Bin Skiin'

January Stats

Swimming: 3.35km, 1h:40min, 2km/hr avg, z1 avg
Cyclilng: 102.15km, 7h:03min, 14.5km/hr avg, 935m elevation, z1 avg
Running: 21.1km, 3h:55min, 5.4km/hr avg, 159m elevation, z1 avg
Other: 152.24km, 19h:35min, 17.8km/hr avg, 18,819m elevation!

Advanced levels

New levels of pain may be achievable now that I have an ipod.

Thursday saw a successful, yet tiring, trip to the gym in the morning then straight off to work.

All tasks that needed to be completed have been done.

I am discovering the joys of music. It helps to drown out the boring old men.

Adiction

Monday I was disabled from getting out of bed by tired. Serious tired.

As a consequence I got up on Tuesday determined to go to the gym before Andrew gave me a lift to work. Unable to find my keys, I still set off for the gym late, wishing TSK good luck for his interview.

Following the run to and from the gym I hopped on the bike to ride to work then went to spinning training on Tuesday night. I measured the lung funtion a few times with it dropping to 420 under stress and back in the warm air after being out in the cold. No change during the spinning session though.

Madness of a day.

Wednesday is officially a rest day.

Back to it tomorrow.

Lovely weekend

Yesterday was rather sedentary on the basis of waiting-in for people who weren't coming. D, B, T and Z eventually arrived at 14:00 which gave us time to pop into town, get the ski boots sorted out then Head over to the park to push the kids on the swings. A few hours of that is about as good a work-out as 15 press-ups for me.

The only other training was continuing to take the iron tablets I bought on Tuesday. They appear to be doing wonders for both my strength and my state of mind.

Today we rode over to Chippenham and Avebury. It was hard work getting myself out on the bike as I had somehow managed to persuade myself that all my cycling ability had faded to nothing over the last 2 weeks. To the contrary, I was mostly capable of giving it some. I was very glad I took the lightweight bike out with the lightweight wheels to boot. I flew up the hills feeling reasonably stong. Fatigue started to set in towards the end of 60km but then that might've been the alcohol from the pint in the pub.

Time to get three AA strength sessions in before I go ski-ing. Then I can really start triathlon efficiency training before the race in May.

A quick recovery and a busy week

On Wednesday the snows came again but thankfully the back eased off so I wrapped it up and took it out to ride to work.

Not wanting to break Marvin the Garmin, I left him at home and took Dauntless the mountain bike.

It was a long and slow ride down to the clearer main road but even then I had to dodge the cars ploughing the slush into Dauntless's clear tracks. Most motorists were adequately careful.

The loosening up meant I made it to the gym on Thursday and onto the running machine on Friday.

Despite the good intentions of a long slow run to get the endurance up, I got incredibly bored after 25 minutes & reverted to measure my max heart rate for running. Having got my heart rate up to 178, it was truly unsustainable so backed off the speed by .8km/hr and trudged to the end of 8 minutes at a heart rate of 176.

That's that then. A bit less than the 184 bpm on the bike.

A poor start

Monday. First day back at work after a snowy break-week last week.

I got up at 6, ate two slices of toast and drank coffee then headed to the pool to churn out 40 lengths. I had to breast stroke every first 2 in 10 because the squash muscles were a little achey (though nowhere near as crippled as our christmas match).

I was pleased with 40 laps and I think it only took 30 minutes.

I have discovered, after I drowned my OLD heart rate monitor in the pool yesterday, I don't need to rush out and buy a new one because, even had the poor 10-year-old-thing survived the chlorine water, it wouldn't have worked anyway.

Walked home again and then, with a second cup of coffee, set up Phoenix Bike to ride to work - lights, tools, pump - cross tyres still on for slithering through the snow. My strength really is apalling as I dropped into the smallest gear to climb some pathetic hills.

Had to stop half way down Wharf Road as I had badly adjusted the front deraileur last week and it was rubbing on everything but the top 3 gears. Technically I should've been pushing the big ring. The cold is my excuse.

I did manage a seated climb up Brimble Hill, once the scratching noises had gone away.

Though wobbly, the ride home was uneventful except for forgetting to switch on Marvin the Garmin and missing out on some miles. There's now a big straight line on my mapping system between work and half way down Wharf Road where the garmin decided it was going to switch off and I told it to switch-the-hell-on and start counting.

Then the biggest surprise of all when I started to walk upstairs to go to the loo and got a painful twinge in my back.

I was booked into the docs anyway so have taken the day off to relax the back.

The doctors visit yielded a peak flow meter for me to measure whether or not I have asthma - addressing my new year's resolution to sort out my breathing once and for all. Not looking forwards to the day when I discover I just need to try harder.

Gym then squash

Going to the gym yesterday after a session in the pool on Friday was very tough.  

Last year when I read my book and wrote my programme I missed out a whole chapter of the book called, "Strength".  

At the last local race of this season I was feeling really weak on the climbs.  Not just tired but so weak that Claire lapped me, Melissa nearly lapped me and I went out and bought a 36 tooth chainring.  So I decided to re-read the Strength chapter of the book.

Turns out, missing a whole chapter of the book means I missed a whole "type" of training out of my plan, particularly the bit that recommends that women can improve a lot by doing weights all year round (unlike men who are naturally stronger and get a rest from the gym in the summer).  I'm yet to find out if the other women, to whom I aspire, actually spend all season pumping weights but I think I'll give it a go and see what happens for me. 

My target in the gym this week was anatomical adaption which means three sets of 20-30 reps of low weights so that my body will adapt to weight training.   I didn't expect this to be a problem as I've always been quite strong in the past.  However, the pre-LBHN days when I was racing I used to rock climb too which is a slow and strong sport that naturally maintains core and upper body strength as well as leg- strength.  In the break that I had from racing - and climbing - whilst I was with LBHN my strength died away and now I am left trying to race, without the  strength to back me up.

The fact that I had to do 20-30 reps meant that the weights I was lifting were really low.  I used to be able to push 65-70kg on my legs but yesterday I was struggling to move 60kgs and ended up dropping to 43kgs to get 20 reps in.  On the arms and knee/calf excercises I was lifting 14-20kgs and when I went to do a bridge yoga position, it was not my flexibility that let me down but the fact that my triceps were not strong enough to push up the weight of my body.  All 59.5kgs of it (I can't believe I am less than 60kgs - that's lost muscle that!)

The bridge has been the one yoga position that reassures me I'm still young so now it is my mission to reinstate this one act of flexibility and feat of strength again.

It's never interesting at the gym but it can be strangely cathartic.  However, it was like a morgue - both the attendance (sweet peace and quiet) and the temperature.  I had to force  myself to run for 10 minutes to warm up again before stretching at the end of my workout.  With perfect timing the noisy guy arrived.  The one who always raises the volume fifteen-fold by huffing and puffing 1-2-3-4, "I'm sorry, I don't give a crap how much weight you can lift / how many times / STFU, you're too loud and sweaty, I'm off".

Still, there you go. Saturday in the gym was hard.  It was less hard to go out for a game of squash with TSK this afternoon.

Over Christmas we exhausted ourselves, playing for an hour and 20 minutes.  This week we restricted ourselves to an hour, my calf muscles have finally cleared up from Skiing on Wednesday and I am ready to take on the world - or at least the next workout - tomorrow.  I am really enjoying this cross-training part of triathlon training.

In a brief but uninteresting attack at recording my training progress

Been to the pool for the first time this year.

My calf muscles were still shot from cross-country skiing on Wednesday so I got two cramps in my feet and had to stop to stretch.  Also had to stop to talk to the gym manager who came to ask me to sign more forms before I left.

I am now signed-up (again). Fee free and only £20 for what's left of Jan, then £29 after that.  Hoping that now I have to use the pool and I have resolved to continue weight training throughout the cycling season, I will continue to use and get my money's worth from the membership.

Today's result:

20 lengths in 15 minutes.

30 lengths in 29 minutes.

Then I gave up and went home to nurse my tired arms.

Technology

The TSK and Trep household has gone wireless. Unfortunately the DSL does not stretch as far as the 'pooter on the desktop upstairs.

In the downstairs, the combined distance of the dsl cable, router and router power supply are almost identical to the length of the sofa.

Which is good because the phone socket is at one end of the sofa and te power socket is at the other.

GOOD TECHNOLOGY. SIT!

I fear I am going to have to spend a day moving the pooter to the downstairs or purchase some techy aerial thing for my *oh*so*ancient* 4-year old 'pooter.

They obviously didn't realise the luddite factor of this household when they didnt' think to ask where the pooter is.

Work's laptop's good though. As is 100MBPS