The yo-yo effect

It’s strange. My kids' football team play brilliantly one week, with a very convincing 3 – 0 win, then the following week they play far below their capability and lose 10 – 1. They yo-yo from good performance to bad performance, to good performance, to bad, and so on.

My diet is suffering from this yo-yo effect too. One week I stay off the booze, watch what I eat, and all’s good. Then the following week I can’t stay away from the Easter Eggs, the local Pizza Express, or the beer and wine rack at the supermarket. My weight generally stays the same, but nonetheless I don’t feel particularly fit for my gluttonous habits in those weeks.

Training, thankfully, hasn’t been suffering the same fate. Consistency is the key, and consistent is what I’ve been. Sticking to the 12 week sub-40 minute 10K plan, that’s what I’ve been doing, all culminating on the 7th day on the 12th week in the Dorney Lake 10K Easter Sunday run race at, er, Dorney Lake (would you believe it?).

Now, the race was billed as a flat, fast race at which a PB was possible, so I went into it all guns blazing. 43:30 minutes later and I crossed the finish line, having achieved a PB but not having achieved my aim of sub-40 minutes. Truth be told, I never actually thought that sub-40 was on the cards but I had hoped for sub-42. I think my problem was that I yo-yo'd during the race – by that I mean I set off too quickly too early, faded half way through, and then finished strong. Not to worry, I did a PB and I know now that I need to put some more work in.

I have decided that my yo-yo diet, sleeping patterns and alcohol consumption are mostly to blame for my not achieving my running aims, and so I am making conscious efforts now to improve those habits, starting with my second self-induced alcohol ban of the year until I go to Italy on 12th May for the training camp. At least 8 hours sleep per night, plenty of water, no chocolate and continuing those press-ups and sit-ups. If I can lose half a stone in weight (currently 12st 11) then I know this will contribute to faster swim, bike and run splits, for sure.

Training these past two weeks went like this:-

Monday – rest
Tuesday – bike – 10 mile TT (first of the year) – 25:30, run – 6000m fast in 26:17, 50 press-ups and 46 sit-ups
Wednesday – bike - gym spin (fixed wheel), run - treadmill – 5000m fast in 22 minutes, swim - 750m TT in 12:59
Thursday – bike – hard intervals with Jo from the tri club, run – easy 30 minutes, 50 press-ups and 47 sit-ups
Friday – bike – MTB with Robin from the tri club, run – short intervals
Saturday – run - 60 minutes hard Ashridge XC with tri club A Group
Sunday – bike – 10 mile TT with tri club (organized by Rob, aka Bananaman)

Monday – swim – club swim (intervals)
Tuesday – bike – Bedford Sprint route – 46:59 (very windy!), run – 5K Bedford Sprint route – 20:25 (PB)
Wednesday – rest
Thursday – run – 8000m fast in 35 minutes, 50 press-ups and 48 sit-ups
Friday – run – sprints
Saturday – rest
Sunday – run race - Dorney Lake 10K – 43:30 (PB)

Many congratulations to Jev who raced his first race of the season - the National Age Group Duathlon Champs at MK - on the last day of the tax year (5 April). A tough group of athletes and a very credible placing racing on his beautiful Cervello P2C. Well done, mate.

This week's *WEBSITE OF THE WEEK* is Spotify, a free online music database introduced to me by my parents this week, which seems to contain every single song ever produced! You can’t download the music (it’s only available to stream), so log in, pick your song, and enjoy…

This coming week I have an easy week in anticipation of my first triathlon of the season – the Duston sprint – as one of my warm-up races for the World Qualifiers. Dan, a friend from my tri club, is hoping to join me but he has been having terrible injury problems recently and so might not make it. Hopefully his injuries will heal soon because he has great potential and it will be great seeing how well he races over the coming season.

My final big day of drinking was Good Friday where A-M and I spent the day in London on an historic pub crawl. Patronising many pubs along the Thames in Wapping, the scene of many pirate hangings in the 16th and 17th centuries (see picture up-top), we returned to our homesteads in a very hazy state indeed. Not as hazy as those scallywags who, in years gone by, had been hung over the Thames at low tide, their bodies somewhat yo-yoing over the water until they died from the hanging noose or by drowning from the rising water tide washing over them. Nice, grim stuff!

Until next week, C