After an early start to the season with the Stirling Duathlon in March and a crazy spell of 8races in 7weeks over May and June I was glad to have 4weeks with no races. To top off this racing break I also had 3weeks off work where I could get some good training in and hopefully enjoy a good Scottish summer :-)
Getting the training in was always going to be a definite but the good Scottish summer was always going to be a bit of a lottery, but for once I actually won the lottery. What a glorious three 3weeks I have had, I actually got a bit of a tan. Who needs to go abroad when you get weather like this. When I was leaving Oz last year the guy's were saying "do you not wish you were staying in Oz?" and I said No, Scotland is one of the best countries to train in, sure we don't always get the weather, but when we do, I can't think of anywhere better.
So what have I actually been up? Well from looking back over the start of the season I felt my biking just wasn't where it should be so the focus of the three weeks was going to be on biking. As I'm running so strong I felt I could afford to back of my running slightly. So I embarked on some long base mile rides, which included a lovely 115mile group ride to Moffat climbing over 2300m an excellent day's biking with some great company. I also did short high intensity interval sessions where I was working for 2-4min stints at intensities above 10mile TT pace.
One of the things I also did was look at what makes me such a strong runner, and I believe it is largely down to one session, my long 18km Fartlek session at 10k race pace, so I figured I need to do a likewise session for my biking to get the same results. To do this I took my Garmin GPS data from my run session and just multiplied all the rep and recovery distances by 4 and plugged them back into my Garmin so it would beep at me when I had covered the rep or recovery distances, a great training tool. Once I knew the exact distance of the session I planned a route that was hilly, quite and free of traffic lights and went out and berried myself on the bike for just under 3hrs at a time, it definitely achieved the desired affect.
To mix up my training and to keep it fun I also decided to get some regular mountain biking in seen as I didn't get any done over the winter due to the snow, plus I feel mountain biking is a great training tool for developing strength and bike handling skills. Not to mention I was planning on racing the Dirty tri at the end of July so was really wanting to get my eye back in off road. We are incredibly lucky having some of the best mountain biking facilities in Scotland with Glentress and Innerleithen just a short drive into the borders from Edinburgh and more routes easily accessible for day trips. Kirroughtree down near Stranraer was one of the 7 stanes centres that I hadn't ridden previously so made a trip down with my team mate Niall to experiences some different routes. Well worth the 2.5hrs drive, we did the red and black routes both of which were really enjoyable routes, different from what I am used to at Glentress and Innerleithen which is great for improving your skills, so you don't just get good a riding what your used to.
So has it all worked? From my last threshold power test I'm more powerful than I've ever been, an 18watt increase in 9weeks from my previous test and not only that but I'm the lightest I've been since my university days, which weren't yesterday, ha ha. So all in all I'm very pleased with how my three week bike specific block of training has gone, not only has my fitness improved by I have had a really enjoyable time, some may think it's a strange way to spend your holidays, I on the other think it's a great way to spend your holidays. The true test will be this weekend at the Gullane triathlon to see how the training and power increase translates to racing, hopefully it all equates to strong racing.
Getting the training in was always going to be a definite but the good Scottish summer was always going to be a bit of a lottery, but for once I actually won the lottery. What a glorious three 3weeks I have had, I actually got a bit of a tan. Who needs to go abroad when you get weather like this. When I was leaving Oz last year the guy's were saying "do you not wish you were staying in Oz?" and I said No, Scotland is one of the best countries to train in, sure we don't always get the weather, but when we do, I can't think of anywhere better.
So what have I actually been up? Well from looking back over the start of the season I felt my biking just wasn't where it should be so the focus of the three weeks was going to be on biking. As I'm running so strong I felt I could afford to back of my running slightly. So I embarked on some long base mile rides, which included a lovely 115mile group ride to Moffat climbing over 2300m an excellent day's biking with some great company. I also did short high intensity interval sessions where I was working for 2-4min stints at intensities above 10mile TT pace.
One of the things I also did was look at what makes me such a strong runner, and I believe it is largely down to one session, my long 18km Fartlek session at 10k race pace, so I figured I need to do a likewise session for my biking to get the same results. To do this I took my Garmin GPS data from my run session and just multiplied all the rep and recovery distances by 4 and plugged them back into my Garmin so it would beep at me when I had covered the rep or recovery distances, a great training tool. Once I knew the exact distance of the session I planned a route that was hilly, quite and free of traffic lights and went out and berried myself on the bike for just under 3hrs at a time, it definitely achieved the desired affect.
To mix up my training and to keep it fun I also decided to get some regular mountain biking in seen as I didn't get any done over the winter due to the snow, plus I feel mountain biking is a great training tool for developing strength and bike handling skills. Not to mention I was planning on racing the Dirty tri at the end of July so was really wanting to get my eye back in off road. We are incredibly lucky having some of the best mountain biking facilities in Scotland with Glentress and Innerleithen just a short drive into the borders from Edinburgh and more routes easily accessible for day trips. Kirroughtree down near Stranraer was one of the 7 stanes centres that I hadn't ridden previously so made a trip down with my team mate Niall to experiences some different routes. Well worth the 2.5hrs drive, we did the red and black routes both of which were really enjoyable routes, different from what I am used to at Glentress and Innerleithen which is great for improving your skills, so you don't just get good a riding what your used to.
So has it all worked? From my last threshold power test I'm more powerful than I've ever been, an 18watt increase in 9weeks from my previous test and not only that but I'm the lightest I've been since my university days, which weren't yesterday, ha ha. So all in all I'm very pleased with how my three week bike specific block of training has gone, not only has my fitness improved by I have had a really enjoyable time, some may think it's a strange way to spend your holidays, I on the other think it's a great way to spend your holidays. The true test will be this weekend at the Gullane triathlon to see how the training and power increase translates to racing, hopefully it all equates to strong racing.
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