My Ironman Journey for Sporting Footprints: Blog Post No. 002 – Fast but Slow

February was a quick month, where did it go!?

The start of Feb saw me doing a 1000 metre Time Trial test in the pool. Im not a big fan of these tests as they push you to go as hard as you can and as you know by now I struggle with my swim at the best of times, however it seems a minor miracle occurred.

The previous month over 1000m I averaged a time of 2:28/100 epically slow not helped by me looking at other people’s times on Strava. (Note: Focus on yourself and your own target.)

This month I didn’t feel like I was dying/drowning and managed a time of 2:16/100 and knocking a whole 2 minutes off the total 1000mm Time Trial. I’ve now gone from very slow to just slow, happy with that!

During this test week I also had to do a Lactate Heartrate Threshold Test on the bike, again this test isn’t pretty, you have to ride as hard but as sustainable as you can for 20 minutes. I did this on my Wattbike and a small improvement of 5 Watts power increase over the last month, again I’ll take that thank you very much.

Speaking of power, specifically bike power, one of the main measuring factors athletes use to determine your power on the bike is Power/Weight ratio. For example I am a short arse and weigh 60kg, yes this is light and all this training has certainly helped and I have a Functional Threshold Power (FTP) of 177 this is the power I could sustain over 1 hour on a bike (ish). I could probably do more who knows.

Therefore to work out my power/weight ratio you divide my power by my weight giving me a score of just under 3 watts/kg.

However, you would think a heavier rider would have a better ratio, this isn’t entirely true, let’s take a cyclist who weighs 107kg and for the purpose of this blog we’ll call him Steve. Steve has a FTP of 266 watts, massively more power than me but his ratio is 2.4. This doesn’t mean that much really because on a flat bit of road or downhill Steve will be faster because absolute power will come into play however on the uphills I should be quicker. These numbers may mean nothing to you and you may have started nodding off, I’m a bit of a geek with numbers but I’ll leave it there so as to not bore you to death.

February also saw a few brick sessions which involves cycling then running straight off the bike , this is to get your legs used to the jelly legs feeling you can get running straight off the bike leg of a triathlon. Nobody wants to look like Bambi on your big day.

I have also upped the running miles this month starting with a 10 mile trail run. I have been getting a 10 miler in each week now as well as a few shorter runs.

Photo: Muddy shoes and sore knee post trail run

I know what youre thinking, I haven’t mentioned any injuries yet, well wait for it,  I seem to have a bit of patella tendinitis/ patellar femoral pain so am trying to be a s careful as I can with this, still doing lots of strengthening etc. and hoping to keep it under control.

The highlight of Feb other than running with my lad on his first junior Park Run, and even better than pancakes was my new bike arrived, it may not make me go faster but at least it might make me feel faster!

Photo: My new baby on its first ride out, is it weird that I cant stop stroking it every time I walk past it.

 

Coming up In March I have Surrey Half Marathon so stay tuned for that, bet you can’t wait.

 

And of course, the reason I am taking on this Ironman Journey is to raise money for Sporting Footprints please see my Just Giving page and spare anything you can.

Until next time.

 

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Matt-Hart4

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