Thursday 16 Jul

The main aim for today was to ensure that I completed a good swim session and also get my bike session done.

Typically I always do my bike and run sessions in the AM and swim on the way home from work, which often leads to me dropping the swim when things get in the way due to family or work commitments. So with the horrible cold windy weather I though it best to hit the indoor pool early and get a good swim done and then complete the bike training on the trainer in the afternoon.

This worked well in terms of my swim as I had an endurance session planned and completed it nicely. The session was;

2 x 1km steady IM effort
4 x 400m IM to HIM effort

I was quite tired after 2km's due to my lack of recent swimming so it is vital I get a few of these session done and I'm happy that I have this one in the bank. A lot of work to do yet, because if I had to get on a bike ride ride 180km after this swim it would be ugly, I was pretty wasted from the swim!

Not sure what my swim times are yet and I don't really want to know just now! I just need to get a month or so of good consistent swimming under my belt and then I'll see what the numbers tell me.

The afternoon trainer session had to be varied from the plan as I ran out of time due to changes at home. I had to take the girls to netball training at 5:30, cook dinner and then pick them up at 6:30.

So I jumped on the trainer after this and knocked out my standard 2 x 20min sweet spot session with a total of around 1:15.

I try and sit around 80 -  92% FTP for these session and build my fitness gradually for an IM so I can back it up day after day and this session I averaged 217w for the intervals which is 90% of my current FTP. Nothing outstanding but it is what it is for now.

I will be aiming for an FTP of around 265w by the time the race comes around, which is where I was for IM Malaysia and I managed to average 200w for that race for a 5:12 on a difficult course. So I'm hoping for similar numbers, perhaps with a few watts increase due to another year of consistent training in the legs.