Daz Does Tri

Solid week banked. Pretty consistent with recent training and lots of lovely data to work with. Scores on the doors - 44 miles, 6 days, 2 sessions, 1 race Race is blogged. Power data for sessions and a starting position.  Weight is too high, need to drop and eating shite every day isn't helping. Need to slowly make improvements and see that drop to 10 st 7 lbs from about 10 st 12 right now. Long session is too low power BUT is helping. Next week is more speed focus buit the longer session going forward is back to a more traditional km reps just under 5k pace with a good recovery. Build the pace down to target and then increase time. Short session is close enough now. Lift to 12 x 75/45 and bring that pace up to 5/mm and beyond. Steady run this week at 6:26/mm was quite tired and straight after dinner so quite tough but in the right ball park. 7-8 miles @ low 6s all day long I need to be hitting. That will make 5k much more comfortable. 1 race per week now just to get the confidence...

Pre Park Run thoughts - Had a nice block of training and certainly getting fit now. My confidence isn't sky high - I think 17.30 is an obvious target as it's an obvious start point. Not too shit that you can't build to 16.xx but any slower and you start to seriously worry! Feeling that 330w may not be enough. Looking at early runs last year 335-340w was good for 17.15 to 17.30 so it's likely to need to be around there while weight is higher. I am guessing I'll start and just aim to be in the 330s tomorrow and hope a 5.3x flashes up on the first mile lol Can I hold 330w+ now that I am not sure. Not in a position of having leading sessions and runs so far. Last year started with an 18.31 and then a 17.14 a week later so finger crossed I go straight in at week 2 lol. This is going to be the first taster of where fitness is so it'll indicate everything over the next few weeks. If I am lacking it feels that it's going to be in both directions - not enough speed a...

Tuesday Today's session was a repeat of last Tuesday. 8 x 3 off 60 jog at threshold pace (more like 10k pace so little quicker). Outcome - same sort of paces for the effort - 6/mm flat. Faster on the jog between. Felt better - took about 6 reps before lack of conditioning kicked in. HR was overall lower BUT much higher in the easy section. Take away is that this is progress of sorts - but not enough to persevere. It was naturally landing at around 325w again for 6 flat pace. Obviously the short recovery keeps the pressure up and makes the session better than it looks on paper. HR never went to anerobic at any stage which is good BUT I need to be cruising at 5.45 ish pace by now. I'm definitely fitter than last week but this session will be too slow going to achieve what it needs to. I will 100% return as I think there's a big place for higher volume threshold but for now I need paces to drop dramatically.  Next week I think I'll take volume down and recovery up - possib...

Another week banked and finally feels like I am getting proper progress. 40 miles for the week. Started feeling pretty tired from previous weeks big miles but started to move by the end of the week and today's run paces finally down towards where they need to be. The key now is going to be getting a benchmark in next weekend. Hopefully I'll get a decent hit out at Storys Field. That will let me know where the weaknesses are. Key to progress is going to be not stalling and plateauing. Identify what's lacking and prod that. The volume session last week I will repeat as that's shown a lack of conditioning. I need that threshold to be bullet proof and keep pace / HR relationship in line. Will be interesting to see what the Alphafly bring to the party there as I was seriously unimpressed with the Streakfly. The leg turnover session will start at 18.5 kmph and progress as I should start to be working last few reps at the correct paces. This is a huge bang for buck session for...

The missing element right now, the mythical turnover (or leg speed in old money) I'm moving pretty well (aches and pains aside) it's just about 45 secs a mile slower than it should be when I am cruising. I'm stronger for the base work but it's not helping my top end. Today, I really nearly didn't get started. I had a funeral to attend early afternoon and I felt a bit shitty and achey. I guess they have that effect on you. Fucked the session off and decided to card a zero and do it on Sunday. But I had that little nagging arsehole in my head telling me I really can't afford to waste it so just decided to not think and just do it (as Mr Nike says). So a short and sharp session. Luckily, first speed work session is always acclimatisation so back to the drawing board of the 2020 Daz Man reboot and into 10 x 60 secs off 30 standing recovery. Starting the speed at 18 kmph and incrementally jumping 0.1 to get to 20 by the finish. I know the math doesn't add up but ...

Wow, what a difference a few days makes. Really tough session yesterday and really tired today. Particularly glutes. Rested up Monday as was busy and seemed to be the right decision. Session yesterday was 8 x 3 mins off 60 jog. Paces came in around 6/mm pace which seems disappointing but off short jogged recovery isn't that terrible. It's likely to be 5 mile race pace which again I know from there I can build quite quickly down especially getting 3 - 4 weeks of these in the bag.  The session was only threshold so the first 3-4 reps felt really easy but it quickly added up as the conditioning isn't there and the last 2 were tough going. Today's run was supposed to be 8 easy but really wasn't feeling it and left glute / hip was tight as fuck. So cut short to 5 recovery and did a load of rolling - I'll do some s&c on that but I really need to focus on ironing this out if I am to progress. The limiting factor at the minute is leg turnover. I need to bring back t...

First week of ramping things up done! Pretty solid week of training and started to feel like things are clicking in to place by Friday. Paces are really slow across the board but adding in a big chunk of miles that was always going to happen. Feel pretty confident that now I'm up to around 60 miles that I will start to feel stronger and adapt pretty quickly. If I am going to have one last crack then this is where it's at. Been feeling really tired all week BUT i seriously need to work on sleep and nutrition. Pace wise my threshold intervals @ 6.0x pace really need to improve way down to the 5.3x range. I also need to add in a session where I start pushing to target 5k pace. I have an idea for that session on Thursday this week. I'll slowly build these sessions but the good thing now is I don't need to push any more volume or distance. I just need to focus on that pace. Next week I have a planned rest day on Saturday as we have friends visiting so I need to factor that i...

Finally had one of those runs where it felt like it clicked into place today. First time I've felt relaxed like that for an age. No issues, no concerns just felt really relaxed and cruised without feeling overly tired or stretched.  Plan was an easy shakeout with Mr Morley which ended up a bit 'steadier' but pace wasn't a problem today so happy with that. First time it's started to feel like it's coming together which is always a bit of a relief once you restart training. Long way to go yet BUT I have to start thinking practically about what I am doing this year and not get caught in that trap of doing the same routine and getting stuck at x paces. The plan is to continually improve and consistently get quicker as I move towards summer. Up to 38 miles for the week so far which is where my last 2 full weeks have been so looking closer to 60 than 50 by Sunday which is a positive. At the moment, I think leg turnover is going to be a huge limiting factor. That was a...

After a solid 4 week base build of 25, 35, 40, 40 miles it's time to ramp things up a bit.   The legs are responding well to running again, it's a slow process to get some speed in them but it's improving all the time. This week the plan is ramp up the miles and slowly add some intensity. If I'm honest I am not entirely sure where this block is going to go. If the adaptions are good I may try working at higher mileage and seeing how it is. I'm pretty committed to doing what's needed BUT I have to admit running 30 miles a week and smashing out sessions and races and feeling good all the time is very appealing !! Kicked off the sessions with 4 x 5 mins @ threshold on the treddy. Pace was 15.2 kmph but coming up on power and Garmin as low 6s. Was aiming to go 5 - 6 reps but the hip is a little achey so backed it off and left it there. Today I wasn't 100% on a session so decided to just get out for 6 miles and see what happened. Fairly quickly the HR rose to thr...