Week in review

Today was scheduled as 2 hours easy cycling and 2 hours running at 5:15/km.

Pretty much successful. There was a lot of stopping on the run (I stopped my watch when we stopped so that pace would not be affected). In total there was 15 minutes stoppage time littered throughout the run – quite a bit.

First a brief video of today's highlights...



Cycling notes – It looks to me like once I got out of town I cycled at about 26.3 km/h with a heart rate of about 135 beats/minute. I think I am a REALLY inefficient cyclist and I need to investigate some drills, etc that will make me better. I have a power meter on my tri-bike. It indicates an efficiency below 20% (although I am not sure exactly what it’s measuring). The online forums seem to suggest that 25% is something to shoot for. 30% cannot be sustained. I think I have too short a stroke. I need to make the pull through the bottom a matter of habit. Right now, it’s not. To keep my efficiency high I need to stay focused which is not my strength. Anyone with any suggestions? Also, I spent a lot of time on Saturday setting up my aerobars to the most comfortable best spot. I found, though, that the front of my shoulders, at the base of the deltoid between the delt and bicep on the front of my arm was getting fatigued. Is this a setup issue or a stop-being-a-pussy issue? I am going to toy around with the aerobars some more. I wonder about moving my seat forward 0.5 inches?

Ironman prognostication – I have been trying to get a handle on how fast I will ride Ironman while still having something left for the run… Swim 1 hour 30 minutes - this is a good guess, I think. Bike 27.5 km/h for a total of 6 hour 30 minutes. Can I run a 4 hour marathon that day? I believe that getting under 12 hours will require a 4 hour marathon. That is an average pace of 5:41/km. Seems very optimistic but not completely impossible. The traditional wisdom is to take your best marathon time and add 1 hour. That give me a 4 ½ hour marathon and a 12:30:00 Ironman time.

Running notes – At that start of the run my legs were rubber and/or lead. This quickly passed, though. Bottom line is this – 21 km at an average pace of 5:17/km with an average heart rate of 153 beats/min. This will be slightly artificially low because of the stops but not by that much. The second lap of the bridges was faster (5:13/km) than the first lap – I wanted to “run with pain.” I felt good and strong until about 4 km to go at which point I still had no trouble keeping the pace but it was starting to hurt a little bit.

Weekly totals:

Swim 2 hr 30 min
Bike 2 hr 35 min – 65 km
Running 5 hr 10 min – 57.25 km
Strength training 1 hr 30 min

Total: 11 hr 45 min

What did I miss? I skipped the interval bike on Tuesday (Hey! At least I went running in that monsoon). And I missed 30 minutes of strength training on Friday (tied up at work).

A good week.

This coming week culminates with the Saskatoon Police Service Half-Marathon. What should my goal be?