I love this time of the year.
The anticipation of a long hot Summer ahead, all those mouth watering races and of course a holiday or two (funds permitting!). Unfortunately, the last couple of years have not delivered as far as Summer sun is concerned, but we can always hope.
It all starts next weekend in Wales when I shall be making my second journey to the MTB Mecca of Afan with my tri club. With six months mountain biking under my belt since my maiden run last October I hope to enjoy the experience a whole lot more. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it the first time, because I did (enormously), but with more bike handling skills now I hope to be a bit more daring and faster down those (hopefully not too slippery) single tracks. I’ll certainly be giving club colleague Rob (aka Bananaman) a run for his money…
Spring brings with it an increase in the intensity of my training, and so last week I moved into my interval-based phase of training. This consists of short sprint sessions on the bike and the run - none of that long slow distance nonsense (I’ll leave that to Rob, Jev, Jim et. al.). This started with a mammoth 3 hour brick session (following the Stuart Dangferfield interval bike session, ending with a long run). Make no mistake, this fast stuff is not for the faint-hearted, but nobody said qualifying for the Worlds was going to be a stroll in the park.
The week culminated on Sunday morning with my longest and hardest bike ride this year with Dan, Jim, Rob, Tony and Sarah from my tri club – a hilly 36 miles taking in four notoriously big local hills – Bison Hill, Toms Hill, Aston Hill, Ivinghoe Hill. For a sprinter, 36 miles is probably unnecessarily long, and I was certainly out of my comfort zone at times, but the hill training was invaluable (hills are where I notoriously get passed by every man and his dog at races). Amazingly I managed to keep up with the big boys and girls (just) and surprised myself at how fresh my legs felt at the finish.
My running has also turned a corner and so it is time to move forward and push myself that little bit harder. I am now running at 180 strides per minute with ease without the need for music to inspire me (I count three strides per second – it’s that simple). Now I need to increase my stride length, which is what my 10K plan is encouraging with hill repeats and short sprint sessions. My biggest test so far will be this week when I attempt 8K in 32 minutes which is 4 min/km (which for the mathematicians amongst you is 40 minutes for the 10K).
Here's what I did during the week that was...
Monday – swim - club swim, in include intervals and drills
Tuesday – run - sprints, 50 press-ups and 40 sit-ups
Wednesday – rest
Thursday – rest, 50 press-ups and 41 sit-ups
Friday - bike - hard interval session, run - long, slow and easy
Saturday – run - 1200 metre intervals, 50 press-ups
Sunday - bike - hilly
I’m not the only one who has been enthused into a training frenzy by the Spring sunshine. The kids are as keen as ever to get on the running machine, spin bike and rowing machine in the gym. They are also trying to eat more healthily; something which is being ably assisted by their self-imposed chocolate ban for lent. And then there’s a couple of the guys (Peter and Dave) from the Old Thatch Cinema Society who are trying to get teams together for a couple of races during the coming season. The word is spreading!
This week's *WEBSITE OF THE WEEK* is not actually related to triathlon or the like. It is http://www.imdb.com/ which is where I look for write-ups about films I have watched/am about to watch. One film I watched this week - Hunger (a very depressing but brilliant film) - came out smelling of roses. Another - Marley and Me - did too. The third - The International - didn't quite rank as highly as the other two. I think I agree with all three reviews.
So it’s all looking good in the Bradley camp and I am happy to say that my End of Term Report is very pleasing with all targets met so far. I just hope that I don’t have a big off at Afan which will no doubt set me back at a time when I am just beginning to push myself harder. Full report next week.
Cheers.
C
The anticipation of a long hot Summer ahead, all those mouth watering races and of course a holiday or two (funds permitting!). Unfortunately, the last couple of years have not delivered as far as Summer sun is concerned, but we can always hope.
It all starts next weekend in Wales when I shall be making my second journey to the MTB Mecca of Afan with my tri club. With six months mountain biking under my belt since my maiden run last October I hope to enjoy the experience a whole lot more. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy it the first time, because I did (enormously), but with more bike handling skills now I hope to be a bit more daring and faster down those (hopefully not too slippery) single tracks. I’ll certainly be giving club colleague Rob (aka Bananaman) a run for his money…
Spring brings with it an increase in the intensity of my training, and so last week I moved into my interval-based phase of training. This consists of short sprint sessions on the bike and the run - none of that long slow distance nonsense (I’ll leave that to Rob, Jev, Jim et. al.). This started with a mammoth 3 hour brick session (following the Stuart Dangferfield interval bike session, ending with a long run). Make no mistake, this fast stuff is not for the faint-hearted, but nobody said qualifying for the Worlds was going to be a stroll in the park.
The week culminated on Sunday morning with my longest and hardest bike ride this year with Dan, Jim, Rob, Tony and Sarah from my tri club – a hilly 36 miles taking in four notoriously big local hills – Bison Hill, Toms Hill, Aston Hill, Ivinghoe Hill. For a sprinter, 36 miles is probably unnecessarily long, and I was certainly out of my comfort zone at times, but the hill training was invaluable (hills are where I notoriously get passed by every man and his dog at races). Amazingly I managed to keep up with the big boys and girls (just) and surprised myself at how fresh my legs felt at the finish.
My running has also turned a corner and so it is time to move forward and push myself that little bit harder. I am now running at 180 strides per minute with ease without the need for music to inspire me (I count three strides per second – it’s that simple). Now I need to increase my stride length, which is what my 10K plan is encouraging with hill repeats and short sprint sessions. My biggest test so far will be this week when I attempt 8K in 32 minutes which is 4 min/km (which for the mathematicians amongst you is 40 minutes for the 10K).
Here's what I did during the week that was...
Monday – swim - club swim, in include intervals and drills
Tuesday – run - sprints, 50 press-ups and 40 sit-ups
Wednesday – rest
Thursday – rest, 50 press-ups and 41 sit-ups
Friday - bike - hard interval session, run - long, slow and easy
Saturday – run - 1200 metre intervals, 50 press-ups
Sunday - bike - hilly
I’m not the only one who has been enthused into a training frenzy by the Spring sunshine. The kids are as keen as ever to get on the running machine, spin bike and rowing machine in the gym. They are also trying to eat more healthily; something which is being ably assisted by their self-imposed chocolate ban for lent. And then there’s a couple of the guys (Peter and Dave) from the Old Thatch Cinema Society who are trying to get teams together for a couple of races during the coming season. The word is spreading!
This week's *WEBSITE OF THE WEEK* is not actually related to triathlon or the like. It is http://www.imdb.com/ which is where I look for write-ups about films I have watched/am about to watch. One film I watched this week - Hunger (a very depressing but brilliant film) - came out smelling of roses. Another - Marley and Me - did too. The third - The International - didn't quite rank as highly as the other two. I think I agree with all three reviews.
So it’s all looking good in the Bradley camp and I am happy to say that my End of Term Report is very pleasing with all targets met so far. I just hope that I don’t have a big off at Afan which will no doubt set me back at a time when I am just beginning to push myself harder. Full report next week.
Cheers.
C
Posts
2 comments:
Good movies this week, mate. Definitely want to watch Hunger and The International. Good training too. Well done on the bike. Looking forward to getting out with you soon.
J.
I forgot to mention Dreamgiirls which I enjoyed most of all. Fantastically entertaining film which Emily and I sang along to together...Happy days!
Post a Comment