The last few weeks have had a run focus. Week #1 I ran 120km, week #2 140km, week #3 160km (first time over 100 miles) Works out at the equivalent of 10 marathons in 21 days, combined with full swimming and biking training. Happy days. Block finished, goal completed. Lets just hope it has the desired effect.
Up early, was meant to ride over the Wicklow mountains with clubmates. Wind and rain where I was and snow and ice where they were meant it was scrapped for a turbo session. In my case I rode the exact same route as I had intended to do anyways. God bless the CT. Turned out as much graphics as I could find to liven up the scenery – including signs. Bizarrelyy about 50% of the roadside signs were for McDonalds. I should have covered about 95km on the ride (brutally hilly) but I blew a gasket and could barely turn the pedals by the end and I was really really struggling on alot of the climbs.
Most DIY and the week was rounded off with a run. I’ve never been so happy to finish a block of training.
Up bright and early, then back to bed. Eventually got up and had a leisurely breakfast. Then out on the bike for a few hours flat(ish) riding. Visiblity was very bad, it was -0 degrees in places and cold. I was riding well and felt strong so didn’t mind. I did think back to last year and the stupid conditions I rode in – minus 7 degrees, ice, snow, rain, wind, hail – everything. Ironically it was a perfect summers day when I went down.
Back home, warmed up, spent the rest of the day filling a skip – lovely lifting work.
Did an run in the evening with half of it at pace. Was surprised at the pace I was holding for such a low RPE and HR.
The challenge in this week wasn’t the actual sessions this week. Nothing was that tough, it was the cummulative fatigue from the last few weeks combined with the extra sleep demands due to training volume but then there was the issue of there being four nights where I knew I would sleep only around four hours. Last night was one of them.
Up at 5:00am Friday morning after little/no sleep. Down to the pool for a swim, nothing too taxing. Out of the water and down to reception at 7am, met Carb for some swimming work. Did some work on position, breathing and staying relaxed in the water. Then up to the gym for a threadmill run.
Pegged it into work, ran at lunch and then a recovery cycle in the evening.
Thursday morning, long run time. Usually. Some severe “GI” issues over the night meant that it was unlikely I’d survive a two hour run first thing in the morning. So I jiggled my schedule, changed the order of runs and pumped myself full of Immodium. The stuff is a godsend and by the time 17:30 rolled around I was up for a long run. Ran home via a few laps of the Phoenix park. I stupidly didn’t bring a headlamp so it was rather scary running blind through the park. There were a few times when herds of deer scared the crap out of me – well thanks to the Immodium they didn’t but they did give me some fright.
A total of 50km ran today, 50,000 metres, the most I’ve ever ran in a day.
Soft – bl00dy soft. One of my sessions yesterday was a turbo and during the intervals I convinced myself I couldn’t hit the HRs that I normally would in similar sessions. Thing is I could have as I demostrated on the last interval. So I was just being a big fvcking marshmellow. Very very annoyed at myself.
Had a good swim in the morning, nothing really to report other than I am amazed at the number of sessions, and the length of the sessions, that triathletes in my pool seem to be beginning to do with paddles on exclusively. Wouldn’t like to be their shoulders in a month or so………
Two good runs as well. Wind wasn’t as bad on one of them as usual – did it on a threadmill 
Alarm goes off at 5am. Into the water for 6am.Swim was okay but I really would love if people would brush up on pool etiquette. Out of the water in time to run a few errands and get to work on time. An hours run later in the day on very very tired legs paving the way for the last session of the day – Ian Brown at the Olympia. Excellent gig but a terrible idea given the training load ahead of me this week and the fatigue in the body.
Still was excellent.
This week is going to be a challenge. I’ve numerous personal and professional committments and a big training week. Juggling this lot is not going to be fun and its questionable if I’m going to be able to do it.
Saturday morning saw running hill repeats on “a soft hill” (Kyber pass) with a few lads. Was a tough session but after Howth hill last week it might as well have been flat. The wind on the other hand was savage and we made a call that if the weather was as bad on Sunday morning that it wouldn’t be safe to ride around Wicklow. Memories of being blown around the roads and almost into cars on the October bank holiday weekend riding around Donegal came back to me so I was happy to go with this. A very short recovery bike and an easy run in the evening closed the day off.
It was windy Sunday morning and despite my protests that “I’d be okay”, the OH was having none of it, and righly so given ym track record.. So did the guts of four hours on the CT and then went to work for a bit and then polished off the week getting blown around the place for a run that night. Did a simualted ride of the Wicklow mountains, was actually the route I’d intended doing with the lads, an awful lot tougher on the CT than on the road though. Not a bad weeks training, a little light on cycling and I missed two sessions so will try to do better next week.
A nice swim in the morning and a run in the wind at lunch on Friday. I’d intended doing a turbo in the evening, but I was stuck late in work and there was no chance of doing anything by the time I got home. I’m going to have to pay more attention to my biking as its not coming back as I’m not putting the work in.