Triathlon Training for Week 29/04/13

After Two good weeks of endurance training I feel like I have built some strength and confidence. My body is tired though so I will be reducing the mileage. I also have a Duathlon race this Wednesday in the Phoenix Park so I want to be rested for that. I'm hoping the Duathlon is enjoyable and will help to sharpen up my race fitness before the coming Triathlon season. I'm doing a Tri in Valentia in 2 weeks, so after Wednesday I'll be doing some shorter faster work to help with my speed. That's the plan anyway.













Monday:
Swim: Sets with Activ Multisport, 2500m.
Stretching and foam rolling: 20 minutes.

Tuesday: 

Stretching and foam rolling: 1 hour.

Wednesday: 
Phoenix Park Duathlon

Stretching: 30 minutes.

Thursday: 

Swim: WU 4 x 50 focusing on high elbow and keeping head still. MS. 25 x 50m off 1.10. WD 200m easy focusing on Rotation and breathing.

Stretching. 40 minutes.

Friday:

Swim: 3 x 500m with snorkel, 3 mins rest. 1st 500 focus on kicking rythm. 2nd 500 on roataion and recovery. 3rd 500 on core engagement.

Bike: WU, 10k easy building to steady. MS, 4 hard efforts of: 1k uphill, 1k recovery, 4k mixed gradients, 1k recovery.

Stretching: 20 minutes.

Sat:
Bike: 2 hours steady.
Strength work: 20 minutes.
Stretching and foam rolling: 40 minutes.

Sun: 
Run: WU, 3k easy. MS, 4 x hill repeats, 1k cool off, 4 x hill repeats. WD 2k easy.

Stretching: 40 minutes

Triathlon Training for this Week (15 April)

Strength and basic aerobic endurance are on my training schedule for the next two weeks. Most of my sessions are straight swims or cycles, no fancy trickery or drills. The pace is steady so as to keep my injury risk down. My goal is to go back to basics and build core strength and stamina through longer sessions. Week 2 will have longer sessions than week 1. I will bring back my speed work and drills once these two weeks are finished.















Monday:
Bike: 15 minute warm up. Hill Repeats, 8 x 800m climbs, fast up, recovery down. WD 10 mins easy gear.
Stretching and foam rolling: 25 minutes.
Swim: Sets with Activ Multisport, 2500m.

Tuesday: 

Swim: 2 sets of breathing every 3,5,7,9 strokes, 50m each. 2000m steady.
Run: 10k recovery pace.
Stretching and foam rolling: 25 minutes.

Wednesday: 
Brick, Cycle 70k steady. Run 2k.
Strength work 25 minutes.

Stretching: 25 minutes.

Thursday: 

Swim: 2000m steady,

Run 10k with hills steady pace.
Stretching. 40 minutes.

Friday:

Swimming: 1500m steady.

Strength work 25 minutes.

Stretching 15 minutes.

Sat:
Strength work 40 minutes.
Stretching and foam rolling 40 minutes.

Sun: 
Cycle 90k steady pace.

Stretching: 45 minutes

Triathlon Training (Week of 08/04/13)

It's been a busy week and I'm late posting my training plan. I had my first race of the season last weekend in Portlaoise. It went well and was good to blow the rust off my legs. I'm back to training with a bang now in preparation for Valentia on the 11th May. After this weeks training I'm hoping to do 2 weeks strength and distance work followed by 2 weeks focused on more speed and technique. Here is what i'm doing this week.














Monday:
Run: 3.5k recovery pace.
Stretching and foam rolling: 25 minutes.
Swim: Sets with Activ Multisport, 2000m +

Tuesday: 

Swim: 2 sets of breathing every 3,5,7,9 strokes, 50m each. 6 x 25msprint, 25m recovery, 25 second rest. 500m of easy drills, rotation and fingertip drag.

Bike: 15 minute warm up. 6 sets of, 1 min pedal with right leg, 1 min with both, 1 min with left leg, 1 min with both.

Wednesday: 
Run; 8k easy.
Swim: 3 sets of breathing every 3,5,7,9 strokes, 50m each. 5 x 50 msprint, 50m recovery, 50 second rest.

Stretching: 15 minutes.

Thursday: 

Swim: 1000m at medium pace, Include 5 x 25m sprints

Stretching. 20 minutes.
Cycle: 40k TT

Friday:

Swimming: WU, 500m with snorkel concentrating on good body rotation. MS 500m frontcrawl, fast. 3 x 100m sprints with 3 minutes rest. WD 200m with snorkel.

Run: 5k moderate pace, include 3 x 30 second pick ups.
Stretching and foam rolling, 40 minutes.

Sat: 

Brick: Cycle 70k, with as many hills as I can find. Run, 5 k moderate to fast.

Stretching: 45 minutes

Sun: 

Rest Day: Stretching 30 minutes.

Tri Laois (First race of the Season)

Last Saturday was a cold morning, it dropped as low as -5 on the drive to Portlaoise. I was setting up in transition and I notice jackets hanging on a lot of bikes because of the cold. I don't have one so I decided to leave the top half of my tri suit on the bike so at least it would be dry (warmer) after the swim.

Swim- The swim was in the Portlaoise leisure center. The pool and facilities were very good. I was in wave 7 so it meant I had time to catch up with club mates and get some hydration in. When my wave came, there were 7 swimmers in my lane, we put ourselves in speed order, fastest first, I started third. The swim pace was faster than I normally swim but I drafted well on the feet of the swimmer in front of me so I kept up without over straining.

Cycle- When I finished the swim and ran outside the sun was out so it wasn't too cold. My idea to leave my dry tri suit top on the bike didn't pay off as it stuck to me because I was wet. I ran from transition with what looked like a boob tube on, luckily a helpful official was nice enough to pull my top down before I set off. I felt good and pushed as hard as I could on the bike. I managed to keep up a decent average in spite of some rolling terrain and a rough road surface in parts. The cycle was a little long, my bike computer read 22.08 km from bike rack to bike rack. Only one person overtook me on the bike so I was happy with that.

Run- The run was lovely as the sun had come out to play, It was all on footpaths, with some road crossovers which slowed us up a little bit. My legs weren't as good off the bike as I would have liked but I managed to finish strong enough so I was happy overall.

All in all the race was good fun and challenging. There's nothing like a proper race to blow the rust off the legs and get the blood pumping. It has also given me some areas to work on for my next triathlon on Saturday 11th May in Valentia.

Runways Phoenix Park Duathlon Series

I'm going to do my first Duathlon in the Phoenix Park on May 01st. I was invited to take part a couple of weeks ago and I jumped at the chance as I'd been thinking about doing a Duathlon to aid my Tri training. The Phoenix  Park is where I do most of my training so it will be nice to do a race there. The distances aren't too daunting either with a 2.7k run, 13km cycle and 2.7k run. This is an ideal distance for testing my speed and as the race is part of a 3 race series I can see if I'm making any progress over the Summer. I'll let you all know how the race goes in a few weeks. It's still open for entry though  if anyone wants to join me.  http://www.dublintri.com/duathlon/tag/dublin-city-duathlon/

Triathlon Training (April 01st)

My first race of 2013 is this Saturday, Tri Laois. Thank God it's a pool swim. I'm hoping, really hoping that this cold weather goes away before then. A 20k cycle in a wet tri suit at 1 or 2 degrees is not good. The last few weeks of training were hard enough, I can feel my body getting tired. I can even feel a drop in power and energy so I reckon it's time to rest up a little. Today was the perfect start to my rest as I forgot my Monday swim session was on early because of the bank holiday, I missed it. Rest over! Not really, I will have less sessions this week and generally try to keep them good quality and short. Here is my week.











Monday:
Stretching and foam rolling: 50 minutes.

Tuesday: 

Run: 5k easy. Include 1k at race pace.

Stretching: 30 minutes.
Physical Therapist 45 minutes

Swim: 500m race pace. 20 minutes of drills, working on rotation, kicking and recovery.

Wednesday: 
Brick: Bike, WU 3k easy, MS 9k fast, Run 1k easy, 1k fast, 1k easy.

Stretching and foam rolling. 45 minutes.

Thursday: 

Swim: 500m at medium pace, Include 5 x 25m sprints

Stretching. 20 minutes.
Cycle 7k fast

Friday:

Swimming: 500m with snorkel.

Run: 3k moderate pace, include 3 x 30 second pick ups.
Stretching and foam rolling, 30 minutes.

Sat: 

Sprint Triathlon

Stretching: 45 minutes

Sun: 

Recovery run or swim. I'll see how I'm feeling!