Week 23(W-10): Summary

Both Alain and Nico are upping the ante.

	Bibi	La Grande
Swimming
Sessions	2	3
Distance7.3	8.8km	13.7km
Time	2h35	4h01
Biking
Sessions	4	3
Distance	172km + piste + home trainer	317km
Time	7h15	10h20
Running
Sessions	4	6
Distance	60km	68km
Time	4h50	5h33
Strength
Sessions	-	2
Time	-	2h00
Total
Sessions	10	13
Time	14h40	21h55
TSS	-	1214
Other	69 kg 1 massage	86kg
Summary
Goal for the week	Début du 2ème bloc d'entrainement axé sur du travail plus rythmé	Get cracking! Slight increase in intensity. Swim long sets
The good	Les jambes, les bras et les sensations reviennent.	Swam 7km and 5.5km sessions. Good long bike on the TT bike, good tempo run and long run. Chugging along. My ability to absorb training seems to be getting better. Big training weekend yet very relaxed - I LIKE!
The bad	Tendon d'Achille toujours délicat, des mieux, des moins bien! J'y comprends rien!	A bit of stress at the end of the work week.
Thoughts	S'entrainer moins long et plus intense est dur, mais s'entrainer tout seul c'est le plus dur de tout!! Ma dernière séance de natation en à fait les frais! Nico, je ne sais pas comment tu fais!! Tu es très très décidé!!	YAWUTB and ooooooom ;-P.

Week 22 (W-11): Summary

C'est reparti pour Nico alors qu'Alain se repose. La suite devrait à nouveau se ressembler. Vraiment?!

	Bibi	La Grande
Swimming
Sessions	2	4
Distance7.3	7.3km	14.3km
Time	2h15	4h20
Biking
Sessions	2	3
Distance	67km	60km (2x home trainer)
Time	2h15	3h30
Running
Sessions	3	7
Distance	27km	82km
Time	2h20	6h47
Strength
Sessions	-	2
Time	-	2h00
Total
Sessions	6 (7)	16
Time	6h50 (9h50)	16h40
TSS	-	979
Other	69 kg 3h de marche 1 massage	86kg
Summary
Goal for the week	Récupération de mon 1er bloc	Run every day
The good	Mon vélo de chrono est monté prêt à me faire souffrir dans les semaines qui viennent	Ran every day - hope it helps :-)
The bad	Pas réussi à atteindre mon objectif de 3x9h de sommeil sur la semaine ouvrable	Pretty tired from travel. Sore sore muscles from weights - need to learn to restart slowly
Thoughts	Déjà le deuxième bloc! J'ai hâte de confirmer les excellentes sensations aquises jusqu'à là. C'est reparti pour un tour, ça va piquer et je m'en réjouis!	YAWUTP - Yet another week under the belt. Chugging along

Le rythme récup.....

Lors d'un de mes posts précédents où j'expliquai le pourquoi, le comment et le combien, j'ai insisté sur les semaines de récupération et le besoin de saucissonner mes objectifs.
Me voici enfin dans ma première vraie semaine de récup. Celle que l'on mérite, attendue avec impatience à la fin de chaque bloc d'entrainement. Pour ma part, il s'agit d'une semaine où tout est permis, où les mots clef sont plaisir et bonnes sensations.
Ne pas devoir à tout prix réaliser les séances que j'avais prévu, me laisser guider par le plaisir et l'objectif de rentrer avec de meilleures sensations que celles du début de séance fait partie de ma récupération mentale. Concrètement, je fais une semaine sans intensité, me limitant à pratiquer les trois sports comme cela vient.
A côté du sport, je me fixe généralement un objectif en terme d'heures de sommeil (souvent un minimum de 3x9heures dans la semaine ouvrable) et une séance de massage.
Étonnamment, il est très rare que j'aie de bonnes sensations au cours de l'une de ces semaines, mais je sais qu'elle prépare à merveille le départ d'un nouveau bloc avec les jambes qui reviennent et un moral en acier.
J'adore ces semaines de récupération car il s'agit d'un premier petit sucre le long de ce chemin parfois douloureux menant à l'objectif. Et un peu de douceur, ça revitalise son homme! Surtout moi!

Almost like the grown ups!

A little email popped up in my inbox the other day, promising an Ironman Age Group Ranking - almost like the grown ups! This year, apparently, they will start an amateur ranking to motivate people to do more Ironman branded racing and spend more money with them - honi soit qui mal y pense...

As a teaser, they "simulated" what last year's ranking would have looked like. Clicked, looked, chuckled: 8th in Europe 30-34, 2nd German, 13,456 points! Whoa! More than Mike ;-).

Week 21 (W-12): summary

Alain went big on the camp, Nico in recovery mode.

	Bibi	La Grande
Swimming
Sessions	3	3
Distance	10.2km	6.4km
Time	3h05	1h51
Biking
Sessions	5	3
Distance	582km	87km (1x home trainer)
Time	19h05	4h19
Running
Sessions	3	4
Distance	39km	57km
Time	3h05	4h43
Strength
Sessions	2	1
Time	1h	15min
Total
Sessions	13	11
Time	26h15	10h54
TSS	-	584
Other	69 kg	86kg
Summary
Goal for the week	Faire du volume sans me cramer	Recover from the camp
The good	J'ai fait du volume et je me sens juste fatigué. Mon tendon d'Achille a décidé de se soigner tout seul!!	Got some good running in, did some tests.
The bad	Il fait quand même pas chaud à Genève!!	Slight aches. Too much travel.
Thoughts	Le gros travail du premier bloc est derrière moi, il me reste maintenant à bien gérer ma semaine de récup avant de penser à la suite.	Hope to get through the coming work weeks unscathed

11 jours de stage, ça change son homme!

Le stage est terminé, mon corps bien fatigué et je me réjouis de me savoir dans une semaine de récup. Pour partager ces quelques jours, plutôt que des chiffres ou des mots, voici quelques images...

Week 20 (W-13): Summary

Alain est à Majorque pendant que Nico en est revenu:

	Bibi	La Grande
Swimming
Sessions	2	3
Distance	10.0km	10.7km
Time	3h15	3h11
Biking
Sessions	4	4
Distance	175km + home trainer	495km
Time	7h25	16h57
Running
Sessions	4	3
Distance	50km	37km
Time	4h	2h57
Strength
Sessions	1	1
Time	50min	15min
Total
Sessions	11	11
Time	15h30	23h21
TSS	-	1258
Other	70 kg	86kg
Summary
Goal for the week	Break en début de semaine puis pré-stage	Get a good training camp in focused on the bike. Do a 2.5hr and 5hr challenge.
The good	Passé ma première longue sortie à pied avec beaucoup de satisfaction	335w NP over 2.5hr and 307w NP over 5 hours.
The bad	Mon tendon d'Achille ne va pas me faciliter la vie!	It's already over! And the food was so-so.
Thoughts	Pré stage zürichois parfait tant au niveau du sport que de la connerie et d'exploits culinaires! ça twitte sec depuis!	Recovery week - then we start getting serious.

When "yeah" means "ouch" (and vice versa)

I spoke about the tests and challenges that Alan has given me as part of the training. Two of the difficult and long ones are the 2 and a half hour bike challenge and the 5 hour bike challenge. Basically ride as hard as you can sustain for that time and see where it takes you. This helps us see if the training is working as planned - improving the power output over long time periods. Sounds tough and turns out it is.

Luckily Alan gave me a target for the 2.5 hour challenge to help pacing - 328 watt (normalized). That's 23 watts more than my best half Ironman bike, so hard. Nice enough he said "sustained climb", which would be fine if you are next to a really really long mountain, but here in Mallorca that doesn't exist. So I mapped out a route that was flat to rolling for the first hour and a half and then headed into the mountains.

It's a bit weird to do these things, because they don't feel that hard initially, but get worse as time goes on. I started out 10 watts above target and immediately my heart rate shot up to about 150, which is super high for me. I thought - yeah, I can hold this for an hour without too many problems, but then??

Turns out you can cheat your mind quite well and set ever new goals and targets. After the first 30 minutes I was still 10 watts over and told myself "it doesn't hurt that much yet, so it must be ok." After 1:15 it was "half way there" and the power was still on. When I hit the climb it was "well now it's easier to produce power than on the flat."

The test turned out pretty well at 335 watt (normalized), and a few more watts were possible, but there was a little traffic in the mountains. After the ride I find, though, that I'm toast and will need a big sleep tonight.

Sometimes a little "yeah" needs a lot of "ouch" :-).

See your 200, raise you a 260

Alain posted his test results the other week. Coincidentally I went for my first test in a while, though with a different objective: given my big size I need to be efficient at using fat for the Ironman distance, so my coach and I wanted to know what's going on.

Unlike Alain I was not really interested in my VO2max, but more in my performance at lower intensities. We decided to do a test with longer steps - 5 minutes, and to forgo info about the higher intensities. And unlike Alain I did the test on my bike with the Power2Max, so that I can compare the data with what is happening on the road.

Some results:

My threshold is currently at around 380w, or 4.42w/kg, around the same what Alain is at (4.54 w/kg). But that doesn't really matter that much. I was more interested in what is happening at low intensities. The good news is that my aerobic threshold is at 260w compared to Alain's 200w - 3.02w/kg vs 2.77w/kg for Alain. To do so I need to oxidize a lot of fat, which I manage to do - up to 13.5cal of fat per minute at 230w. According to Alan this is among the highest he has seen. This is good news for the Ironman, because I maintain 50% fat burning up to 290w. So the base work has paid off and metabolically I should be good for the race.

Now for the weak points: my economy is low. The bottom graph shows that only produce 60 watts per liter of oxygen at race intensity. This is way below what pros are able to put out - apparently they produce more than 70 watts per liter of oxygen. Alain is between 65 to 70 - so he is more economical. This means I use too much energy to produce power. Not good for a long race, because it means I will run out of energy more quickly.

So what does this all mean? First of all, Alain is clearly better off because he is more economical - advantage Bibi. However, coach Alan has already identified ways of addressing this - I expect to do a lot more strength work over the next training block, which should improve my economy.

In the long run I also need to push the fat oxidization to higher power levels - that's where things will become really interesting for half Ironman and faster Ironman racing.

Another great piece of information on the journey to understanding what it takes to race this distance and how to address the weak points.

Pré-stage zurichois: sport et Italie!

Alors que Nico a déjà pris de l'avance en allant passer son week-end pascal à Majorque, je me suis déplacé sur Zurich pour passer quelques jours avec David alias Averell et ainsi ajouter quelques jours d'entrainements avant le stage de la semaine prochaine.

L'objectif est de pouvoir réaliser un bloc 11jours de travail en vivant et pensant qu'au sport. J'enchainerai avec une semaine de récupération pour arriver à la fin de mon premier bloc d'entrainement.

En attendant, on fait avec le condition pluvieuse du moment, ce qui nous a amené à faire une séance de PMA sur home trainer, un belle plâtrée de gnocchis, la sieste, footing très humide et de copieuse lasagne maison!

C'est ça la vie de stage et c'est vraiment bien!!

Week 19 (W-14): Summary

Another big week for Alain whilst Nicolas focuses on running.

	Bibi	La Grande
Swimming
Sessions	3	4
Distance	15.4km	13.9km
Time	4h20	4h15
Biking
Sessions	4	2 (1xoutside, 1xtest)
Distance	284km	33km
Time	10h30	1h52
Running
Sessions	4	5
Distance	44.5km	80.7km
Time	3h45	6h53
Strength
Sessions	-	1
Time	-	1h
Total
Sessions	11	10
Time	18h35	15h02
TSS	-	758
Other	70 kg 1 drainage + 1 acupuncture	86kg
Summary
Goal for the week	Endurance et force Test endurance en nat	Good running week, keep some juice for the camp in Mallorca
The good	Ma douleur au tendon d'Achille disparait. 51'40 sur 3.8km en bassin de 50m	Got through the week ok. Great info from the substrate test.
The bad	Il reste une douleur résiduelle au tendon d'Achille Je pense trop triathlon!	Bad allergies again.
Thoughts	Je suis en route pour la suite de ce premier bloc d'entrainement.  J'enchaine les séances sans trop de peine, mais j'y réfléchis parfois un peu trop.  J'aimerai retrouver le détachement que j'avais cet hiver.	Keep going, get through the busy weeks ok.