12-02-2024, 05:52 AM
Hi TheEd, here's a quick update from the weekend.
What I didn't mention is that I had a cold last week and was trying to shake it off in time. I was improving Saturday and mostly better (I think) by Sunday race day.
The race was hard. Overall I came 10th/50 in my age cat and I'm quite happy with that. But this tri has long transitions and the weather was really warm.
I may have gone too hard on the swim, the ride was OK but the way back was into a hot northerly. Then the run was awful! I averaged 4:37 pace. The way out was into the hot northerly and the way back was down at beach level and more sheltered, so it was just hot without the tailwind. The last km was 4:56 pace, included steps and a hill, but I think I was cooked.
I'm hoping I can blame most of the run performance on the heat and maybe I wasn't quite fully recovered from last week's cold. I had been aiming for threshold pace, but it was much slower in the end. However, the HR was around threshold or higher, interestingly. (Garmin tells me threshold is 4:11 pace and 163bpm - I was in the high 160s / low 170s for most of the 5k run yesterday).
This is what I was thinking for this week's plan:
- Today (Monday) I did a very easy recovery ride
- Tuesday = easy run. Not sure how long to go. Normally I do 8-10km. Should I do less as it's a recovery week, or is it ok if it's just really slow?
- Weds = easy swim, technique
- Thurs = sweet spot ride + steady run maybe something like 3x8 mins around 4:40 pace
- Fri - another easy swim, back to normal distance though
- Sat - intervals. I'm open to ideas!
- Sun - easy long ride
Do you have any suggestions for Saturday's intervals session? I have 3 weeks until the next tri which means 2 Saturday interval sessions (the 3rd Sat is too close to the race to do anything solid). I remember you used to prescribe the interval length and pace and that was very helpful. I like following training instructions!
Cheers,
GM
PS - thanks for the PM about the tri group.
What I didn't mention is that I had a cold last week and was trying to shake it off in time. I was improving Saturday and mostly better (I think) by Sunday race day.
The race was hard. Overall I came 10th/50 in my age cat and I'm quite happy with that. But this tri has long transitions and the weather was really warm.
I may have gone too hard on the swim, the ride was OK but the way back was into a hot northerly. Then the run was awful! I averaged 4:37 pace. The way out was into the hot northerly and the way back was down at beach level and more sheltered, so it was just hot without the tailwind. The last km was 4:56 pace, included steps and a hill, but I think I was cooked.
I'm hoping I can blame most of the run performance on the heat and maybe I wasn't quite fully recovered from last week's cold. I had been aiming for threshold pace, but it was much slower in the end. However, the HR was around threshold or higher, interestingly. (Garmin tells me threshold is 4:11 pace and 163bpm - I was in the high 160s / low 170s for most of the 5k run yesterday).
This is what I was thinking for this week's plan:
- Today (Monday) I did a very easy recovery ride
- Tuesday = easy run. Not sure how long to go. Normally I do 8-10km. Should I do less as it's a recovery week, or is it ok if it's just really slow?
- Weds = easy swim, technique
- Thurs = sweet spot ride + steady run maybe something like 3x8 mins around 4:40 pace
- Fri - another easy swim, back to normal distance though
- Sat - intervals. I'm open to ideas!
- Sun - easy long ride
Do you have any suggestions for Saturday's intervals session? I have 3 weeks until the next tri which means 2 Saturday interval sessions (the 3rd Sat is too close to the race to do anything solid). I remember you used to prescribe the interval length and pace and that was very helpful. I like following training instructions!
Cheers,
GM
PS - thanks for the PM about the tri group.