This last week has been pretty good with some consistent training with 6 sessions completed.
It was on Monday that I decided to shake my tail feather and sort my training out, after a long day and not achieving much. Tuesday I kicked off with vengance with publishing the first of this blog for 2018.
I got into the pool and completed a swim session. I’m working my way through my 4 Week to a Faster 1,500 programme, this was the first session in this programme where I completed a 1,500 yard Time Trial (TT). Although I miss counted the lengths and ended up swimming 1,567 yards. I completed that in 26:59, which is about 25:50 for a 1,500.
That evening I got out for a wee run just around one of my 30 minute blocks but I bumped into a mate going the other way so I turned around and ran with him for a bit to catch up with him. I was trying to maintain a power output of 262 – 285 Watts and managed to do so for 71% of the session.
Wednesday was a tough session on the Windtrainer with my Quadcrusher I workout. This is a challenging session with 3x 10min reps at Threshold Power output with a sprint every 2 minutes within these intervals!!!
On Thursday I headed into the Wither Hills to complete a run around my short 30 minute Quail Stream loop. It is short, but sharp. Once again I had tried to maintain my power output between 262 & 285 Watts. This was a little tougher than my run two days ago and I only managed 34% in zone. My GPS played up during this run and ‘jumped‘ me from one valley to another and then eventually ‘jumped‘ me back again, so that data got skewed. My power data from my Stryd unit was nice and clean despite the GPS anomaly.
Friday I made it back to the pool for the second workout in the 4 Weeks to a Faster 1,500 series. The focus of this session is on drills to enhance my technique, so I worked my way through the sets and enjoyed it.
After a full on week, I had an easy day on Saturday. Weighing myself again like i did last Saturday. Unfortunately I’ve gained weight up to 87.6kg and 18.0% body fat. This represents an increase of 900gm of fat and losing some muscle.
On Sunday I got out for a longer run, which for me at the moment is 60 minutes. After last weeks run I extended my planned route to ensure it was going to take about an hour. My plan was to basically do a complete loop of Richmond. I’d forgotten that the Monaco Mid Winter Marathon was occurring on the Great Taste Trail. I was on the Great Taste Trail for a kilometre or so and got mixed up with some of the runners for a portion of the run. This run I spent 57% of it in zone building up the efficiency of my heart and lungs.
Compared to last week I’ve built my Fitness – measured by Critical Training Load (CTL) – up +5 to 29. With one week of consistent trainingI’ve nearly rebuilt what I’ve lost over the last three months it has dropped from 31.
My Fatigue – measured using Acute Training Load (ATL) – has nearly doubled from 22 to 41, with the accumulation of 6 workouts over the week.
My Form – measured using Training Stress Balance (TSB) – has dropped 16 points down from 8 all the way down to -8, primarily due to the fatigue accumulating.
Here is my PMC for the last fortnight.
You can see that with my training picking up this last week my Fitness (blue line) has built up, with a corresponding climb in my Fatigue (pink line) with a wee dip on Saturday where I had a rest day. Inverse from my Fatigue my Form (yellow line) has dropped due to the increase in my fatigue.
Here is last weeks post:
Coach Ray’s Sufferings: Ain’t Been Doing Much So Need To Shake My Tail Feather
And all previous Coach Ray’s Sufferings can be found here.