I've failed

It's the way life is I'm afraid, but I have failed in reaching my target of cycling 60km a day this week, by some margin. However, I have another plan...

Unfortunately I have to go to Milton Keynes on a course next week so I'll be taking my run, gym and swim kit and will fit in what I can when I can. The following week, though, I will hopefully be able to hit the cycling properly.

I was doing some training programme stuff last night. There are 24 weeks (including this week) to Quelle Challenge Barcelona, so 3 x 8 week cycles to allow base, build and speed phases. I have 3 cycle sportives planned over distances of 150 to 200km so my endurance will be fully tested on these. The speedwork I can do on the turbo but will add some 10, 25 and 50 mile TTs to get used to riding PoD and its somewhat extreme position (pictures soon, I promise).

On the upside, our daughter has very quickly settled into her new school; she was Star of the Day on Wednesday and Star of the Week this week.

Train smart folks.

Progress

The sun is shining and my mojo is definitely on the up.

The scales showed 11st 11lbs this morning so the weight is definitely moving in the right direction at last.

I didn't manage my 60km on Monday due to domestic pressure - the house still needs a lot of work doing to get it sorted and that took priority, although I did get 26km in on the gym bike at lunchtime. On Tuesday I cycled in to work, spent some time on the gym bike at lunchtime and got out onto the turbo in the evening for a total of 62.5km. Last night's session included some 1km efforts just to keep it interesting and I managed to hit 60kmh during this although couldn't hold it for the whole km. And yes, I'm still running with Bandit every morning.

At least I shouldn't disgrace myself at Brize (once I get out of the pool!).

Getting things sorted

Today was a really productive day; not in absolute training terms but certainly looking to the longer term.

After a walk along the seafront with Bandit, we had a quick breakfast and then headed over to Portsmouth. For those that don't know the area, this requires a short ferry journey or a lengthy car ride; we opted for the ferry. Once on the other side, we headed around the corner to the Gunwharf Quays shopping area, and quite impressed the family were too. Lots of outlet shops selling stuff at way below MRP, and loads of restaurants, cafes etc. There was a Cadbury's shop, so we are sat here this evening munching through a large bag of misshapes! And we found a chinese restaurant doing an all you can eat buffet lunch. The food was really excellent and I have to confess that I have over indulged (yes, again!). My scales have mysteriously disappeared this week too!

When I got home I got stuck in to sorting out the garage. I had taken two car loads to the recycling centre yesterday so it was time to get the power tools out and start putting things into place. The Dolan and the Litespeed are now securely hanging on the garage wall, extra lights are up to supplement the weedy garage light to allow maintenance tasks to take place after dark and, most important of all, the turbo trainer is now up and running. This of course means that serious training can start again - Yippee! I have 24 weeks to lose 10lbs or so and get myself into shape to ride at 36kmh for 5 hours and I am really looking forward to the challenge of both training and racing. I suspect that I will be in no good shape for the Brize sprint next month but I'm going to use that as my first target to at least be close to my racing weight, and if I can beat my bike split from last year I would leave Brize a very happy person.

The first training target is to complete 420km of cycling next week, to be done as 60km a day every day. This will be done at relatively low intensity (ie fat burning zone) although as I don't believe in the "lots of base miles" training philosophy (I simply don't do enough training hours to justify this) I will be doing one interval based turbo session during the week. This is likely to be the 6 x 6 minute session, supposedly done at 105% of FTP although to be honest I am not sure what my FTP is at the moment so I will just make an educated guess and see what the HRM is telling me. I will certainly know if it's too hard! I plan to keep the base miles phase going until the end of June, although there are a couple of sprint tris and the Inter Services Sportive in this period to keep things interesting. Hopefully by the end of June my endurance will have returned and I can start adding in some speed work. This will go through to the Inter Services TT Champs in August where I hope to do both the 10 and 25 mile events and hopefully record some new PBs; it would be brilliant to go sub hour for the 25. After that I'm not too sure what the programme will be, so am seeking the advice of others. If I have a solid enough base then I suspect that hard 50 mile efforts are what would be required to increase my speed for the 112 miles at Barcelona (if they're good enough for Hywel Davies ...); the good thing is that I can do these on the turbo.

Anyway, that's enough rambling from me, train smart folks.

Ow, I feel good na na na na na na na

I knew that I would ...

Relax, I haven't been shaking my tush down Gosport High Street, I've just had one of those thoroughly enjoyable training sessions, where you work really hard and have a real glow about yourself afterwards. It wasn't anything particularly special but after almost 3 weeks of "a little bit here, a little bit there" it felt great. So what was it that made me feel so good? Nothing more than 45 minutes on the gym bike, in the middle of which I did 10 miles at a proper TT effort (ie in excess of 90% MHR). It was hard work and my legs certainly knew about it but I felt "cleansed" afterwards, I think you understand? Don't you?

Anyway, changing tack completely, do you know Magical Trevor? If not, see here:

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/magical+trevor/

If you don't end up humming that for the rest of the day I will be very surprised. You will probably kill me for it though! :-)

Train smart and race hard folks.

Easing back into it gently

After a week of no training due to the house move, I have started back gently this week. Monday was a steady 5km run, Tuesday a steady 5km run and 45 mins of core, stretch and flex, and this morning I managed a very wet 5km run and plan to sit on the exercise bike for 45 minutes at lunchtime. I currently weigh 11st 13 lbs so am heading in the right direction albeit slowly. I just need to get my diet organised as I found myself with a food craving mid-afternoon yesterday and had nothing with me, so ended up raiding the vending machine for a chocolate bar. I have my supply of bananas with me today so that shouldn't happen again.

I am getting slightly nervous about the forthcoming IS sportive on 7 June. I know it's still almost 2 months away but at 126 hilly miles it's going to hurt and I haven't really been racking up the bike miles recently. Well at least it's not a race!

Met up with Jonny "MdS" Briggs on Sunday morning for a stroll along the beach with families and dogs. He's looking lean (as you would expect) and seems to not have suffered physically for his recent efforts. He's looking to return to triathlon and particularly IM distance races in 2010.

The house is still in chaos although it gets a little better every day. The boys go back to school on Sunday and I expect things to advance more swiftly after that. I need to get the garage cleared out (it's full of empty packing boxes and packing material at the moment) so I can set the turbo up and get back into some proper training.

Train smart folks.

Moving House is Hard Work

I haven't done any proper training this week but by heck I've been working hard. It's now Easter Sunday and we moved in on Wednesday and there still seems to be boxes in every room but no cupboard space to put them in. I really like the house, as do the family, and having the beach just a 5 minute walk away is great. I took a couple of pictures last night and will get around to posting them asap.

I'm hoping to start training again tomorrow with an easy run and then I'm back to work on Tuesday and hope to start to get some bike miles in. I'm will treat next week as an easy week to get the body used to training again and then I have a plan for next week - 60km a day on the bike for 7 days. Plus a short easy run first thing in the morning. Plus some core, stretch and flex at lunchtime. We shall see how that goes.

A BIG WELL DONE to Sags and Bev for their medal efforts at the National Duathlon Champs. Not entirely unexpected for Bev as she is certainly the one to beat in her age group, but a great effort by Sags. I know how much hard work you have put in over the winter mate so well done.

Train hard race easy! (yeah right!!!)

No training today because...

...it's moving day. Yes the movers are in and I am in a completely disorganised mess. Mrs Turbo Man took 2 of our children and the dog off to the new house this morning leaving me to sort out the removals. After an hour or so I had to get them to re-open a couple of boxes to retrieve the house folder with all the important documents for this house that I had carefully left out in the living room. I then had to go and get 2 new keys cut after realising I had left them in a drawer that had been packed and didn't have the courage to get them to re-open half a dozen boxes looking for a couple of keys. I don't have a toothbrush tonight because ... yep .. I wasn't quick enough to rescue it before it was packed. To be fair, the removals team have worked really hard today and achieved more than they thought they would. We should be out of here about lunchtime tomorrow and then the joy of unpacking begins Wednesday morning. Don't worry, PoD and my Litespeed have been safely transported already.

I reckon training will resume at some point over the Easter weekend, if only to recover my sanity! Wish me well.

Running, 2 days in a row!

Hard to believe, I know, but I ran again this morning, for another hour. Bandit enjoyed it but, as he did yesterday, he has gone straight to bed and is now asleep. I feel like I could do the same (although not in his bed, obviously!).

It's Just Not Fair

I know I've been sidetracked by farewell parties, farewell cakes, etc, but the scales were particularly cruel to me this morning. :-( Anyway, as we are moving on Monday I have left my bike down in Gosport so it was out for a run first thing this morning. Bandit was really excited when I appeared in my run kit and grabbed his lead. We were out for just over an hour at a very easy pace (how I hate people who can really run, as opposed to my laboured jogging!); Bandit really enjoyed it and chased a few bunnies who were just about quick enough to get back to their burrows in time. And I feel good for doing it as well. Tomorrow will be more of the same.

Train smart folks.

Another Strange Week

Itsy bitsy training, cakes, leaving parties, hangovers, poor nutrition, etc etc. Hopefully I will be able to get back into a routine once the house move is over. I have a cunning plan to get some bike miles in once that is sorted that will involve a scenic commute to and from work. Add some core work at lunchtime and a short, sharp turbo session every other evening and hey presto - cycling nirvana.

Really nice that the lighter evenings are here.