Cipollini RB1000 (Weekly Round Up)

Look at those colours. That bike should have come out during triathlon's glorious 1980s fluorescent phase.

Pretty hard week. With a fucking hard 1/2 Mary Trail Race which was very hilly in Bourne Woods. The last 2miles were absolutely hardcore. It must have been carnage further back in the field during the last 4miles. I put in a solid effort (although the time of 1:41 looks a bit rubbish) and came 19th (I think) out of about 180 but it was most definitely a personal worst style course. There were still 130 people to finish when I left the venue to go home on about 2hrs and this was definitely no advertised fun run. A successful IM trg run with the WU and CD added in I guess. My turbo diesel engine feels pretty rock solid at the moment ready for Roth in July. Once I get going I don't seem to slow down.

I also had 3 really hard, successful bike rides this week indicating to me that my IM distance bike prep is all there (famous last words I know). Only managed one swim though but it was pretty fast and open water so at least I've kept up some wetsuit fitness. Had to take a day off though as I had a MSc weekend which got in the way a bit on Saturday.

1x Swim - 1hr
3x Bike - 8hrs
3x Run - 3hrs

Off to Spain tomorrow on holiday. Hopefully the sun will be shining in Andalusia for a few bike rides and a bit of sightseeing with my wife and son over the next 2 weeks.

Gettin' it done.

Neilly G

Training at Altitude aka With the In-Laws in Austria

Had a nice time in Austria visiting my wife's parents with our baby boy. We've got to get him in touch with his inner Austrian early (on a British passport so he knows where he stands heh, heh).

Hence, our long weekend away ended up with me 'mountain' running each day for between 30-45mins at altitude, more by accident than design. It was interesting to see my heart rate up by about 10bpm for the same effort levels. Didn't really feel it on the runs but I was very tired in the evenings and that's only at 1500m. I can only imagine the fatigue build up when people try to train at height. Ouch.

Weekly round up:

Bike (x2) - 5hrs
Run (x6) - 5hrs

Neilly G

Litespeed Archon (Weekly Round Up)

Another decent week including a 2.5hr run and sprint tri race. However, sleep deprived due to baby/travel/MSc Module so had to be careful with intensity in general.

Swim (x3) - 1.5hrs
Bike (x4) - 8hrs
Run (x4) - 4hrs

Neilly G

Trek TTX 9.9 SSL (Weekly Round Up)

Training today: Excellent OWS today. 5 laps of 800m and a quick run off it. One lap with paddles on. Felt really good in the water.

Weekly round up:

Swim (x3) 3hrs
Bike (x4) 8.5hrs
Run (x5) 4hrs

Total - 15.5hrs

Neilly G

Jordan Rapp's Shiv (and a Good Training Week)

Another good training week with a significant improvement in bike threshold on Wednesday.

A nice 2hr run today and an endurance swim. I am pooped as I forgot to eat until I got home after swimming.

Swim brick tomorrow aka a long OW swim followed by a run. :-)

8 weeks to go and looking good with my first triathlon of the year on Wednesday. Should be very painful as it's a sprint and I haven't done one in years.

Neilly G

Sporting Breakthroughs

Following on from Phillip Gilbert's awesome hat trick, I also had a small sporting breakthrough today.

Normally along with the classic FTP, CP 20 & 5 tests I also do a regular IM bike test (thanks Gordo and Chuckie V). I have now done a fair bit of focussed training and a big bike camp so I guess if it was going to come it should be now I have 'fully' recovered.

It's a 3hr Computrainer test where I set out to do my last IM's average bike power and see what my hr is throughout. In my last IM I did 5hr dead for the bike at 135bpm with barely any cardiac drift. Today 3hrs at the same power resulted in 115bpm average (in the aero position). That's just above my zone 1 recovery pace!

Now the rhetorical question(s) is do I keep this power and with increased fitness really coast the bike (hopefully getting close to 5hrs at Roth) and see how the run goes from there (lets face it an IM is really a pass or fail based on how fast your run is if your you're trying to be competitive). Or in accordance with Coggan and Allen up the bike to the supposed correct IM intensity and trust in my uprated run training. Ummmm.