Kevin's Training Blog of 2019

Recce Day Wednesday was registration, briefing and recce day. We met up with a girl from Forres who was doing her first International, toured the expo and got signed in. Then went to watch the briefing, but had to wait half an hour for a Spanish Unionist parade to stop protesting in the middle of the same square. After the confusing, and slightly contradictory, briefing we went to doing the GB team photo. Taken on the steps of the local government offices which were closed for Labour Day.  Then it was course checking time and the swim recce was invaluable. If I hadn't known about the strength of the current, or the hidden buoy at the top of the course, I would potentially have had a real panic on the swim course. It was the first time I have ever swum in a flowing river and I didn't realise quite how significant the effect of the current would be. I swam the 500m out into the current in about 15 minutes, without working particularly hard, but certainly at what I thought ...

Google lost the post I had written. The main part of the week was racing on Thursday and I am posting that separately so didn't see the value in recreating the missing post. 

Still on holiday at the start of the week, then a travel day, then back to work. I basically have no control until Thursday, and by then I will likely be desperate for a rest day. This is also the start of my countdown to ETU Champs in Romania, so I can't be messing around with a whole week off anyway. I need to get back in to a high-volume fitness phase as quickly as possible.  Despite racing outside my planned pace last week I have still moved the pace for this week. I am going to keep speeding it up at least until it gets to 4:00 / km. Racing at the North Champs on Saturday should give me my fast run and a better 5km performance.  Targ ets -  Swim 2.5 miles,  Bike 24.0 miles,  Run 11.0 mile s. Stretching session x2, Core session x1, Weights session x1. Yoga session x1. Fast run target 6:45 / mile (4:11 / km).

World Champs race week, so silly numbers everywhere and none of them really matter anyway. In my stretch targets I wrote the I wanted to finish in the top-20 at Worlds. After last years 23rd place, I really want to be higher than that, but it is a bigger field with a lot of locals, and a cold swim, so I will see how it goes.  I have left the run pace on, because I want to be racing at least that fast on Thursday. I have left the run miles in as well. They basically amount to an easy jog early in the week, race day, and a recovery run. Targ ets -  Swim 0.6 miles,  Bike 0.0 miles,  Run 11.0 mile s. Stretching session x2, Core session x1, Weights session x0. Yoga session x3. Fast run target 6:50 / mile (4:14 / km).

My ramp down week should be fairly light. So I started the week with two fast commutes (combination of Easter Monday traffic, and the cleaned and serviced bike), and then a full-on swim session.  Tuesday I did another pair of overly fast commutes. I went to the pool in the evening needing 800m to finish off my week. I couldn't decide between trying to rip a speed set, try a 1km time trial or just paddle up and down as a recovery session. I decided to let the traffic sort it out. I got a lane to myself so decided on the 1km TT, got less than 50m in to that and decided to change it to a set of 50m reps.  Wednesday was an easy commute ride in. I nearly collected a dozy pedestrian at about 2 miles in. That gave me a bit of an adrenaline surge and the rest of my commute was a little less easy on the back of that. In the evening I spent about half an hour on the roller to prep for my massage on Thursday.  Thursday I jogged around to the train rather than the full route to...

This week is definitely a ramp down to Pontevedra.  The weekend is travelling to Amsterdam for a couple of days of chilling before we go on to Porto and then to Vigo next week.  The bike miles assume that I am commuting a couple of times this week. I am far enough ahead of that target that sitting out this entire week if I decided to take the train doesn't matter. The swim miles are basically Monday night's Club session and an easy recovery swim on Tuesday.  The run pace target is only going to be a couple of short reps or a very short brick off a bike commute.  I have added an extra stretching and Yoga session for this week since I can do those anywhere and they would be good prep for next week.  Targ ets -  Swim 2.0 miles,  Bike 36.0 miles,  Run 11.0 mile s. Stretching session x2, Core session x1, Weights session x1. Yoga session x3. Fast run target 6:55 / mile (4:17 / km).

Monday I rode to work against a massive headwind in the morning. That normally pays off when I get the tailwind on the way home, but Vardy's had finally finished with my car so I jogged up to collect it (into the still solid headwind) after work. I went to the club swim session in the evening but I couldn't get anywhere near the planned pace for the session. I worked my way through all 2,500m of it, and it turns out  that was actually my longest swim session of the year. That almost makes up for the terrible pace.  Tuesday I planned to run to work and ride home. As I rolled out of bed in the morning it was instantly clear that wasn't going to happen. I could barely muster a fast jog to the train. I had hoped that having warmed up with that and then a bit of stretching on the train I might muster a couple of miles of something faster round to the office. That didn't happen. In the evening I went to the pool and managed a set of 150m reps. Not quite at the pace I was...