Run. Warm up, then 10 mins of 10K pace, then jog back. It’s difficult to maintain a decent pace in the dark, on pavements with black ice, when the temperature is about 1 degree. But if I can run at 4 min/km pace in these conditions, I should manage it in the balmy summer sun on Dundee in May….

Then the strength functionals from yesterday. Single leg squats, hamstring raises with an ankle weight, lunges, then some ankle eversion and inversion exercises with the resistance band at the end.

Then back on the bike. The rear wheel is true again, and having cleaned it up after the race, it’s running nicely. The front mech cable has stretched significantly, so I need to tighten that up later on, but it still works. Just about. 20 mins warm up, then 12x 15 secs flat out with 1 min rest. The pleasing thing here is not the power, or the speed (although hitting 34 mph on the last sprint isn’t hanging about), it’s the HR of 140 for the warm up, and being able to bring it back to 140 after the sprints. The mad HR of 180 on the bike of a few months ago….

Warm Up
———-
400m swim
———-
Main Work
———-
8×100 4pull 4 swim on 1:45 (1:32, 1:38, 1:40, 1:39, 1:40, 1:38, 1:38, 1:38)
16x25m building pace to close to max sprint on 45 (Started at 30 secs, then got it down to 16 secs for the last 2!)
———-
Cool Down
———-
200 swim

Total length only 1800m, and some rest, but plenty of hard work too. I managed to get the last couple of 25s down to 16 seconds, which at least shows that I have some speed now to go along with my glide. I certainly felt zippier in the pool tonight. Working hard, but far more able to keep up with the times. But then, it was a recovery swim….

I see the swim on Thursday looks pretty tough….

My wheel was out of true following the race yesterday – probably as a consequence of my multitool falling out of the speed box at great speed, falling through the rear wheel and catching the spokes.

Spokes on the Perth road managed to sort it by close of play for £10, which is a winner. They also said that they could make up the power tap into any rim of my choice. Sounds like a plan. My savings account for new wheels starts today!

The Monikie Summer Duathlon series was my introduction to multi-sport racing earlier this year. The improvement in times between the three races, without much in the way of training, certainly no structured training, is what gave me the bug to keep on with the training, and take it (more) seriously. So the winter series is another chance to get more enthusiasm, and a gauge of where I have got to.

But racing on days like this isn’t the idea of Triathlon racing I have in my mind – swimming in still calm, ice blue lakes, running in 18 degree sunshine, light cooling breeze, cycling on mirror smooth roads in dead calm…. Temperature this morning was 1.5 degrees, there was ice on the car, and snow on the ground up in Monikie. No question that I was still going to do the race, of course, but it wasn’t massively enticing!

The run went well – I took it very steady. I was very wary of killing myself on the run, leaving nothing for the cycle. So, I took it steady. The second 1km was slow, but it was into the wind, and I was able to wind it up for the second half. Negative split. I suspect I could have pushed on harder, but I didn’t know the cycle route, so I really didn’t want to be left wanting come cycle time.

Cocked up transition. I put the shoes on the bike before hand, to speed up the process, but I forgot to open the straps!!! So when I got on the bike I couldn’t slip my feet into the shoes. I took the first 20 seconds pissing about getting my feet in the shoes, at a slow wobbly speed. But, once I got going, the bike went really well. First time riding the new bike in anger, so I was a bit cautious to start off with, but the bike is pretty stable, very quick, and the position on the bars is very natural. Of course it’s not so great on the hills, but the Apex WiFli is wide range, 11 to 28, so plenty of bottom end to push up the hills. It’s not great stamping on the pedals, though – not a lot of room between the saddle and the cockpit. But, I managed to average 230W, 252W normalised, and over 30kph on the whole route. Hard work, but I was pleased with it. I was overtaken by about 3 people – on pretty flash bikes – and one fat bloke, but I overtook plenty of folk too.

Results are here. 24th overall, 10th in category, 26th on the run, 23rd on the cycle.

This is a bit of a turnaround from Summer – I was always higher placed on the run, and lower on the cycle. Swings and roundabouts. Push harder on the run, I suppose!

Back to training on Tuesday!

Warm Up
———-
400m swim
8x50m alt kick/drill
———-
Main Work
———-
2×400 pull on 7:00 – 6.35 then 6.45
4×100 on 1:50 swim tempo – 1:42, 1:42, 1:38, 1:38
4×50 on 1:00 hard pace – 42, 42, 38, 36
———-
Cool Down
———-
200m easy

I was much better with the pacing this time. Didn’t try to kill myself at the beginning, and tried to keep it steady for the 100s. I felt much better after this week’s swim, over last week’s.

Thinking about it, I am hovering between a full TI stroke when I want to glide along and take it easy, and a Swim Smooth stroke when I sprint. The longer the distance goes, the more TI I swim, and the shorter and quicker, the more it’s Swim Smooth. It’s nice to have the ability to change my stroke according to the situation, which I wasn’t able to do at all earlier this year.

Races. I contacted the organiser of the Aberfeldy middle distance triathlon to see when it’s going to be – it clashes with our anniversary, so I won’t be doing it, then. We are going to do the Walk For All instead. Then I got e-mailed about a middle distance race in France – it clashes with Etape Pennines. BUT, there’s the Irish Triathlon Half Ironman in September, Galway bay, ride and run around Connemara. I’m very tempted.

And today I had e-mails from the guys who are doing the Etape Caledonia with me asking about doing a training weekend in April.

And I need to sort out a training camp for the week we had planned to go to Majorca. We have the time off, and JEdge wants to go out. I will phone the company tomorrow…..

I think I might bring the handlebars up the stem a bit, release my hip angle a wee bit. I’m cautious of my knees hitting my elbows, particularly as the stem angle is fairly raked back, but I think it brings it up enough to be out of the way. I need to consult with Graeme.

2x 15 min threshold by tom.fardon at Garmin Connect – Details.

I really need a day off tomorrow.

Build Run in the WIND by tom.fardon at Garmin Connect – Details.

It’s been a tough week, actually. Tough in the pool, long hours, plenty of miles. The training time might look artificially long by the time spent doing Pilates and functional stretches. Scratch that – the functional stuff is hard work, and not a cop out. But this week, only 45 mins of the 9 hours training was functional, and the rest was particularly hard work. And there’s more – another turbo session tonight. I’m going to need a rest day soon….

I’ve got used to being on the Kuota – it’s a nice fit for me, comfortable, easy to spin the pedals, get the cadence up, and keep moving pretty rapidly. Now I’m onto a full on TT bike, so my aero position should speed me up on the open road, but it doesn’t help much on the turbo!

I was expecting it to be different, but not as different as it actually was. The position is nice and aero, it’s compact, and it feels comfortable at the front end. But the hip angle is so much smaller it puts completely different stress on completely different muscles. Mainly it’s the upper quads that felt the stress today – very sore by the end of the threshold sessions.

The biggest problem is the nose of the saddle, though. It’s a bulky thing, with a heavily padded nose, presumably to give a nice cushion for long rides, but it’s too bulky and after about 40 minutes started really digging into the perineum. I think I’ll have to put the nose down a bit.

Sitting forward for so long is not as sore as I thought it might be. I suspect the position needs some tweaking, and I need some time to settle into it.

I’ve worried a bit about the bike being a smudge too small, but having looked at photos of professional triathletes, I think it’s actually spot on. The pros do say, if you’re between two sizes, go for the smaller one…..

This morning, on the way back from the run, Evans phoned me to tell me that the QR is ready for me to have a shot on in Glasgow. Oops. They gave me back my deposit without any hassle which was good….

Back on the bike tomorrow, and another run, I think.

Aerobic Threshold Bike by tom.fardon at Garmin Connect – Details.

Monikie park is the chosen venue, which makes sense – it’s large enough to get a decent run, even though it’s a bit of a way out of town. It will be a great venue for the runs in the Spring and Summer – it’s essentially the same route as the Monikie Duathlon/Triathlon, so it’s familiar to me, and it’s nice and flat.

This week there was one guy, didn’t get any names, and two ladies. We went round the reservoirs once, only 4K, did some circuits, then warmed down. It was very windy. VERY windy.

It didn’t stop me heading out for a second go around the reservoirs, though. Another 4.5K around the Duathlon route. It was windier, if anything.

Dundee Park Run by tom.fardon at Garmin Connect – Details.

This afternoon I have the scheduled turbo session, on the new bike!

Traffic into Edinburgh was madness – every time I drive into Edinburgh reminds me of why I left the place, and I don’t want to go back. Madness. But it does have a great Triathlon shop, and it’s next to Peckham’s deli.

When we got there it was ready, but i asked them to put my cycleops power tap wheel on, thinking they’d be better at it than me. I can change cassettes over now, but they’re the experts. They swapped everything around whilst PW and I went to Peckham’s for crazy chat and a very nice Root Beer and pain au chocolate. The cycleops wheel is fatter than a standard rim (I discovered this when I swapped it on to the Kuota instead of the Aksiums – the brakes needed shifting out a waaaay bit). This caused them a fair bit of bother – the rear brake on the Trek is beneath the bottom bracket, so it’s a faff changing anything. The did it, though. So thanks to them.

I got them to put in the integrated speed/cadence monitor, which is a far neater solution than the Garmin add on. Weirdly there was no magnet to put on a spoke, but they’re sending me one.

It fits nicely in the back of the car – which the Kuota doesn’t do easily. I would never have chosen the medium without the advice from Stu.

Got it home, onto the turbo and…. no training tonight. Just some functional exercises, basic and advanced gluteus, some calf raises and some stretches. First shot on the bike tomorrow.

Set up and ready to go