Anyone who loved high school XC season has to agree with me to some extent. However it hasn't been since high school that I've raced in the fall... But this is a strange year I guess. I finished up bike racing by the middle of August (hold on, I'll get to that) and now it's full-on run season. I am exactly one week away from my first half-marathon and my final race will come in the form of a (hopefully) ultra quick 5k at the end of October.
My build-up to the half-marathon was not a solid, real half-marathon training program... but I'm not particularly interested in half-marathons and long distance stuff right now. Rather I know I'm quite weak at the longer stuff and I suspect that is holding me back so I figured I would work on that this fall. And what's better motivation than committing to a race you know you don't currently have the ability to race? So I'm going to do my best and use the rest of the fall leading into the end of October.
In terms of race predictions, I don't really know. I'm certain I'll go under 1:30 since I've pretty much done that a couple times this summer as a LSD run. I would really like to try and keep it in the range of 4:00min/km but I think that may be a bit quick for where I'm at right now. My peak volume for running this year has been 50km (lifetime record!) and I have been fairly comfortable in the 40km/week area if that is any indicator. I've done a couple race pace tests in the last couple days with sore legs 4:00min/km seems like a really good, tough, ideal goal. Friday was a straight 10km tempo run at 4:00min/km. I went under 40min with a bit of trouble, but my legs were ultra sore and truthfully, I was limping all day. Still limping today I went for my last long run before the race, 8km easy out, 5km race pace (pfft) and 3km cool down. I went through the 5km in 19:10 huffing a little too much... But on the bright side, a long run like that would have ruined me at any other point in my life so at the very least I'm working toward my real goals.
So what of this biking? Had some pretty good times but noticed some interesting things that only my power meter could have told me. I will show you in the form of a picture.
I hope this isn't too small. Pink is training stress, blue is fitness, yellow is "freshness" or "form". The red squares with lines are top 10 power over 1 min. The black squares with lines are top 10 power over 20 min. The first point I will make is about peaking. My original plan was to do two races per week for 3 weeks. I only managed to do 4 races/simulations but they all took place in a week and a half or so. It was too much for me I think, and my performance dropped with time. It may have gone up if I continued, but I doubt it as I was feeling very rough at the last TT.
The more important point is less of a point and more of a point I have to look into. Interesting fact: out of all my TTs this year, my highest average power came from my very first race. In fact, it's so much higher than any other race (about 15W higher) that I feel like it might even be a mistake. Especially considering the time. This has to have something to do with starting running training after this point, and having a very strong winter and spring training plan... Another picture.
Yellow lines indicate kms/week on bike starting Jan 1. Quite clearly a stronger beginning. However, my speed kept increasing all season. Obviously the last two times are partly due to the new bike, but fact is I was definitely getting faster (crits got easier and more successful with time as well). So perhaps my drop in power as the season progressed was due to the running and less training but maybe there was some benefit coming from the running, such as weight loss or something. I don't know. I'll let you know when I figure it out.
I almost forgot to give you some of these times and some details. Best 15km? 22:3-something. Best 20km? 30:20ish. Another interesting thing, I went out one Saturday to sprint around and try and claim some Strava KOMs. T'was very successful and pretty tough, but upon returning home I decided I wanted to turn it into a brick workout. My plan was 30 minutes easy. When I left the apartment I felt pretty good. about a minute into the run I checked my pace and it was about 3:45min/km... and it felt completely fine. So I decided 20 minutes tempo would be a cool idea. I checked my pace again a little later... 3:40min/km with no increase in effort. So then I decided 2x10min. I hit about 6min and noticed my average pace had dropped to 3:30. Then it was game time. I changed my plan to doing a 5k as fast as I could. It was tough but I finished up with a time of 17:20. Off the bike. My best ever 5k time is 17:17, no biking included. Sweet.
Anyway, I have a little time out of the saddle before I get started again and my run training is all planned out. I have been swimming once a week for a little while and plan on increasing that slowly so that I can take November easy and jump into a true triathlon plan starting some time near December. I've yet to plan out next year, but that's coming soon. Fall is the time to start planning... I love planning.
Adam "Enjoy the Pictures?" Fortais
