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

Normal service will be resumed...

......next week!

Lots and lots to report from last week. Ironically, too much doing this week too (work and training) which means I have no time to sit down and blog (I can hear the sighs of relief already).

Will bring you all up to speed (pun intended) at the weekend.

Bye for now.

C

Motormouth

This week saw the welcome return to our screens of Alan Sugar, the mighty motor of all mouths, in this year's The Apprentice.

Another sorry collection of wannabe businessmen and businesswomen. More often than not cringeworthy stuff, but great entertainment all the same which glues us to the TV screens each Wednesday evening for the next 10 or so weeks. My prediction for this year's winner is a guy called James McQuillan or, failing that, Kate Walsh (because we all know that Sugar likes a bit of blond totty!).

Another motormouth was my son, Adam, who shouted and screemed words of encouragement to his football team from the sidelines this Sunday. Less 'Man of the Match', more 'Mouth of the Match', and if you know Adam you'll know what I mean.

Adam was unable to play courtesy of a broken little finger whilst at his girlfriend's house Saturday morning, but such is his devotion to the team that he insisted that he came along to cheer them on. Actually, I think he secretly wanted everyone to see his war wounds - he does like being the centre of attention does my Adam! Anyway, his cheering must have done some good because we ended up wining 3 - 0 in a hard fought game against a team with whom we always have closely contested games.

It is fair to say that we haven't had the best of seasons, and so the few times we do win we celebrate FA Cup-style. The picture up top was taken directly after our match and the lucozade (the boys' version of Champagne) was flowing freely, I can tell you!

Son number one (as in first born), Joe, was also motormouth in his game Sunday afternoon.

'Motormouth' as in 'spouting off to the referee' motormouth, resulting in a yellow card in a grudge match against a particularly unruly and unsporting team. To be fair to Joe, he was the shining light for his team (he got Man of the Match!) and the opposition recognised this by knobbling him everytime he got the ball. It wasn't until the final ten minutes that he finally lost his rag and retaliated with some harsh and colourful words against his opposing number 8. Joe did get the last laugh though by helping his team to a 3 - 1 win. Sweet revenge!

Training is going from strength to strength. Some hard run and bike sessions (mostly intervals), and a swim, and I am a week closer to my first race of the season at Duston on 19th April. That race will be a real test of my winter running and cycling training because I can compare it with last year's time, and although my swimming has taken a back seat I figure that the time lost on the swim will be amply made up for on the bike and run (famous last words).

Here's exactly what I did last week in training ......

Monday – complete rest
Tuesday – bike - tough 2 hour interval session with Dan from the tri club, 50 press-ups and 42 sit-ups
Wednesday – bike - gym spin (fixed wheel), run - treadmill - easy 30 minutes at zero gradient, swim - 400m TT, 50 press-ups and 43 sit-ups
Thursday – run - hard intervals, 50 press-ups and 44 sit-ups
Friday - run - easy 45 minutes with Jev
Saturday – run - 90 minutes Ashridge XC with tri club, 50 press-ups and 45 sit-ups
Sunday - no training - basking in the glory of two football wins!

Next week is much of the same, but with a couple more swim sessions planned, and is the penultimate week of my sub-40 minute 10K run plan. If I can get my 400 metre swim time down to 6:30 then I will be more than pleased with that. I did 6:59 last week after a hard spin and run brick session at the gym so I reckon that 6:30 is do'able.

*WEBSITE OF THE WEEK* is http://www.motionbased.com/. I upload my training data from my Garmin 305, as do millions of other GPS users from around the world, and can do all kinds of wonderful things with the data. Truth be told, it is probably TOO powerful for my modest needs but, with an imminent tri training camp to Italy, I shall be downloading to my 305 some routes from motionbased which have been uploaded by people who have been on previous training camps there. It's handy to see where I am going and what type of sessions I will be doing, including (very usefully) the type of terrain I will be training on.

Until next week, happy training, or whatever it is you have planned.

C

You need friends

For years, when I first started triathlons, I trained alone or, at most, only very occasionally with others.

As the months and years went by, however, I was joined increasingly more often by friends. There would be the odd swim with my mate Martin, then Simon joined us, then so did Alex, Chris and Bob. Then we started running and cycling together until eventually I trained more with them than I did alone.

We all had our own particular strengths (Simon is a strong swimmer, Bob excels at running) and bounced these strengths off of each other. Along with all that came vast improvements in my speed and, ultimately, my race times plummeted. I found that having someone to judge yourself against was a vital part of a serious training plan.

Judging myself against others with more ability than myself is exactly what I have done in my sessions this week.

First off was the usual club swim on Monday evening. I am probably one of the slower swimmers in my lane and I always start off at the back, but I am happy playing catch-up because it does help me push that bit harder.

Then later in the week there was a semi-fast road bike session, followed by a timed 8K run, with Sarah from my tri club. Now, Sarah is a strong athlete, make no mistake. We were evenly matched on the bike, but where Sarah really excels is on the run. I had planned to do the 8K in 32 minutes but in all honesty I set off too quickly and within minutes Sarah was ahead of me having hardly broken into a sweat. 37 minutes after the start I finally slumped past the 8K mark, thoroughly exhausted and, to be honest, rather disappointed that I was a whole 5 minutes off the target time although I put this down to the 2 hour bike which had preceded the run.

The week ended on a high note at Afan on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Again, I placed myself into the A group for the various bike sessions and whilst I was always playing catch up I did feel that I got a fabulous workout, and my bike strength has benefitted enormously. Ahead of me were usually Rob, Robin and Tony, and behind was often Jim (only because his bike was usually upside down having track-side repairs done to it, otherwise he was towards the front of the group). The nerd in the picture up top, looking like a character from Lord of the Rings, is yours truly after my final ride of the weekend. The bad hair day was from the air vents of my bike helmet - thanks Mitten for taking such a flattering photo!

As a result of all this, and 17 hours of training later, I feel that I have had one of the best training weeks so far this year. Thanks to all my training partners for pushing me along!

Here's precisely what I did:-

Monday – swim - club swim, to include intervals and drills, 50 press-ups and 42 sit-ups

Tuesday – run/bike/run - fast brick session at Brickhill Woods

Wednesday – bike - gym spin (fixed wheel), run - treadmill - easy 15 minutes at zero gradient

Thursday – bike - semi-fast road bike with Sarah, run - fast 8K in 37 minutes

Friday - bike - MTB at Afan

Saturday – bike - MTB at Afan

Sunday - bike - MTB at Afan

This week's *WEBSITE OF THE WEEK* is Mike Trees' London Marathon blog. As regular readers will know, I am following Mike's sub-40 minute 10K training plan, and his blog provides a very interesting, sometimes amusing, insight into his training for this year's London Marathon. Take a read if you have a few minutes.

This coming week I am planning a hard interval bike session with Dan from the tri club. Dan is a relative newcomer to the sport, but is a natural athlete and a great training partner. Last season we competed in the final Thames Turbo race together but I was DQ’d and Dan didn’t finish due to illness. This year we have planned a few races together, starting with the pool-based Duston triathlon on 19 April. We have a small wager on who wins, which is always a big motivater!

Another friend from the tri club is Stuart. Stuart comes from a biking background and he and I travelled down to Afan together at the weekend. After hours of fantastic mountain biking, Stuart managed to get himself lost up one of the hills and ended up on the other side! 30 extra miles later, a big fall off the bike and a broken chain, and he turned up – still smiling! Top biking Stuart and roll on next time!

As far as this week's Monday evening swim is concerned then that is a big fat no, no. Instead, I am sitting here writing this blog whilst resting my aching limbs from Afan. 11 hours of hard hilly cycling over three days is no mean feat for someone who is training for sprint triathlons, so that’s a big fat pat on the back for me!

Cheers.

C

Spring Sprints

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

I ain't no Silverback

Years ago, as an early 20-something, every Friday evening I used to go to the gym in Stopsley Sports Centre for some weight training, followed by a nice relaxing sauna, then all washed down with a curry at the local curry house in Luton. I never really enjoyed the weight training, however, and really only did it all for the sauna and curry.

Later, when I first started triathlon, I followed a computer-based training plan devised by Mike Pigg which linked in with my Polar watch. I specifically remember Pigg saying that weight training is not an essential part of a training plan. Just what I wanted to hear.

Recently, I read an interview with Queen Chrissie who said that she doesn’t bother with strength training either, apart from 50 press-ups daily. More justfication for me to stay away from the press-bench.

A silverback I ain’t, and I’m happy with that. I suspect, however, that many fellow triathletes disagree with the notion that weight training is of no use, but until I have proof that it does help then I am going to avoid the weights room.

I am, however, becoming increasingly more interested in the science behind exercise, which is why this week I volunteered to be a guinea pig for a friend of a friend who is undertaking a Masters in Sports Science. As part of this, he is writing a paper on ‘Nutrition in Endurance Events’ and my role will be to attend weekly sessions over a four week period which will involve cycling on a turbo trainer for 6 hours at a time, half at easy pace and half flat out. 6 hours on a turbo trainer! It all starts soon, and is actually timed at a perfect stage of my training schedule, so hopefully it will help me in the long term.

This week I also happened to come across a BBC programme entitled ‘The Secret Life of Your Body Clock’ and there were some very interesting points which I picked up on. The notion of 'Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper' was endorsed, but also significantly was the suggestion that the human body benefits most from physical exercise between the hours of 4pm and 6pm. This seems to bear out in my own experience of training whereby sessions always seem more effective when carried out early evening. Also, we shouldn't eat less than 3 hours before going to bed, and must try to get 8 hours sleep per night to enable the body to recover from training. Consumption of plenty of water is advisable too.

So, now that I am head-long into my spring training schedule I am taking on much of the advice given on the programme. I am trying to get to bed before 10pm, eating no later than 7pm, am drinking 2 litres of water per day and no coffee in the evenings. Together with a more balanced diet, I am hoping that all this will add great benefits to my overall training.

Dusted down the road bike this week and started up the interval sessions. I can’t wait to get the Planet X out of hibernation. Oh how I have missed her over the winter months.

More specifically, here's what I did in a very busy and great week of training.....

Monday – swim - club swim, in include intervals and drills
Tuesday – run - hard 5K time-trial - 21:44, second fastest ever (so the running plan must be doing some good!), 50 press-ups and 38 sit-ups
Wednesday – bike - gym spin (fixed wheel), run - treadmill - easy 30 minutes at zero gradient, swim - 400m time-trial - 6:55 (happy to do sub 7 minutes given my lack of swim training)
Thursday – run - hard 7.65 Ashridge XC time-trial with Alex - 76 minutes (have done faster, but very windy and muddy, so very happy with time), 50 press-ups and 39 sit-ups
Friday - run/mountain bike/run brick session with Alex at Brickhill Woods, done as a race as hard as possible
Saturday – bike - hard interval session, run - 400 metre intervals
Sunday - rest

Next week sees the beginning of the end, and by that I mean the final 4 week segment of my 10K running plan. I also need to pick up again on the press-ups and sit-ups.

Congratulations last week to Mitten from my tri club who ran a very fast half-marathon PB of 1:44:44 at the Milton Keynes half. Her third PB of the year which must have something to do with the fact that she ALWAYS seems to be training! Well done Mitts.

It's about time that the Gold Coast World Championships appeared as the *WEBSITE OF THE WEEK*, so take a look at why I am doing all this silly triathlon stuff.

Am off to the gym now. That’s NOT David Lloyd, of course, but the gym next door in the garage. Going to do a turbo session – certainly not a 6 hour session though. Am not going to be pushing any weights, either, that’s for sure. Unless I can be convinced that it will benefit me – suggestions on a postcard please…..

Coach's Corner

Back in the hedonistic days of the early 90’s (or, as hedonistic as a trainee accountant can be!), I worked in the City for a firm called Neville Russell (now defunct).

Every lunchtime we would be taken by our Manager to a bar across the road called The Sir Paul Pindar in the newly built Broadgate Centre. We would spend at least 2 hours there and stagger out to sleep at our desks in the afternoon. I don’t know how we got away with it, but we did, and times were good.

Working in the City was an experience which I am glad I had but, eventually, I grew up and, more to the point, I was unable to keep up the pace. I passed my exams and decided to get a proper job and earn some money – actually, my proper job was to become a freelance tax consultant; a ‘job’ which I still do to this day.

Nowadays, I join up most Fridays with a few friends for early beers at the pub across the road from where I live – The Swan. No more evident is my current inability to keep up the pace than during my last couple of outings there. The first was on 1 February, following my month off the juice, and then again the Friday before last. On each occasion, I literally crawled home (just as well it is only 50 yards away) – a highly hazardous occupation given that it involves crossing a fairly busy road.

My drinking partners are also keen triathletes. Well when I say ‘keen’ I mean one is very keen, another is keen’ish and another used to be keen and is now trying to get back into it. They are Jev, Alex and Simon respectively. Then there’s a smattering of others who join in occasionally. No matter how committed they are, it’s always nice to train with them because we are all of different standards and can learn from each other.

In fact, it’s always nice to train with other people, no matter who they are. Which is why this week I booked myself onto a warm weather training camp in Italy in May – the Steve Trew training camp, to be precise.

Steve is a British coach with a great pedigree, having coached Olympic and Commonwealth teams. He is also first choice when it comes to TV commentators. I saw Steve at the TCR show a few weeks ago, and he came across as a really good coach and, just as importantly, a really nice guy. Then I came across an article on tri247 where Steve said that there were a few places left on his training camp in May. So, I had a look on my calendar and it so happens that the training camp is perfectly timed – a week after Grendon and a week before Milton Keynes – and £550.00 later and I’m in. I should be up to full speed (such that I won’t be left behind on the hills in Italy!) and it will give me a great week of fine-tuning ahead of MK.

This week I have trained almost entirely on a solitary basis. Pounding the streets of Edlesborough and surrounding villages at 6am, or midnight (yep, I’m still doing the midnight runs), or, as I did one evening this week, a short nighttime spin in complete darkness on my spin bike in the garage – with only the thumping of the 180bpm tunes on the ipod to keep me company. But, wowee, how refreshing it was. Pitch black, eyes wide closed, and off I went. Heart-out-of-the-chest stuff. Those sessions are precisely why I did the gym up in the garage. Enjoyed every single moment.

I wasn’t a complete Billy this week, though. I did do a thoroughly enjoyable MTB ride at Brickhill Woods (aka Apsley Woods, aka Woburn Trails) with Alex on Friday. Haven’t been out on the MTB for a while, and how I have missed it. We had a two lap race around the perimeter. Again, heart-out-the-chest stuff. I won (sorry Alex).

Here’s what else I did…..

Monday – rest
Tuesday – run - easy, to include 4000m at 4 min/km pace, 50 press-ups and 35 sit-ups
Wednesday – bike - gym spin (fixed wheel), run - treadmill - easy 45 minutes at 2.0 gradient, run - hill repeats - hopping
Thursday – run - 800 metre intervals, 50 press-ups and 36 sit-ups
Friday - bike - mountain bike ride with Alex at Brickhill Woods
Saturday – run - easy, to include 4000m at 4 min/km pace, 50 press-ups and 37 sit-ups
Sunday - bike - spin in the garage

The coming week is the end of a four-week training block and is, thus, an easy week. Having said that, my running is coming on very well and so I am going to test out the Mike Trees’ (another top coach) sub-40 minute 10K plan which I have been following by running 5K at speed to see if I can beat my current PB.

Continuing this week's theme, this week’s *WEBSITE OF THE WEEK* is Coach Mark Kleanthous’s website. Coincidentally, Mark is a coach about whom Steve Trew wrote on a tri247 article some while ago. Big congratulations to Mark whose website came third in 220's recent awards. Take a look for yourself and tell me you're not impressed.

Finally, a big fat pat on the back for my daughter Emily who was chosen to represent her music school on piano at this weekend's Milton Keynes Music Festival. The standard of musicians on show was outstanding and I was so, so proud to see her up there playing with them, on the Grand Piano, taking it all in her stride. Obviously nervous, Emily played her heart out and enjoyed every moment. I am so looking forward to seeing her at the Albert Hall in years to come!!! Well done, Em. x

Cheers.

Colin