Paying the Piper

I just got back from seeing David Bryant at Catalyst Dietetics. As I mentioned yesterday I was keen to get some skin folds done to get an idea of how I am looking post injury, mainly to give me an idea of what sort of training/race weight I should be aiming at. Heading in I was a little apprehensive since by my reckoning my week offshore last week added another 1.5 to 2kg to my weight.

Despite my concerns the skin fold results were pretty okay. The sum of 7-site skin fold result was 4mm or so more than the tests I had done at the end of last year, which isn't much to write home about. Plus when I had those tests done I was very close to being unsustainably lean so I probably wont be rushing back to those levels. The sum of 7-site skin fold was still below 40mm though, so I am not exactly carrying around too much excess weight.

Today's results do give me a good idea that my training and race weights haven't changed that much. Race weight for me is still around 72kg give or take. That fits with what the naked eye tells me too. Around 73kg I look lean but normal, once I start pushing sub 72kg you start being able to count veins. Nice place to get for racing, but not necessarily a good place to sit for training, particularly during cold and flu season.

All very useful data.

An added benefit of seeing David is that he is going to give my diet plan a bit of a tweak. I am quite enjoying what I have been eating recently, but variety is the spice of life, or so I have been told.

The training side of today has been interesting too. This morning it was a return of the Power Ladders on the Kickr. I was doing these a few weeks ago and they were a session I quite enjoyed. They involve a series of steps on the Kickr, with each step having a gradual increase in power. Today the steps were 6 minutes long with the final one hitting a bit above 70.3 race pace. Each ladder had 5 steps and we did it twice all up for an hour of work. Add in a warm up and a warm down and it was a good solid session.

The bike session went really well. In fact I had my doubts that the power meter was reading correctly so easily was the power coming. I am still not convinced it wasn't to be honest. I know riding has been going well recently, I have been getting some good miles and a number of decent long rides, but still this ride was much better than expected. I have the same session on Thursday and I guess that will give me an idea of whether today's was an anomaly or not. I will be thrilled if it isn't though. It will be good to see the work that I have been doing on the bike paying off.

With the riding bit of the day done, soon it will be time for the running bit. Today sees a return of some interval work as we start building speed in preparation for Challenge Iskandar Puteri. I haven't done intervals for a few weeks so I will be interested to see how they go. The trick will be pace control I think. This session is more of a tempo workout rather than a threshold one so I am aiming for Half Ironman pace, not 5km pace, sometimes I struggle to hold myself to that. It gets very easy for each interval to become an all out effort which isn't really the point of today's session. There is a time and a place for threshold work like that, but it isn't today.