W/b 12 February 2024
I decided to spend my rest day catching up with some writing and sorting out the training plan for the week. This week’s training is as follows:
| Day | 10IW | Humango | Intention | Actual |
| Monday | Rest, 1 hour bike optional | Rest | Rest with bike to work (approx. 34 mins total) | Rest plus commute to work (31:55) |
| Tuesday | Swim:2,200m optional run 45 -50 mins | Bike: 51 mins | Bike: 51 mins and commute to work Run with LFTC 45 to 50mins | Bike: 52:02 and commute to work and back (33:58) LFTC: 35:30 |
| Wednesday | Bike: 50 mins | Swim: 2,750m Strength: 31 mins swapped from Tuesday | Swim with group (2,500m or more) plus commute to work and back and 31min strength | Swim: missed plus commute to work and back (30:27) Yoga: 46:22 |
| Thursday | Run 40-45 mins, strength | Run: 1:30 | Run: 1:30 | Run: 1:00:03 |
| Friday | Swim 2,300m | Swim: 20 mins, bike: 39 mins | Swim: 2,300m Vinyasa flow | Swim: 2,450m |
| Saturday | Bike 1 to 1:15, optional strength and conditioning | Bike: 4:30 ROTB: 45 mins | Bike: 4:30 | Bike: 2:08:39 |
| Sunday | Run: 50 mins to 1hour, optional swim 2,000m, optional reset (stretch) | Run: 1:58 Swim:40 min | Run: 1:58 Maybe yin yoga | Run: 2:24:14 – half marathon social run with 10Iw |
Half marathon goals
I am using Humango and 10IW together to plan my week. London Landmarks half-marathon is on 7 April and I’m hoping for a PB (personal best) again – having got a PB in my last half marathon in October. I am going to qualify this by stressing, I am a slow runner and so my October PB was at the 2-hour 24-minute mark. That may be slow for some, but I was very happy with that time, over 7 minutes faster than my previous PB. I am hoping to get my time down by a few minutes at London Landmarks in April.
Feeling tired
That aside, this week’s training did not go as planned. By Tuesday evening I felt so tired I wasn’t sure I would have the energy to make it to the track and run for nearly an hour. I went anyway but stopped after a little over 35 minutes as I felt shattered. It is rare for me to stop a run without finishing so knew something wasn’t right. I have been training for triathlons long enough that I mostly know when to listen to my body and back off. Tuesday evening was one of those days.
This extended into Wednesday as I overslept, waking at 6:08am. Had I felt more dynamic, I could have rushed and made it to the swim session a few minutes late. Instead, I decided to take my time and attend a morning flow yoga session on the way to work. I don’t like to miss my Wednesday swim sessions, but it felt like the right thing to do. The yoga was gentle enough to be a little restorative and to wake me up a little.
I take note of my resting heartrate and it was up a few beats a minute from its norm so I am pretty sure I did the right thing.
Thursday’s run was good. I wish I had got up half an hour earlier. I got to about 50 minutes in to the run and really wanted to be able to finish the whole session. However, had left it to late and had to get to work. My goal for the next Thursday run to work is to leave home in time to finish the session.
I went to a Vinyasa flow class on Friday, different teacher to usual. The session was very dynamic. I believe this was an effective strength session, as evidenced by some aches the next day!
On Saturday morning while part way through my Zwift session, I decided to change the priority of next week’s 10k race from C to B. I want to try for a PB, or at least best since my mid-thirties. This meant the AI changed my training from Saturday until the Tuesday after the race. The result was that it removed my Saturday training session. Suddenly my AI prescribed bike session went from 5:20 to zero. I was over an hour in at this point. I didn’t want to reduce my session to the 60 to 75 minutes prescribed by 10IW so completed 50k.
This freed up my Saturday a bit. I managed some chores (food shopping(, pretty important as I am trying to ensure I fuel properly.
Social run with 10IW
I went on a social run with 10IW group on Sunday. It was a 21k run from Dalston around North London to finish at a coffee shop near Clissold Park. Most of the women were in the 5:40 to 6:00 min per km. If only I could run that speed for 21k while chatting and running mostly in zone 2.
Fortunately, four of us ran at the slower pace of 6:30 to 6:50 min per km. I have always been quite reluctant to join group runs as I run on the slower end of the scale. Towards the end of last year, I decided to stop myself from avoiding group runs and joined 10IW on a social run. The main group was faster but there were 3 of us in the more chilled pace group. I enjoyed that session so decided to give it a go more often. Very glad I did. My running seems to have improved and it always feels easier when talking to others.
The run was quite tough as there were a number of hills in Highgate and Alexander Palace. However, some of it involved trail running in Highgate woods and other places which I really enjoyed. Have fancied doing some trail running for a while and would like to do some more in the future.
At least one takeaway from the route was, I really need to do more hill training. I was very slow on the hills, either jogging or walking.
Finished with coffee and pastry and then headed home with sore legs but a great morning of running and company.
Work/life balance – gone wrong!
My son and I spent a lot of the afternoon cleaning the flat. Has to be done and with a full-time job and a lot of training I find cleaning slips down the list of priorities.
There is a lot to think about when training for endurance races, especially for an Ironman. I tend to prioritise the training and my food (after work). With all this, a number of things have slipped my mind recently as we realised on Sunday afternoon that we had missed seeing Ralph Fiennes’ Macbeth in Canary Wharf the previous night.
A big shame as my son’s best friend from Uni was in the cast and we were looking forward to seeing him in his first role after drama school. I have never forgot a planned evening so will need to rethink and be more particular about documenting these things. I did the same about book club which is supposed to be on Friday – I booked tickets to a women in triathlon event and then realised.
A mixed training week on the whole.
