Week 5+6+7+8+9 (27 Jan - 2 Mar)

It has been a while since I updated the blog so I will try to catch up and cover the last 5 weeks in one post :) So I will warn you from the start - this will be a long post.

Week 5 (27 Jan - 2 Feb)

Swim: 0:00 (0 m)

Bike: 3:32 (1:36 as part of a brick session)

Run: 2:35 (1:38 as part of a brick session)

Strength & Core: 0:30 (and two days of skiing! :))

Total: 6:57

TSS (bike/run):465

Monday

Started out with a health check (mandatory once a year in Japan) which meant 12 hours of faste. It was actually not bad and the lunch I got when I got home after 15 hours of nothing but water tasted great. Besides lunch, I had two bananas and waited a couple of hours before heading out on what was suppose to be a standard interval session. But man, was I surprised. My body felt heavy and during the cool down it felt like I had run 30km. I hurried home and had some more food. Did 30 min strength and core in the evening.

The health check was a funny experience and as in any other case in Japan it was thoroughly done. They took blood and urin samples, x-rays, electrocardiogram (ECG) etc. Overall I "passed" and in general my values are within the normal range. There were a few outliers:

My heart rate from the ECG was 41 which is below the normal range (45-100) which is most likely related to my level of physical activity, so no worries here.

My level of CPK (Creatine Phospho Kinase) enzymes is 377 IU/l which is above the normal range (57-267). This is used as an indicator for heart attacks and strokes. However, since the number reflects muscle damage it will also be elevated during periods with high training load. So no worries here either.

Besides the above, my level of LDL-Cholesterol (the "bad" cholesterol) is 89.2 mg/dl which is below the normal rance of 100-130 mg/dl, my level of triglycerides is 34 mg/dl which is below the normal range (50-150) and my level of globulin is 2.3 g/dl which is below the normal range (2.5-3). I have not looked further into the details of these, but left it up to doctor Seez to conclude on the figures and according to him I have excellent health status :)

You get a very detailed report from the health check

For what it is worth my hematocrit value was 43.5 which could indicate two things:
1) Clean athlete - no EPO here!
2) I have huge potential to gain from using EPO without going above the 50 which I believe used to be the indicator when testing in the tour

See mom - my liver is "normal" and was not harmed during high school :)

Tuesday

On Tuesday I did 1:15 on the turbo and unfortunately had to skip the club swim in the evening due to work.

Wednesday + Thursday

Both days I did a morning brick. Wednesday focusing on the bike and Thursday focusing on the run. I felt good despite several days of biking and running.

Friday

Friday I was leaving for Zürich and managed to get in a 1 hour turbo session on the balcony at 6AM.

Balcony workouts can be boring, but if it includes some intervals it is usually ok. Otherwise you can always enjoy the sunrise next to Tokyo Tower:

Knowing that I needed to sit on a SAS flight where you are served crappy food for 11 hours and had to travel directly from Copenhagen to Zürich I tried to bring as much healthy stuff as possible.

Ready to go

When I checked in at the  airport I tried to see if I could get a fruit meal on the flight instead of the normal meal, but apparently you have to notify them several days up front. Instead I went to the lounge and went all-in on their fruit bar.

The most healthy meal you can get in the lounge at Narita :)

In Copenhagen airport I met with my colleague Steffen who had kindly offered me to stay with him and his family in Zürich during the weekend so we could go skiing Saturday and Sunday.
I also managed to get by the lounge in Kastrup to get some "dinner".

No more healthy - these I see too rarely to pass!

Saturday 

We were  up early and I was able to get another kind of food I haven't had for a while.

Yummy!

We dropped Steffen's boys off a the ski school and met with a third colleague and spent rest of the day skiing in the sun - wonderful!

Sunday

On Sunday it was snowing and some places it was really cloudy. Hence we took a few more stops and enjoyed some of the lovely "Wiener schnitzel und pommes".

Less yummy if you ask me, but Steffen seemed to enjoy

I had a strength and conditioning workout planned in the evening, but I was too beat up. I think my legs had enough strength training from the heavy snow.

Week 6 (3 Feb - 9 Feb)

Swim: 0:00 (0 m)

Bike: 1:28

Run: 3:35

Strength & Core: 0:00

Total: 5:33

TSS (bike/run): 406

This week I didn't do much training. I had a planned run on Monday but my legs were still a bit heavy, so I decided to postpone to Tuesday where I got up very early and managed to get in a 1 hour interval session on the treadmill at the hotel. I have always hated treadmills, but for an interval session it was actually quite good.

Rest of the time in Zürich was work and the next workout was on a treadmill at Scandic Hotel in Copenhagen on Thursday.

Saturday morning I was picked up by Jeppe and went for a swim. We did however use most of the time relaxing and catching up. After the swim I visited Klaus and Malene and I even got to meet the little wonder Malou.

She already has more hair than I do!

Klaus had made a great and very very overwhelming brunch and fortunately Mikkel and I had a 1:30 hour long run planned later that day, so we went all in. During the run I was reminded how much I should appreciate all the time I can actually workout while the sun is up and the sky is blue. Denmark was dark and cold!

On Sunday Mikkel and I met up with Klaus to try out Simbikes in Grøndalcenteret. We decided to do Mont Ventoux, so instead of the planned workout of 3 hours easy I got in a 1:20 almost all-out. The fact that I am a few kg lighter than the two other guys got me up faster and I could enjoy watching Mikkel going all-out at the end and squeeze out everything he had :)

There is a reason why Pantini was not build like this :)

Full speed :)

And he is almost there...

After almost 1:30 in pain I headed towards the airport. Unfortunately my flight was canceled due to snow and I had to travel across Paris (apparently ANA could fly to Tokyo, but not SAS) so I got home 7 hours later than planned, but good to be back.

Week 7 (10 Feb - 16 Feb)

Swim: 0 (0m)

Bike: 7:57 (0:47 as part of a brick session)

Run: 1:42 (0:28 as part of a brick session)

Strength & Core: 0:00

Total: 9:39

TSS (bike/run): 648

Monday

I came home around 6PM and was simply to tired to do anything.

Tuesday

National holiday in Japan and I had a 3 hour endurance bike ride planned. Since snow was still lying around I decided to do it indoor on the trainer while watching Breaking Bad. I got of the trainer after 2 hours and had a 5 min break and the 3 hours was not that bad at all.

Wednesday

When I woke up Wednesday my legs were still heavy from the workouts on Sunday and Tuesday and as I felt a bit jet-lagged I decided to skip the planned interval run session.

Thursday

Did the run session I skipped Wednesday which was 4x 6min efforts with 2min jog followed by 4x 1min hard efforts with 2min recovery. A good session and I did not notice any calf issues which I sometimes do after hard efforts.

Friday

Friday i did 1:10 intervals on the turbo. I tried to follow HR zones instead of power which resulted in slightly higher power output.

Saturday

Saturday I did a brick session of 47min on the turbo (incl. 3x 10min tempo intervals) followed by 30min tempo run. Due to snow the run was a bit troublesome as you do not remove snow the same way we are used to in Denmark. Some leave it and some remove it with e.g. hot water.

Sunday

Sunday I had another3 hour endurance ride and decided to do it on the turbo again. Weather still not too good and I had plenty of Breaking Bad to watch :) Tried to follow HR instead of power which made the workout a bit harder. Again, I took 5 minutes break after 2 hours and got back on for the last hour.

Week 8 (17 Feb - 23 Feb)

Swim: 2:00 (4.400m)

Bike: 5:30 (1:15 as part of a brick session)

Run: 3:55 (0:48 as part of a brick session)

Strength & Core: 0:00

Total: 11:26

TSS (bike/run): 713

Monday

Did a 1 hour interval session and still felt a bit tired. My right knee cap was a slightly sore and I wonder whether it could be from the treadmill sessions in Europe where I might not

Tuesday

Tuesday morning I did 1 hour of intervals on the turbo. I had to go by feel instead of numbers which was a funny experience. It is obvious that I have become way to used to just looking at HR, pace or watt and it was nice to go by feel instead. But also a bit difficult :)

In the evening I joined the triathlon club for a swim and got in 2.000m.

Wednesday

Wednesday morning I did 1 hour of intervals (10x 800m with 30 sec recoveries). Went well and managed to keep pace around 4:07min/km during the efforts.

Thursday

Together with a colleague I have been investigating how much it takes to get in to the state where your body mainly burns fat (by measuring the level of ketose). You can do this by fasting (which I can understand is quite popular in Denmark for the time being) or by mainly eating fat. As I do a lot of exercise I chose to go with the mainly eating fat approach as I am not sure how my body would react working out after faste (or actually, I know from the health check and that did not went well). I found a Danish website called 'Madbanditten.dk' where there is a lot of useful information about LCHF (Low Carb High Fat) diets.

To track when my body goes into ketose I have been measuring my level of ketose with a blood sample a few times a day the last couple of days. The level you want to be at is according to the information I have been able to find 1.5-3.0 mmol/L and I succeeded a few times.

My new standard breakfast - lots of healthy fat!

LCHF lunch at work :)

The strips are pretty expensive, app. 13 DKK per measurement, so I plan to continue to focus on eating as much LCHF as possible and then do a few days of tracking later on

The idea around all this is, besides shedding some fat, is to enable my body to use fat as an energy source more efficiently during exercise, i.e. avoid hitting the wall during longer distances. In general I think my body does that pretty well and I also managed to get into ketose a lot faster than my colleague who has been taking the fasting approach.

Friday

Friday morning I had a long tempo brick session planned. After 15 minutes warm-up on the bike I had to do a 1 hour tempo ride followed by a 45 minutes tempo run. I was a bit concerned about how my body would tackle this as I had only gotten 68g of carbohydrate the day before and the last couple of days 60-70% of my energy intake had been from fat. I usually do my morning workouts without eating anything upfront which works well and it reduces the risk of stomach issues. I chose to do the same thing in this case and it actually went pretty good. I did feel a bit tired on the last 15 minutes of the run, but nothing too bad. I was positively surprised about how well my body accepted to do tempo-efforts mainly on fat. Especially since the workout was pretty hard. During the tempo run I managed to do 10km on 42min which I was happy about since it was on a hilly course (around Akasaka Palace).

Saturday

Saturday I had another 3 hour endurance ride and this time I decided to go outside and went to Arakawa river. I had breakfast before I left, but brought no nutrition. Was a bit tired the last hour. On my way home I went by farmers markets to stock up on sun dried dates. Good natural fuel and excellent for homemade energy bars.

Arakawa river - my go-to place for Saturday rides (if the weather allows)

Farmers market in Aoyama

I was the only one bringing a TT-bike :)

Sunday

On Sunday I headed out early to do a 1 hour run incl. tempo min tempo before I joined the triathlon club for a swim at 10AM in Odaiba. 

In the afternoon I finally managed to get my bike washed which was needed after almost 2 months without it. 

It needed that!

 

Week 9 (24 Feb - 2 Mar)

Swim:  (5.000m)

Bike: 5:49 (0:56 as part of a brick session)

Run:  3:09 (0:30 as part of a brick session)

Strength & Core: 0:00

Total: 10:58

TSS (bike/run): 731

Monday

Did a 1 hour interval session on the turbo and still felt a bit tired from the last three days workouts. My right knee cap was slightly sore - and it had actually been that way during bike workouts for a few weeks, and I wonder whether it could be from the treadmill sessions in Europe where I might have been heel striking a bit more than usual.

Tuesday

Tuesday morning I did a one hour interval run session with short recoveries:

15min warm-up (incl. strides)

2x 3min efforts with 30sec recovery

4x 90sec efforts with 15sec recovery

2x 3min efforts with 30sec recovery

4x 90sec efforts with 15sec recovery

2x 3min effforts with 30sec recovery

15 min cool down

I don't like the short recoveries, but the workout went well. The intention was that pace should be kept consistent throughout the efforts and I managed to keep it around 3:50-4:00min/km. No knee cap issues.

Work kept me late, so I had to skip the planned swim in the evening.

Wednesday

Wednesday morning I got in another turbo interval session. I can definitely feel I am getting stronger on the bike and I am looking forward to the next test!

Thursday

Club swim was cancelled and I decided to do the session I skipped on Tuesday instead. I took the afternoon of and it was great to go to the pool when it was not too crowded. At some point I was the only one in the lane - something you would never experience in the evening where you usually share a lane with 5-10 others.

Friday

Friday night I had a party with colleagues so I needed to get my workout done in the morning. I took AM off and did a brick session which had my jump on and off the bike several times. Basically it was:

15min warm-up on turbo and then into

3x [7min - 10min - 5min] as:

7min tempo bike 

10min run as 5min at 5k pace into 5min at half marathon pace

5min spin on turbo

Ending up with 5min cool down on turbo.

The workout went well although it is kind a logistic nightmare. Fortunately the guy in the reception was not around so I did not had to explain why I kept running in and out :)

In the evening we went to a place where we met 'Namahage'. Namahage is a kind of Japanese boogie man that apparently go after the naughty and lazy kids. And in this place, you had to drink sake with Namahage if you were point out by your friends to be that kind of person. I didn't understand all the details, but I was happy to drink with Namahage :)

The food is prepared with great precision and tasted great

No party without Karaoke!

Saturday

Saturday Maria had planned to skiing with a few other Danish ladies. One of them is the wife of Jacob - a colleague of mine (the ketose-experimenting-colleague) - so Jacob and I decided to go to Costco and stock up on healthy food. I was a bit tired after spending Friday night out, but still woke up pretty early. I got up around 8 and Jacob picked me up around 10. Costco is a great place where you can get all sorts of stuff - in big bulks! I guess it is similar to METRO in Denmark.

Back on the carb-wagon!

When I got home I ate a lot of fruit and got on the turbo and did a 3 hour endurance ride while finishing 'Breaking Bad'. A must see for those of you who have not already seen it! I was quite happy with getting in a 3 hours ride the day after the party.

Sunday

My old kinvara 3 shoes has reached 700km and I have decided to start implementing a new pair. Same model, different colour. These were up for testing today. At the same time I bought a new pair of racing flats; Saucony A5.

New gear - love it!

When I got back from Denmark I realised that I had missed the sign-up for Cairns 70.3 and it had quickly sold out. Hence the plans needed to change and I have instead signed up for Japan Ironman 70.3 on June 1st and for another race in Hiroshima called 'Woodman' on June 29th. The race distance for Woodman is similar to 70.3, however the swim is a bit longer (2.5 km instead of 1.9 km), the bike leg a bit shorter (55 km instead of 90 km) and the run about the same distance (20 km instead of 21 km). At first, I did not found it that interesting, mainly because swim is my weakest discipline, but Mark (the guy that beat me in Taiwan) convinced me that the route looks like something we have to try. It starts at sea level and rest of the race is more or less uphill.  

I am already looking forward to passing the 15km mark on the run

Unfortunately it is a very small race so there is a lottery to get in and I will not know whether I got in before mid-May. However, the more I study this race the more I really want to get it. So cross your fingers folk!

Thanks for reading - on Saturday I am off to Denmark again, but I hope it will not take me 5 weeks until the next post.

Week 4 (20 Jan - 26 Jan) - Recovery week

Swim: 3:55 (8.600m)

Bike: 2:30

Run: 2:37

Strength & Core: 0:00

Total: 9:02

TSS (bike/run): 362

Monday

The recovery week started out with a full day of recovery which I for sure needed.

Tuesday

Tuesday my legs felt a bit heavy throughout the day. I joined a club swim in the evening  and got in around 2.500m. 

Wednesday

Wednesday morning called for a tempo run:
- 15 min warm-up
- 15 min tempo (HR zone 3)
- 5 min jog
- 15 min tempo (HR zone 3)
- 15 min cool down

In total 14 km in 1:05. Unfortunately my watch deleted the data, but I remember being a bit disappointed about the pace during the two 15 min efforts.  I should be able to keep a pace a bit faster than  4:10min/km in HR zone 3, but it was more around 4:17 min/km as I recall.

Thursday

Thursday I had an evening swim after work. I was not to motivated, but got through the planned 3.200m nicely.

Friday

On Friday I had 45min recovery ride planned and I decided to do them after work. In the morning it always seems like a good idea, but in the evening it sucks. It definitively works best for me to get as many workouts in in the morning as possible. It does however also require that you do not get to bed to late.

Saturday

On Saturday I had the "usual" endurance run of 1:30. I am suppose to run the endurance runs in zone 2, which means a heart rate of 146-156 BPM for me. This is slightly higher than when I have been training for marathons in the past where I usually had an average heart rate around 140 +/- 3 on the long runs. Now I am instead aiming for an average HR around 150 +/- 3 and so far I have been quite surprised of the pace I am able to keep without the workout feels hard. On Saturday it was obvious that my body was not as fatigued as in previous weeks and I was able to time the breakfast before the workout which gave me optimal conditions and I was able to keep an average pace of 4:32min/km with an average HR of 146 BPM over 20.2 km.

Running fuel

I also believe that the many interval sessions I have been doing the last couple of months have had a significant effect. However, as mentioned above I have not seen similar improvements when doing runs in zone 3 (157-163 BPM). Maybe it is because I am doing most of these 6AM in the morning on an empty stomach - maybe it just need some more time.

In the afternoon Søren stopped by on his way to Mexico. We toured the city and had a nice dinner before he took off. 12 hours is probably in the low ends when it comes to visiting Tokyo, but it was great seeing him again.

Sunday

Sunday I had a 1:45 bike session in zone 2 with 6x5min efforts in zone 3 included planned. As I also had swim session with the triathlon club planned at 10AM, I decided to get up early and to the bike workout on the home trainer. I got off the bike at 8:15, had a shower and a smoothie and was off to the pool in Odaiba.

The swim with the club went well and consisted of:
- 150m warm up
- 250m kick
- 200m 10 kick one stroke - 10 sec rest
- 200m one arm crawl: 25m L/ 25m R - 10 sec rest
- 50 easy 4x 100m pull - buoy between feet - 10 sec rest
- 7x 100m (3/4/5/6) pull 2:00 (1:45 - 15 sec rest)
- 2x5x50 1:00 (1st set decreasing stroke count, 2nd set decreasing times)
- 9x50 - 1:05 (0:50/15 sec rest)

I feel I am able to consistently do the 50m on 0:50 with 10 sec rest which I am quite happy about.

It was also good to see coach Kuwabara-san again - it has been some time since I have particiapted in sessions headed up by him. As always we was ready with some good advice in case someone needed it.

All in all it was a nice recovery week. Next week will start out with 12 hours af fasting before the yearly mandatory health check. On next friday I will go to  Europe, so I think coach PJ has planned to  squeeze in some tough bike sessions prior to that.

Week 3 (13 Jan - 19 Jan)

Swim: 2:10 (5.900m)

Bike: 7:16 (0:32 as part of a brick session)

Run: 3:02 (0:30 as part of a brick session)

Strength & Core: 1:00

Total: 13:27

TSS (bike/run): 729

Monday

Week 3 started out with a national holiday which is quite convenient one week after the long vacation. I had morning intervals planned and I was still a bit worried about the calf so I extended the warm-up from 10 to 20 minutes. Maria joined me so the most of the warm-up was done at recovery pace.

The main set of the session was 8 x 400m tempo where each tempo effort was followed by 200m where you push the pace and the recovery between the sets was jogging. So continuos running. I definitely prefer this over the hard intervals sessions. I did the set in Yoyogi park which is a great place to run in the morning and it is a good alternative to my local circle at Meiji Jingu. The calf tighten up a bit during the first half, but it slowly went away. Did 30 min strength and core in the evening.

Tuesday

Tuesday morning I did a turbo session consisting of 10 min warm-up followed by a set of short 30 sec all-out intervals. The main set was 2 x 10min at 90%CP30 with 5 min recoveries followed by 4 x 5 min efforts at 100%CP30 with 2min recoveries and some cool down. A great set that definitely left the legs a bit tired (in a good way!).

Wednesday

Wednesday evening I had a swim planned that started out with a lot of kick-drills which I really hate. Especially when I have tired legs and I had to take a lot more breaks than planned to get through it. I even had to do some breast kicks once in a while to not completely cue up the slowest lane in the pool. I did however manage to get in all of the 2.700 planned meters.

Thursday

Thursday started out with a brick session where 6 min hill climbing and 7x30 sec all-out efforts with 90 sec recovery on the turbo laid out the foundation for the run. The run was 10min @10k pace followed by 20min easy jog. No calf issues at all, so the recovery seems to be progressing nicely.

Once again I could definitely feel my legs had been working when I went down the stairs to the subway on my way to work.

Friday

Friday morning called for another turbo session. This time 45min tempo @ 85%CP30 with some warm-up and cool down. About half way through I could feel that my legs had been working a lot this week and started to look forward to next weeks recovery week.

PM I had another swim planned. This time 3.200m mostly intervals of various lengths. I can feel that I am getting better in just accepting the longer swim workouts and I do no longer doubt that I can actually get through them. Although my arms and shoulders a bit tired i the end it was a nice way to end the Friday.

Saturday

Or actually the swim did not end my Friday as I had to attend a meeting with some colleagues from Europe/US from 22:30 Friday evening. So Saturday morning I slept a bit longer than usual. Sunday Maria and I had been invited for brunch by one of my colleagues and hence I decide to do the long weekend ride on Saturday and then take the long run Sunday morning as it would be easier to squeeze in before the brunch.

Biking Saturday also means I have to go somewhere else than Oi Futo which is both good and bad. Oi Futo is convenient as it only takes me 15 minutes to get there, however it is not the most inspiring place in the world. Below you can see a video I shoot some months ago when going there.



On Saturdays I would usually head out to Arakawa River. The flip-side of this is that I have to go through the city which usually takes around 45 min, but I decided to go there anyway. After all the trip through the city can be quite nice when the weather is good and today it was cold, but sunny.

I had a fun experience at one of the first stop lights. I was waiting for the lights to turn green when a runner interrupted my podcast by saying "nice bike!". It turned out that he was the fast guy on a P5 that have been lapping me in Oi Futo the last couple of weekends. We had a short chat about him training for Ironman New Zealand, shook hands and said "See you at Oi Futo" :)

Later on my way through the city I came a cross some sort of mini snow festival. Someone had transported snow into the centre of Tokyo at put of snow figures along the road.

When I came to Arakawa river I just headed north for one and a half hour, turned around and headed back. I felt a bit like Forrest Gump, but I enjoyed the nice weather, all the sports life around Arakawa river, my new homemade energy bars and the Rich Roll podcasts that I had started listing to during these long rides. If you have not yet read Rich Roll's book 'Finding Ultra' I would definitely recommend it. It is a very inspiring story about how he went from being alcoholic to completing 5 Ironman races in 7 days in a very short period of time.

The first thing I met at Arakawa river was some kind of kite-festival...

And as usual you can find food stands around events like this :)

There are many people playing baseball along the river, but it was nice to see that there are also room for soccer

...and then I biked...

And in case you are into it you can continue on the golf course.,,

 I decided just to take the ride easy and as you can see from the pictures above it was a very nice ride. I was out for around 5 hours (riding a little more than 4) and my new winter clothes from  kept me nice and warm :)

Ready to go :)

Sunday

Sunday morning I did my long run and besides a few minutes and tightening up around 10-12k I did not noticed any calf issues. The legs got a bit tired after 15k, but I feel I could still end the run strong.

I did 30 min strength and core in the evening and I am really looking forward to the recovery day tomorrow.

Week 2 (6 Jan - 12 Jan)

Swim: 2:30 (5.300m)

Bike: 5:16

Run: 2:28

Strength & Core: 0:30

Total: 10:44

TSS (bike/run): 478

Monday

This was the first day after the long vacation. I started out with a morning interval session of:
10min warm up, 8x 20sec strides with 40sec recovery followed by 8x 1min hard efforts with 2min walk / jog recovery before ending with 10min cool down. The work out went well and it was nice with some longer recovery periods in between the efforts. I managed to keep a good pace during the efforts averaging 3:15 min/km. My left calf tighten up a bit during the cool down, so that is something I will need to keep an eye on.

In the evening i joined Aoyama Triathlon Club for swimming where we did a lot of horrible kick drills (I hate those!) before ending with 20x 50m (0:50 / 50m with - 10 seconds rest). In total we did 2.300m.

Tuesday

Only a short swim was planned for Tuesday. Probably because coach PJ wanted me to be fresh to the CP30 bike test on Wednesday. In general I was looking forward to get my FTP/training zones updated (since I haven't done a test since August or so last year), but definitely not looking forward to the test it self. 30min all-out is a mess.

When I woke up my calf was still hurting from the intervals yesterday and it felt like it made me limp a bit. Not good :( When I returned home after a long day at work I felt tired and probably a bit sorry for myself and the fact that I had that damn test the next day made my skip the swim session.

I texted coach and asked for advice on whether to go ahead and do the test when my calf was causing trouble and as long as I did not feel pain on the bike he told me to go ahead.

Wednesday

I got up around 5:40 and was ready on the trainer at 6:00. The calf still hurt when walking, but there was no issues on the bike, so I got my sh*t together and did the damn test. And it was tough. I have never tried to do a 30min all-out effort on the bike before (have previously used 95% of a 20min all-out effort as FTP estimation). However, afterwards it is nice to have an updated baseline and I am actually looking forward to the next test now since I want to improve and I am confident that I can do so.

Coach PJ has asked me to record some data prior to the CP30 test and I will include it here as well:
Weight: 75,2 kg
Resting HR (5 minutes on couch prior to workout): 42.
Average HR during 30min effort: 166
Average power (CP30): 208 watt.

Thursday

On Thursday I did a 30 min (including 10@zone2) easy early morning ride on the turbo. After reading a discussion around foam rolling on slowtwitch (you can see the discussion HERE) I decided to give it a go, as I have recently got one of the fancy things, to see if it could help the calf recover faster. So I did 10 minutes of foam rolling after the bike. Later that day I could feel my legs were still a bit tired from the test on Wednesday, but the foam rolling seemed to have helped since I could no longer feel the calf issues when walking.

In the evening I had dinner with some colleagues from Denmark, which also meant I had to do my strength and core exercises after a few beers. Not optimal, but it worked out ok. I ended the night with more foam rolling.

This thing rocks!

Friday

On Friday I had the second nasty test of the week. A 1.900m swim time trial. I had never before swum that far in one go, I had to do it Friday evening after work in a crowded pool where you can not overtake others. And I was supposed to do it fast. Honestly, I did not really believe this to turn out very successfully. But it actually did.

I managed to leave work around 16:30 and got to the pool before it was too crowded. Did 500m warm-up which initially just confirmed that the 1.900m was going to be a long swim. After some drills I went for it; I decided to start out easy as survival was priority number one. In the back of my mind I had an idea of a target of sub38 (average speed up 2:00/100m), so I tried to keep an eye on the pool clock after each 100m (you are not allowed to wear a watch in the pool here).

And I was happy to see that I was able to keep the pace around 1:55-1:57/100m. After 5-600 meter I settled into a nice rhythm and it felt like I could go on for some time. I did the first 1.300m on 25:00 and decided to see if I could increase the speed a bit. The overall time for the 1.900m was 36:10 which I am very happy about. I only got cued up for around 5 sec during the swim and I probably speeded up after that, so no issues here.

It went a lot better than expected and just like with the bike test I feel that I now have a good baseline to work from and I am confident that I will be able to improve in the next test (hopefully as a consequence of improved form and fitness, but most likely also just for having done the test before).

After swimming I squeezed in a bit of foam rolling on the left calf :)

Saturday

On Saturday I had one of my favorite workouts planned: the long run. However, due to the calf issues I had this week I was a bit unsure of how it would go... After app. 4 km I could feel the calf nagging a bit, but decided to continue and hope that I would not make things worse, but still recover as long as I did not push the pace and did my foam rolling afterwards. I managed to get through the run without major issues and I could see from the pace and my HR data that all the intervals coach has been throwing at me have paid off. It us great to see progress already and I cant wait to see how my running form will further develop throughout the year.

Sunday

I had one main goal for this Sundays long ride: I wanted to avoid bonking. The last two weeks I have gone out after having only a banana for breakfast and only brought water. And that mistake have made the last rides extremely tough in the end although they have only been around 2:30 hours.

So this time I managed to get in some energy in terms of some homemade paleo bread with peanut butter and a banana for breakfast. Also, I brought with me three of my homemade energy bars! :) And I tell you - they rock! Made them yesterday from a recipe I found HERE and I can highly recommend them.

The 3:30 hour (9 laps @ Oi Futo) went well and it is incredible how much better your body performs when you fuel it right. Last week when I returned home from the long ride I had to lay down on the couch for an hour eating to recover after 2:30 hour in the saddle and this week I could easily have gone for another hour without any issues.

All in all a good week (as long as the calf issues do not get worse) and I look forward to add some more volume next week and do some turbo sessions with the refreshed power zones.

Week 1 ( 30 Dec - 5 Jan)

Swim: 1:20 (3.600m)

Bike: 4:34 (0:58 as part of a brick session)

Run: 1:44 (0:34 as part of a brick session)

Strength & Core: 1:00

Total: 8:38

TSS (bike/run): 346

Monday

Rest day. Returned from Hawaii in the evening and needed the rest.

Tuesday

As the local pool was closed the planned swim was cancelled. Not optimal since I did not swim much in Hawaii and have a 1900m test coming up next week.
Did 30 min strength & Core.

Wednesday

Turbo intervals #6 which means 10 minutes warm-up, 6-7 x 3 min in Zone 3, with the final 30 sec of each interval fast/ accelerating effort and 3 min recoveries between efforts.
Cool Down 5 minutes. I did 7 time 3 minutes in the high end of power zone 3. Looking forward to get my power zones tested on the turbo next week (although not looking forward to the test it self!).

Thursday

Brick session #1: 1 hour bike followed by 30 minutes tempo run. The session went well and was sufficiently challenging. MY legs started to feel tired on the bike - still I was able to keep a pace of 4:03 min/km for the 30 minutes tempo run. I had issues with my HR strap and probably ran faster than planned. Coming off the bike already warmed up probably made it feel less tough.

Friday

I was set up for the longest swim I have ever done. 3.600m. The set was pretty easy to follow:
Warm up (continuous swim):
400m front crawl swim
Main set:
1x 600m FC SWIM with 30secs rest
2x 300m FC PULL with 20sec rest
3x 200m FC SWIM with 15sec rest
6x 100m FC PULL with 10sec rest
12x 50m as 25m SPRINT / 25m EASY with 30sec rest
Cooldown:
200m easy relaxed swim

It went better than expected although I early on doubted that I would be able to complete according to plan. I still don't feel I can just reduce the speed and go all day in swimming as it is with biking and running. However, the variety of pull and swim made it easier to get through. I had to take a break of 10 minutes after the 3rd 100m effort as the lifeguards in the local pool need to check the pool several times a day and so everybody has to get out of the water. After this short break my arms felt really heavy, but after a few lanes they were back in action.

Saturday

Run - intervals:
10min warm up
20x 200m off 15sec rest
10min cooldown

This was one of the toughest interval session I have done.The 15 seconds feels like no break at all and my heart rate just stayed elevated. I did however manage to get through without slowing down to much.

Did 30 min strength & Core in the evening.

Sunday

2:30 hour endurance ride. For the second time I made the mistake of just having a single banana and then head out. It was cold and windy, and my new heavier and less aero training wheels did not made it easier. I felt tired in the end and had to take a nap after I had something to eat when I returned home.

New training wheels with a new cassette (12-25) which is a good add on to the 11-27 that came with my bike

2014

Returning from a nice Christmas vacation on Hawaii I am well rested and hence decided to kick-off the 2014 season with a blog-post (so far the blog has only been race reports :))

Hawaii was great and although most of my planned swims got canceled due to high surf and I did not have a bike and manage to get in some quality training with a couple of long runs and a interval session. I forgot to bring my HR strap and it was actually a nice experience running without it. I think I will try to focus less on HR during the runs going forward and use the data mainly for training analysis.

2014 race schedule

The planned races for 2014 so far are:

Ironman Cairns 70.3 (June 8th)

I want do this race for several reasons. First of all, I want to do a race in Australia while I am in Japan, as there is no way I will go there when I am back in Denmark. Secondly, if I am going to do an Ironman in 2015 the full distance in Cairns (which is on the same day) is a good option and I thought it could be nice to check out the venue first. Thirdly, it is fairly early in the season and it is nice to have something to train for which is not too far away.

Ironman Phillipines 70.3 (August 3rd)

This race is extremely popular  and I was lucky enough to sign up before it sold out (within a day). I think they might hold slots for the 2015 70.3 worlds championships here (which will be in Europe) so it could be worth giving that a shot.

 

 

Ironman 70.3 Worlds Championships - Mont-Tremblant (September 7th)

There is only one reason for doing this race: because I qualified :) Besides the fact that it is the WC and that Mont-Tremblant seems to be a nice place there is really not much good about this race - from a practical point of view at least. It is 5 weeks after the race at the Philippines, I have to go to Europe for work in between the two races, Mont-Tremblant is pretty far from Tokyo etc. etc. The venue does however looks very nice and despite the above I really look forward to going. Especially since both my parents and brother+girlfriend plan to make the trip to see the race.

Photo: Ironman.com

New coach

As I feel I need to push myself a bit more to take my performance to the next level I have decided to hire a coach. It is not that I cannot push myself without a coach, but I want to make sure that it is done the right way minimizing the risk of injuries. Moreover, I have come to realize that it is very convenient having someone doing the training schedule for you. All you have to do is execute :)

We started out right after two weeks of rest after Taiwan and the period from mid-November has been transition period giving my new coach Paul Jones from www.f4lcoaching.com a chance to get to know me (and my body!). Focus as been on slowly getting back in the game while working on increasing my speed on the run. This has meant a lot of intervals which I basically did not do while training forTaiwan 70.3. I still don't like the high intensities, but I am getting more used to it. To make things "worse" the recovery periods between the efforts have been a lot shorter than what I was used to when I was training for marathon.

New year resolution

I plan to try to do a post every now and then (hopefully on a weekly basis) with an update on how my training is progressing. Besides keeping the blog in a more up-to-date state, I hope this will make skipping a workout even harder for me since I then know I will have to share the defeat with you :)