Planning training for the 2014 season

The first objective of the year is completed, yay! I'm still super-happy about my 03:59:19 at the Rotterdam marathon. There's a lot of year left though, and a lot I've signed up for (have you seen the 2014 race calendar panel over there on the right hand side?).

Need to take a rational look. What's practical. I've withdrawn from the Eton 10km swim - I still intend to do one, but i need more than 5 weeks training to prepare (particularly seeing as there's Mallorca 70.3 in the middle!). I also decided not to do today's Thames Turbo Triathlon - there's no need to race a hard sprint when I'm still only a week after the marathon. Instead I went for a ride with Mrs on our "3 Hills" route - first time for a year. Loved it.

Our "3 Hills" ride (Staple Lane, Crocknorth, and Box Hill)

I enjoyed having a training plan for the last few months, even if it was just out of a book. I like not needing to think about what needs to be done. However, I don't feel ready to get a new coach. Maybe next year, maybe never, but not right now. So, what's the plan?

The plan is: write your own plan. Here's the plan.


Swimming:

Brett Sutton wrote a piece on swimming for the Buccaneer Race Team. In essence, the message was: "Want to get better at swimming? Well then swim more."

So, let's just swim some more then. I bought a book called For Swimmers 365 Main Sets a while ago by Ironman swim-master Andrew Starykowicz. It's basically just what it says on the tin. I'm going to start from set one and try to do 2-3 per week. That's easy - I just schedule them in, and do them.


Cycling:

My main races this year are both quite hilly - Ironman 70.3 UK in Wimbleball with its (in)famous "52 hills in 56 miles" or whatever it is (I think the bark is worse than the bite to be frank), and then Ironman Wales in Tenby - where I'm determined to ride better than last time. So I need to ride up hills, and ride them regularly. I'll be racing Wimbleball on my road bike and Tenby on my tri-bike, so I need good miles on both.

I should be able to get mid-week miles just by commuting whenever I can, and then a longer ride at the weekend to/from a parkrun or round in the Surrey hills. I'd like to revisit the Ride London 100 route ahead of this year's event (I was lucky enough to get a ballot spot), the Hell of the Ashdown route, and there's scope to make our 3 Hills route into a lot more than three hills.

When the weather is bad, or the time is unhelpful, I could do well to remember that I have a turbo-trainer, I don't need to be outside to ride. This is important, it takes away the barriers to missing sessions. Additionally on a turbo trainer you can focus on cadence, power, and never getting any respite! No traffic lights in the kitchen...


Running:

Running is trickier. The marathon training had me running 4-6 times per week, and my highest weekly mileage ever. I can't sustain that on top of everything else. Running breaks you down. The long run is important - one of the Pfitzinger & Douglas training principles is the value of the mid-week long run. I should therefore work in a run home from work during the week to compliment the weekend long run - or maybe a couple of runs home per week and free myself from the need to run long at the weekend all together.

The main thing is that each session is quality. It needs a purpose. When I'm approaching the shorter races I should be running fast, and when I move towards Wales I should drop the pace a little and work on endurance. I also need to learn to love the hills! Throughout I'd like to get back to running hard and fast parkruns. It's OK running them as recovery runs, but I miss just running as fast as I can, and that's a quality session in itself. I think 3 runs per week should be about right - and, importantly, a sustainable volume.


Gym:

I've really enjoyed hitting the gym regularly - I feel stronger and more resilient. This makes me better able to accommodate training without getting injured again. The guided strength and conditioning sessions seem to be working so far. Twice weekly visits to Ben and Josh at Athletic Edge will remain. Monday and Thursday mornings seem to work. Swimming in the evening after a gym visit in the morning seems to work well for me - active recovery and hopefully eases the DOMS a bit (and man those guys are the kings of DOMS).


Periodisation and specificity:

This is where it gets harder. It's impossible to peak for every race, particularly if you've signed up for a lot. You need to build and peak for your main race. Training is also normally divided into micro and macro cycles, e.g. 4x 4-week blocks making a 16-week block, with each 4th week reduced in load to allow a little more time for recovery and accommodation (absorbing the training so you actually get faster as a result).

Specificity is ensuring your training is relevant. My training for Rotterdam was all on the road and didn't contain many hills - that's because the race was a fast flat road race. Wimbleball and Tenby are both hilly on the run, so I need to learn to love the hills in training. Likewise for cycling. I'm not worrying too much about swim specificity, other than I'll need to get open water and wetsuit swimming in as often as I can - this has been a failing in the past, and I think partially responsible for my frustrating swim-start freak-outs (see both Ironman Wales in 2012 and Ironman 70.3 Zell am See/Kaprun in 2013).

Up to Wimbleball I'll work on faster mid-distance training, and then build up the duration afterwards ready for the big fella in Tenby.


Putting it together:

What are my A-races? For A-races I want to be peaking and tapered (fresh, from a de-loaded week). I should be champing at the bit, raring to go! I've done both these races before and I certainly have much more to give.

• Ironman 70.3 UK, Wimbleball, 15th June
• Ironman Wales, Tenby, 14th September

What are my B-races? For B-races I want to treat race day absolutely as if it were an A-race, however I won't worry so much about a full taper before hand. It's more about real race experience and sorting my technique, and less about pulling about a top (for me) performance.

• Ironman 70.3 Mallorca, 10th May
• Blenheim Triathlon, 8th June
• London Triathlon, 3rd August

What are my training races? Training races are just to get experience, try out my race day strategies, and have fun. I won't taper for them and won't pay too much attention to the results. These are the "everything else" category. The only one of these that needs care is the long course weekend. This is an Ironman on the Ironman Wales course (near enough) but split across three days. This will be hard effort, and the marathon will take time to recover from even if I run it at Ironman pace (i.e. very easy).

• Electric Run, 26th April (A fun 5km at night with loads of glowing stuff and music!)
• Clapham Common 15km, Race 3, 1st June (Happy Birthday to me!)
• The Long Course Weekend, Day 1 - Swim, 11th July
• The Long Course Weekend, Day 1 - Bike, 12th July
• The Long Course Weekend, Day 1 - Run, 13th July
• Hampton Court swim, 20th July
• Ride London 100, 10th August
• Marlow swim, 24th August
• Thames Turbo sprint triathlon, Race 4, 25th August
• Clapham Common 15km, Race 4, 31st August

And then there are the wild-cards... These races are on the "would like to" list. Not confirmed or entered. I'd really like to run an ultra with my Mrs at some point! These don't really feature in my thinking right now.

• RRR, 18th October
• Thames Turbo marathon, Richmond Park, November

...and there's so many other things!


The plan:

As it happens, the timing works out perfectly - it's almost as if I'd planned it (I hadn't).

I'm going to go for two macro cycles - one for Ironman 70.3 UK, and one for Ironman Wales. There are two four-week blocks from now until Wimbleball, then after a recovery week there are three four-week blocks leading up to Ironman Wales. The B-races come at the end of build periods, and have de-load weeks afterwards. This is ideal.

Build up to Ironman 70.3 UK, started today!

Build up to Ironman Wales, starts with a recovery week after Ironman 70.3 UK

I like the idea of doing a race simulation two to four weeks out. A popular technique is to complete the number of miles, but in kilometres. Simulate the race entirely, including fast transitions and fuelling, but don't suffer the fatigue of going full distance.

For the 70.3 that's 1200m swim, 56km bike, and 13km run - those distances are short enough to go pretty hard and really enjoy it. May 31st looks like a good time for that - the weekend before we'll be at Wimbleball Lake checking out the bike course - unfortunately you can't normally swim in it, otherwise that would have been ideal.

For the full distance it's 2.4km swim, 112km ride, and 26km run - a bit more of an undertaking, but training should mean the distances are achievable with some good effort. It's an ideal kit and nutrition test. The more you treat it like the real thing, the more it will help. I could get a really big weekend in right at the start of my final block - I'll be relatively fresh after a de-load week. Pencilled in for 17th August.

There's more work to do to plan each block. I'll do that at each at the start of each, based on the experience, progress, and real-life (damn you, real-life!). Given block one starts tomorrow I guess I'd better plan that now...


Block one, 2014 weeks 17 to 20:

Block one, week one: Need to take it easy, this is about getting the right sessions done and building good habits. Set the plan and stick to it. I need to remember I'm only one week post-marathon - I'm feeling fine now, but I will probably find hard efforts, well, hard. I'd like to get started on the 365 main sets too. Real life is difficult this week, very busy at work and my 5th wedding anniversary on Thursday.

Week one - Monday done!

Block one, week two: I'm on a training course all week this week so as long as I can stick to mornings and evenings I should be OK, however bike commuting is off the cards (remember you have a turbo trainer and a lot of The Wire to watch...). I enjoy a little training during these times, it helps clear my head and be able to focus in the classroom. The end of the week will be hard, Mrs and I are crewing for Louise at the Thames Path 100 (boy, can that girl run!).

Week two

Block one, week three: In Mallorca from Monday. Looking forward to riding the 70.3 course a few times ahead of the race. This week will be about cycling and swimming, I'm not so concerned about running. The race is on the Saturday, so Sunday will be a lovely day off in the sun.

Week three - rocking it in Mallorca, can't wait to see/ride the bike course

Block one, week four: A de-load week at the end of my first block. The aim here is to keep the number of sessions up, but the intensity down - not stopping completely but taking the opportunity to recover well.

Week four, de-loading ready for the next block

And then...

There's loads of other stuff to consider - kit, nutrition, race plan, etc. I could plan for hours. Let's see how this first block goes.

Ready to race!

I started training again on June 1st, a little under 3 months ago. I started from zero, with an accelerated version of C25k (the famous "couch to 5km" plan). I had a few events planned (London Triathlon, Ride London) and they came and went and I was happy - but I wasn't racing them. My plan was to not care about the time, enjoy the experience, take away the pressure and get fitter and faster without injuring myself again.

I'm trying hard to take that relaxed attitude into the Thames Turbo Sprint Series Race 4 tomorrow, but it's really tough - I really really (really!) want to smash it and race hard. It's one of my favourite races, I've entered all the ones I can over the last 3 or 4 years. It's excellent to have a benchmark race to judge your current performance against.

Race history highlighting best and worst performances

So what's happened in the 90 days since I started again? I've made an effort to record every session in the excellent Training Peaks portal, and they provide powerful analysis tools.

It's particularly important to make sure that you don't ramp up on overall duration and run distance too quickly. I seem to have built up evenly with a good continual improvement over the first couple of months (before the races started getting in the way).

Ramp up of overall duration and run distance over the last 3 months

All good so far - but what about the cumulative training effect, including cycling, swimming, and strength training? By analysing all the data from my Garmin 910XT, Training Peaks can work out how fit I am, and how ready I am to race.

This is what 3 months of improving fitness looks like

The blue line is Chronic Training Load which has ramped up nicely over the period. As training gets harder and more intense I would expect to see that climb, then level off/drop a bit, then climb further, and repeat that pattern in line with periodisation of training (e.g. three harder building weeks, followed by an adaptation week, repeat). At this stage, a gradual measured climb is fine - it means I'm getting steadily fitter.

The pink line is Acute Training Load and represents how hard specific sessions or events have been. You can see the two big spikes signifying the London Triathlon and Ride London. It'll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow - it'll only be a short session (I hope!) but should be as high an output as I can sustain for the whole time, and therefore be a significant acute load.

The Orange line is Training Stress Balance and can be considered as a my freshness level. See the dip after the spikes in acute load - when you work hard, afterwards you're less fresh. The aim is to go into a race with a strong overall fitness balanced by a good level of freshness. Note that despite increasing chronic training load freshness does not drop - able to handle more work without losing freshness means fitness improving.

I am still much less fit (and much more heavy) than last year - but I'm certainly not going to let that hold me back. I think I'm ready to smash out a sprint without fear of injury now. My prediction is that I should be able to get a really good swim and bike done (maybe a PB swim, and possibly close on the bike), but I'll drift back on the run as I'm really not at all run-fit right now - estimated finish time 01:11:00.

Now it's rest for the rest of today and we'll see what tomorrow brings!

2014 will be another year of iron!

I try not to think too much about the long term plan too much. I know I want to to race more and get better/faster/fitter, but at what distance or event I'm fairly sanguine. My approach is to relax, go with the flow, and see what I end up signing up for. I kind of let my subconscious get on with it while I watch from the sidelines. As a result it sometimes gets carried away before I can get it in check - but at least I know I'll always have a full calendar.

I entered IM 70.3 UK 2014 a while ago, and a few minutes ago also entered the full distance IM UK 2014. It looks like 2014 will be another year of iron! I'm also fairly convinced that in September my inner event-enterer will be signing me up to IM Wales again too. Glutton for punishment? Certainly. I have unfinished business on both of those full distance courses. They were my first, I was young and naive. I loved the experiences but made many rookie mistakes. I can go a lot faster. A lot faster.

Oops, I did it again

Also for 2014 there's Hell of The Ashdown to do (missed that this year due to ITBS woe), Ride London, a bunch of Thames Turbo sprint triathlons, the Virgin Active London Triathlon (really enjoyed the Olympic Plus event this year), and probably much more. I shall certainly be entering the Ultra Race London Ultra 50km (when entries are open, no news on that yet but I assume it'll be going ahead), I'd really like to run further too (Mrs is getting the bug for ultra-running, it's infectious). I really fancy a 50-miler, one day maybe longer (but probably not next year).

There are also the little "someday/maybe" side projects that swim around my head. I want to do my London run-derground over winter to make training a bit more interesting. I also fancy riding LE2JoG (Land's End to John O'Groats) again - I've done it before but spread over two weeks. I fancy trying it in 4 or 5 days. Maybe a little project for Easter. Added to that, there are so many parkruns still to do; so, so many more parkruns!

There's plenty to do first though - Thames Turbo sprint series race 4 is on Monday, IM 70.3 Zell-am-See-Kaprun is next weekend, with the Valencia triathlon the week after that. The following week is the ITU World Series final in Hyde Park, we got some grandstand tickets for the Women's race on Saturday and the Men's on Sunday - and Mrs even managed to secure a spot in the open sprint race so is racing on the famous course. I decided 4 consecutive weekends of racing was probably one too many for me so I shall be on cheering and photography duty.

There's nothing quite like a packed calendar!

Event report: RideLondon 100

Executive summary: I rode London!

You want a little more detail? OK let's start with "What is RideLondon?" In their own words:

"Prudential RideLondon: an annual two-day festival of cycling – a true legacy of the 2012 Games"

"Developed by the Mayor of London and his agencies, Prudential RideLondon will be a world-class festival of cycling taking place over the weekend of Saturday 3 August and Sunday 4 August 2013."

"There will be no other closed-road event like it that combines the fun and accessible element of a free family ride in central London with the excitement of watching the world’s best professional cyclists race in the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic and Prudential RideLondon Grand Prix."

"Taking a cue from the London Marathon, amateur cyclists will also participate in the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 – a 100-mile challenge on the same closed roads as the professionals, with the added incentive of raising money for good causes. To capture it all, the best action will be broadcast live on TV in the UK and internationally, to be seen by an audience of millions."

I can't help thinking this is a slightly threatening warning!

I took part in the RideLondon Surrey 100, though the path to getting there was fairly tortured. I initially entered the ballot and didn't get a place - the only person I know who entered unsuccessfully. I then got a formal email from their lawyers. This is because a few years ago I had an idea to cycle between all the London Underground stations in one go for charity (kind of an overland tube challenge) - to my knowledge it's still never been done, but gets talked about from time to time. I decided to call that project "Ride London" (can you see where this is going yet?). I registered @RideLondon on twitter, ridelondon.wordpress.com for a blog, youtube.com/ridelondon and ridelondon on flickr. If you're going to start a project, it's wise to snap up the social real-estate first.

Clearly RideLondon hadn't done that, and ended up with @Ride_London on twitter. They wanted the names and had looked at my Ride London social presence and decided I wasn't using it. In their words:

"This has caused much confusion for our audience and we believe the brand is not receiving the level of engagement it ought to be"

I'd received maybe a half dozen mentions form the "confused" audience, so I didn't think it was that bad - but they had a point, I wasn't progressing my project and I didn't want to be a pain in the arse for an initiative I fully supported. I said I'd give them the names if they gave me a place. They agreed.

I got a link to sign up - but although it was guaranteed entry, I still had to pay - again! (I donated my original entry fee to charity). I made a note to have a word, work got hella-busy, and the deadline passed. I forgot about it.

Then my wonderful amazing wife won her Freespeed competition and the delightful people at Virgin Active said "hey, do you guys fancy doing Ride London?" - she had won a place in the ballot (as I said, literally everyone I know who entered got in) but swapped that for this prize-spot, and got me a place too - so I was in! I went from no place, to a guaranteed place, to a free place - it really doesn't get much better than that. Thank you Virgin Active and Team Freespeed for being awesome on a weekly basis :)

We got a cheap and nasty Travelodge for the night before, neither of us wanted to cycle to the Olympic park from Wimbledon in the middle of the night. We chose somewhere near the finish so we didn't have far to stagger afterwards which meant a 30 min gentle ride in the morning. When we set off it was 4:30am and there was just the two of us, bike lights twinkling in the first suggestions of a clear summer dawn.

Arriving at the Olympic Park, along with every other cyclist in the South East

Quickly we were joined by a few more, and then more. Cyclists joining us on the A40 from every direction, through the city, and the same on the A11 until by the time we hit Stratford there was a continual stream of us. I had a Pied Piper experience for some of it as I found myself at the front (through timing, not because I was hoofing it) and leading the way. A few surreptitious checks of google maps on my phone were required to make sure I didn't fork us off the route to somewhere random.

Freespeeders!

Departure times were staggered from about 6am to 8am, with the fastest going off first to avoid congestion on the road. Some of the other Freespeed crew were riding too, they'd all got into "C" wave so were the third group to leave. We'd been assigned group "T" and were due to set off at 7:55! I had visions of being surrounded by people on Boris bikes and shoppers with baskets on the front - I know I'm not quite at race fitness right now but I'm not that bad! We decided to show up to the Olympic Park two hours early and sneak in with the other Freespeed guys (we all had Freespeed kit on, so I figure they won't check too closely). We got away with it (we weren't the only ones, we saw a few other interlopers, but they really were the exception).

Me & Mrs, ready to go

We were directed down to the starting area and eventually, after some waffle from Mayor Boris, we were off! Well, the "A" group were off, we shuffled forward a bit, then the "B" group went, and we shuffled more... And then we were off! The organisation was absolutely excellent - the starting system worked perfectly as far as I could see, and everyone set off at a fair pace. They acknowledged that people wouldn't want their overall time to be impacted by congestion at the start, so the start timing mat was a couple of miles down the road, plenty of time for us to get organised on the road - a really nice touch that I'm sure prevented a lot of silly riding in the first miles. Each letter had a "Black" and "Blue" variant too, with the two streams being kept separate for the first few miles and being released in turn. Flawless execution, massive respect to the organisers and volunteers.

Looking back you can see start wave "D" waiting behind us - the pens worked very well

Freespeed, locked and loaded

Off under the start banner, the timing start isn't for a couple more miles

So we were off! 100 miles ahead of us. We were both a little concerned that we hadn't cycled this far for a very long time. I still had a lot of fatigue in my legs from the fun of the Virgin Active London Triathlon the weekend before, and a battering from my new friends at Athletic Edge on Thursday (those guys are excellent, can't praise them enough - I'm really enjoying my strength and conditioning workouts now - and how many triathletes can say that with a straight face?). Mrs was worried about making the cut-off times.

A few nutbars did it on single-speed bikes - this Bianchi Pista is one of my favourite bikes

The first few miles were fantastic - we flew down the A12 - three lanes of perfect tarmac and not a car in sight. After chatting with the Freespeeders in the starting funnel we soon let them drift out of sight in the first mile or two - this was a conscious decision, to try and stay with them would have been foolish to say the least. We chatted and enjoyed the perfect roads and fast pace. Through to the Blackwall Tunnel, across the top of East India (past Anchorage House, where I used to work), turning round Telehouse - one of the earliest and most famous data centres, and then onto the Limehouse Link. How strange to have ridden these closed roads two weeks in a row. Down Embankment, out through the West End and on towards Richmond, a detour through Richmond Park, and to Kingston.

Action shot - you won't often see the A12 like this!

We stopped at Hampton Court Palace for a breather and a cup of tea. We'd made great progress! Such fun! The rest stops were just as well organised as the start. There were three hubs spread equally across the 100 miles with additional drink-only stops in between them. If you were finding it hard, you were never that far from a break. The hubs had food (bananas, some new McVitee's Medley bars, and - wonderfully - little packets of pretzels and Sunbites, salty savoury snacks, perfect). They also had hot drink facilities, toilets, bike parking (transition racks), and mechanics available to fix any niggling problems that had come to light.

Tea at Hampton Court Palace, how civilised

This is the last time I'm saying it: The organisation was excellent!

We set off again, out into deepest Surrey and towards Guildford. We continued to make good time. The faster waves were still drifting past us, but not so fast now. The route was good and road surfaces generally excellent. At one of the drink stops we bumped into Boris! He was in high spirits and seemed to be doing really very well indeed. Operation Chiselled Whippet was clearly paying off, though as he admitted in his starting words, he had a long way to go to get to the level of the "mahogany whippets" on the start line!

London Mayor, Boris "Chiselled Whippet" Johnson

We took a long stop at about mile 50. I'd found miles 40-50 quite hard for some reason and was grateful for a longer pause. We stayed for about 45 minutes in the end. I enjoyed some food, and then we saw the tea hut - two teas and two bacon rolls later and we were much revived.

Mrs, looking effortlessly cool

The general profile of the course was 50 miles "flat", 25 miles "bumpy", and then the final 25 miles "flat". We'd heard plenty of talk about Leith Hill - the longest and steepest climb in the bumpy bit. When it came it was indeed a tough one, but as these things often are it was much bigger in our heads than in reality. Mrs got a good start and pulled away, I dug in and after having to take some evasive action to get round a crash that happened right in front of me, we both got up there in one piece. It's a good hill, "honest", and I'll certainly be incorporating it into my training rides. The view from the top was outstanding!

The bumpy part of the course passed quickly. We continued to stay together occasionally one or other of us getting a lead, but usually in sight. Before we knew it we were back in the Leatherhead area and going up Box Hill.  We've both conquered this one many times - I always think it has a reputation it can't live up to (good for hill reps though) - there's no taking away from the vista at the top though, a great view across Surrey. We decided to stop at the famous Box Hill cafe which, ironically, was quieter than normal for a weekend with no queue at all for refreshments - the third and final hub was just a mile past the summit and it seemed most people were waiting for the free stuff. We had our final cup of tea of the ride, and shared a treacle sponge. Perfect.

A good view on the low slopes of Box Hill (and in fact most of the other hills of the day)

Box Hill cafe area - eerily quit, normally you can't find space to sit down here

The Box Hill Cafe cakes are legendary, and this treacle tart was no exception

The route back was on roads known to us. Down from Box Hill, through Esher and past Sandown Park race course where we stopped to get some brief medical attention for Mrs who had an achy elbow - a quick ice pack sorted that out.

A quick icing

I don't think they were going to run out of water at this drinks station...

Always time for a quick stretch, especially those tight hammies!

Then it was up through Kingston again, through Wimbledon and up Wimbledon Hill (within a mile of our house!), past the famous Wimbledon Common and the windmill, over the A3, down through Putney, and up towards Millbank and the Houses of Parliament.

Outside the Houses of Parliament - nearly there!

We turned up Whitehall from Parliament Square, left at Trafalgar Square, then onto the Mall where the crowds were thick and the noise tremendous. Amazing support, thank you people of London, you were great.

Finished! On The Mall with Buckingham Palace behind us

Our finish times were identical, 7:50:03 - but this included all our stops. According to my Garmin our moving time to cover the 100 miles was 5:55:26 - I'm totally happy with that.

The final 10 miles had been at a ferocious pace - I don't know where she got her energy from, but Mrs was absolutely slamming it, I was on my drops and virtually time-trialling just to keep her in sight. Her riding had been fantastic all day - strong, confident, fast, and I'd got genuinely dropped on a couple of occasions (OK so we weren't racing all-out, but it took considerable effort to regain her wheel). Her riding has gone from strength to strength, and she's a visibly more accomplished cyclist this year - watch out world, the little hint of cycling potential we got at 70.3 Galway last year (when we were both fitter than we've ever been, and I was having the bike leg of my life and yet was still only 7 minutes ahead after 80km on the bike when she crashed) might just be coming into play...

It's all about the bling

A weighty piece with a route map on the back

We chilled out for a while afterwards in the sun - we'd done it! A fantastic psychological boundary for us both, and we were really very very happy. What an excellent day. Back to our hotel (so glad we'd got somewhere close!) and then to Byron Burger for a bloody great nosh up and beer (yes, beer!).

Perfect day.