8th week to Frankfurt

This week was supposed to be an easy week but it turned out to be a hard week but it is not physically hard, it has been mentally hard. At this moment Frankfurt is in jeopardy and I am really worried. I will try to start training again tomorrow but I am not very confident.

On Monday I started on the bike as normal with a swim in the afternoon. Easy sessions for both sports, during the swim I felt fairly good but during the bike I might have started to feel something that was not good but I did not pay too much attention.

On Tuesday I had scheduled a medical checkup in the morning and a run in the afternoon. They took a blood sample of me and surprisingly I started to not feel extremely good during the run, my quads were getting tired too easily but I was running at a good pace and it was ok to keep it like that. I was not feeling any discomfort form the day before.

On Wednesday, I should have done a bike test but because my power meter was broken it did not have much interest and I decided to just keep it at a just above normal. In the afternoon I decided to do my normal swim test, it went great, faster than ever, although I was not feeling perfect but the discomfort was not bad.

On Thursday I had a bike session in the morning that it must have been a little harder than it was supposed to be but it was for a short period of time but nothing that I was not doing the week before. In the afternoon everything changed. I had a 45minutes run with running skills work and then it was when I started to feel that something was wrong but it was not too bad to stop. The problems came after the shower.

On Friday it was impossible for me to train, the discomfort became pain and I had to call a physiotherapist to treat me as soon as possible. According to him I don’t have much to worry about and that after the treatment I would be able to ride on Saturday.

Far from expected I was not feeling good enough to go for a bike ride on Saturday. And I am still not feeling good but I will test it tomorrow.

Over the weekend I tried my best to rest and behave although there have been some promises that I had to keep against my will.

I wish that my pain goes away soon with other problems that I currently have. I need to be able to train and to be focused in what I have to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMqF7zOPtA8

7th week to frankfurt

I have just completed the second week with the biggest volume of the plan. It has been hard on the number of hours but it could have been worse.

I am actually quite happy on how I feel overall, even though my biggest weakness is still the same, the bike.

This week I have put in more than 60 percent of the training volume on the bike and yet I am still not quite happy with the results, I guess it just takes time and I still have more than 4 months to go.

On Monday I did the normal triple session increasing the volume on the bike and in the water. It was the first time that I was doing more than 2hours on the trainer and they passed by pretty fast, just the opposite of the water session. The run had no mystery, just to a few kilometers in but not very intense yet.

On Tuesday, I did my bike in the morning and then in the afternoon while running I had an unpleasant friend visiting me that made me stop the run and I even had thoughts about my own safety out in the road. It was cold and I was wet and I could not run because this unpleasant friend was the hail. I had to stop for a few minutes and it did not feel good. I have always said that rain was worse than wind or snow, hail is worse than rain.

On Wednesday I did my recovery session on the bike and then the shortest swim of the week.

On Thursday I had another tough bike ride in the morning followed by a technique run session in the afternoon. The bike ride was tough; I have started to introduce some muscular endurance which is a must that I need to work on. And the running technique is a must this season, once per week I work on my running skills.

On Friday I had scheduled another triple session. The bike session was a recovery one, the run session was a Mexican fartlek of 7 to 3 and another long swim. Out if the three sessions I felt the best in the water, the last session of the day, where I should have been the most tired, unbelievable.

Finally on Saturday I went for my long ride of the week. It was very windy and I decided to climb a bit so the average speed fell dramatically. I had to push a little bit also because of the threatening rain. Only a few drops fell but it was extremely dark and I seriously thought that it was going to rain, therefor I finished the ride with two laps around my town, just in case I would be home.

The week started very grey and ended up a little lighter. I have not been enjoying much what I used even though my sports related activities are still fun. I have been missing something in the past few weeks and it just bothers me because it was something that I did not expect to go wrong. Will I be able to speak it up?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6BC_uQEEmM

6th week to frankfurt

This week I have not been able to train as much as I wanted but the quality of the sessions was fairly good. I finished the week with some loaded legs that I hope to have them unloaded by the beginning of the next weeks.

My power meter is not working fine yet but I am working to get it fix, I would like to have it fixed by the next bike test so I will need to give it a push because it is very important for me.

On Tuesday I was not able to finish my bike session because I had a flat tire on the trainer. It is the first time that I popped an inner tube. There was one other time that I popped the outer tire but the inner tube? That was the first time and I had to stop the session. Also, because of the rain I had to run on the treadmill, it was very boring to run for 90mins in the same place, I hope I don’t have to do it many more times, the pace was lower than normal but it was hard to keep going, I had to pull some mental strength and it was not easy having finished a marathon not that long ago but it had actually helped me.

On Wednesday I was not able to do my recovery session on the bike because I had a dinner the night before and it was impossible. I had not been able to sleep enough and skipping that session was not too bad as I was feeling a little bit of discomfort on my right hamstrings, probably I had not completely recover well from the marathon.

Finally on Friday’s session I decided to do some sets of steps instead of running series, so I went to one of the places that I know with more steps and I went up and down 6 times, I tried to count ones how many steps there were and I counted around 160 and I have to say that it was around because I know I had lost count.

On Saturday I went for the long ride of the week, at first I was not feeling very fast, my legs were still stiff from the day before but then after one hour I started to feel better and actually the tail wind also helped. The average pace was fairly good and near the wanted pace at this time of the season, I was feeling much stronger that the week before and I hope I will keep seeing the progress.

There have been things that I did not like this week and there have been others in which I wish I could have taken part. Seeing some important things happen before your eyes and not being able to grab them is not much fun but there was nothing that I could do at that moment, all I can do is to work to reach those goals, although I will need some help, time and focus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWsXZDs_SAE

5th week to Frankfurt

This week I have been able to enjoy the lures of glory. I have been congratulated by many people due to last week’s race. It has been nice to feel this aureola of a champion but now it is time to go back down to earth and get focused for the next challenges that I will have to face.

I took two days off training and then I started to go back to it very gently. These two days that I took off were very good to rest and to recharge the batteries plus I was not able to do much. Even though I had thought that I would have felt worse after the race I was fairly ok, I was able to walk from the first day without much pain on my legs and by the second day I was nearly fine.

On Wednesday I biked for one hour, very easy just to start recovering. It was hard to stand up on the bike but I felt good, not as tired as I had expected. So it was a recovery ride, just to start to get in to the routine again. By the afternoon I swam, I went to the swimming pool earlier than the team’s schedule but I found a mate and we decided to train together, we both had run the marathon and both of us seemed pretty good after the effort.

On Thursday I started with my mind focusing on Frankfurt. I did my first bike session working on force with a touch of endurance at the end of the session. It was not easy and surprisingly my power meter has started to play funny which it is a pain in the ass as I really need it for training. In the afternoon I went to the treadmill for some jogging, I did only a 30minutes session at much lower pace than the marathon pace but it did not fill very good, I could clearly see that I was not ready for running at that moment. My muscles were still sore and even though I had not lost the form like it has happened in the past I did not feel that good.

On Friday I did another recovery-endurance session on the bike. I was feeling better but not at where I would like to be at this moment. In the afternoon I swam with the team. It was a good session with a few for hundreds sets that I swam probably faster than I would imagine and I was feeling good in the water for the first time in a month or so. I was feeling like I was nailing it, it was the feeling as I don’t have any time reference but it was good, it is good to feel good in one of the sports, especially if it is a limiter.

At last I when for the long ride of the week, It felt awful, I did not find the pace, the power meter is still not working even with a new battery, maybe I had taken a harder road but the pace was very slow, and the ride felt very long, I wanted to drop the bike after two hours and I was just at the middle of the session. I have even stopped to get a new battery which it is very uncommon that I stop on long rides but I did not feel any better after the stop. The day was very good, why wasn’t my body in consonance with the shining sun?

I think I have been taking the unhappiness from other aspects of my life into my training. That is not good. I am feeling good with my situation and I am getting most of the things that I wanted but not everything is so perfect and it is affecting my performance. Sure I am far better than a week ago but there is something that can still improve. And I am not sure what it is but my sleep has started to suffer, I get up too often at night, even though I have to say that I am sleeping much better than last year. I am resting a lot more and I can feel that. I have become a little more disciplined on that and that is tough. Let’s see go it evolves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AopNvSXc_FQ