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High intensity training

My training finally shifted away from largely easy, aerobic base training to more intense race-like training recently. I broke my foot, was in plaster for 6 weeks and had to go back to aerobic training to rebuild my endurance and general fitness. This is my first year of triathlon racing (I've completed 2 triathlons in the past - in 1996 and 2003 I think) and my second year back into an endurance sport so I have a lot of basic training to get through to develop my fitness and skills for each sport.

My mileage and hourage (no, I don't think that's a word) has dropped but my sufferage and knackerage (them neither) have gone up. Woah, high intensity stuff is tough! From run training last year I know that anaerobic intervals on the track can have a profound effect on my running, but also that they wipe me out & I can't do them often. So, joy of joys, with triathlon I get to do intervals 3 times a week, once for each sport, plus tempo pace stuff.

Each session is met with a little trepidation, rather like a 2 hour run. Once started, I hammer it. Being able to hammer it to the end is something else though, and something that has noticeably improved over the last 6 weeks. Speed, lap times, time spent at high heart rates and at high speeds have also measurably improved. Running 800s at 5min/mi pace really helps with technique and efficiency. Steady runs after these feel different, more on the balls of your feet and more forward. Not that I'm getting much steady running in at the moment.

This week I'm barely running 35km but that's a session of 800s, a hilly run and a 30min run at 10k pace straight off a 20km tempo bike. No wonder I feel so tired. The fatigue from these workouts is quite different from the fatigue of high volume training.

I seem to be prepared for it though. Everything's holding up under the strain and I have an easy week next week to recover and test some elements of my fitness. Hopefully this will kick my race results up a notch for Bala, Dale and the Cardiff half marathon.

Cycling home

I got a couple of Flip video cameras, so thought I'd test them out by cycling home & filming it. They're nice and simple, and work well!

Gower Sprint Triathlon 2010

So this has been a challenging weekend so far. I'm not sure what the lesson is but it's in there.

I invited a mate and his family to come and stay with us and to enter today's Gower Triathlon. Garry and I used to bike race together when we were half our current ages and now we have somehow both drifted towards triathlon. I thought it might be a good battle as I guessed my swim would be better than his, his bike leg would be faster than mine and who knows what would happen then in the run?

I took him round the bike course yesterday and we had a swim in Port Eynon while the families played on the beach (we did too a little!) The weather ended up being a lot better than expected and I seemed to collect most of the sun on my head. Normally I have a cap with me, but I thought it was going to be rainy, not sunny. Later in the evening a stonking headache began, and when I looked in the mirror I realised that the cause was a red face, rather than a resurgence of the mild fever I had earlier in the week. I'd fried my brain.

Trying to get an early night and a good sleep before the 5am start paracetamol dulled the pain but I got little sleep and was up all night peeing. But not drinking anything. That can't be good. At 5am I felt no better but drove to the race with Garry and a wet flannel on my head drinking as much as I could keep in my stomach to try and rehydrate. I didn't think I'd start the race.

Registered, kit together, transition sorted, wetsuit half on and it was clear I was going to at least get in the water. Maybe the cold water would help. My wetsuit fits poorly and the cold water flowing down my neck probably alleviated my symptoms. What the hell, race on.

It was great to bump in to some of the club guys on the beach & I found one of my students (Alistair) - a good swimmer. I'd like to hold his feet in the swim. The race eventually started & I just hammered the swim, got some draft, was pretty straight to the buoys & came out right next to Alistair. Excellent. Good swim.

I've been poor at running to transition but ran faster today up the beach, feeling ok. Hammering the bike up the hill out of Port Eynon I picked up most of the places ahead of me, another before the climb, another on the climb and then belted the rest of the bike course on my own. Lots of rain to keep my poor head cool and a course I knew really well. Lovely. I took the descent back down to the beach a lot faster than I'd expected too so I must have been having fun. Another good effort.

Off the bike, out onto the beach for the run and I was clear behind and ahead. I had a big gap to pick up so I pushed hard for the first lap through soft sand, shallow dunes, huge muddy puddles and boardwalks. At the turn to lap 2 it was clear I wasn't catching and no-one was catching me so I kept up a decent effort but took safer lines after nearly turning my ankle on a couple of hidden holes. Finish safe. I knew I was in 3rd or 4th place.

There was a good crowd at the finish and a nice finishing chute so I enjoyed that. As I was recovering Garry finished, way too close to me for comfort. Fit boy! Shortly after him Cardiff Tri jerseys started appearing, plus more students and friends. Great!

Waiting around for the prize giving my headache and sore neck started to reform & I started to feel like crap again. I don't understand how I was able to race at that intensity feeling that bad before and after. Maybe it was the cold water. I still don't feel any better now, writing this.

Officially 4th, Richard Jones was kind enough to stand aside for me to be awarded 3rd (open category age group) on account of him being an awesome ex-international triathlete. Thanks, Rich. A nice bit of glory for me, my face in the paper and a nice prize.

And my name next to Richard Jones' on the results sheet. Just don't look at the time difference.

Summer's here?

Just as I was getting used to the long, mostly easy riding, running and swimming my training has switched at last to more race-like speed work. Of course, I've been racing since April or May, so I'm a bit out of sync with my original and current training plans. I just finishing my winter training, for example. In July. The broken foot of February has rather confused my racing year, but hasn't dampened it too much (6th at the Welsh Tri champs in Broad Haven at the end of my final block of winter training on tired, tired legs was a great indicator and great fun).

Funnily, after anaerobic intervals on the track and in the pool and some muscular endurance intervals on the bike last week my (shortened) long run on Saturday didn't go as well as usual. I felt bloody awful. I cut the already short 1 hour 45 mins run down to about an hour and a half and plodded my way out and back by the Loughor estuary at around 8min/mi pace. Horrible. I barely managed 12 miles. Happily I don't think it rained though.

I assumed it was a good sign of the new stresses of the speed work. After a good night's sleep and a bit of a lie in to try and avoid the rain (failed) I also cut short my planned Sunday training to just 2ish hours on the bike and a 45 minute run off. I mucked about a bit trying to recalibrate my iBike power meter before it failed in a light shower, and it continued to rain for most of the ride. With a nice hill and a good wind my legs felt strangely good and strong. Getting off the bike I ran an easy 10km in 43:34 at around 7min/mi pace. Weird.

What a difference a day makes, eh?

Talking of which, my "Remote Wind Sensor" (rubber bung, some tubing and a wind catching flangey-thing) arrived for my iBike this morning. I'm hoping I can get it dried out, fitted and calibrated for tomorrow's bike intervals. More rain is forecast and I'd love it if this kept the rain out of my iBike and gave me power data for the whole ride. Oh yeah, and my mudguards exploded on the bike too. The bit connected to the rear brake broke and the mudguard got pulled forward by the tyre. I found the bits, took it all apart and stuffed then into jersey pockets - I wasn't far from home. I've no idea how the back bit snapped off though. They're clever modular things, these Crud Catcher Roadracer mudguards, so I should be able to get the bit I need. I'll get some Duck tape on it tonight as a temporary fix.

I'm racing at the Gower Sprint Triathlon this weekend with a good, old (?) friend so I've shunted a few workouts around this week and cut out the track intervals to balance training intensity and give myself a little recovery and avoid the dastardly dead legs of last Saturday. I'd better get back on the TT bike & see if I can remember how to go fast for 25km. I was just getting the feel for standard distance races too. There are a couple of short climbs though, so those will be a blast. I'll be able to swim HARD too hopefully as its only 750m. As it's exam week for the students this week I'm looking forward to thinking about something else. If I get the marking done in time I might be able to make a long weekend of it.

Windsor race report

I also raced the Gower Duathlon a few weeks ago in which I ran a steady 39 minute first run (my foot was still healing), biked a quick hilly 43km in which my legs died after the final climb up from the Gower Heritage Centre and then held on for 7th place overall in the 5km run. A beautiful race on a beautiful morning, but I clearly haven't sussed my pacing for a 40km bike leg.

I raced in the Gloucester Sprint Triathlon 2 weeks ago & paced that much better to get 3rd in my age-group and 5th overall (beaten by 2 vets!) with a quick swim, a nice fast bike and a well paced run. I wasn't moving as fast as I wanted but I moved fast enough.

So last weekend in Windsor my legs were feeling ok after an easyish week of training. I certainly wasn't peaking but those legs have been getting faster & faster. They like racing! Funnily enough I was pretty chilled on the start line. So chilled that I didn't position myself particularly well. I got on the right side ready to cut across the current of the Thames but a few places back from the front. With the horn my start was unlike any other start before, and I swam over other triathletes as others swam over me & I easily found myself clear out in front with 2 other swimmers. I went hard to get on the next guy's feet then cruised in his draft upstream overtaking groups of swimmers from 2 or 3 earlier waves, turned into the downstream current at about 900m & dropped him. My swim got a bit wiggly and I missed the turn to the exit a little but was out of the water 2nd in my wave.

It's a long run to transition but hey, I'm always happy to run. A steady transition, feet in the shoes nicely for only the second time this year, and comfy on the bike on the way out. My pace for the first third was probably spot on but after dying at Gower I eased up a little through the middle section, swapping places with a few other riders. I dumped them all on the hill up to the Great Park (that ain't no hill if you train in South Wales!) and bombed downhill back to Windsor.

Through T2 I spotted the guy that came out of the swim behind me & shouted at him, "hey, where did you come from?" We'd been swapping places on the bike. He followed me out of transition but some lovely, clever race organiser had stuck a hill on the first part of the course (seriously, no sarcasm there) & I blasted up it to drop him. Rar! With the dead turns throughout the 3 lap course I could see my tasty gains. 1st lap was pain & fast (quads hinting cramp time was coming), 2nd lap was less painful & fastish, 3rd lap was full on effort & bury-yourself-in-it-pain by the end. Gorgeous. My times were a little off what I wanted but my pacing was good again. There were a hell of a lot people to run around.

Great race, great marshals. I could probably have swum harder & I could have paced the flat bike more evenly. Good lessons & I've got a better feel for the distance.

2:10.21, 25th overall (2500 entered?) but only 7th in my age group. That's about the same time as James Cracknell did last year & he got 4th. My bike leg was indeed a little slow for the top 30. I'll hammer it next time, shave a couple of minutes & get on that podium.

Official results here .

Why I don't listen to music on the bike

Why I don't listen to music on the bike, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Fast music kicks in (in this case, Gorillaz' Stylo) & you end up popping 500watts on an easy pootle. Sheesh.

Fading

Day 269: Fading, originally uploaded by samwebster.

The results from Llandovery triathlon are in and they look nice for me. I had a fast swim, which I knew, but I also had the fastest bike split. That's very nice as I don't think I'm biking very well yet. My bike fitness has only just caught up with January levels.

I gave up all my advantage on the run with a very slow (>19mins!) 5km run split. That makes sense of course, as I'd only just started running again that week, 4 weeks after having the plaster cast cut off my left leg. It will take a while to regain that run fitness and speed. It'll be fun though! I wonder if getting off the bike and hammering a 17min run will be doable?

Results aside it was a fun afternoon. It was great to hammer the bike & it's the first time it has been used in anger. My swimming has really improved as I've not been allowed to run so have spent much more time in the pool. Getting my feet on my shoes out of T1 is going to need a bit of thinking about and a lot more practice, and I've now worked out how to get my Garmin to pick up my heart rate when I get out of the pool. I'm sure I've got a much better idea of pacing a sprint distance triathlon too.

This was my third triathlon and they've been rather spaced out. 1996, 2003 and 2010. I think I might do a few more this year though.

All of this points to one thing: I'm going to get faster.

I won a trophy today

Day 268: I won a trophy today, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Hmm, not much of a race report for this one, from the Llandovery sprint triathlon.

Swam fast (fastest ever), got on my bike (ooh, tricky), cycled fast (no idea how fast yet, but caught lots of slower fish), got off the bike (also tricky), put slippery, heavily vaselined shoes on and ran hard (ow, fully stitched, tough to breathe) then ran harder (probably got some proper speed up eventually) and crossed the finish line ready to puke.

Surprisingly I was 3rd overall but shhh, don't tell anyone - I'm not supposed to be running yet. Very nice. Lots of fun & I learnt a lot.

Sunny days on the Gower

Day 257: OMG I live here?, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Mean no time for blogging!

Heart rate and power

Heart rate and power, originally uploaded by samwebster.

Here is an example of why I think it's helpful to know both heart rate and power. Here's a screenshot of a part of today's ride, climbing the main hill.

You can see that heart rate rises early in the climb and continues to increase as the climb progresses. You can also see that with each steeper section I'm able to put out a decent amount of power to a certain point. After that point each power peak is smaller and smaller, yet my heart rate stays very high (unusually high). I'm putting in a high level of effort but my legs are unable to continue putting out high levels of power. They're done in.

This makes sense of course, because I've not been doing any aerobic training for the last six weeks that I've been in plaster and my legs have "detrained".

My point is that without the heart rate data I would have been wondering if I truly had been putting in a decent effort. The power data is obviously useful.

By repeating this session I'll be able to see in the data if my fitness is improving. Good, eh?

Week 6 in plaster

I'm finally into my 6th and hopefully final week in plaster. My foot is feeling really solid still, and the only discomfort I'm getting is from the plaster cast flexing and squashing my toes and banging against my heels. Walking is still a bit of a hobble because the cast prevents any ankle movement and almost reaches my knee, making it impossible to fully flex the knee. The cast itself is starting to break down under the ball of the foot in thin areas, allowing it to flex where previously it was stiff.

A bus driver stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let a couple cross but was still looking at something in his cab when he accelerated towards me yesterday. He hadn't looked up and was only paying attention to the people he had seen out of the corner of his eye, so I had to hobble and shuffle quickly out of the way of the bloody thing and it's not easy to accelerate in a cast. It was a reflex reaction and my brain had briefly forgotten I was wearing the cast so my movement wasn't great. There wasn't any pain from the fracture area but the cast banging into bits of me and causing my knee to lock straight was uncomfortable and made me wince. The idea of getting run over by a bus at 5mph probably made me wince more.

I'm getting a little used to this free time, and starting to wonder how I'll adapt to going back to training next week. It's probably a good job that I entered all those races this spring and summer or I might have become a little lazier and not so keen to get out there every day, weather be damned. Upcoming races are a kick up the arse, excuse in hand (foot) or not. It feels like those lovely chemical rewards my drug-dealing brain got me hooked on for running, cycling and swimming every day are starting to wear off and I'm wondering why the hell I trained as much and as hard as I did. Make a plan, stick to the plan, get out the door, feel the opioids. I did cane it in the gym today so my worries are probably unfounded.

I've also been wondering if my attitude will change. Up until now I've been pretty indestructible. I was never a nutter rock climbing but I used to be able to put my head in a good place early in the season and climb some interesting stuff. I used to revel in the interesting stuff, but would maybe cack it a bit if I was pushing both my grade and the risk. But then I guess that's the point. Controlling the cack it factor. For a period I was making an average of one stupid potentially fatal mistake per year but survived, never really hurt myself (even when belayers didn't catch me!) and learnt from those mistakes. Indestructible. When Kim became pregnant with Jack something in my brain changed and I was never willing to climb as risky as before. Make of that what you will.

As I get older I get a little more sensible. Like the potentially fatal climbing errors I've learnt from I've also learnt to avoid the really icy roads, to ride straight, tall & slow (but don't brake!) through icy patches on the bike, and to not hammer it down greasy descents in the drizzle. Now that I've broken a bone and experienced the repair, the loss of fitness and the inconveniences, and have yet to even start the rehabilitation, will I become even more careful? To the point of losing time to competitors? Maybe I'm still indestructible. I feel like I'm healing quickly.

5 weeks in plaster

I've done 5 weeks in plaster now. That's 35 days in a cast from my toes to my knee on my left leg. From the end of week 4 the foot started to feel really solid again with no pain. I can sometimes wiggle it and find an interesting sensation, like probing a painful tooth with your tongue, but that's about all. Looking back through my tweets I see that I was predicted to not be walking without pain until 8 weeks or so, so that's encouraging. An orthopaedic colleague suggests I will be in trainers for a while when the plaster comes off, and that's fine with me. With walking and some work in the gym the strength and fitness of the quadriceps and hamstring muscles in my left leg have started to match that of my right leg agan already. Some of the work I've been doing in the gym has strengthened pre-existing weaknesses in my hip and core muscles to also better balance between left and right sides.

After periods of going nuts I'm starting to enter a new phase. Thanks to international adventure racing 1st year student star "Jacket" John Laughlin and a pile of inspiring DVDs he lent me my brain is feeling a bit better. But with 5 weeks of, essentially, sitting on my arse I'm falling back into that phase of, "do I really want to train every day for hours & hours"? My new found laziness is suggesting I take it easy. Swim every day? Are you mad? You want to go out on the bike for how long? Why? Part of my brain is sounding like normal people. I try to avoid being normal (normal is another word for "average"). If it's wet and cold when my plaster comes off I may have to push hard to get myself outside. But I doubt it. I'll lay down a plan and follow it, measure progress, and find out where the pain is.

I'm back in fracture clinic a week on Tuesday. I'll look after myself for 11 more days and hopefully my consultant will tell me I'm good to go. When I leave the care of the wonderful NHS I'll surround myself with the continued care of the University Sports Village and get myself back to form. That's half the fun.

Week 4

My ability to walk and move is much easier three and a half weeks after breaking my foot, but the boredom isn't getting any easier to deal with. I really miss the feeling of movement, of running, swimming or cycling. Reading about it, or planning for the rest of the year doesn't help much (although watching it does, funnily enough).

I've ditched the crutches & I'm walking with a stick this week, which is causing much piss-taking. There's no pain when walking, but I wouldn't want to stand on tip-toes or run.

To make it worse, I missed my gym session today because of a screw up. Grumpy, bored, annoyed. I might have cut this plaster off with a dremel before I make it to six weeks.

Counting the days

I'm back into fracture clinic tomorrow morning. The foot feels pretty good and is well supported by the cast.

As you can see from the image above, I've got counters running that count the days of healing and count down towards my major races this year. I won't be that fit for Windsor but I might be going well by Bala.

Going nuts

It's almost two weeks since I fractured the bone in my foot and I'm starting to go nuts. Kim's surprised I've not gone mad already. I'm trying not to think about it.

Six weeks in plaster and six weeks out of training is the least of it. As I can't put any weight on my foot I've no idea if it's getting better, and there's no change in the pain on that side of my foot. Healing bones is a fairly slow process. If I saw repair in an x-ray I'd be happier. Six weeks in a cast will be followed by around six weeks of limited run/walking, and that's if all goes well. It could be worse. When the cast comes off at least I'll be able to get in the pool, so maybe my swimming will become awesome. That's something I'm looking forward to, and I think five days a week in the pool or sea is a real possibility.

If I can at least get a cycling shoe on and spin on the bike I'll be a very happy cyclist. Having cycling replacing much of the running this year helped my running. I wasn't sure if this would happen but in January I was running easy at 7:15 min/mi pace, and 7 min/mi pace was at the upper end of zone 2. I only reached that pace for effort as I was approaching the marathon last year, so that's an excellent sign for under 50km of running per week. If I can get on the bike I'll be ok. There will be a lot of rehab for my left leg though so I've no idea how I'll perform.

So all the races I'd planned this summer will be for fun and experience. I enjoy the complexity of multisport and I love to compete. If I can complete the early races I'll be doing well. A couple of weeks after the cast comes off I think I'll start my training all over again, starting the long endurance building period from scratch before I add real intensity. My long term goals require endurance, and that takes years to build so I don't want to short change this one. At least my high mileage weeks should be in the summer rather than March!

Trying to plan the months ahead is a little depressing, particularly when I think about the uncertainty of it all. I need to find something to focus on to take my mind off it all.