This weeks Stats:
- Swim: 13,500m
- Bike: 150km
- Run: 60km
- Training Time: 15 hours
The first of my three travel interrupted weeks almost went to script. For the first time I managed to stick to my training plan while on the road. Not taking my bike away with me meant that I spent a lot more time running, clocking up a record 60km this week.
This week had run sessions of every extreme. For the first run of the week on Tuesday night, Coach Spot pulled a swifty and surprised us with a sprint set which included 60x100m. After an easy warm up and some extra run throughs to get the legs ready for what was to some, we were taken through how the set would work. We were to split the 60 sprints up into blocks of 10. The rest would get a little longer each set, meaning we were expected to go faster. The first couple of sets, I was clocking times of around 22-24 seconds, which is about 4min pace, so nothing too tough, but the rest was relatively short. In the second and third sets the times started to come down in to the sub 20s. By the fifth set the times were down to 12-18 seconds, which is at, or just under 3min pace, which is getting very quick for me. Bad light meant we cut short the final set but I did manage a 16 second effort to finish off the set.
Thursday’s run set was just as tough. As I had an afternoon flight I had to replace my usual short run off this bike with the Thursday afternoon run set. The set was a 3km warm up, followed by 400m hill repeats with a 2km tempo run and 1km cool down to finish. Sounds simple enough and doing it fresh I’m sure it would be. Doing it after 3km and 5km intervals that included hill finishes and it wasn’t as easy.
Friday’s run efforts were more like commute efforts. Without a car, Spot gave me a mini Run-Swim-Run brick which consisted of a 3.5km run to the local pool, 10x400m intervals with a 3.5km run home. After a long day the previous day, it felt like the session that would never end, especially trying to navigate your way around foreign streets in the dark while it’s raining.
Missing Saturday’s bike set meant I was challenged with my second long run in two weeks. Running has been a struggle for me for at least 18 months until January and the only time I ran past 12-14kms was on race day. The set was pretty straight forward. It was 40 min easy, 30 min faster, 30 min faster again with 20 min easy to 
finish. Lucky it was easy to start, as the early start meant for the first 4kms I was running using my phone as a torch while looking at the GPS to make sure I was heading in the right direction. I felt pretty good through the first hour and a quarter. The second half of the faster 30 mins was a bit of a test but I managed to get through unscathed.
Sunday’s easy run was just enough for me to click over 60km for the week. Not a big achievement for many, but given the past 18 months I have had regular run injuries and niggles in general, it feel like a nice milestone. The week ahead will be a little more challenging with travel taking me offshore. Increased travel time means I won’t have a lot of spare time available for training, but Spot has made sure I will still get some challenging sessions in. Lucky I love a challenge!
davidjflanagan 