Troublesome breathing....

Towards the end of last week , over the weekend and today, I have had some trouble breathing. It started last week during the hot weather with a tight chest and shortness of breath – although I could still exercise – 30 mins on the bike on Thursday and a swim on Friday morning, a simulated time trial on Saturday using my new TT bar extensions – and a run, mountain bike and swim on Sunday! But I still feel quite tight afterwards and I am having trouble at night – I just don’t feel as if I have slept properly at all.

I am wondering if it is some form of hay fever – and hopefully with the start of the rain it will go away – but it is quite worrying.

Rode the creaking Mountain Bike in today. God it makes a lot of noise and needs a good service. It seems to be the cranks that are creaking – so I presume there are some loose bolts somewhere – but not sure where.

I bought some TT extension bars the other day for my Trek Madone. They were pretty reasonable - £80 or so from Wiggle – and I tried them out on Saturday evening. At first they make you feel out of control – but once you smooth your riding style out a bit – they are quite comfortable to use – and rock solid. I’ll do a proper review later….

Full of cold...

I did manage to run today – but after my run yesterday I started feeling pretty rubbish – felt cold, shivery, tired, head ache etc. Typical man flu stuff – without the runny nose. Still have it today. As I said – I managed a run this morning – but really don’t feel up for anything more than that – and all I wanted to do last night was go to bed. Pretty sure that is all I will manage tonight as well. I have to cycle to the station tomorrow as the wife needs my car – so will no doubt not enjoy that given my current state! Still – gotta muddle through.

I am presuming that I won’t be doing myself too much damage by exercising during this period – given that it is essentially a cold (albeit a MANs cold – which is obviously far worse!!! :-0 ) So bike ride for the rest of the week and perhaps if I feel better – a swim as well.

Day off on Monday and a run on Tuesday

Took Monday off exercise as I probably overdid it last week – and I was very tired. I was however itching to get outside as the weather was wonderful – so today I ran into work. Had to run the short 3.5km route as the train was delayed – so I didn’t have time to do anything larger – but hopefully I will get a chance to run back this evening.

I haven’t had a chance to map out the week yet – but the Wife has already said she needs my car on Thursday and Friday as hers is going into the shop for its MOT – so I will be on the bike both those days. It will be the road bike as well as the Mountain Bike needs a bit of a service!

Only a few more weeks until the first triathlon now – and I am looking forward to it. I need to hire a wetsuit, get my race day kit list together and a few other jobs – but really looking forward to it and feeling quite positive.

A hard easy run...

I woke up this morning a little worse for wear - my Father in Law, brother in law and cousin came down to pick the missus up and to take her down to Wembley - and we all went out for a curry and a few beverages last evening. Well - as normal in these situations - I may have consumed a few too many beers and I didn't get to sleep until very late. Hence the bad head this morning....

Anyways - I thought I'd go for a run anyway to complete the week - and it was pretty hard. I was going for 5km endurance - so nice and slow and keep the HR down - but my legs were tired and I couldn't get the  HR much above 140 anyway - so I found it very hard going - and I was exhausted after the 5km when I got home - even now my legs feel pretty sore. Still - it was interesting that I managed it in 30 mins with keeping the HR so low.

Anyway - good luck to Everton today in the match against Man Utd - the wife and family are there today and I hope they enjoy it. Back to work tomorrow and I will have to start fitting the training around work again - so will hopefully work out a plan for this week tonight - but tomorrow will be a rest day - my legs certainly need it.

Saturday and a little bit of Mountain Biking

Couldn't remember what the devil I was supposed to be doing today - and didn't fancy a run this morning - so jumped on the Mountain Bike and headed off to Irchester Country Park in the sun. My Mountain Bike definitely needs servicing - it is creaking like an old man and the gears keep slipping - but I managed about 3 laps of the park and quite a few bits of the single track including a great bit between the trees which includes a couple of 'hairy bits' where I had to swing between two close trees. Really good fun.

Some decent single track on the way home as well - about an hour and a half in total - 1150 kcals.

Interestingly my legs were seriously aching by the time I got back home - really really aching. Far more that on the trainer - and I couldn't have gone much further - so either I have over trained a bit - or I just didn't have enough carbs - will have to watch that in the future. 

Lunchtime Bike power/sprint training

Jumped on the bike trainer and chose a different training route to normal - usually I take the hill training - but this time I took the power/sprint training route - lots of quick sprints with recovery afterwards, a couple of big hills at the end - but generally lots of quick power generation climbs.

I managed a personal best today - 772 Watts. I've never got anywhere close to this before - I think I usually generate about 400 watts on a quick climb for a short amount of time - but today the force was obviously with me (Revenge of the Sith on the laptop infront of me!) - and I managed a couple of pretty big pushes - 602 watts being the previous one and 772 Watts the last push. I am pretty pleased with these - especially as they were at the end of the ride - 32km in 56 mins. I am pretty peckish now - so going to get some grub now....

Not so sure about a run later - might have done enough today now.....

A good morning swim

My daughter, bless her, has chicken pox at the moment - and didn't sleep too well last night and in the process managed to keep my wife (and me a bit) awake quite a bit. A feat - those of you that know me will agree - as I can sleep through Armageddon. So - I was planning on heading to the pool at about 6:30am this morning and going for a run afterwards, instead - I arrived at the pool at about 8:30am and forgo the run. I managed 2.7km in a steady time - about 1 hour 10 mins including a warm down at the end - so not too bad.

My arms don't feel quite as bad as they usually do which is encouraging - so I might jump on the cycle trainer in a bit and see if I can manage a few kilometers on that.

My photos from the Half Marathon at Silverstone arrived today as well - and by golly I look quite tired at the end! I forgot what an ordeal the last 2km were - but my face on the finish line tells the story in its entirety I feel. I don't look too happy to say the least. Oh well - at least I did it, but I probably won't be doing it again. I'm still thinking of stepping up to Olympic distance next season - but haven't gone any further than thinking of it yet. At least I know I can do the distances involved - although I suspect my time will be poor on the more endurance distance event - but I guess that is what specific training is for hey?

A brick session

I thought I would get all the training that I wanted to do in early
today so I could get beaten at Monopoly by my kids today and not have
to worry about fitting any more in.

So I decided that a decent bike session was in order - so a 27km hill
training session on the trainer with the aim to see what my average
wattage would be. I was a little disapponted to see only 150 watts
average at the end of 48mins, although the high was 400 and on some of
the climbs I had sustained over 250-300 for the entire climb - the
descents just wouldn't allow me (read my legs wouldn't allow me!) to
keep that up afterwards.

I did manage to do all this without socks and also while practicing
with shoes already attached to the bike etc.

Then straight into my trainers - again no socks - and out for the run.
My legs were heavy and my HR was above 150 at the start, but I managed
a half decent 3.5km in just over 15 mins.

Brick training is pretty hard and it was a bit of a shock - I forgot
how hard it was to run straight after a bike. I definately need to
keep trying this a few more times. Tomorrow I am hoping to get up for
an early morning swim and a run, we shall see how that works!

Ouch! My arms don't work...

Went to the gym this evening for a swim and managed 2.7km including
some drills - touching my hip with my thumbs during the stroke and
some speed work - gentle first 25m followed by a fast hard pulling 25m
while concentrating on form and trying to keep my stroke in order. All
with no legs using a pull buoy.

It all seemed like a great idea - but now - my arms and shoulders feel
like they ate going to drop off and I am completely cream crackered!
Tomorrow is a rest day and to be honest - that's probably a good thing.

I will probably snore for England tonight!

This week’s training schedule

Day	Hours	Details	Actual
Monday	0.5	Morning fartleck training	0.5
	0.5	Endurance cycle training	0.75
	0.5	Swim 1500m	1
	0.25	Afternoon Farleck training	0.25
Tuesday	1	Evening swim, drill sessions
Wednesday	0	Day off
Thursday	0.5	Early morning run
Friday	0.5	Early morning run
	0.5	Swim 1500m
	0.5	Spinning cycle
Saturday	1	Long run
Sunday	1.25	Long Cycle
TOTAL	7		2.5

A few changes this week as I am at home – so lets see how we do – I’ve changed this week to a 7 hour week (although I am sure I shouldn't – Joe Friel would be cross!).

Last Weeks Training results

Not such a good week of training last week – with a combination of injury, beer and rugby contributing to the low stats. Well – it supposedly a low week this week referring back to this post: http://clansharrock.blogspot.com/2009/03/long-term-training-plan.html – but I think this is probably unlikely as I am on holiday and have already clocked up over 2 hours on the first day of the week – so may take last week as the low week and slot a higher one in this week…

Day	Hours	Details	Actual
Monday	0	Day off - rest day	0
Tuesday	0.5	Ride to station from home	0
	0.5	Ride home from station	0
		Ride to Raunds	1
Wednesday	0.5	Lunchtime run, endurance, 5km	0
	1	Cycle trainer - hill training at 200 watts	0
Thursday	0.5	1000m Swim, speed training.	0
Friday	0.5	Early morning run	0.5
		Swim 3000m	1.5
		Spinning cycle	0.5
	1	Core work.	0
Saturday	1	1500m Swim, endurance. Try not to stop.	0
		Early morning run	0.5
Sunday	0.5	Run - fartlek training.	0
	1	Cycle trainer	1.6
TOTAL	7		5.6

And yet more…..

Following on from this mornings brick session – I went to the gym in the afternoon and jumped into the pool for a long session with arms only. It wasn't too bad – I am sure I was as quick as normal – and I counted my strokes per length at 14 again – but I was tired certainly and didn't have as much stamina in my arms as I would have liked. Managed 1.5km but felt pretty worn out, so decided the best thing I could do after that was some work on the treadmill!

I think I may have lost the plot somewhere as I ended up doing more fartleck training on the treadmill and totally knackering myself out! Great fun – but I was dripping wet by the end and my legs burned for ages.

One thing I did do – was try running in my trainers without socks on. It is going to be easier in transition if I do not need to get into socks before donning running shoes or cycle shoes – much less time wasted. Wet cold feet do not take well to being stuffed into socks and time can easily go by while doing this – so I thought I’d practice without and see how much my feet need to be hardened up.

Oh my God! My right foot is now a sea of sores where the running shoes have rubbed – I feel that while this is a worthwhile exercise – it isn't going to be pretty – and it may take some time….

Bank Holiday Monday Madness

Its half past 10 in the morning and I have already been out for a run and a bike session - and have 2 hours booked in the gym this afternoon!

I managed some fartlek training this morning - 4 x 30 second sprints intertwined with 3 min normal recovery running. After a 1km warm up I started sprinting for the first of the 30 seconds - and of course the road headed uphill - bugger - I just knew that would happen - but I managed to keep the sprint going for the full time. The recovery run felt slow - but looking at the pace afterwards - it was my normal running pace - which I guess is the purpose of this training - to make you generally run faster.

The second and third 30 secs felt ok, but tiring and the 4th was a killer - I just couldn't wait for the clock to hit the required time. The run back to the house felt like a jog - although my lungs were gasping and again - analysis shows it to be normal running pace.

After a few mins back home I got on the cycle trainer and slapped in a 46 min training program with a few decent hills and some long flats. This was to be a fat burning session, I didn't want to do another massive ride like yesterday - as I am in the gym this afternoon - so a long fat burn session at low HR was the order of the day. A pretty good session - I sweated like a pig - I love the long low HR sessions - you look like you have gone hell for leather - but in reality it is all pretty easy in comparison. Managed an easy 27km. Swimming this afternoon....

Sunday Bike training a beer burning session....

I went to the Rugby yesterday with a friend of mine - to watch Leicester play at home to Bath. Cracking game - but I did end up drinking a few  too many beers and a nice curry afterwards. Now while I didn't wake with a bad head - I did feel the need to do a pretty hard set of exercise this morning.

And so it was, before breakfast, that I set up the bike trainer for a 40 km hill ride. Starting I had the soreness in my right knee come back - but it soon went and was replaced with pain everywhere else after the first climb. I had a DVD on - Sleepy Hollow - a terrible film with Johnny Depp, but something to  take the mind off the burning sensation in the legs and the gasping of the lungs.

This was really hard - its the furthest I have done on the trainer so far - and unlike outside in relatively flat Northamptonshire - the trainer generates climbs the like of which you find only in the alps! I am regularly having to generate over 400 watts to get up the hills.

After 20km it generated a series of small climbs followed by small descents - literally 500m steep climbs followed by no where near long enough descents for any recovery time. This was perversely great fun - and the mat under the bike was now drenched! (Lovely!!!)

I managed 40km in about 01:40:00 and burned over 1150 kcals - all before breakfast. Great fun. Certainly cleared the head!

Wet Saturday run

I looked out this morning to see a fairly horrible damp morning - but instead of thinking "oh no" I was actually pretty happy. I wanted to have a good 5 km run this morning - and I don't tend to get them in the heat - so a wet cool morning is perfect for me.

I got dressed up in full wet weather gear and headed out to repeat the route of yesterday morning and see if I could improve on it.

It was a great run - I felt a little sore towards the beginning - and had a slight pain in the left arm and intercostal muscles of my chest - a residual effect of yesterdays swimming no doubt. I managed to keep going at a pretty steady pace all the way and although I felt very tired towards the end - and the last hill was a killer.

All in all - I managed 5km in 23:45 - my best ever training time and I came back into the house smiling like a cheshire cat. Not bad given all the training yesterday.

Friday catch up

Right - started my hols today and the catch up training as well. I
decided to go for a run in the morning - around the block - quite a
nice run actually as it was fairly cool and the roads were quiet as it
is a bank holiday. I managed a nice 5km run in about 26 mins including
a couple of hills. It was fairly comfortable - and I could have gone
faster - but I wanted to preserve my knee. It was a little sore to
start off with - but the pain went fairly quickly after the first
kilometer or so.

After a hearty milkshake (diet of course) for breakfast - we were off
to the gym. I decided to catch up on the swimming - so managed a
decent 2,500 - 3,000m in about 70 mins, all with no logs and front
crawl. Its quite nice just using a pull buoy and concentrating on your
stroke and making sure it is technically good. I even started
counting my strokes. Apparently Michael Phelps can cover a 25m pool in
approximately 7 strokes, and reading an article on good swimming
technique I was intrigued to read that you should try to get your
stroke rate down to 20 strokes for 25m ideally - only stroking when
you feel yourself slowing down and try to glide the rest of the time.
I counted a few of the people in the lanes and their stroke rate was
fairly easily 20+ strokes a length so I thought mine would be a
problem to get down to 20 - but oddly when I counted - mine was
already 14 - 15 strokes a length - so I'm quite pleased with that. I
actually feel like I am thrashing about in fact when I up the rate at
all.

After that was 25 minutes on the spinning cycle, I managed somewhere
in the region of 10-15km at a high cadence and pretty much knackering
myself out.

I'm aching like crazy now and have a compression top on as my arms
once again feel as if they are falling apart, but I am pretty pleased.
I know I will wake up starving tomorrow - but for now I am content to
lie in bed and watch Ronin on the TV.

Wednesday and Thursday wash out....

I didn't manage to get out on either Wednesday or Thursday - my knee
was sore on Wednesday frankly and I was a little demob happy on
Thursday - just wanted my holiday to begin and had pretty much
finished everything at work. So that means I need to make up for it at
the weekend - well Friday, Saturday and Sunday and I'm pretty sure
that is going to hurt!

An evening ride with lots of Wind!

I haven't been on the baked beans – it’s blowing a gale out there! Jumped on the bike just shortly after 6pm and decided to take it out for a decent ride up to Raunds and back to see how the leg coped after the doc said I could carry on training.

I had to pop some Nurofen – but once done – it didn't give me any trouble and its only winging slightly now that I am back home which is pretty good.

I lovely day out there when you are looking through the double glazed glass of home – bright sunshine and only a few clouds – several hours of light left – a perfect evening for a ride you think. But then you are out there and realise the fatal flaw in your plan – the 25mph cross winds that slam into you and chuck you and your bike into that pot hole you were neatly avoiding up until now!

Crikey – that was hard work.

26.3km in 01:09 with 183m Ascent, burning 1028 kcals. Not the best time in the world – but I just couldn't go any faster in that wind!

Bruised Ligament

So – I’m pretty happy at the moment as there is definitely nothing broken – I have a bruised ligament that goes over the top of the knee and some fluid on there – but the doc says I can train as long as I don't train until it becomes very painful! Yeh right! When isn't it painful?!!!

So – as I am hope at the moment working – will have to go for a ride tonight to catch up on the training and keep me on target….

Monday rest followed by Tuesday pain!

Didn’t exercise at all yesterday – which was a good job as I ached all over after Sunday’s exertions. However this morning (Tuesday) my right knee is rather painful. It has hurt since the bike accident in Wales – but this morning it is worse – or certainly seems so. It is painful when twisting and especially painful when sat with it bent. Slightly worrying – so no riding to the station this morning – and off to see the nice Doc at my local surgery this afternoon! Hopefully it is still bruised and nothing more – but I suspect it may be worse and have me laid up for a while – which I certainly do not want.

I hate injuries – they really spoil your day!