5 weeks in!

Well, I am 5 weeks in to Ironman training....  So far it has been pretty good.  I have missed 1 session and pulled 1 session short, so considering there are 10 sessions a week  I think this is not too bad.

A few things that I am doing differently in this Ironman campaign are as follows:

• Aiming to lose weight and race and train lighter
• Aiming to do all the run sessions including speed work with a concentration on high cadence
• Aiming to incorporate trail runs at least every 2nd week
• Aiming to follow the Ironguides programme to a 'T'
• Aiming to incorporate yoga and core strength work - at least 1 of each a week

So far, I have lost 7 kilos, with another couple still to come off. I have not missed any run sessions and am coping quite well with the speed work (it is all relative - let's face it, my 'speed' work is not really speedy!!).  I have also done all my weekend runs on the trails which I am absolutely loving; even if I have yet to find an 'undulating' trail - they are all 'hilly' in the Emma elevation classification.

I am following the Ironguides programme in the order stated and am starting to understand the benefits in doing this. I have been attending yoga once a week and incorporating a strength session after my Tuesday run session and occasionally after the Thursday session.

My strength session has evolved and is now at 3 sets of sit ups, plank and push ups.  I am currently doing 110 sit ups, 2.5mins of plank (this needs work!) and 35 push ups.  So, I will continue to 'up the ante' on these each week to gain improvements.  Thankfully, I have joined a gym in town which is where I do my midweek runs, so I am finding it easy to use the gym afterwards to get the strength session completed.

My swimming has improved also.  The 200m TT efforts started out at 4mins and I have now got them down to 3:43mins.  I know, not 'speedy', but an improvement nevertheless.  Hopefully this can continue to improve as I concentrate more on my stroke.  I am using the pull buoy and paddles as per the programme which I struggled with last year due to shoulder pain.  This time, however, I have got smaller paddles and am coping really well with them.

My bike seems to be taking a little while longer to come together.  It will be interesting to see the 20min and 30min TT times when I get up to them, but I expect that they may be a tad slower than last year.  Hopefully that will pick up in time.  I am going to incorporate some good hills in with my long rides this year to build more strength which was definitely lacking last year.  Hopefully I can keep any hip and knee pain at bay and continue to do this which I wasn't able to last year due to pain in these areas.

So, all in all, progress so far has been positive.  No, I am not going to get a Kona spot, no, I am not going to be in the top half of my age group, but I am hoping this year that I don't have to be worrying so much about the cut off time!

Onwards and upwards.  14 and a bit weeks to go.

Thursday swim

Well, I ditched the squad swim and found myself sleeping in an extra 20mins and swimming at the Jindalee Pool instead!

My swim took about 1hr 20mins and the most people I had in my lane was 2 others in a 50m lane.  So, nobody got in my way and I was able to get a good quality session in. 

Although, for some reason my swimming has gone backwards.  My swim time at Gundi was slow and my 200m time trial today was slow.  (3mins 44secs).  I think that I need to go back to slowing my stroke down, concentrating on getting power out of my stroke as I felt as though I was getting back to 'choppy' stroke.  So, I will work on this over the coming weeks.

All in all I swum 3.4km's.  Not too fatigued afterwards, so pretty happy with that.

Definition of frustrating...

The definition of frustrating is getting out of bed at 4:30am to get to the pool to perform a 3.4km swim set to discover that the pool is cut into 25mtr's and there are 4 lanes available to the public.  At one point in my 25mtr lane there were 8 people and one of them was water running...

The sad part is I had to choose a slow lane as the set that I was doing had quite a lot of VERY EASY/NO EFFORT laps in it, so I could hardly go in the faster lanes.  Then there were sections where I was attempting to do a 200mtr TT and I was dodging everyone and getting caught up - it was hopeless.  I was either in someone elses way or someone was in my way!

200mtr TT times were 3:37 and 3:33, however both times I was interrupted by other swimmers.  I did this set a week or so ago in the Valley pool with no interruptions and I got 3:19 and 3:24 so it was all a bit hopeless.

To top it off I was fighting cramps in my feet the whole way.  I used the pool buoy for the last 1km of the set and I ended up ditching the last 150m of the cool down as the cramps were getting more frequent and harder to shake.

All in all it was not a great session.  I will look at going to the Jindalee pool next week instead and hopefully this will help.  I taped my feet up prior to this session which I have been doing for the swim sessions as the balls of my feet are getting cut up from kicking off at the ends (I am sensitive!).  So, I will try and put the tape on relatively loosely as I'm not sure if that attributed to the cramping or not.

Trent's Monday swim session

It was a good solid session.  Boiling hot - 38 degrees!!!

We did a warmup of around 500mtrs doing 150swim 3 x 50m any stroke and then we were into the main set:

1km time trial which I did in 18mins 28secs.  This was in the Valley pool as a 50m pool

This was followed by some drills and a warmdown.

All up around 2km or just shy of it.

I was quite happy with the TT, I don't know if I have done a 1km TT previously, but I felt comfortable the whole way.  I probably could have gone a bit harder at the start as I felt as though I finished it stronger so this is a good sign of my swim fitness.  I was swimming it long and strong and I think this is the key for me.

Swim set

I had a sleep in this morning - how civilised.  I managed to potter about the house and read the paper over a leisurely breakfast - it was lovely.

I had arranged to meet Faye at the pool at 10.  Our swim set was as follows:

12 x 50m 15secs rest (easy, medium, fast, all out)
12 x 50m as: 15m all out, 10m easy, 25m very, very easy
200m ALL OUT
12 x 50m as: 15m all out, 10m easy, 25m very, very easy
200m ALL OUT
2 x 400m with paddles/pb 40secs rest
200m cool down with paddles/pb

3.6km's all up.  This session was good.  We were at the Valley pool where it is currently split into 25mtrs and my 200m times were 3:19 and 3:24.

The good news  - the last time I did this TT at the Valley pool when it was split in two was December 3 and my best time was 3mins 34secs.  So, I am thrilled with this.  I'll take a 15sec improvement! 

My initial goal was to get them consistently under 3mins 30secs, so I won't reset my goal just yet, but I will reasses it the next time I swim the TT at Jindalee 50m pool and this will be a good way to see where I am at and maybe set a new goal!

Happy New Years Day!!!

We had a lovely New Years evening with some friends at our place as well as our niece Kirsty and Craig's daughter Rachel (Blake ditched us as he is too cool to hang our with the olds on NYE!) It was a great night; we sat arond talking triathlon boring Kirsty and Rachel and then our friends left us to endure our marathon session to midnight! We had a swim in the pool and had a lot of junk food to keep us awake and we all managed to make it until midnight which was great.  I think we were all in bed before the fireworks had finished showing on the TV!  Such party animals.

So, needless to say a leisurely sleep in was had by all.  It was bliss.

Eventually when we did get up Kirsty, Rachel, Craig and I all headed out on the bikes down to Jindalee Pool so that Craig and I could do our swim set and the girls could have a swim.

The swim set was a new format;

12 x 50m w/u as 3x easy/mod/fast/all out (10secs rest),
12 x 50m: 1st 15m off the wall ALL OUT / 10m VERY EASY float, walk back or VERY VERY  easy 25m float back (ZERO effort), immediately into next one, after 12th one,
200m ALL OUT, 4min rest,
12 x 50m: 1st 15m off the wall ALL OUT / 10m VERY EASY float, walk back or VERY VERY  easy 25m float back (ZERO effort), immediately into next one, after 12th one,
200m ALL OUT, 4min rest,
2 x 400m easy with paddle/pb with 40secs rest,
200m easy pull/paddle cd

I really liked this session, I think it was because there were lots of breaks!  Even though it was intense it was good. 

The 200mtrs were done on 3:35, then 3:31, so this is an improvement on my previous efforts by 9 secs for the 2nd one.  The key for me I think is to try and swim stronger, not necessarily faster. 

Even though the set says pb/paddles I didn't use them except on the 2nd 400m easy and that was the only time where my shoulder started to hurt so I will continue to do the swim sets with no pb/paddles certainly until I can be pain free with a pb.

It was lovely at the pool, Craig's set was longer so I lolled around with the girls and just relaxed and enjoyed it thinking to myself that this Ironman caper's not as bad as everyone makes out! 

Watch this space!!!

Swim with 200m TT

The following swim set was done:
w/u:12 x 50m easy (15secs rest after each)
8 x 75m  of: 2 x 25m easy, 20secs rest, 1 x 25m ALL OUT, 20secs rest,
200m ALL OUT (no paddles/pb), 4mins rest,
8 x 75m  of: 2 x 25m easy, 20secs rest, 1 x 25m ALL OUT, 20secs rest,
200m ALL OUT (no paddles/pb), 4mins rest,
4 x 100m easy c/d

Both the 200mtrs were on 3mins 40 secs at Jindalee Pool (50m).  So, even though it appears as though I have gone backwards I think it makes a difference performing them in a 50m pool - that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

More change of plans!

Well, I am a woman, I'm allowed to change plans!

Yesterday's lunchtime swim was a no-show from me.  Work got in the way and it just wasn't going to happen.  This is going to happen from time to time and I will need to make a decision as to whether I drop the session or 'gasp, horror' catch up the session after work.  In this instance due to me having ridden in to work that day I decided to skip it and ride home instead as it would have become a bit of a logistical nightmare trying to carry my swim gear on my bike with no backpack.

I was talking to my friend Sarah last night and she is coming in to the big smoke today so we decided that we would run at lunch together and catch up.  Some friends catch up over coffee, others catch up over a run!  I'm looking forward to it.

So, I had planned a swim session at lunch today, so I swapped that around and did that before work at the Valley pool which seemed to work out OK.

Now, the good news is this was the set that has the 200m TT in them and I am really happy with the results (more on that later).

The set was:
4 x 100m pb/paddles w/up
6 times: 3 x 25 easy, 1 x 25 HARD with p/b/paddles
200m TT (timed obviously)
4mins rest
6 times: 3 x 25 easy, 1 x 25 HARD  with p/b/paddles
200m TT
4mins rest
4 x 100m p/b/paddles c/down

So, the first 200m was 3mins 36secs and then second one was 3mins 34sec.  Now the second one really hurt, I felt awful and was convinced that this was going to be considerably slower than the first, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it was slightly quicker.  Now, the thing to note with these times is that the pool was split in half so it was effectively a 25m pool, so even though I was a good 8 secs quicker than last week I'm not quite sure if I am going to count it.

The good thing is I am on the way to getting these consistently under the 3min 30secs mark.  Progress is continuing!