Busy weekend

It's been a hectic weekend (maybe epic is the word), though I'm safely back in my flat (and exhausted with it) now. Headed up North to my parent's house on Friday evening, getting there at 11. A swift bite to eat and bed, in preparation for a comfortable 2 hour bike ride on Saturday. Perfect.

Or not. Saturday morning comes, and there's snow eveyrwhere. The road outside my parents house looks impassable, but I pop on my cycling kit (not snow-specification) and head out. 30 minutes later and I'm dying. Every part of me is cold - my hands and feet especially. I struggle on for another 45 minutes, reaching Stokesley, before I call it a day, for the sake of my fingers if nothing else. Still a good 40k ride in total, at a very slow pace (ice everywhere); I was in the saddle for 90 minutes, so it's decent endurance work despite the problems.

Back home, and its a quick changearound, a slice of chocolate cake (another winner from mum) before heading to the pool. 1800m is the session - a 400m warm up, 6 x 100m technique work on 1:50 second intervals, finishing with a 750m TT and a 50m warm down. Didn't have any energy - due to the lack of a real meal between cycling and swimming. So I was relying on technique alone. Enough to get semi decent times, but nothing to write home about. My 750m TT was 15 seconds off a PB mind, so hardly a shocker.

Back home again, and a proper meal (chicke and ostrich - it works, trust me, and potatos). I stuffed myself - say one thing for my parent's house, say I'm never underfed! I went to town on the carbohydrate, knowing I'd be burning a lot of calories on Sunday morning...

At 6pm I loaded my car and headed across the North Pennines to the Lake District. A clear and cold night hinted at good conditions for hiking the next morning - running on the ice would be less fun. The Youth Hostel was decent, though the room was a little onthe warm side, and my sleep patterns weren't helped by a front runner for the year's loudest snorer awards. I woke at four, and slipped out of the bedroom and into my running gear. A quick breakfast went down well, and then I stepped out into the night. And boy was it cold. Well into minus figures even at 900ft, and dropping faster the higher I ran. I did a steady 75 minutes, and felt pretty comfortable, although some of the steeper sections towards Red Tarn at 2000ft were punishing. Back to the Youth Hostel, and there were a couple of climbers heading up Helvellyn's gully's, so I gave them a condition report based on what I'd seen. Then it was out into the hills. Long story short - four mountains, two over 2800ft, one over 2900ft and one over 3000ft. All of them were completed without too much trouble - navigation was absolutely fine, even in cloud cover. Great views. The picture above is of Catsycam - first peak up, taken from the flank of the fourth peak, Raise.

Good weekend - time to catch my breath now.

31/01/2010

Chlorine Poisoning

I don't care how many babies have widdled in a pool, there is no need to dose it up with the level of Chlorine that was present last night. It was ridiculous. Nearly half the pool got out before the end, and those of that struggled on probably left the building with severe toxic poisoning. Which was a shame, because the session, 3000m in total, was a good one. Main sets were 100m's on 1:45's and 50m's on 50, and the 100's were coming comfortably in under the 1:20 mark without too much effort.

On the plus side I had an excellent sleep - I was totally exhausted on my return from the pool, and slept solidly through till about 7:30, a dreamless and refreshing sleep. Now, of course I could do with more (another hour a day please!), but getting over 8 hours seems to keep me the right side of alert. I'm heading back to my parent's house tonight, and will hopefully get a comfortable 9 hours + of snoozetime there, before a hectic weekend!

Just finished reading the first two books in Joe Abercrombie's 'the First Law' series. It's a fantasy book, but marks quite a distinct departure from the usual sword and stone epic themes. The characters aren't easily classified into 'good' or 'evil'. They're shades of grey, and more realistic for it - funny too. An excellent read - highly recomennded. Unless you don't like fantasy books in the least. In which case stay well away. Obviously.

Good times

An excellent session in the swimming pool last night. Properly excellent, not just 'felt good' or 'tried hard'. Fewer people than usual in the fast lane, which opened up the opportunity of putting in the longer sets. Ian, our swim coach, duly obliged. After a 500m warm up (done in 7:01), we did 8 x 50m drills, before a main set of 8 x 250m on 4:00 intervals. I led out, and felt damn good doing it. My slowest time was 3:28, and my fastest (my first and last) was 3:21. I felt totally comfortable, and could have shortened the intervals if I had to. My stroke per length rate rarely went above 18, meaning my stroke was pretty efficient. Better still, Ian told me I had an excellent smooth stroke, with a great high elbows, as well as giving me a few pointers on how to improve. Pointers which I'll use to go faster and faster. All in all a great CV workout - it was good to be used as an example by Ian when he was showing other lanes how to properly do a swim stroke - proof I'm doing something right at least! Plenty of stuff to improve upon though - by top class swimmers standards, I'm still very poor! Quite how poor? Well, the current worl record for 400m is 3:40, held by Paul Biedermann of Germany. My best effort? 5:28.

Have been recruiting for the Welsh 3000s again. I have Dan and Huw onboard, and will broach the subject with John in the coming weeks. I don't like having tried and faied to do the challenge - it hangs over me like a spectre. Plenty of things went wrong on our last attempt. There wasn't much daylight, and we squandered a lot of it by starting up from Pen Y Pass after daybreak. Navigationally we were OK, but it became very difficult and eventually untenable in thick mist and total darkness on the rocky summits of Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach. Some of the group probably lacked a little in mountain fitness. This time we're going to deal with all of those problems. We'll camp on Snowdon the night before, unpack the tents in the dark and hit summit number 1, Snowdon, at the stroke of dawn (or maybe even just before). I'll have scouted the route on the Glyders and the first part of the Carneddau beforehand on a couple of spare weekends, and we'll be doing Fawer and Fach in daylight, so the boulder fields will be less of a problem. I'll also be making sure the entire team is fit enough - I'll be checking up on peoples progress and chivvying them along. We will succeed.

Rest and Relaxation

Back from an excellent holiday in Wales. The journey to Snowdonia wasn't half bad - some nice country roads to wind down in the car, much more interesting than the usual motorway fare that I'm confronted with! The cottage Sarah and I stayed in was superb - three bedroomed, log fire and pool table equipped and possessed of a generous kitchen. It was a little chilly, but we remedied that by having log fires burning strongly each night!

Snowdonia is a stunning area - every time I come I'm impressed by the peaks in the area. They're more aesthetically pleasing than many in the Lake District or Highlands - especially Snowdon, with its pyramid of a summit. They're also big - fifteen in the region top the magical 3000ft mark. Given it was meant to be a relaxing holiday, we shyed away from the really big ones, and instead went up Yr Afan, a 2500fter in the Snowdon range, on Saturday. The walk started at about 140ft above sea level, so there was plenty of feet of ascent involved (and a bit of scrambling to keep things interesting). Navigationally it was pretty easy, even if we did take to X-Country on a couple of occasions. No visibility at the very top, but apart from that the views were pretty impressive. Another mountain to add to the list. We pub-grubbed it following the climb, and fish, chips and garlic bread rarely tasted so good!

The next day it was off to Conwy Castle. This is a proper, slab sided brute of a fortification. No fancy Gothic crenellations here, just thick walls and strong defenes. Very impressive! A trip into Llanberis rounded out the day, before returning to the cottage for our final evening. An excellent trip, with plenty fitted in (including an epic snooker match that went down to the wire).

It's a full (and tough) training week this week. It's started well though - a 1700m swim on Tuesday morning with a main set of 4 x 300m on 5:00 intervals yielded pleasing results (in the 4:15 region) without too much in the way of effort, whilst a turbo on Tuesday evening brought with it goo 15:00 minutes at 150BPM or above, and another 20 minutes at 133BPM or above (zones 2 and 1 respectively). Running this morning, and it was a hilly 9k interval session - 30 seconds sprinting with 4:30 easy running. Sounds like masses of recovery, but it was damn draining. A good session - roll on the club swim tonight.

26/01/2010

Time to recharge

It was a good swim last night. The lane was a little busy, but Adam, probably the fastest swimmer in the club apart from the coach, was firing strongly, and the two of us carved out some pretty good times at the front of the fast lane. He had the edge on me in terms of speed until near the end, where my endurance strength started to tell. Main set was a one sided pyramid - 3 x 100m on 1:45, 3 x 75m on 1:15, 3 x 50m on 50 and 3 x 25m on 25m, then 2x, then 1x. Not too tough, but good enough to get the heart rate up. The 100m's were all under the 1:20 barrier, with the final effort timing in at 1:15. Ideally I'd prefer longer sets - more 200m's and 400m's, but there's too many in the lane at the moment and we'd catch up with the back markers after about 200m. Hopefully that'll change as people's new year's resolutions wear off!

Had a lie in this morning. Couldn't make it out of bed for my 30:00 turbo. I think I'll fit it in this evening prior to my club swim, but its a definite indication that I need some proper rest. Which is what I'll get at the weekend fortunately. 3 days in Wales with no cycling, running or swimming will do me a hell of a lot of good - I'll be raring to go by Tuesday of next week, which is when full training starts again! Will be good just to spend some time with Sarah without having to worry about getting in training. There's a log fire at the cottage we're staying at, so I have my mission - don't set fire to the place. Last time I was in a cottage in a national park it was in a little stone farmhouse in the lakes. Surprise surprise, 5 minutes tinkering with the fire and the whole place was filling with smoke. It's clearly a talent I have!

I've promised the club's running coach that I'll do one of the winter league run races for the club. Unfortunately (fortunately), I'm booked up until March, so my first winter league race will be on 7 March at Stilton. Yup, it's not just a cheese...it's a place too! It's 7 miles, so an excellent distance for me. I'll be in good endurance running shape by then (with the Stafford HM looming), so hopefully won't embarass myself...

21/01/2010

Rest week

It's a rest week this week. That doesn't mean I simply down tools and do no exercise. What it means is that I don't train for as long I would on a full week - the intensity remains the same, the distance doesn't. For instance, this morning it was a 5km tempo run as opposed to a 9km. Reduced distance, but still plenty of hills. It took a while to get going - I went off too fast, and then slowed down to much, before finally reaching equilibrium after about 2km. I set a new PB though, 17:51, so I was pretty content.

The turbo session the night before was a short but sweet 40 minutes. 15 warm up, before 10 minutes at 133-149 BPM (Zone 1), 10 minutes at 149-164 BPM (Zone 2), and 5 minutes at 141-149 (Zone 1 High) before a 5 minute warm down. Felt good - seems a tiny effort, but rest weeks exist for a reason. BPM is heart rate beats per minute - the higher the figure, the more the effort. Zone 4 is very hard, whereas Z1 is low intensity base endurane work. Many people have more complicate ways of working HR, but I stick to a four zone method for biking and running.

I also got a cheeky 9 hours sleep. No surprises, I still felt tired in the morning. I've got used to that, but it's always, always unpleasant to leave a warm bed for some cold weather training.

Club swim tonight - hopefully crack out about 3000m of good endurance work.

20/01/2010

New Year

It’s been a long time since my last post so I thought I’d remedy the situation. Training has been going very well, despite the beautiful (sub zero) winter we’ve been subjected too.

I had a race in Delamere Forest, a 10k X-Country job, at New Year. Was feeling strong, and sitting comfortably in 6th position (out of about 300), with the leader about 1 minute up, at the 6k point. Then we got sent the wrong way. Race ruined. It’s impossible to convey to someone who doesn’t race at this level quite how genuinely upsetting this is. As a serious athlete, I, and others like me, spend huge portions of our life alone and in the dark, putting in winter miles, so that we can do ourselves justice on race day. Friendships, relationships and family ties all get strained because of what we do, so race day is one of the few times we really get to reap some reward for our hard work. To see that thrown away because an event can’t properly organise is sickening. But, like my dad said afterwards, to be in 6th was a pleasing indictment of my fitness. I’ll just make sure I ace the next race I do. I was less rational at the time. Furious doesn’t even come close.

Swimming is coming on leaps and bounds. I frequently lead out in the club sessions, and it’s good to push the pace and see the fitness of other people improving as a result of tough sessions. The guys I train with are all good laughs, which makes it more fun when the sessions, as they invariably do, become hard. I’m miles off being a truly good swimmer, but as long as I keep on getting stronger it’s OK.

Riding outside has been near impossible in the ice, and last weekend in York was the first time out on the roads in a while. I did a 60k ride towards Helmsley, which included a nice 5k hill (length, not height!) up through Brandsby. Averaged just under 19mph for the two hour ride – relatively laid back but then that’s the point of a base session like that. Jargon buster – base sessions are ones we use to basically improve our endurance, not our speed. It was a good weekend in York, spent the evening on Saturday with a pub dinner and a film night at two of her friends’ house (I get on with them too, I hasten to add!). Always relaxing in York, even if Sarah does have to endure what must be one of the coldest houses in the entire world.

It’s also been 18 days since my last taste of booze. 5 o’clock on the morning of the 1st January saw my last drink for the next five months (until a post world qualification tipple in May), and 11 o’clock on the morning of 1st January saw my last hangover.

Looking forward to a holiday in Wales at the end of this week. Hopefully get a bit of walking in some of the smaller hills in as well, provided the weather isn’t too atrocious. At the opposite end of the spectrum, I hike up Pen Y Fan in the Brecon Beacons the other weekend. Absolutely horrendous conditions – whiteout, sub zero with a serious windchill, and thick snow and ice the whole way up. Awesome conditions to hike in – I was the only person on my choice of ascent, a northern spur, and I didn’t meet anyone until the top (where some soldiers and ice climbers had also arrived). Tough work, but I love things like that. It’s one of the rewards open to people who really train hard – they can go out and explore the wilds when most people wouldn’t make it half way up without succumbing to the cold, the lack of visibility or their lack of fitness. Some might call that arrogance, but it isn’t. I work hard, and I’m proud of the goals that hard work lets me achieve.

Happy new year!

19/01/2010