Run

Got home before dark and went for a run round the extended reservoir route at 7.15pm.

About 6.3 miles, and exactly 50 minutes. It was dark by the time I got home.

Felt quite good, and in the last couple of miles increased my speed quite a bit.

Bike

Went to LA fitness and set the bike for a 25 minute session this afternoon.

It reports about 11km and 250 kcals.

Did a quick 5 minutes rowing to finish off the 30 minutes, with the usual 55 kcals.

Run

[click image to see times]

Nike Runlondon timed 5K event in Gunnersbury Park today.

Not as cold as Crystal Palace or Regent's Park were.

Started off fast near the front of the field at 10am, and tried to keep going. It was very hard to keep up the pace, but I managed it and came in with another PB at 21:05 - 35s faster than January. Quite a flat course, but a very uneven surface.

Couldn't find my HR monitor strap, but used my Polar watch to try and keep time anyway. This completely failed - the watch went bonkers at 11 minutes or so and switched to a completely different time. I couldn't trust it after that at all.

My first kilometer was ~4:15 - if I want to reduce my time to 20 minutes, I need to do 4 minute kilometers. This is going to be really hard as I feel I'm almost going as fast as I can already.

Bike/Run

I've ben resting a bit prior to my 5K race on Sunday.

Today I did 15 minutes on the bike at the LA Fitness gym, followed by 15 minutes on the treadmill. A sort of mini-brick session.

Swim

Went to the Windsor pool with Gina again this evening.
We did quite a few lengths, practicing my technique again. Swam for about 1 hour.

Brick (Bike/Run)

Went out most of the Windsor Triathlon bike route and back through Old Windsor. I still haven't found the right roads so my distance was a bit short. It was annoyingly windy, and on the long stretch past Windsor Great Park where I usually get up to 45km/h, I was pushing hard to get to 30km/h.

When I got back I had only cycled about 37K (average speed ~26.9km/h) so decided to try a short run.

Did the Honda 3 mile run. At the beginning I had very tired legs, but gradually they became accustomed to running again. Did a very slow time of around 24 minutes.

Glad I tried it though.

Run

Extended reservoir run, anti-clockwise, at lunchtime.

Bright, sunny, cold.

I think my time was 50 minutes for the 6.3 miles.

Swim

LA Fitness. 40 lengths only (600M) practicing technique really.

Swimming hat tore as I tried to put it on, so I was expecting to be chucked out at any moment.

Bike

Had a session on the exercise bike in LA fitness this afternoon.

Tried to set it for 30 minutes, then 29, but it would only accept a maximum of 25, so did that.

Level 5 (it's a Technogym machine by the way, and looks very much as if it is this one - the Bike 600.

Did a varied program, and maintained about 95rpm, ~ 280kcals

Run

Went out for a run after work at about 7.30pm - still very dark at this time.

Did a new route up to Old Windsor and round towards Windsor Castle and back via Datchet Road. About 5.8 miles according to the GMaps Pedometer, that's nearly 10K, in 48:37 mins.

I'm finding the Gmaps Pedometer to be a very useful tool for planning my runs. If I think I need to run about 6 miles, I can very quickly track a route, and I can include off road portions. In this one I ran up a section of the Long Walk, which Autoroute probably wouldn't have allowed. I like the way it now shows elevations also, for an estimate of how much hill climbing I will do.

It's quite anoying on some sections of this route where there are no street lights. I'm either risking stumbling along in the dark and potentially tripping, or I'm being dazzled by car's headlights. C'est la vie.

On the fitness front, I'm running less quickly than I do obviously on the 3 mile Honda route, and never really get out of breath. I usually feel pretty good, though my feet and ankles suffer a bit from the added impacts. I try to take really short strides to minimise this and I think it's helping.

Swim

Went to the Leisure Centre in Windsor tonight for a swim after work, to try and practice the new techniques I learnt at the weekend. It's pretty difficult unlearning my habits. I took Gina, and was swimming behind her for a few laps. She was easily going faster than me!! It was fun though. I need to put more power into the strokes, but getting the timing right, and breathing, and kicking my legs properly confuses me so much I almost forget that part completely.

Didn't do any continuous lap repetitions, but probably swam about 800M in total in 50M stages.

Row/Run

LA Fitness, at lunchtime. Busy but not as bad as I thought it might be.

Did 2500m in 11.11 on the rowing machine. nearly 150kcal)

Ran at 10kmh/ and a bit at 11km/h for a 3.5k, 20 minute total on the treadmill. Wore my .5kg wrist weights too. Felt quite good, could have gone on longer but ran out of time obviously.

Bike

It may be snowing up north, but in the south it was a nice sunny, if a bit chilly, Sunday. Didn't actually get out till 11am today, so maybe it had warmed up a bit from my more normal 9am start, and my feet were cold, but not quite frozen. I made up my route as I went along, and this turned out to be much further than I'd planned.

Went through Eton/Maidenhead/Bourne End/Marlow/Henley and then criss-crossed the back roads around White Waltham looking for a way into Windsor avoiding the A4. I was a bit lost I guess, but I never like retracing my steps and so soldiered on. Nearly ended up in Bracknell!

After my poor speeds over the last few weeks I decided to try a bit harder today, and seem to have managed it.

distance 70k
Average speed 27km/h
Time 2:30:00

approx. (15 minutes into the ride, my speedo was all over the place, and I had to stop and adjust the little magnet. Not sure how much this affected my times, but probably not a lot)

Swimming Lesson

Trekked way over to Essex with the girls on tow and met Jonathan for swimming lessons with Swim For Tri in their endless pool.

Annoyingly, I woke up with a sore neck which I can only turn through about 60% of my normal rotation. Makes driving tricky, but swimming wasn't actually affected too badly
as you rotate your whole body to breathe.

It was interesting and quite fun, though the water temperature was probably a bit chilly considering I wasn't swimming continuously and was standing around a lot listening to the instructors.

I've got some video on DVD of me swimming during the lesson, which I find interesting, but other people only seem to be able to watch for a few seconds before becoming bored :-) I'll try and post some of it, or a few stills, once I work out how to do it!

Row/Bike

Went to LA fitness, and showed Roy where it is today.

Rowed 2500 metres in about 11:30 (should be 120 kcals or so)

Set the exercise bike to a program of easy/hard on level 5 for 20 minutes. Maintained 90-95 rpm though the dopey machine kept telling me to slow down to 70-80. About 200 kcals expended on this.

Bike profile looked like this one:

        ** **
     ** ** **
  ** ** ** **
****************

Run

Did the 4.5 mile Richmond Park winter run with Jon and Carol. Still dark at 7pm, but the heavy rain stopped just before we set out. Quite a warm evening really, relatively.

time 41:36
Average HR 147
calories 472kcal

apparently I was 'in the zone' for 31 minutes. This probably means that my HR was above 152 (the current high limit on my watch) for about 10 minutes. If there are 10 minutes of hill climbing, and I guess there might be, then that makes sense. I'm quite pleased with this average really.

(http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=55558)

Swim

Another afternoon session at the LA Fitness 15M pool.

This time I tried for a new record, and completed 40 lengths of non-stop crawl.

I followed this up with 10 breaststroke, 10 crawl, and another 10 breast stroke. 60 lengths in all. (900M). Ran out of time really as I had to get back to the office for a meeting.

When doing crawl I normally breathe every third stroke. This is fine for a while, but when I get a bit tired I find I can do every second stroke more easily instead. This feels more robotic somehow, less relaxed and flowing, but I just need the oxygen!

Bike

Had a flat back wheel this morning so had to change the tube before going out at around 9.10am.

Went round most of the Windsor Triathlon route, with a detour into Windsor Great Park. Felt as if the wind was against me a lot, and if it wasn't windy, then it was uphill. Ended up with another quite poor time.

Time 1:47:16
Average Speed - 25.11km/h
Distance - 45.91

This is even slower than last week :-(

I'm sort of thinking that maybe my long runs on Saturdays might be tiring me more than I realise.

Run

Went out again this lunchtime for my long run. It was nice and sunny and bright, cold of course, but shorts were ok and my cycling skullcap kept my head warm.

Didn't monitor my heartrate, just tried to keep it slow and steady. Measured the route on the very useful google maps pedometer site, same as last week, with a supplement near the end, to make a total of:

distance 7.2 miles
time 1:01:00

Wore my knee bandage, and listened to my MP3 player, and really quite enjoyed it.

Swim

Another long session in the LA Fitness 15M pool.

30 lengths crawl
10 breast stroke
10 crawl
10 breast stroke
10 crawl

70 altogether = 1050M

Row/Run

A quick 5 minute warmup on the rowing machine (55kcal) and then a 5K session on the treadmill at La Fitness.

I work the 0.5kg weights on my wrists, and set a program for easy start and finish, and medium hill for the middle section.

Ran at about 10km/h and finished in around 30 minutes.

Definitely felt the difference with my wrists, but like the idea that I'm strengthening my arms at the same time as my legs - I hate weight training.