maintain a faster pace come race day. 3. Will introducing a 4 week set of speedwork be enough since I intend to go quite easy even at that stage to avoid injury.

End of the year 2008

Sadly my tri exploits have come to an end for 2008 as a recurrent calf strain has reared it's ugly head and reduced my running to a slow shamble. Have not quite got it back together since IM Austria and wont to get a focus on moving towards 2009 which means recovering from this years racing and starting to build towards next year. With 2009 being my 5th year of triathlon I think I might be starting to learn about what does and does not work for my body. The key challenge is putting it all together and sticking to the plan.

So my aims are 1. to minimise time lost to injury (as follows) 2. to prolong the base until end of March 3. to do all running following the Maffetone method 4. to follow my own schedule of weekly turbo sessions to build my threshold power 5. to swim 15000m a week for the 12 weeks from feb through to april.

To help me get my bike training on target I plan to train by power from February so will be visiting cyclepowermeters.com to hire a power meter for the build up to Lanzarote. I am also entertaining the introduction of a new bike to the household since the cost of upgrading my soloist with new aerobars and bits is about the same cost as a new P2C dura ace courtesy of R&A bikes (well not quite the same cost) and I deserve a 40th birthday present.

Finally I am going to have another go at 100 days of sit ups. The idea is to achieve a minimum of 40 situps and 20 pressups every day for 100 days. Should be easy but does not seem to be. that said it gets easier and after about 14 days you start to get mission creep. Last year I managed 41 days- we shall see.

Being Dad

Ironman is all about the work/life/family/triathlon balance for your average soon to be fortysomething Age Grouper.



My children are still malleable enough to accept that daddy trains and does stuff and that this is 'important' to him, my partner however is far more acutely aware of the balance and the variations thereof. Hence the necessity for early morning training and the need to be able to shrug of the fatigue from a 6 hr ride and take the family out for an afternoon of fun. like all things it has to be worked out but it helps if you can take time out from training, even if what this really means is talking about it less and accepting a few missed sessions. Summer holidays provide significant challenges to a training programme and the balance when there are two working parents and 7 weeks before term starts. This combined with going away to foreign lands for your hols leads to a more flexible approach to training.



To which end I found myself running up an alpine mountain with 2 special forces trained fortysomethings (retired, and if I told you their names they would have to kill me :-) ) used to such alpine pursuits. Whilst I was doing this my children were swimming in a lake on the other side of a mountain. I let my two mates have their fun on the way up and then punished them by runninng down the other side. We did about 2000m ascent, 2500m descent and covered in the region of 18 miles in 5 hours, and as it was a holiday we had two beers along the way by way of refuelling. Nutrition being the fourth discipline of triathlon we then ate an enoromous meal with plenty of wine whilst the kids ran around and watched the firework specially laid on for us (and the other 40,000 people alongside the lake).



Apart from this I admired the people cycling up the mountains and wished I had brought a bike with me (alas it was not to be). Instead I did a Via Ferrata 350 m of vertiginous ascent hanging of the side of the mountain. I think it was payback for running down the mountain.



For my third and final session of training I took the dog for a run. Said dog has different ideas on running and after 10 minutes decided we had gone far enough and wanted to return home. After a further 5 minutes of cajolling the dog won over and we turned at which point the dog finally started running properly racing me back home. Strangely enough after 30 mins of running I felt like a rest too.

Too fill in the work life family balance I spent the rest of the time doing dad things, like letting my kids fly down a zip wire, quad biking and trampolining. All in all being dad is more important than everything else, but like many others I choose to be a dad who does ironman and I hope they see it as something positive. too which end next week I am back on the programme.