Blog 3
With the Wooden Spoon out of the way I can now knuckle down to a regular routine, which is important for your body, as it gets used to a fixed plan over time. Devising a good training plan is essential for many reasons:-
You know exactly what you are going to do (especially within a busy work day), you can plan your diet around it so you are not training on a full stomach, you can plan your recovery / rest periods.
Now that spring is on us I have changed my routine slightly as I don’t attend college on Wednesdays after Easter. I now follow this plan:-
Monday- Running drills on track at Robin Park with Tri Team Wigan.
Tuesday- home gym
Wednesday- turbo trainer
Thursday- alternate weeks: open water swim at Salford Quays Watersports Centre or pool swim
Friday- recovery run: 5km
Saturday- swim drills at Hindley baths with Tri Team Wigan.
Sunday- cycle: 50km
I had a full week ‘laid up’ due to the left calf injury- the bruising covered the whole of my calf muscle area and it was very painful and swollen. I kept it elevated as much as possible and put ice packs on it to reduce the circulation around the injury and reduce the swelling. Even when I returned to swim a week later it was still sore and bruised, leading me to wonder what exactly I had done and if I should have gone to a NHS Walk In Centre!
Swimming training
I managed the swim drills ok but still lacking in stamina, through lack of constant training; it was a good session though, concentrating on efficient technique. It is important to improve each facet of the swim stroke; there is a lot to think about so the quicker it is learnt (and done automatically), the more you can think about speed and strategy in a race.
The stroke is divided into two main parts:- the pull and the push.
The pull stroke starts as your arm enters the water, making sure it does not drift over the body’s centre line. As you stretch your arm you should twist your torso slightly to give you a longer reach and therefore more pull on each stroke. Your hand should enter the water just before it reaches its full stretch. As you pull back, your elbow should remain higher than your wrist and your arm should bend enough so that your forearm is acting as a paddle together with your flat palm. This pull comes down until your arm is pointing directly down; you then convert to the second part of the stroke- the push. Basically you keep your palm pointing down (90° to the water line) and push back against the water until it exits. Keeping your elbows high and your hand almost trickling the water surface the stroke then repeats. With about 15 to 22 strokes per 25m length (depending on your height and efficiency) only another 899 to 1319 strokes left in a 1500m swim! So if you can reduce the number of strokes by just 2 per 25m that’s 120 fewer in the race!
The legs kick speed can determine the arm speed (just like the arm speed can dictate the leg cadence during running). I tend not to kick too much in the swim as I like to save my legs for the other two sections. I actually swim faster when using a swim buoy, which means I must ensure my legs produce less drag by keeping them higher in the water in future.
On the bike
Been using the A57 through Warrington and to the other side of the M6 and back, which gives me a good 40km plus flat route. The only downside is the amount of traffic lights on route so I alternate between this and a trek up the A570 to the other side of Ormskirk, which takes me over some hilly terrain. This helps build up stamina and prepares my body for any hill work in the races, which I’m not so keen on! When the rain spoils the day I use the turbo trainer but I find this a bit boring so I do a set of intense sprints with easy cycling in between so the session lasts for about 25 minutes. Maybe I should listen to my iPod!
On the track and road
Have a great time on Monday evenings with Tri Team Wigan, each week we go through a routine of warm up jog around the track, then a muscle group warm up with Dave Green. After that we do a series of sprints, covering between 3000m and 4000m; we’ve started calling it ‘Death with Dave!’; but we have a good laugh too. I use my stopwatch’s countdown timer that beeps for 10 seconds at the end of every set timed interval- whatever the night's coaching session time is set at (e.g. 8 sets of 300 metres every 3 mins 30 seconds). When Dave’s whistles blows my timer bleeps and I said one night (cos it was tough) that it was my heart monitor…one of the lads nearly fell over laughing! During the warm up that evening I lost track of which routine we were on because I was chatting to one of the lads… I ended up doing quads stretches instead of calves and got in everybody’s way…oops! What the sprints do is prepare us for faster running in the 5km and 10km runs and remind us of the fast pace we can do during a race. It is a great endorphin rush too and that can only be a good thing! I really enjoy the evenings and we’re lucky to have a great set of coaches on track.
New job
New job and brand new career…took a bit of time to get used to the different working times and how I fit my training around my new routine. Plus the new job has me sitting in an office for the majority of the time at the moment whilst I set the foundations for the tasks ahead. The last job I was a bit more active and it required more physical effort. I was in Queensferry for a week on a course too which meant I had to stick to just running whilst I was there; the good part was running over the Fourth Bridge and back, which was a great experience!
Latest races
I entered two races: the Newton-le-Willows and Macclesfield triathlons, which were both similar distances of 400m swim, 25km cycle and around 6-7km runs. The first race I trained too hard the day before and I ended up with cramp in my calves going into the run! For the Macclesfield triathlon I hadn’t trained enough and this showed in the swim stage, which was a little slow for my liking. The bike section was average but the final run section was great and I now know where I need to improve and also how much I need to train. Just goes to show how important taking part in races is: not forgetting how much fun they can be and how good it feels to complete triathlons!
Diet
In my diet I make sure I buy only fresh fruit and vegetables and other nutritious ingredients. I enjoy cooking and can make great meals- even the same recipe can be slightly different each time! Ready meals might seem convenient but they are low in flavour and nutrition and contain more of the unwanted unhealthy ingredients. Believe me I’ve tried plenty and they don’t match up at all!
There is much talk now about super foods, which contain a range of vitamins and minerals essential to your body’s well being and health. In truth, eating fresh fruit, vegetables and other fresh foods (meat, fish, nuts, pulses, etc) in a balanced diet will provide you with all the goodness you need. The only processed food I buy in tinned baked beans, simply because they need soaking and cooking properly. It’s much easier just to buy a tin of good quality beans in a rich tomato sauce (not the tomato puree based sauce as in the cheapest versions).
