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Wednesday 22 October 2014

[Training Diary] Week in Review & Back to Ballyhoura

Week ending 19th October: 

Date Run Distance Bike Distance Time Avg BPM AvgPace/Km KCal
13 Oct 2014 9.5
00:49:38 147 00:05:13 787
14 Oct 2014 9.6 00:23:40 141
343
14 Oct 2014 11.82
00:57:59 156 00:04:54 1009
15 Oct 2014 9.52
00:52:01 148 00:05:27 830
15 Oct 2014 9.5 00:25:15 137 355
16 Oct 2014 9.73 00:27:29 137
387
16 Oct 2014 11.63
00:59:56 156 00:05:08 1059
19 Oct 2014
23.74 02:00:43 148
1933

Taking a look at the second half of the week the basic premise is I am wrecked.
The kids, daughter mostly, have attrocious sleeping habits. It's like a merry-go-round in our house with everyone swapping beds. I'm normally a sound sleeper but when I'm woken in the night I don't go back easily and often end up reading for 2 or 3 hours.


Wednesday 15 October 2014

Post Lactate Threshold testing

Last Thursday I was over with +Matthew Bidwell of Fitness Analytics in Claregalway to have my Lactate Threshold Tested. I planned a really long and complicated post explaining what the process was but with HR being so individual I decided to just summarise it and show what it means to my training.

Sunday 12 October 2014

Finding your way in Orienteering

An event invite from Western Eagles Galway Orienteering popped up on my Facebook timeline a few weeks back and I added myself as a plan for a Sunday morning outing with the family.

My son loves maps and is always drawing treasure maps which only he can follow so I pitched the idea to the family for a bit of fun outing.

Edel has never done orienteering, its been 20+ years since I did any (outside of +Beast of Ballyhoura Adventure Race this year) and its great fun for the kids to go exploring in the woods.

So off we went this morning to register at Merlin Park Woods in Galway. We were handed two maps and two control cards.

Getting the maps and outline instructions
Ruaidhri had it all worked out that we would work as a team with him and daddy going one way and the girls going the other way.

He's 4.

Once I explained the map and what we would be doing he decided we could all go together. He was 'Chief Navigator', daddy was assistant, mummy was the controller in charge of dibbing in at the stations and Rachel was scout, who took instruction on directions and found the control points.

Chief navigaor pointing out the way.
All sorted and off we went. The course was mapped out nicely and the first control points were easy to pick out. Once we were into the woods we had options of following trails or cutting through the woods.

We had to make team decision on what route to choose and at one point after explaining that (1). we could go through the woods but if we got stuck we'd have to turn back and go around or (2). we could stick to the main path and make good progress.

The scout decided to stick to the path.
 
 
Fun in the sun.
There was one sticky situation towards the end where we pushed through a trail in the woods to find we were heading away from our goal. Doubling back along the fence line we found a gap and with a quick one, two the kids were fired over and we followed off to CP8.

From here it was a short trot back towards CP9 and a circum-navigation of a fenced area back to the starting point were scout ensured that the team was together (good practise for #AdventureRacing) before dibbing in and handing back the control cards.

All in all a great morning adventure and the best thing is there will be another event in 2 weeks time in Renville Park.

Keep an eye on the Western Eagles blog or Facebook page for more details. If you are are looking for a fun way to get fit and involve the family, orienteering is a great option.



Friday 3 October 2014

[10km Focus] - Week 1: The plan so far...

The plan so far has been of the 'wing it' variety. It is also likely to remain so for the next few weeks too.

I'm working on base mileage and introducing speed work as I go with increasing focus on longer and longer tempo sessions at slightly faster than race pace but the lynchpin of the training, I believe, will be based on interval sessions of 200m and 400m repeated over and over and over bringing these down to 47 & 95 seconds respectively.

So far this week has looked like this:


4029 Sep 20149.500:50:07





14600:05:16782
4029 Sep 20149.500:49:00





15000:05:09802
4030 Sep 2014



9.500:19:54

134
267
4030 Sep 2014



9.5300:20:26

132
266
401 Oct 20149.4700:47:26





14800:05:00757
402 Oct 20149.500:49:34





14100:05:13723
402 Oct 20149.4600:49:56





14300:05:16745

Green is running (km and time), Orange is bike (km and time). In Pink is Average Heart Rate, Pace (running) and Calories, I'll keep this format going forward, oh and blue is swimming! (Once upon a time!!)

Wednesday evening (1st Oct) was the interval session:
  • Warmup - 3km
  • 8 x 
    • 200m in 55secs
    • 200m recovery
  • Cooldown - 3km 
Happy enough that I brought the 200's in around 47-48seconds each.

Another double run Saturday and possibly a longer steady pace run on Sunday should have a decent block of running to start this program with.