The last 180 days in perspective

Just finished filling in the last month of Training Peaks data (Mike will be happy) and pleased to see nearly everything is going in the right direction - pace going up, av wats going up and weight/body fat going down :-)

Total training distances over the past 180 days:
Bike - 1358km
Run - 370km
Swim - 77km

Image below:

Mike gave me a new challenge on Wednesday - hard repeats to try and mimic the hills around Wimbleball. Below is the image of the data output from TP and the exact wattages/HR data too - as you can see I died on the efforts - it was seriously hard!!

Legs are very stiff tonight - need to go and have some red muscle relaxant and put some calf compression kit on :-)

Swimming and the impact of a two week layoff....

So following my VO2max on Sunday yesterday was a 30min run @ 6:10/km pace (2hr 1/2 marathon pace), the legs did not want to run....but I still managed to keep the to the target pace (in fact towards the end it was becoming easy!).

Swimming this morning was a mixed bag....the set was:
400 (100 Swim, 100 pull, repeat) - easy
DR1: (6 x 75 as: 50 DR into 25 Swim 3,5,5 breathing -ALL PULLING)
1) 3/4 catch-up
2) Single Arm
3) 3/4 catch up
4) Fists
5) 3/4 catch up
6) swim - best stroke count
MS: 4 x 400
*(85% TEMPO, comfortably hard) - Keep form. Consistent spilts are the GOAL! 30s rest b/t reps
CD: 50 Easy - put stroke back together, finish with good form.

Not sure what happened - warm up and drills good but it all fell apart the 4x400s ranged from 5:48 to 6:05 no consistency, the first one felt really easy (5:48) and I could not slow down it just felt good, number two and three (5:54, 6:01) were both okay but gradually harder and by number 4 I was gone (6:05) breathing was off (inhaled water – I never do that), turns were sloppy and my stroke was falling apart.....I am guessing it is the lack of swimming for nearly two weeks that has blunted my longer distance endurance....ho hum....at least on the positive side I finally built my single speed bike (42/18 gearing - see the previous post) so I will be using that a lot more for chores and maybe a couple of training rides – just to make my one local hill a little harder!

Wow what happened to the last two months!

So work has been nuts, training almost consistent and a little hectic and life generally mad!

It is now March and a week before my 38th birthday :-O where has time gone.....mostly into paying bills and trying to do some training. A lot of time has been spent on the turbo a little less in the pool and running is a constant background theme! Overall I am happy with progress, this weekend I did another VO2max and the prelim results look good - 42.5 up from 37.9 in October :-) so something must be going well!

I am finally getting out on the bike again which is a relief as I have gone through all of series 7 of 24 on the turbo and most of the Battlestar Galactica series too!

Sorry for the disjointed format of this blog mainly just getting something down as it is ages since I last updated it....I must try to be more regular with it!

I have entered IM70.3 in IRE (as well as the UK one) it will be my B race and the last of the season as it is in September (in Galway!!) and I will probably be doing Marshman if I sort things out and enter!

Finally I have made a new bike! Well remade an old one really - I looked at getting a thief proof single speed but even on Ebay they were £400+ so I bought the bits from Charlie the Bikemonger (http://www.charliethebikemonger.com/) an awesome purveyor of all things single speed and built my own. This is something I have never done before - it was great! I stripped and built a bike from scratch :-) v happy. So the details:

I started with a CroMoly frame (Virago?? brand) which was 80s (red and yellow) colouring and stickers I then stripped it and painted it with Hammerite spray paint (really badly - don't want it to look too nice for the casual thief in Cambridge!!).

The rebuild used: an old BB and Bonty Racelight spider from my Trek Equinox fitted with a NoName 42T chainring; a new rear wheel (the original was a screw on cassette) with free hub and a NoName 18T cog; new mini V brakes and Quad cabling; the trek aero base bar and bonty aero brakes from my old Equinox and the old triaero saddle from it too.

All the single speed kit and an IceToolz equipment came from Charlie the Bikemonger (thanks for the web address Chris!) and the brake cable/rear wheel from other bike shops.

All I can say is thankyou to Chris W for giving me the kick to build it and everyone who likes cycling should do this - I am soooo much more confident in stripping and building a bike now!

....and here are some pictures! Enjoy!

I.