Daz Does Tri

Reset and reload.  Last week finished on a sour note with the 3000m at St Ives. Lesson learned and an instant chance to rebound on Monday this week. This week will start with a race and possibly a solid hit out at Parkrun so opportunity is knocking at the door if I am prepared to lay some balls on the line. Need to get back into the swing of training. Possibly a bit flagrant going so big on the taper last week for a 9.38. Monday - Easy 2.5 shakeout first thing. Pre-race standard shuffle. Right ankle a little sore - possibly tight calf. Racing this evening BUT I NEED to get back on the regular S&C all the way up to the Cambs mile which is the next A race. Feel good today, little bleugh as always on race days but legs are all fine tbf. Bit windy, just hoping no stress travelling down and someone is prepared to go hard tonight. Arrive at Lea Valley early and do 2k ish warm up very easy. Collect numbers and faff about. Half hour before race do a mile harder warm up. Drills and stri...

2 weeks since the 5k block was done and plenty of building work. In a build phase I pretty much eat and drink whatever the hell I like so this week I'll switch to taper mode. I have 3000m at the SAL match on Saturday and then 1500m at Vets league for Enfield on Monday. I need to get some more running action pictures, have hardly any lol Finished up last week exhausted. Pretty sure my back and hip chain was fucked from lifting stones in the garden rather than the running but the body is what it is. This morning I feel like the engine is running really well. If I can recover and make the adaptions I'll be strong at the weekend.  Have to be looking at sub 9.20 on Saturday which is 74.xx per lap. That pace is comfortable in training so hopefully get a good group to work on. Monday I think will most likely be solo from the gun looking at previous races but I'l say 4.22 would be nice. 69 per lap for that. So Taper mode - a week of living pretty healthy and doing the right things....

Run rest day today, after last weeks decent build I finished pretty tired. Time to let the adaptions take place and then go again this week. Really want to nail my 1500m target and get a decent 3000m in soon. Would be nice to be picky about races after that. Leg speed is clearly the limiting factor right now. I'm staying strong through shorter races. 1500 pace down to 70.9 per 400m. That's about 1 sec slower than Thursdays session so a good yardstick session. Plan from here is to kick onwards with some speed. That needs to be the main session of the week so I'll move the speed session to Tuesday (after rest day) and a stronger session to Thursday. Not actually sure where my speed is at right now. It feels like I am starting to relax a bit more at 1500 pace but there isn't a huge amount in reserve. Looking at rankings, sub 4.20 should get me top 20 for the year. That's 69 flat pretty much. Need to do 8 x 400 in 67/68 to manage that and that does feel possible but I r...

As the dust of the last couple of weeks settles it's time to start looking at moving on. First up, this week I really need to (1) recover and (2) get back into the swing of things. A transitional week to get back on top of things. Nothing too crazy just some intensity, some volume and some consistency. Monday - rest day. Half hour strength was plenty. Good sleep. Tuesday - transition session. 10 x 600m @ 5k effort. At Eddington. Was feeling lazy. Timed first one. 600m in about 1.56 and then switched off and kept the effort around that. Recovery was about a minute to 75 secs max.  Very business like. Never really that into it but didn't struggle at any stage and felt really consistent and relaxed. Decent volume at 5k affort without having to go deep. Just what I needed, knew I would still be leggy today so didn't have any desire to do anything crazy. See how tomorrow goes but Thurs will either be 2 x 4 x 400m OR 200/200/400 x 3. Those sessions are pretty good for developing ...

Can't remember where we are now. Either way, I'm a lot closer to it (12 secs) than I was when I started this block (52 secs) !! Really getting into a good training rhythm last week, plan is close replication this week. In theory it a faster course so just need to match execution and it could happen. You never know what legs are going to show up in running - guess that's what makes it so exciting! Monday - Rest. Long walk with Tomasz around Wimpole. Felt tired today, not surprising. Get calories in and eat clean, make sure I get some good stretching and Normateccing in! Refreshing PO10 all day. Looking forward to seeing this one go live! Tuesday - legs a little heavy still. Quads feel lazy. Head to track. Mile warm up easy and legs still not a million %. Loads of drill and strides and into the session. Feel heavy on rep one but strong if that make sense. In fact, through the card I just feel heavy and unresponsive but manage to hit the paces absolutely fine. 3.15, 3.13, 3.14...

So I bought myself a Timex Ironman and decided to drop the Garmin. I go 'naked' on tech fairly regularly just to get a reset but this time feels a little different. I had a moment on a tram in Gothenburg where I realised that my watch is really starting to tell me how I am feeling. I had a great block of training Mon - Weds, rested Thurs and Fri and Sat my 2 runs in G'burg were horrible. It is very, VERY hilly and I ran early (plus -1 hour time diff) but I started to feel groggy, kept checking my watch and rather than just run and enjoy the hills and trails I was thinking about pace constantly. Hand up, if I were going long then power meter, hrm, Garmin, all the tools and it's like colour by numbers. BUT for shorter stuff sometimes you just have to have a feel for pace. All my better sessions and runs are pretty much done without checking my watch anyway (just for lap splits on track).  I think binning the Garmin, at least for a bit will help me get back to my old (old)...

One of my favorite races on the calendar. Well worth the journey. So the build up and morning is in my training blog - usual stuff. Definitely took this a little more seriously and eased back a lot this week as I wanted to see how really fresh legs felt. Train from Royston to Kings X was full of gooners (fucksake). Got to Sloan Square and jogged to Battersea Park (about a mile to the band stand). Jesus I felt absolutely pinging, to the point I had to ease back as it was 1hr 20 before kick off. Few wees, got my number and sat around. Did a good warm up, lots of drills and some stretching (didn't need much, rest day yesterday so legs were feeling good). In 2nd race of the night (the slowest). Line up on row 3/4 and start. Fuck, it's like Ferry Meadows. 500m in I'm barely in the top 10 of women. Ease through. Nearly take out womens leader on first bend but quickly catch and settle behind my pre race target pacemaker - Andy Leach. He battered me on the 10k at Thorney so I know ...