Week 30 was a good one. I have been struggling to get in my miles, but this week I hit 2 of my 3 targets and did 18h of training, so I can’t complain!
Monday was a complete rest day, I was feeling tired and it was deserved! On Tuesday I went for a 10.5km run, just 5m/km, nothing special.
I took Wednesday off work so that I could do a long ride. I left the house at 10am and rode to Bingen. That was the easy bit, then came the hills! It was up and down for the next 80km or so, with the wind against me whenever it was a bit flatter. I felt strong on the climbs (on my road bike) and put some effort into some of them. Near the end of the day I was getting really tired, but still could keep an ok tempo going. It ended up being 184km at 27km/h with 2700m of climbing. My TSS was 365, which is much more than the bike leg of the ironman will be (270TSS is my plan), though I definitely didn’t feel like running a marathon afterwards, so that was good news!
strava of long cycle
On Thursday I had to go to Wiesbaden after work, so took it as a leg stretch totalling 33.6km, including getting lost a few times!
On Friday I was worried that I hadn’t run much so I ran before work, 10.5km again at about 5m/km.. standard.
On Saturday I went for a swim at TBB. It wasn’t a good one at all really, with my 100m times near 1:50-2:00 all the time. I got in 2500m before having to head into town, I thought I might manage another swim on Sunday, but it didn’t happen. Later I went for a longer run. I had planned to do a bit more than 20km, but my stomach wasn’t having any of it! I did 17.8km officially before deciding to call it off, but I ended up jogging home as I was still 1km from my flat, but I haven’t counted that. The pace wasn’t great at 5:08/km HR of 145 is ok, but my guts were just hurting by the end, I will have to get a proper longer run in next week.
On Sunday I met up with Jochen to do a recce of the Erich Fill triathlon that we are doing next weekend. We went on the Wiesbaden 70.3 bike course for a while, then went up the Platter. For some reason Jochen likes this climb, even though it is quite long, quite steep and on a main road, not the sort I like at all. I was on the front and setting a decent pace, like 310w or so. About half way up he came past me and decided to push it as hard as he could, I was hanging on as he really gave it all! If it was a mountain top finish in the tour that would have been a decent amount of effort, but with plenty left to ride, I think he went a bit hard! We rolled down to Taunusstein and found that start point of the triathlon route. It goes straight uphill, pretty steep at times. We managed to take the wrong turn at every opportunity but eventually found the right way. Just after the 2nd loop of the 8 shaped course starts there is a nasty incline, maybe 15% for 500m, that will be interesting next week. That is followed by a long 300m vertical climb, all at a reasonable gradient, but a leg sapper, before a roll down to the end. It’s a good course, but dangerous as it will be easy to destroy the legs before the run. We cycled back to Mainz and ended the ride after 127.4km easily getting me past the 300km weekly target. It was also 273TSS, making it as hard as my Ironman bike leg, twice in a week, nice!
Later in the evening I went out for a run to get me to 50km for the week. I had planned an interval session, but my legs weren’t good and it was humid and windy, so I just jogged around until I got in my 11.1km to get to my 50km goal.
It was a good weeks training, it’s a shame about the swimming, but as I plan next week to be a bit easier, I will be able to get in more swimming then (maybe twice and the 1k triathlon swim). I feel like my cycling is coming together but my run isn’t so good. I will start increasing the runs a bit in the next (and last) cycle before Köln.
Running – 50km (1311,1km YTD)
Cycling – 344.7km (5324km YTD)
Swimming – 2.5km (102,35km YTD)