Week 55 Training log

Things are beginning to get a little tricky now that the kids are off school. I am now having to implement a plan which see me getting up for training around five in the morning to try and squeeze in a couple of hours before Joanne goes to work. Then, depending on what I did that morning and through the rest of the day I will try to get some time in when she comes home from work. Fortunately I have her blessing to carry this out because she knows how tough it is having the kids at home. Monday I was at a swimming gala with my daughter all day and we left early in the morning to get there, around six am. When we arrived home in the evening it was about seven and reluctantly I took myself on a one hour run. Tuesday and it was Joanne’s turn to do the gala run, only they didn’t have to be there quite so early. So I was able to fit in an early morning swim concentrating mainly on arm pull I covered about 2500 mts in the hour. I may have said this before but a swim first thing in the morning does wonders for you for the rest of the day. Later that morning I took the dog and my son into the hills. He rode his mountain bike and I run up the slopes. Paddy was way ahead of both of us and had to keep coming back to check on us, before heading off into the undergrowth with his tail in the air and nose fixed firmly on the ground. I was in second place while my youngest struggled with the slopes on his bike. We endured this for forty five minutes before deciding to turn back. The lad on the bike was close to tears by this point. Paddy looked on in disbelief as we turned back down the hill. (what, only half a walk today) Wednesday and my mother in law was kind enough to look after my youngest for a few hours while I got out on the bike. Jo and my daughter were at the gala for a few days and were staying over. This ride turned out to be one of the toughest training rides I’ve ever done. About a week ago I read an article about triathletes training ridiculously hard but were unable to shed any weight. The article went on to say that while you are training in this manner you take on a lot of carbs, for energy, and understandably so. The trouble is this, although the high amount of carbs isn’t responsible for any weight gain while you are training, they do make it a lot harder to lose any weight. This is a trap that I have fallen into. Before training in the morning I would fill up on oats with raisins and almonds, and on big training days I may have bagels as well. Lots of carbs. On completing the session I would sometimes have more porridge oats or rice pudding. None of which is bad food when your training hard but if your trying to shed a few pounds like I am, it’s too many carbs. The article says that lots of carbs or carbing up is great pre event, or before a mega session, but on a day to day basis you should be able to get enough energy from natural proteins and vegetables. Now, I was eating all this natural protein and vegetables, only trouble was, I was eating all those carbohydrates as well. As long as I was putting the hours in I didn’t gain any weight, but Ironman is just over six weeks away and I would now like to start reducing the excess baggage. So, breakfast now is eggs, scrambled or poached on one piece of toast, followed by fruit, perhaps three pieces. I think the reason for Wednesdays ride being so hard is that it was the first big session that I’ve done on the new diet and I missed the early performance benefits that the carbs used to give me. I headed up into the hills and at a few points within the first hour and a half I thought I may have to get off and push. Eventually the energy kicked in and things became easier but that first part was worrying. You wouldn’t want to race that way but I guess for training it’s fine. The ride consisted of a lot of up hills, long shallow ones, short steep one and long steep ones, there were a few down hills but each one of those led to an up hill again. I was meant to be tough and it delivered. I was hoping to get my race day sun tan on this ride but despite being very hot the sun was reluctant to come out from behind the clouds and I came home the same pale rider that I went out as. Thursday turned out to be a day of rest so I took my son and nephew to the beach for the afternoon with the dog. This was perfect, the boys could occupy the dog while I got to work on both resting and my tan. I slapped on the factor 15 and laid out. Cut a long story short, factor 15 was by no means enough and my race day tan is now more likely to be a race day peel. Friday and I was on the bike for 5:30 am, a beautiful morning was dawning and it felt great to have almost the whole road to myself. I enjoyed a fairly relaxed ride just above recovery rate and banked another thirty miles in the legs. Later in the afternoon I did a run of 1.15, partly cross country and partly road. A good combination day of ride, time to recover and then a run. Saturday was a full day of work so it was a rest day as far as training goes with a big day planned for Sunday. 6am Sunday morning I was on the road again for a four hour ride, a really nice ride. I fuelled up on a couple of bagels with jam so as not to have an energy lag early on. The ride felt good from the start and I had plenty of energy throughout the four hours. Like Friday I had plans for the afternoon. A few hours rest after the ride and Paddy and I went into the mountains for an extreme strength running session, 11 miles of hills off road. Just like Friday, an excellent combination day.