Training Diary: Week 4

Week 4 – 31 Aug to 6 Sep

Weekly Goals:

Much like last week, keep it simple, stick to the plan.  Keep the damage of some work travel to a minimum.

Monday.

On a work trip to Brisbane and Toowoomba so most of the day travelling and/or in meetings.  No opportunity to ride like program calls for and every chance tomorrows run in danger too.  Decide to go off program slightly and do what I can so drag tomorrows run forward only to find I left my garmin at home.

Anyway, went for a run of about 90 minutes in Toowoomba and learnt four things:

1. Toowoomba may be in QLD but its bloody cold at night.
2. No part of Toowoomba is flat.
3. Toowoomba is actually quite pretty (at night at least).
4. Most shocking of all, it appears that you can, in fact, run without a garmin (but did still feel like something was missing the whole run).

Tuesday.

Driving started at 0600, meetings all day, 2.5 hour drive back to Brisbane, fly home and arrive around 11:40pm.  I hate work travel.  Getting older and grumpier and less and less accommodating of this stuff.

Wednesday.

No uniforms at work so ride commute out.  Back on the trainer - damn.  Did the session almost exactly as scheduled.  Good news, being annoyed actually made it easier to get the intensity up, worked far harder than usual on the trainer.  Bad news – couldn’t sustain the effort and cut the overall session a little short.  Overall not too bad though, got all the quality in.

Thursday.

Now this is more like it!  A really tough session planned and after a week of disruptions I really up for it.  Nailed the work!  Knew it would he hard so did the warm-up properly – that is easy.  Did the intervals at good pace.  Every time I’m pushing the pace these days its just a little faster, my HR is just a little bit lower (until I push it faster again) and I’m not feeling as trashed.

Most of all though feel more like I’m running across the ground rather than beating it into submission.

Friday.

Nothing on today.  Thought about tryingto make up for missing the Monday bike but trying to be smart and sometimes that means its better to let a session go rather than compromise things later in the program.  Riding tomorrow – better to hit that hard.

Saturday.

Longish flat ride after last weeks hills – loved it.  Nice and easy to start down to Mordi, really nice sticking with the group and Libby all the way down.  After Mordi hit the gas and went solo, upped the speed and held it (and aero position) all to the way to Frankston.  Quick break at BP and took it easy for maybe 10 minutes of the return before coming to the front and dropping the hammer.   Really solid effort all the way home.  Still a flat track bully though – fast on the flats but any sort of rise, no matter how small (and they are all small on beach rd) and Steve would run me down.

Still saw my first strava ‘cups’ on that route for months – nice.

Longest ride in new, more aggressive ‘slammed’ aero position.  Mixed results.  Is quite a bit lower and should get me more out of the wind.  Feels comfortable, no problems generating power, back was fine the whole way.  Problem – getting some saddle issues.  Is this saddle position, saddle design or am I just trying to get too low?  Don’t know, will monitor and play with position in short term.  

Sunday.

Horrible, horrible start.  Finally weighed myself before the run and WTF?!?!? How can I possibly have gained weight?  I’m more than a little confused and absolutely horrified.

After a shitty start I was mentally off my game from the go.  Just muscled my way though the first hour wasting a bunch of energy wondering if anything is going to work and whether it was worth the effort.  Luckily, the program was mostly run easy with a 30 minute effort at the end and by the time I got to the effort the worst of my negative head space was gone.

Opened the taps and nothing much happened.  Slowly built up speed but after a minute I thought I was gone.  Hung on and next thing I know I’m 10 min in, pace is solid and only 20 to go.  Kept creeping up the pace and was really happy with end result.

Good run and a fantastic breakfast with the crew at Grey and Bliss afterwards.

(from fluid movements facebook feed) 

Weekly Summary.

Travel messed with training a bit this week but really managed to keep this to a pretty minor issue – not fussed overly.

The bigger issue (pardon the pun) is my weight.  Just as I’ve realised I need a coach and a program for my training its now clear I need the same for my eating.  Good news is that prior to Busso in 2013 I saw a nutritionist and developed an eating plan with him for that event which worked really, really well.  Being an idiot I then dropped the plan and have been managing my eating (poorly) myself ever since.  Well no more, back on the eating plan again next week.  Don’t worry, it’s a sensible plan that doesnt starve me, just provides a framework to stop my disordered eating.