Last week was, on paper, the last of the big training weeks this year. The message from my coach was "get your head down and get through it". So. I did. And, come Sunday's 3.5 hour bike ride I was knackered. My hamstrings were already battered from still being unused to the new set-up on the Fuji and having put in a lot of miles of bike work in the last fortnight from Ride London 100 onwards; 100 miles that day, a few gym bike sessions during the week and a ride home, then a 65km ride from Winchester to Bagshot, some more quality gym bike sessions in the week, then a 3 hour ride on Saturday. Sunday, I headed out for my usual 3 Hills route in Surrey with quite some fatigue, but it felt OK. I wound it up gently at the start and then hit Hungry Hill Lane with less horror than usual at the terrible road surface, ground up Staple Lane in my second fastest recorded time, followed by the same performance up Crocknorth and then PBd chunks up to Box Hill and some of the segments up the hill and then all the way home from there. Even fatigued and with hamstrings on fire, the grind seemed less difficult up the hills and I felt able to push through the discomfort and tiredness with more than usual ease. This is exactly how I felt in the latter stages of Ride London; tired but with plenty of power and drive left.
On paper, this has been the most successful (unsupervised) training week since Galway last year... only one missed swim:-
The bike work is really paying off and it's making me a little excited for Zell Am See. In my head, I'm starting to believe that I might be able to do something good at that race. I should be able to and I'm starting to believe that my body can do stuff when I tell it to.
This week, I have a couple of runs (one sharp one, one recovery) a couple of bike (one sharp, one cadence work), two swims (one sharp, one endurance) and that's it. Then it's 4 races in 4 weeks; sprint, 70.3, Olympic, sprint.
FUN! (gotta get race plans set in my head that aren't just "SMASH IT!1!!}#&*^]!]@1@J+ZZ!" )
Exciting! I am just hitting my taper for Zell now, which is exciting as I have never done anything like this before. I did have to move house last weekend which derailed my last big training week slightly (no long bike...) but I have to hope that it's enough to get me around. I'm not aiming as high as you are, just to finish, but I'm still really excited. Zell is absolutely beautiful so fingers crossed for nicer weather than there seemed to be last year.
ReplyDeleteWill keep my eye out for race number 1233 :o) See you there, I hope!
ReplyDeleteThanks - forecast looks a bit pants at the moment. We're halfway through the long road trip down...
ReplyDelete