For once, a rather short post as I have little to report this week.
On Monday, I was up at 6am (a sleep-in for me) after a decent nights sleep for a 25min walk/shuffle. Despite the solid nights sleep, I woke feeling tired & my walk/shuffle only confirmed it. I ended up walking much more than I normally do. Swollen glands in my neck (which I discovered the day before) led to a doctor's visit later on Monday morning which confirmed that I was coming down with some sort of viral infection. Not surprisingly given how smashed I felt after the (short) walk from the train station to my desk at work.
So I took 2 days off work & did no training until I headed to the gym on Saturday afternoon for a strength session. I am really missing:
(a) the gym and
(b) my muscles
at the moment so it was nice to get back to my happy place after basically a week of inactivity. Thankfully it was a recovery week anyway so I haven't missed much in the way of heavy training.
Sunday morning saw me get out of bed almost immediately after my alarm went off in an effort to avoid talking myself out of going for my long ride. As I only had a 2 hour ride on the cards, I decided an easy 2 hour ride out to Richmond & back was the way to go. The first 30mins of this ride was, by far, the longest 30mins of the week; it seemed to drag on. But eventually I found my mojo & enjoyed a quiet ride while the clouds did their best to rain on me. There was a light drizzle of rain for much of the ride - which was a nice change from the heat of late - with the rain only getting a little heavier within about 20mins from home. Finished with 48.01km in total
Back into training this week (I hope). This week is going to be particularly exhausting. I have far too much on my plate at the moment & permanently feel like I'm either trying to catch up (which never happens) or just keep my head above water. I guess there is only one thing to do in the circumstances; as Nemo would say "just keep swimming, just keep swimming".
MTD:
Swim: 3.85km
Bike: 172.1km
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Busy bee...
To say the last 2 weeks have been crazy is probably an understatement. I normally update my blog on Sunday nights & then look at my training program and plan out the rest of the week so I can get my training sessions done (at least most of them) around my normal commitments. Not only did I not update my blog on Sunday last week (obviously), I confess that I didn't even OPEN my training program for the week until, um, Wednesday night. My hip has also been playing up. Again. C'est la vie.
Mon 7th: no run in the morning as I was training a client :-)
In the evening, I tried to come up with every possible reason not to go to swim squad. But even leaving work at 6.30pm & visiting 2 potential venues of a group PT session I am planning to launch soon still left me with plenty of time to get to squad. Bugger. So I went. And I did it. And I was reasonably happy with how I swam, particularly given that I have only swim twice in the last month. Approx. 2.1km
Wed 9th: 60mins of core-torturing pilates in the morning followed by my 20min walk/shuffle in the evening. Probably not the best of idea; my glutes were probably a bit fatigued. My hip confirmed the next morning that it wasn't :-(
Thu 10th: 1.5km open water swim at the Regatta Centre watching the sky change from pink to blue. Great way to start the day!
Sat 12th: dragged myself out of bed about 7.30am for a ride. I was feeling decidedly unenergetic this morning but eventually got moving. An overcast morning with clouds that hinted of rain actually lifted my spirits; I wasn't looking forward to another hot ride.
As it was, the clouds didn't just hint of rain. About 30sec after getting on bike, it started to rain. Ick. Thankfully it didn't last for too long. 71min ride -including 3 x 6mins efforts with 4min easy recovery. The first two efforts didn't feel too hard. I worked out why when I turned around and headed for home. A headwind made the last effort much more painful & even the 'easy' cool down ride home was a struggle. 27.7km.
Thu 17th: dragged myself out of bed at 5.15am for a windtrainer session in the garage. 45mins in total including 3 x 6mins efforts (the last 40sec of which were standing) with 4min easy recovery. This session felt particularly tough. I almost talked myself out of doing the 3rd rep but persevered. 16.4km
Fri 18th: another Club race, another enticer (250m swim / 10km bike / 2.5km run)
I wasn't in a good head space mentally during this race nor did it really improve afterwards. I won't go into the details. Suffice to say while I know I have been training for other purposes for the last 6 months, I am feeling very frustrated with my training at the moment. And my hip isn't too happy either. No results out yet as at the time of writing
Edit: results are out. Slow swim, slow bike but my run was 38sec faster than my split at the Nepean enticer in November (mind you over a different course). 1st in my AG out of 2
Sat 19th: lots of walking in/around the city thank to getting to/from the (amazing) terracotta warrior exhibition in the NSW Art Gallery. I had planned to go to the gym afterwards but had car trouble :-(
Sun 20th: thankfully I had organised to meet TA for a long ride otherwise I would probably have stayed in bed & gone to the gym later in the day instead.
TA wanted an "undulating" ride and, as domestique, it was my responsibility to deliver. And deliver I did :-D TA came out to Penrith & we rode the Northern Rd to Harrington Park via a loop of Greendale for good measure. Very hot & humid weather conditions this morning. I have rarely, if ever, been more happy to get off the bike than I was today.
Finished up with an enjoyable (and leisurely) breakfast at the Coffee Club where we were joined by R. A great way to start a day. Thanks TA! 70.8km in 3hrs
Another busy week ahead. Hopefully I can start to get some routine into my life & business..
MTD:
Swim: 3.85km
Bike: 124.9km
Mon 7th: no run in the morning as I was training a client :-)
In the evening, I tried to come up with every possible reason not to go to swim squad. But even leaving work at 6.30pm & visiting 2 potential venues of a group PT session I am planning to launch soon still left me with plenty of time to get to squad. Bugger. So I went. And I did it. And I was reasonably happy with how I swam, particularly given that I have only swim twice in the last month. Approx. 2.1km
Wed 9th: 60mins of core-torturing pilates in the morning followed by my 20min walk/shuffle in the evening. Probably not the best of idea; my glutes were probably a bit fatigued. My hip confirmed the next morning that it wasn't :-(
Thu 10th: 1.5km open water swim at the Regatta Centre watching the sky change from pink to blue. Great way to start the day!
Sat 12th: dragged myself out of bed about 7.30am for a ride. I was feeling decidedly unenergetic this morning but eventually got moving. An overcast morning with clouds that hinted of rain actually lifted my spirits; I wasn't looking forward to another hot ride.
As it was, the clouds didn't just hint of rain. About 30sec after getting on bike, it started to rain. Ick. Thankfully it didn't last for too long. 71min ride -including 3 x 6mins efforts with 4min easy recovery. The first two efforts didn't feel too hard. I worked out why when I turned around and headed for home. A headwind made the last effort much more painful & even the 'easy' cool down ride home was a struggle. 27.7km.
Thu 17th: dragged myself out of bed at 5.15am for a windtrainer session in the garage. 45mins in total including 3 x 6mins efforts (the last 40sec of which were standing) with 4min easy recovery. This session felt particularly tough. I almost talked myself out of doing the 3rd rep but persevered. 16.4km
Fri 18th: another Club race, another enticer (250m swim / 10km bike / 2.5km run)
I wasn't in a good head space mentally during this race nor did it really improve afterwards. I won't go into the details. Suffice to say while I know I have been training for other purposes for the last 6 months, I am feeling very frustrated with my training at the moment. And my hip isn't too happy either. No results out yet as at the time of writing
Edit: results are out. Slow swim, slow bike but my run was 38sec faster than my split at the Nepean enticer in November (mind you over a different course). 1st in my AG out of 2
Sat 19th: lots of walking in/around the city thank to getting to/from the (amazing) terracotta warrior exhibition in the NSW Art Gallery. I had planned to go to the gym afterwards but had car trouble :-(
Sun 20th: thankfully I had organised to meet TA for a long ride otherwise I would probably have stayed in bed & gone to the gym later in the day instead.
TA wanted an "undulating" ride and, as domestique, it was my responsibility to deliver. And deliver I did :-D TA came out to Penrith & we rode the Northern Rd to Harrington Park via a loop of Greendale for good measure. Very hot & humid weather conditions this morning. I have rarely, if ever, been more happy to get off the bike than I was today.
Finished up with an enjoyable (and leisurely) breakfast at the Coffee Club where we were joined by R. A great way to start a day. Thanks TA! 70.8km in 3hrs
Another busy week ahead. Hopefully I can start to get some routine into my life & business..
MTD:
Swim: 3.85km
Bike: 124.9km
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Decisions, decisions
A HUGE week in probably every other avenue of my life except for my training. I have done very little training this week due to a combination of other commitments & an intense need to sleep (despite the intense heat western Sydney has been experiencing this week). This week -
- the privatisation I have been working on for the last 22 months finally completed, bringing one job to an end;
- in connection with the privatisation, I started a new job;
- I launched my website, and effectively my business, after a few late nights trying to finalise the website; and
- attended a two day legal conference on Friday & Saturday.
I haven't really kept track of my training this week but I do recall going out for a 25mins walk/shuffle and going to my happy place, ie. the gym, not once but twice :-))
In other news today I withdrew from the Port Macquarie Half Ironman - sorry, 70.3 - race in May. My running is not where it needs to be at this point & I am not prepared to accept the risks associated with doing the race from where I am at this point. I am very comfortable with this decision - it is something I have been thinking about for some time - and I am looking forward to focusing on sprint & Olympic distance races for the next 12 months :-)
- the privatisation I have been working on for the last 22 months finally completed, bringing one job to an end;
- in connection with the privatisation, I started a new job;
- I launched my website, and effectively my business, after a few late nights trying to finalise the website; and
- attended a two day legal conference on Friday & Saturday.
I haven't really kept track of my training this week but I do recall going out for a 25mins walk/shuffle and going to my happy place, ie. the gym, not once but twice :-))
In other news today I withdrew from the Port Macquarie Half Ironman - sorry, 70.3 - race in May. My running is not where it needs to be at this point & I am not prepared to accept the risks associated with doing the race from where I am at this point. I am very comfortable with this decision - it is something I have been thinking about for some time - and I am looking forward to focusing on sprint & Olympic distance races for the next 12 months :-)
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Now for my next trick...
A recovery week :-)
Mon: a crap nights sleep - the usual post big-effect restless nights sleep - saw me awake far too early for a day off. But it meant I could enjoy a leisurely (and wonderful breakfast) at our favourite cafe in Bright before the long drive home. Once home, I spent 30mins of SMR on the foam roller before doing 14mins of R&R session (consisting of 5mins bike, 5mins easy play with the ViPR & then 4mins of mobilisers). Felt fab afterwards!
Tue - Thur: rest
Fri: I had set my alarm for 5.30am but when R's alarm went off at 4.50pm my brain switched on knowing I had a difficult & stressful day ahead of me at work. So from about 5.10am I was up & out of bed for my windtrainer session in the garage. Did 42mins of one of the endurance DVDs in our ever-increasing Spinervals collection followed by a 5min c/d. I took it reasonably easily as my HR was climbing much quicker than it normally does, indicating that the body still hasn't fully recovered from the weekend's little adventure. 47min. 18.61km
Sat: after a late night working, I dragged myself out of bed at 5am in order to meet TA & Mouse at Hornsby at 6.45am for a long ride. While the girls & I were sitting in our cars contemplating the drizzle, Brick ran past & stopped for a chat
I don't think any of us was feeling particularly enthusiastic. But eventfully we dragged ourselves out of the car, onto our bikes & set out for a ride from Hornsby to the Galston area via Berowa Waters.
I had put my normal cluster - a 25 compared to the (easier) 28 I had on the bike for Alpine Classic - back on my bike. But that can't account for how much of a struggle it felt like. Thankfully the company was great & post-ride breakfast was yummy too :-) 55.96km in about 2:45.
Sun: rest (big sleep-in!)
Mon: rest (unscheduled)
Tue: another 25mins walk/shuffle today, the first in about 10 days. Much to my surprise, it felt no more difficult than the last one. Time to step it up a bit though..
Totals for January:
Swim: 4.25km (yikes!)
Bike: 433.35km
Mon: a crap nights sleep - the usual post big-effect restless nights sleep - saw me awake far too early for a day off. But it meant I could enjoy a leisurely (and wonderful breakfast) at our favourite cafe in Bright before the long drive home. Once home, I spent 30mins of SMR on the foam roller before doing 14mins of R&R session (consisting of 5mins bike, 5mins easy play with the ViPR & then 4mins of mobilisers). Felt fab afterwards!
Tue - Thur: rest
Fri: I had set my alarm for 5.30am but when R's alarm went off at 4.50pm my brain switched on knowing I had a difficult & stressful day ahead of me at work. So from about 5.10am I was up & out of bed for my windtrainer session in the garage. Did 42mins of one of the endurance DVDs in our ever-increasing Spinervals collection followed by a 5min c/d. I took it reasonably easily as my HR was climbing much quicker than it normally does, indicating that the body still hasn't fully recovered from the weekend's little adventure. 47min. 18.61km
Sat: after a late night working, I dragged myself out of bed at 5am in order to meet TA & Mouse at Hornsby at 6.45am for a long ride. While the girls & I were sitting in our cars contemplating the drizzle, Brick ran past & stopped for a chat
I don't think any of us was feeling particularly enthusiastic. But eventfully we dragged ourselves out of the car, onto our bikes & set out for a ride from Hornsby to the Galston area via Berowa Waters.
I had put my normal cluster - a 25 compared to the (easier) 28 I had on the bike for Alpine Classic - back on my bike. But that can't account for how much of a struggle it felt like. Thankfully the company was great & post-ride breakfast was yummy too :-) 55.96km in about 2:45.
Sun: rest (big sleep-in!)
Mon: rest (unscheduled)
Tue: another 25mins walk/shuffle today, the first in about 10 days. Much to my surprise, it felt no more difficult than the last one. Time to step it up a bit though..
Totals for January:
Swim: 4.25km (yikes!)
Bike: 433.35km
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