Big Show's Outlaw Training Log

[Big_Show]

Monday 18th June

Started the week with last week's long bike session - just over 4 hours at 16.5mph, suffering towards the end as couldn't find anywhere to refill my water bottles.


Tuesday 19th June

Last running club session of the training programme - 3x60s, 3x45s, 3x30s, 90s recovery between each effort. Felt good to have one last properly balls out session; nothing but easy running from here on in!

[Big_Show]

Wednesday 20th June

Run to gym: 1.8M in 14:10 @ 7:52/mile
Spin: 21.4k in 50:20
Run home: 1.8M in 13:59 @ 7:46/mile

[Big_Show]

Thursday 21st June

Finally made it up to Ashington for an OW swim! Very well organised - there was a slow group, a fast group and a long-distance group with safety marshall cover etc. all for the princely sum of one english pound!

I joined the latter group, obviously, and we did three laps in about 55 minutes. I'd forgotten how much a wetsuit corrects my form!

Afterwards I ran a lap round the lake with a mate. There was an 500m + 2.5k aquathlon going on so we ran the opposite direction and cheered people on. If we'd known about it beforehand we probably would have ended entering before it filled up! Either way, 2.5k in 12:08 was probably more sensible anyway!

Rest day tomorrow - right calf's been a bit sore all day and I don't see any point in pushing my luck!

[Big_Show]

Friday 22nd June

Definite rest day. Calf feeling better already; it'll be completely fine for tomorrow's bike ride (which will be done in full race kit just in case, although probably with an extra t-shirt over the top as no-one wants to see an unexpected fat man in a tri-suit!).

Still amazed at how cheap and well-organised the OW swim was last night considering some of the horror stories I've seen posted on here - will make sure I get more of these sessions in before the Newbiggin Sprint in September.

Making the most of the taper - off to watch some live comedy tonight. Been too knackered to go out on a Friday night for ages....

[Big_Show]

Sunday 25th June

Headed out on the bike for an easy ride. 49.75M route into the wind at 15.9mph av. for the first half, then back with it behind me at 19.35mph; that works out as 17.45mph average and I felt absolutley fine at the end. I'll take that happily as my average for the bike split next week.

The rest of the day is for shopping, tidying and planning out the week. Seven days to go!

[Big_Show]

Tuesday 26th June

Easy pre-work swim - 1500m in 27:10

Post-work: ran up to running club to say hi to people, ran with them to the session, ran home again via Jesmond Dene. Completely drenched. Legs felt incredibly fresh and ready to go. 6.4M in 50:08 @ 7:50/mile

[Jungle_re]

Cor looking good if your knocking out those times with ease. Best of luck for the Outlaw hope you nail it good and proper.
Looking forward to the race report

[Big_Show]

Time to update this with the last few sessions.

Wednesday 27th June

1hr easy spin before work

After work: cinema (finally had time to watch Avengers Assemble!) and drinks

Thursday 28th June

Day off - early into work, should have done something afterwards but the Toon was completely flooded!

Friday 29th June

Doing random jobs & shopping ahead of the race. Last two sessions as well:
Swim: Concentrated solely on technique and form - 1500m in 27:30
Easy run: 3.4M in 26:18 @ 7:44/mile pace

Saturday 30th June
Travel down to Nottingham & registration. Tempted to put all the walking to & from the train stations as training hours but I won't.

Sunday 1st June

The Outlaw

Swim: 1:07:00
T1: 7:03
Bike: 6:21:41 @
T2: 6:21
Run: 4:23:07

Looking back, Fink's Competitive Plan seems to have done exactly what I was hoping for when I started it. My swim has improved (mainly a function of increased volume & consistency), my bike stamina is much better, and my running is basically the same as it was a year ago. Which is a good thing, as I was expecting my top speed to drop off massively as training progressed.

That said, I did make a few changes to it. The first five weeks or so before Christmas (it started on 1st December for me) were all about building the base and were actually less than I was currently doing, so I didn't stick to the sessions religiously at first. Instead I just made sure I was doing the right type of session on the right day to get used to the consistent layout of the week (i.e. I never normally used to train on a Friday after work, or have Monday off completely, or swim on consecutive days).

The Tuesday run sessions were substituted for the regular Harriers club night - about the same duration, and much better quality speedwork.

The Wednesday & Thursday bike sessions were steady Z2 rides with a bit of efforts put in later on; I substituted these for turbo sessions or spin classes. I think I would have got far too bored otherwise.

The Saturday bike sessions - I was already ahead of what the programme said when it started, so I just aimed to stay the same distance ahead of the book each week i.e. when it was saying a 1hr30 ride I was on 2h30, when it went up to 2h I was on 3h, etc. This was deliberately done because, as was pointed out by the Northern Witch, the bike was (and remains) by far my weakest discipline. I actually came to enjoy those long rides by the end of the programme, although the early morning starts to fit everything in got very old very quickly.

The Sunday run - I was also further ahead of this when it started (my normal Sunday run is about 1:45-2:00 and the programme started at about 45-60mins) so I just kept it were it normally was until the programme caught up. With the extra impact involved in running longer distances I didn't want to risk injury, plus I had some Achilles trouble in February/March which stopped me doing much of this anyway.

So that's it all done. Goals for the rest of the year all involve short races and enjoying training, doing more of it in larger groups rather than on my own because nobody else wants (for "wants" read "is stupid enough") to go out that far, that early, or that slowly. Still going to do enough long distance sessions to maintain a decent endurance base, but nothing so extreme as before. Operation Big Unit will be restarted with a vengeance. And I'm going to put some serious effort into reestablishing my social life too!

I hereby declare this training log finished. I hope it might possibly come in useful for anyone else considering using a Be Iron Fit plan.

[KidStardust]

and a great read it has been as well. over and out.

[IronMorg]

yes great read mate, really helped me due to being the same plan (accept 11 weeks in front). well done again