Monday, November 22, 2010

Road to St George - Week 3

Is it poignant that St George is the Patron Saint of England, my country of birth.  St George has been pictured as a soldier since the 7th century, coincidentally I very nearly took that route myself and was one small step away from RMA Sandhurst.  How vastly different my life would have likely been had I committed to that decision.  I am a patriotic person and love my country, in some respects I feel I owe it to 'St George' to knock it out the park come May 7th, it provides a little added motivation.  Sorry for the side story but I think some of you might see its relevance.  Back to the training......

This week in summary:
  • Swim - Yeah finally three sessions this week and a total of 9200 yards.  Felt good about this and knocked out a couple of good quality sessions with some work at LT and a pure technique session.  Amazing what a difference the third swim makes from a 'feel' perspective.
  • Bike - Solid week for me here.  Monday became an impromptu FTP (Functional Threshold Power) test.  I was really not sure how it would go although obviously had a range of numbers in mind.  It went better than expected and I averaged 298w for an FTP of 282w.  Three other rides left me with about six hours of ride time, all on the CT.
  • Run - Poor poor week here.  I really feel my running has gone backwards since the return to 'tri' training.  I am sure the reality does not match the perception as I know a couple of low volume run weeks won't ruin all the hard work I did this year preparing for the White River 50.  Regardless though I am still disappointed with my run week.  Three sessions, two of six miles and one of four miles for a measly total of 16 miles and about 2 hours of run time.
  • TRX/Core - Another solid week here with three good workouts, two TRX sessions and a core workout at home on the rug again!  Feel strong and fluid on the TRX now, time to add some progressions!
The weekly total came to 12.5 hours and a well rounded week.  The only real disappointment for me from a training sense was the low run volume/frequency.  No need to panic though, time to move that in the right direction.  So how is the diet going I hear you all ask???  Well not such a great week really, not a disaster but a couple of poor decisions here and there that hopefully won't be repeated this week.  The wine consumption crept up a little, oops!  Last week we reduced to four bottle from seven, this week it went back up to five!!!  The one success was the two nights of just a single glass, big deal I hear you say however the will power to leave half a bottle of good red for the following night was impressive in my mind ;).  A quick breakdown:
  • Breakfast - no change here, the usual oatmeal, banana, almond butter and Udo's 3-6-9 washed down with two cups of coffee and plenty of water.  Oh, I did start taking a vitamin c supplement this week at breakfast.
  • Mid Morning - If I swam early then I had second breakfast of  two eggs, half an avocado in a sandwich of Dave's Killer bread.   I only ate this one morning this week as on Thursday a meeting followed my swim and on Saturday I was straight to the PC after my early swim.
  • Lunch - My usual sandwich, no real variation here although I think I ran out of sun dried tomatoes and on one day had no avocado in my sandwich.
  • Dinner - Bad week by my standards.  A late Tuesday led to the convenience of CPK Frozen Pizza with a salad, boooo.  Sunday night ended up being a Pagliacci night, much better Pizza but much more of it!!!  Two nights were pasta nights (wholewheat of course) with a simple sauce (not really a sauce, the ingredients are olive oil, fresh garlic, olives, green onions, sun dried tomatoes, and regular tomatoes preferably heirloom).  I also add some protein, this week it was Aidell's Chicken and Apple Sausage one night and an organic skinless chicken breast on the other.  Other meals were Couscous with lots of veggies and Wild Sockeye Salmon and Aidell's Sausage with Yam Mash and Broccolini.
  • Snacks etc - Some of Cindy's protein bars and cookies (don't want to disclose numbers here ;)), various fruit, protein shakes after key workouts, and a little dark chocolate.
So as you can see not the best of weeks.  Having said that Monday morning (voided) weight was the same as last week 154lbs so no regression there which is nice.  Other things of note to report from the week:
  • Signed up for the Western States 100 lottery.  I got goaded into this by Amber Montforte who I spent some time running with during the White River 50 (we finished together).  Amber is an awesome athlete (Xterra Amateur World Champ) and her post on my FB wall spurred me into action.  I may of course not be successful but it sure means I will have no choice but to run more if I am lucky (maybe unlucky is the right term) enough to get picked!
  • A great week at the Performance Center, things are moving in the right direction and business is solid.  Worked on the new class schedule and am excited to roll out TRX to all our members free of charge, a huge benefit for everyone.  Exciting news to announce soon about a couple of very special guests who will be visiting in the New Year for some clinics, Q&A's etc, very cool!
  • Cold...brrrr the snow is here.  Made me think more about supplementation, I will talk more on this next week.
I will try and keep the format for these blog posts similar week to week however if there is anything you guys and girls following would like me to include (relevant of course) then please post a comment and I shall do my best to oblige.

Thanks for reading.

3 comments:

Ben G said...

Good work buddy. It's amazing how challenging three sports are in a week compared to just one. Part of the challenge is adjusting your mind as to what constitutes a decent training volume and load per sport. Hope you get into the WS100! Take care in the snow.

LaVonne said...

You did not mention your Nuun snack - what happened to that? ;-)

Great job on your training and eating - it all looks good to me!

Ben Bigglestone said...

Hahaha my 3 calorie nuun snack, won't live that one down in a hurry will I ;).

Ben, you hit the nail on the head. How many of us as triathletes can remember a time when all three disciplines were going perfectly (from a training and performance perspective)? I can count on one hand the number of times I truly feel I managed to get a near perfect balance.