The unplanned plan

Today was the day that training was not going to plan. Yesterday I mentioned that I knew I wouldn't have time to fit in all of my programmed training and I certainly did not.

The training on the program was for 180km on the bike followed by 10km of running. In the end I got the running done, but the bike was almost 100km short. Plus it was done on the Kickr. Still as I mentioned yesterday I am okay with the shortened training. Due to restrictions with child care I was never going to have time to fit in 6 hours + of training, so I am happy to have got in what I did.

Despite it being short I am fairly happy with how the training turned out. It kind of ended up being a very good 70.3 training session, with around 90km on the bike and 10km done off it. With the bike being short I pushed up the intensity a little and was happy with the power levels I managed for the 2.5 hours.

Originally my plan had been to do the riding part on the road, but in the the end I just couldn't be bothered dealing with the weather. It has been one of those days where it hasn't rained much, but there has been numerous squalls and fronts passing through which means the day hasn't really dried out. Plus it has been blowing a gale all day. The sort of conditions that would have been very frustrating to ride in. I felt particularly justified in my decision when, about 10 minutes into the ride, a fierce hail storm hit. Unpleasant. 2.5 hours on the Kickr isn't a romp in the park either, but I just wasn't in the mood to be out in the wind and the rain today.

As I have said the bike went about according to plan, however, it was the run that was a surprise. Starting off the run I was quite aware of my legs carrying fatigue from yesterday's long run. That feeling of fatigue never really went away, but it didn't seem to slow things down too much with the run actually ending up as a negative split. I was certainly surprised by the final average pace too, much quicker than I was expecting.

Taking the brick session in its entirety it wasn't exactly ideal Ironman training, but as I said above, as a half ironman training session it was very confidence boosting. It feels like things are falling into place nicely.