Sunday 28 June 2009

5 weeeeeeeks


i love sundays. i get to sit down for ten minutes and write my weekly training report, which includes listing all that i've done that week. yes, i'm that much of a geek. so before i wet myself with excitement, here she goes:

monday> 30min swim drills, 40min spin class
tuesday> 20km cycle, 8 km run, 15km cycle
wednesday> 50 min open water swim training
thursday> 30min swim drills
friday> rest
saturday> 50min spin class, 30min swim
sunday> 40km cycle

as you can see, two long cycles this week, and not a whole lot of running. i was planning on running my 'around-the-hood' circuit but my brick on tuesday absolutely rubbished my legs right up until friday night. sooooo sore!

so the plan for the next week is to focus on the running again. i've got three weeks until my 10km run at Battersea, and would love to use this as a benchmark to see what time i'll get for the run leg. still crossing fingers for under an hour, but to be honest, i'm just not sure i'll ever make it!

in other news i finally got rid of those nasty old mountain bike pedals and have some lovely new fandangle ones, now fitted with strapless toe clips (pic above). my long ride this morning was JOY as finally i am able to use the whole circular motion instead of just pressing down - brilliant! this combined with cycling on the empty roads (i left the house at 5.30am!) was really so very lovely, and it's times like that which make all the training worth it - because i do really enjoy it.

five weeks until the London Tri. good training week!



5 comments:

teacherwoman said...

Looks like a great training week!

Trishie said...

Haha, I'm the same way... totalling my week and prepping for the upcoming one. Geek here too :) you will LOVE your clipless ... they make SUCH a difference !

KodaFit said...

This has nothing to do with this post, but I saw your tweet about Energy Gels and them not tasting very good... I think a lot of that depends on the Gel and personal preferences.

I'm not sure what you have available over in the UK, but here are my impressions from the ones I've tried.

PowerBar Gel - this was the first one I tried, and I wanted to hurl for the remainder of my work-out.

ClifBar Gel - these are organic and better than the PowerBar gels, but not by much.

HammerGel - Not too bad, the flavor can be a little strong in some of them.

Gu Gel - My absolute favorite. Vanilla tastes like dessert, and at Christmas they do a Mint Chocolate one that's delicious!!

I usually have mine straight, and then chase them down with water. When I'm doing a tri - especially the longer ones, I mix 3 or 4 gels with water in about a 2:1 ratio in a little flask on my bike. That helps it go down a little easier and doesn't dilute the taste too much.

My advice would be try some different brands, and different flavors within each brand, and then train with what you plan to use during the race, so you know what it tastes like in a dry mouth, and if it'll effect your stomach or anything like that.

Colleen said...

I just had to put my word in about the gels. :) I really don't like any of them except the apple cinnamon Hammer Gel. Try that one. I actually look forward to it every hour during my workouts! ("More Apple Pie? Don't mind if I do!) I buy it in bulk then use a little flask for my rides/runs. I take it strait then have a good drink of water after. Good stuff.

Also, I wouldn't expect the run leg of a tri to be as fast as your 10k. I was amazed how much easier it was to just run when I did my first 10k. Have fun, though! An hour is what I shoot for too.

tri_al said...

thanks for comments; this gel business certainly brings a mixed bag response! it does make sense to have them straight and wash them down, especially if they taste bad/have weird texture. sipping the watered mixture through my cycle was repetitive torture! i'm going to gather the top few suggested gels and give them all a tri (ahaha no pun intended) colleen do you use them regularly during workouts??