early morning swim

Was in the pool for 7:15 this morning and did 37 minutes. Good solid effort, swam over 2000m at a fairly good rate, felt very strong in the water and was balancing better, keeping head still and trying to keep my body in a long line, higher in the water.
Will up the swimming from now on and also concentrate on running. Biking will take care of itself, although I need to get some more miles in my legs!

Training

Had most of the weekend off, except for a 5 mile run on Saturday in the hills near Sheffield. Was good fun, and a nice 40 minute run, only marred by having to find a nature stop and not carrying loo roll!!
Was back to biking to work today, and managed to get in a run at lunchtime. My usual 8 or so miles down to Sandbanks and back. Very warm this lunchtime with not much of a breeze. Felt very good running, legs in good shape, in spite of getting very little sleep over the weekend, having to sleep on an air bed! Visiting relatives. And eating far too much food. Managed to stay off the beer though, so not all bad!!
This week and next and from now until September will find me training really hard. I have 10 days holiday in the middle of August but that will be doing some running up in the Cairngorms of Scotland, as well as a bit of mountain biking with Tracey and some swimming if I can find a pool.
But off to pool at 7am tomorrow and then bike to work. Playing 5 as side football at lunch and then bike home. Wednesday I will have a long ride into work, and then run at lunch, possibly swim in the evening. Thursday more swimming in the morning and bike into work, run at lunch. Friday just a long bike at some point in the day. Possible swim session. Saturday, long bike and run. Sunday, run and bike and sea swim.
I am not tapering for Swanage the following Sunday, I'm training through it. I'm also pulling out of South Coast tri on the 2nd September, to focus on some longer training sessions in preparation for New Forest middle distance tri on 23rd September. That's now my focus for the rest of the season and then duathlons after that. Really want to improve my running off the bike. Duathlons will help.

early morning swim

went to Wareham this morning for a good swim session. Lane only swimming for people who want to train. Was good, only 6 people in the whole pool and had a wide lane to myself. Took fins and front mounted snorkel. Snorkel was total rubbish, kept slipping round and I kept sucking up water. When it did work I can definitely see a good use for it as it was helping me keep my head straight and focus on my body rotation but just no good. I'll have o fiddle with it to see if I can tighten up the fixing for the breathing tube. If not then I'll send it back.
Training fins were very good, and used these to help kick while lying on my side to balance through the water better. Made me work my legs and when I took them off I could feel how they had worked to make me kick from my hips more. Much better and will help me to work at balance in the water. As well as technique I need to do some more endurance swims. My swim fitness is slacking off a bit, and I still need to get in a couple of sessions a week just swimming 1500-2000m. It can't all be technique drills all the time, else I'll never improve my fitness.

lunchtime run

Cycled in to work today via Primera Sports in Charminster, good to get my legs moving well again after a lot of biking at the weekend, feel lots better now, more refreshed.
Replacement bike computer should be back with me today so can get recording all my training data again.
Went for a gentle run at lunchtime. Ran for 30 minutes at very easy tempo. Really lousy weather and light but driving rain. Was good to get out and get some fresh air and stretch my legs. Not much of a workout, and I'd be surprised if my heart rate got much above 120bpm. But it's good to do these gentle runs in between harder training sessions, just keeps my body ticking over and helps to strengthen my running base.
I have an eye on next season already and am using the rest of the year to really focus on my training, especially my limiters, ie. swimming and running. As well as upping the mileage on the bike.

Two rest days

Felt a bit under the weather the last two days so I eased off from the training. I just rode into work Monday and Tuesday. Was going to have 2 swim sessions as well, but I decided to rest instead. Will do a longer ride on Wednesday and a lunchtime run of about 5 or 6 miles, no longer than that. Easy week, while my body recovers and I start feeling better. no biking this weekend as off to visit the in-laws in Sheffield. Best take my wetsuit!!
But will get a couple of runs in and maybe a trip to local swimming baths.

Long time in the saddle

Inspired by the Tour de France and my decision to do Land's End to John O'Groats next year, I set off to do a long ride today, focus on endurance and not speed. So getting back home at 11am this morning, I lay in the back garden, totally spent! 4hrs 27 mins and 15 secs of cycling, 85 miles, at an average speed of 19mph. Good strong ride, the last 40 miles being into a strong headwind. And my god when I set off this morning at 6.30am it was damn cold. In fact I have ridden in February and felt warmer! I was layered up with leg warmers and arm warmers but my finger ends were frozen. Oh, how I do love the British summer. My route: Holton Heath - Poole - Bournemouth - Boscombe - Christchurch - New Milton - Lymmington - Beaulieu - short loop round part of the New Forest and then back the same way I came. Shame I didn't have a bike computer on. Had heart rate monitor on though, and averaged 140 bpm.
Nutrition - 1 bottle PSP22, 1 bottle water, 1 power bar, 1 banana, 3 power gels.
Was short by 1 bottle PSP22 and 1 gel/solid food. But still had good strength left in my legs towards the end, even if they were getting a little sore.

brick session

Feels a long time since I did a good brick session. In fact it has to be well over 8 weeks since I did one. And it was a good session. 1 hour and 50 minutes on my bike. I had no bike computer, just my stopwatch, so no stats. Took 45 mins for my legs to start moving. That's the minimum time for me to get warmed up properly, before I can really get going. In that 45 minutes i went up 2 climbs, the first was hard work as I went up out of the saddle and really pushed hard and got out of breath, feeling very unfit. The second in the saddle, bit slower, and I got up with no bother. Rode back home fairly strong. I do need to get out and do more training rides, my bike riding doesn't seem firing on all cylinders at the moment. Last Sunday's TT was really positive, but I want to focus on the longer rides now, and being able to go fast over distance.
Back home, changed straight into run shoes and off out, running with a heart rate monitor for once. Heart rate for the first 2 miles was around 160, but then it came down to 152 after that. Another 3 miles saw me push harder and my heart rate hovered around 155bpm, and I actually felt very good running. Finished it there, and good to finish feeling strong and not too tired, as though I could have run a lot more.
More brick sessions like this are now needed and I will make sure I get in at least 1 a week, preferably 2.
Long bike tomorrow, cycling over to the New Forest to ride a set route of 30 miles and then back. Will see me cycle around 80 miles in the morning, from 7 to 11am. Again, no bike computer as I had to send it back to the shop for a replacement, faulty USB connector, unable to upload training data to computer.
Back on with cycling everyday to work next week, lots of swimming and a couple of steady runs thrown in to the mix. Also hope to go road racing on Thursday but will see what happens with that later in the week. And looking for a date for my next Time Trial effort.

lunchtime swim

After 3 days of feeling under the weather and positively ill on Wednesday, I returned to work today, still feeling below par, and ventured out for a swim. Turns out it was just the ticket and did me the world of good. I'm concentrating really hard on body rotation and driving myself froward through the water instead of pulling with my arms. It seems to be working and I am swimming better, certainly more efficiently without losing time. Once my technique starts improving I can then work on speed. But for now and the rest of the year, it's all going to be about technique. Swam for 20 minutes and then did 3 sets of 133m(4 lengths of Poole dolphin pool) at full effort, my best of the 3 being 2mins 29 for 133m. Puts my 400m time at around 7m 27s. Now that is far from fast but 8 months ago I swam 400m in 9 minutes. So I'm moving in the right direction. I know improvement in the next 8 months won't be quite as much but I'm hoping to get to under 7 minutes for 400m by the end of the year, and with an improvement in my technique it should be possible.

lunchtime run

After a few days off the running I went out today, and to be honest I wasn;t looking forward to it, and almost immediately I was straight into a ferocious headwind. Oh the British summer!! I warmed up for 10 minutes and then set off to do roughly 10km, just over that. Ran in a good time of 45' 18". Run got easier as I went on, but I just feel so slow. I think I have to get more into the mindset that I do on the bike. I'm very confident on the bike, and can push my legs hard and not get out of breath. But running, every time I just push a little harder I feel as though I am using much more energy. That said, my running is improving, it will just take a lot longer for my times to improve. They are getting better, if I look at my run times over the last 12 months. So I'm happy enough for now. It's something I can work on over the winter, with some long slow endurance runs and some shorter 'sprints'.

lunchtime swim

Very good recovery swim today. Swam for about 40 minutes, nice and easy up and down, minmal ue of legs, focussing on body rotation to propel me forward and on my breathing. Long solid breaths out to try and help build a rythmn for my stroke. Good positive recovery session, feel a lot fresher after it.