Big Show's Outlaw Training Log

[Big_Show]

Sunday 20th May

Nobody's alarm should go off at 6am on Sunday. It's just plain wrong.

Out at 7:15am on the bike. Plan called for 1:30 so I duly headed off on a random route (which may or may not have included getting slightly lost) fo just over 46 minutes, then turned round. Overall 24.45M in 1:26:59 @ 16.85mph average.

Then off on the run. Met the guys up at the club then plodded round (trying not to get dropped - I only have one speed after the rest of the week's training!) 17.45M in 2:30:36 @ 8:38/mile average.

So that's the end of week 24 - 17h:53m:47s training done, rightly knackered now. Approximate calorie deficit of 3500 yesterday so today I'm treating myself and just aiming to break. Recovery ice cream and some midget gems, amongst other treats.

That's three weeks of the peak phase done now, with three to go, then three weeks of taper. 242h:32m:22s training done so far this year (already hit 61% of last year's total and it's only May! ). Next week's training will be slightly different - I'm heading back home for a long weekend and doing the Norwich 100 as my long bike ride on the Sunday, which means the short ride/long run brick will be done on the Saturday instead. Be interesting to see how much the hangover from the long run affects my legs on the bike the next day, but with the route going round rural Norfolk I can't see there being any noticeable hills to deal with!

[Bendy Ben]

What time band are you in for the Norwich 100.

Gutted I can't do it but I don't trust my knee yet.

[Big_Show]

I put myself down for the 6 hours - start time 7:00am

[Bendy Ben]

Good man

You'll have a great time.

My parents live in Norfolk and I know that area reasonably well. Good route

[Big_Show]

Oh good - it's been years since I was up that way (Traaactor Boys need a very good reason to go to Naaaaarwich) but I figured the countryside would be nice and scenic.

I'm gonna use it to get an idea of what speed I can maintain over a fairly flat course so as to plan for the Outlaw.

[Big_Show]

Monday 21st May

Rest day! A bit of seizing up around the knees but some quality sofa time solved that.

DQS score of 16, calorie surplus of about 250 calories. But who's counting? Certain my gut's looking smaller since last week so it'll be good to see what the scales say on Wednesday.

Actually looking forward to my swim tomorrow morning (it's a while since I've said that!), and really looking forward to heading home for the weekend too. I can tell this weekend's going to drag a bit.

[Big_Show]

Tuesday 22nd May

Really pleased with this morning's swim. Nearly had a failure to launch when attempting to get out of bed, but luckily just then another alarm went off (I have several) and it jolted me back awake again.

BIF #13 - main set 5x400m + 45s rec. Not sure on the exact timings of these but they were all somewhere between 7-8mins. 3600m in total in 1hr10, and I didn't feel destroyed when I got out of the pool so that must bode well for the Outlaw swim.

These swim sessions carry on being ~3.5k right up until the week before the race so if I continue getting out of bed on time they should see me safely through to race day.

Club run tonight, but not a really crazy intervals session. Which is good as I think my legs are still not quite recovered from the weekend...

[Big_Show]

I was right, the legs definitely weren't recovered!

The steady run started off steady then gradually sped up as we went round - 8:10/mile at the beginning and ended up with a 7:45/mile average, so the pace must have been a fair bit quicker than that at the end. Overall 10.3M in 1:24:07 @ 8:10/mile pace for the whole session.

As my legs felt like crap by the end I'm changing tomorrow's session from a brick session to a straight spin. Get a bit more recovery in before the long miles at the weekend.

EDIT - Nearly forgot about today's Operation Big Unit: burnt ~ 5200, deficit ~ 2000, DQS of 14. I've basically decided to be pleased with any day where the DQS > 12 as that's a realistic target for me, so today is a success! Weigh-in tomorrow morning...

[Big_Show]

Wednesday 23rd May

Weighed myself this morning - down 1lb to 15 stone 2 again. Thought I would have lost more but still pleased with that - it's been pointed out that my legs are looking much bigger and my waist is thinner so something's obviously shifting. Reckon I'm still over-refuelling after the big sessions though so I'll pay more attention to that at this week. My flatmate's away at the moment so it's easier to snack without being called on it...

[Big_Show]

Ended up doing the full session after all tonight - ran up to the gym, did the 45min spin, ran home. Legs tired now, as is the rest of me. Got a few jobs to do then going to try and get an early night (I'm getting far too used to going to bed while it's still light outside - roll on July!) ahead of tomorrow morning's swim session. I'm going to need my wits about me for it as it's a confusing one which requires lots of careful counting!

I've also started looking ahead of the Outlaw to which races I want to aim at for the rest of the year. Several are nice short courses which I've previously set times on so I can gun for a PB on them, but I've also got to work out how to train for them first. On the look out for short, sharp sessions and really looking forward to getting back into the gym as well.