Tunney's Blog

Monday 19th January

Felt so guilty about missing my long run yesterday that I decided that I would do it today. Bad I know. Anyways it went well but it meant that I had to swim after work. No issue I thought. Until I actually got to the pool. Seems like all the new intentions were out in force today. No point on getting into the water so I did a stretching session instead and I’ll just have to rejig my training for this week.

Tuesday 20th

So I sort of slept in this morning, sort of didn’t. In that I got up in time to do my swim session but not my gym session before work. An east swim session and I felt good in the water – not fast but strong.
At lunch I headed out for a run. It was cold, wet and windy and it took most of the rest of the day to warm up. I’m not sure that I have been hat cold in a long time. A slight concern was some discomfort in my left ITB, not the one that usually acts up but maybe the new shoes aren’t helping.
Got the gym session in after work. The gym is still mental with all the new years resolutions. Felt a little out of place as none of my gear matched, was colour coordinated or a fancy brand unlike everyone else it seemed in the gym. Old race tshirt, retired runners and runners shorts aren’t quite gym chic I think could have worn clear gear though I suppose

Wednesday 21st January

Had a lovely few hours on the turbo this morning before work. Nice session and the hours flew by. Howeve it was bloody baltic in my shed this morning so I ended up doing the set in almost full winter gear. Admittedly by the end of the sesion it was just shorts, jersey and a great big hoody but still – gloves on the turbo. Hope the weather is a little warmer for the TriMonkey cycling trip around Tavistock! Forgot to eat until 11 or so was fairly wrecked. Least I had a recovery drink after the turbo.

Thursday 22nd January

Todays swim didn’t look great on paper – a long set with lots of fast fifties. In practice it wasn’t as bad – mainly due to the fact I’ve changing my approach to swimming. Less turnover more strength. A rather long run in the evening at a fairly decent pace left me rather hungry and tired when I got home.

Friday 23rd January

Day one of a three day weekend training camp in Devon, England with Rich Brady and some of his athletes and two other coaches and their charges. The area that we are in is best described as “demanding”. Absolutely no flat and plenty of leg wrenching sharp hills, coupled with some first day enthusiasm resulted in a tough cycle.

For some reason I thought that his was the end of the serious training for the day but this was not the case. A very very tough run in the evening. Warm up and then ten one minute or so hill repeats with jog down recovery. “Cheeky” as some might call it.

Saturday 24th January

Up at dawn to go for an hour run, all off road – thorugh forests, streams, over fell, up hills, downhills, great scenery, tough terrain. Some of the downhills were rather technical and I did fall on my arse a few times. Crammed some food into me and then off out for a long cycle in/on Dartmoor. From where we were staying the long way up to Princetown and then taking the long way home. I don’t think I’ve seen as many warning signs saying “16%”, “18%” “1:5″ and “1:4″ as I did on this ride. The guts of a five hour spin – with some sections that were tackled full on by all left some in a gibbering “bonked” state by the end. We arrived home just as the sun was setting – a good use of the daylight! Very easy to sleep that night.

Sunday 25th January

Up early for a swim session. I was dreading cramping in the 25m pool but the legs were grand today. A quality session with some good tips and pointers on my stroke.

Home for more food and then out for a brick. A two hour hilly ride was on the cards followed by a 30 minute run. We were under orders to keep the pace down for the first 30 minutes. Once the first 30 minutes were over the hammer went down. Stupidly I sat on the front, didn’t take any calories on board, and worked for an hour or so above my functional threshold power. On a good day, rested, this would have been a bad idea. In the context of this training week it was karma. After all my abuse directed at the person who bonked on the Saturday this was my turn and the wheels came off about 1:40 minutes into the ride going up a big hill and into a head wind. Thankfully I wasn’t so bad that I got off my bike and tried to go to sleep in the ditch like the person on the Saturday but none the less I required some food and some shelter from the wind to get home. Once home my 30 minute run became a 5 minute waddle and a sit down with some food and coffee. Valuable lessons learnt!

All in all an excellent weekend. Some of the best training I’ve done, with an excellent group of athletes, and some quality coaching – what more could you ask for.

Someone asked me over email recently about power meters. Thought my response might be of some interest so here it is.

The brands are:

Polar Power meter
How it works:
Detects the chain speed and tension to work out the power generated
Pros:
•    Very cheap (relative)
•    Polar software is quite good
•    Can do Left vs Right leg for power gneration
Cons:
•    Horribly difficult to mount
•    Not very accurate at the best of times
•    Doesn’t work on turbos

Ergomo
How it works:
Optical sensor in the BB measures deflection of BB axle.
Pros:
•    Head unit displays normalized power on the fly
Cons:
•    Company now bust
•    Only ever measured one leg
•    Required facing of frame with is complicated and hard to get done
•    Debate as to whether the principal was sound
Quarq
How it works:
A unit is mounted to the spider of your cranks and the deflection in strain gauges is used to measure power.
Pros:
•    Allows use of multiple wheelsets
•    Head unit based on open source operating system
Cons:
•    New (read unproven) technology
•    Only works with very specific spiders
•    Not so much cheaper than SRMs
Powertap
How it works:
Measures the power from the rear hub,
Pros:
•    Accurate
•    Relatively cheap
•    Wireless
Cons:
•    Early models were unreliable, now resolved
•    If you have multiple wheelsets this is an issue as you need a powertap hub per wheelset.

SRM
How it works:
Strain gauges are worked into the spider of cranks that measure the deflection and thereby power.
Pros:
•    The gold standard, very accurate and reliable
•    Can be used with multiple wheelsets
•    Good customer service
•    Certain models can be very quickly switched between bikes without any risk of damage to the unit
Cons
•    Very expensive

Why a power meter is a must:
•    A proper metric with can be used to gauge improvement cycling performance and guide future improvements.
•    When combined with a riders weight gives a number that is valid to compare between riders
•    Pacing in TTs/triathlons
•    More focused training – ride in the right zones in the right times
•    Coaching – much easier for a coach to prescribe sessions and gauge how the sessions went

I decided a while back that if I wanted to get the miles in over the winter I’d have to HTFU and get a decent set of lights and start night riding. I got the best I could afford and whacked them on the road bike. Its a very strange experience riding in the dead of night in the middle of Wicklow. That being said I prefer riding early in the morning as its less likely to rain and its only going to get brigther as the ride goes on – just in case you forget to charge the lights properly!

You think you are flying along at 50kph but in reality its no faster than usual – just scarier. Not sure I’d fancy night MTBing though – that would be a sure fire way of creaming yourself.

Over the last few days there’s been a new element to contend with on the morning rides – the cold. Ice is not a cyclists friend and this definitely had an impact on the number of mornings I got out. I did HTFU and go out one morning last week. Cold, cold morning, but nothing too bad I thought – until I hit Blessington and tried to have a drink – both water bottles frozen solid, SRM said the temperature was -7 and given that the lake was frozen over I’d believe it. The cold not being bad enough I’d not had brekkie and all my calories were in the water bottles, not a smart move! Back in the city the temperature was a nice 0 or so and after a little bit in the office the bottles started to thaw out!

So the hangover from New Years eve has almost gone and back into training today. Up in Cavan for the festive season and one of the great things about training up here is that it is home to my favourite running route – a lovely trail along a canal and then through a forest. I rarely meet anyone on it and it is completely silent and peaceful – perfect for an easy run.
Legs were a little stiff during the run and with the increased volumes this year I am going to have to work hard at avoiding injury so did a long stretching session later in the day. It will take a good few of these to get my legs loosened up properly.

So it’s the first day (not hung over) of the new year and six months to Austria. Training and diet didn’t go the best over the Christmas period. (That being said herself was convinced by another guy doing Austria to go and catch a stage of the TdF after Austria) All was going fantastic until a brutal hangover on the 27th took the wind out of my sails. Over the next six days I missed five days training. Disgrace. And one that’s going to make slipping back into training uncomfortable for the first week of the new year. Also didn’t manage to stay away from the Roses as well. Ah well six months to Austria and hopefully with some discipline I’ll get to the start line fit and trim.