Just a heap of crap carbon

Photo from yesterday´s time trial training. 4 hours with two 20km pushes at full throttle.
Must admit I was pretty burned on the second interval - after 7 hours on the bike the day before.

8 beautiful Argon 18 bikes. Mostly E114 but also a few E112

My 8 steps to faster recovery:

As the trainings are getting longer and harder, the need for faster and more efficient recovery becomes more important. Here´s my take on better recovery, which I (more or less consciously) do after long trainings:

1. Stretch - My good Swedish friend Haakon Weibull once said "Warm-Up and Stretching is gay"... very precise with a good Swedish accent. Some say "nay" and some say "yay", but most people still recognize the benefits of stretching. I spend 15-20 minutes after long trainings, working with some pretty straight forward exercises. Girls digs boys who stretches ;)
   
   
2. Shower - may sound pretty obvious, but hit the cold water over the legs for 5-7 minutes, which has some (still unexplained) magic effect. It´s painful and it sucks - but it works.
   
   
3. Drink - I have learned that I drop 3-5 kg of liquid during long rides, even when hydrating well during the day. So drink well, isotonics, coca cola or whatever works for you. Until your pee goes transparent again!
   
   
4. Eat - as soon as possible, preferable within 20 minutes after the training 40% proteins (tuna, chicken and what not) and 60% carbs (pasta or rice works for me)
   
   
5. Supplement - I take Amino Acids (BCAA) and a mix of salts sold on the pharmacies here, sodium, magnesium, etc. It´s called "RecuperatION" (great name for a Spanish product, huh?) - works wonders.
   
   
6. Compex - this electronic muscle simulator works wonders on sore muscles. It´s fairly expensive and hurts a bit - but gets your legs back in shape in 25-60 minutes. Takes out the feeling of "heavy legs" which means a lot, especially if you do back-to-back quality (short and fast) trainings!
   
   
7. Massage - do it yourself or find a serious sports pro (like my homie Roberto Ortiz) - hands of magic on the legs every 8-12 days. Works deeper than the compex (THAT actually came out a bit gay) and can work on specific areas, which needs special attention!
   
   
8. Rest - even though my room mate still laugh at me when I pass out on the couch, this is the best moment of the day. Spanish people got it right with the "Siesta" - it´s next best thing after sliced bread! Hit Mythbusters or whatever on the old telly and sleep until some foolish soul wakes you up.

Hope it´ll work for ya too! Enjoy... I´m taking a nap. Besos - T

Accumulated Volumens

Below my accumulated volumens since October 2008, when we ran the Berlin Marathon

	Swim		Bike		Run
	km	Hours	km	Hours	km	Hours
IM France Totals	133	60	3949	178	1233	102
IM Lanzarote Totals	233	89	4893	203	1478	126
IM CopenhagenTotals	30	14	1900	67	466	34
IM St. George	97.8	37	5425	206	714	60
IM Zurich
Summarized Totals	493	200	16167	654	3891	322

Perception

This weekend I participated in a great event at Fitness dk. Pro triathlete Aleksandar Sørensen-Markovic and former pro triathlete Ole Stougaard came to share their great experiences on training programs. They started talking about motivation, setting realistic goals, preparing for heavy amounts of training – both physical and psychological. They ensured us that taking good care of the body and listen to it, plays a big role in accomplishing the big challenge – doing and IM. Actually. Listening to your body is the most important thing to do!

My main learning from that specific topic can be put in one single word: Perception.Its a common word – but put in the IM context it suddenly appered as the key I have been looking for. Grounding the project. We are talking about preparing a body for a huge challenge. No book. No guru. No formula. No one else but myself can answer the question: How am I doing in my training! Perception is all about Body image – Understanding –Taking control. Listening to our body – an respond to it.

It is actually very simple. And that was exactly what made the event very useful! Sometimes all the planning and training can take over, and make me all dizzy of concern: Am I doing this the right way? Am I training hard enough? How do I get strong and fit? Do I need to get more geeky and count every calorie, put my sleep and rest in system. Adding time with friends as a spice to dinner? No. Accept the fact that there will be situations in your private life, work life that rquires you attention – don’t have bad conscience – as long as you do the best you can – when you can. Take full credit in every training session! If I follow the instructions I get – and use them as a guide – not at formula – then I am all good! Its not more difficult then that. You can feel if you do it the wrong way – body image will tell you that you are in pain and feel extremly tired. You understand by taking a day off. Taking control and care.

It is a long journey (exactly 6 months today!!!!) – it’s a lifestyle change. Make it fun. Have fun. Enjoy it. If you dont feel you are training – but just sit there waiting for the session to be over – why did you show up? Do it. Push it. Take control. Feel the changes and the satisfaction of hard work. Be curious J and reward the body after pushing it to the limit. Rest. Rest. Rest. Be in it. Actually it is just like in every other aspect in life.

Aleksandar and Ole also shared great knowledge regarding swim, bike and run. How we optimize our trainings, in terms of making great result. Results are the only way to have control over how good your doing with your training. It’s not a question on how many hours you put into you program – but how well your trainings are absorbed by your body. Slowly the amounts of hours will increase as the body prepares for building up.

We were also introduced to pose-running technique. What an eyeopener! We practiced some small exercises and headed for an outdoor run. Everybody felt awkward in the new running style – but we all agreed in the positive impact on our running economy! It will take a lot of time adjusting my running but I will certainly practice!

So sitting here with a feeling of roasted legs – I am taking an evening without training – and enjoing it J

Quality Training

So - as we´re getting closer to Ironman St. George race day on the 7th of May, it´s time to start getting more quality training in the legs. That means more hours running and biking close to, or over the lactate- or functional threshold (max pace or power you can maintain for 30 minutes). This hurts, but it´s also fun and definitely more my kind of training; Shorter & tougher, preferably until you feel the taste of blood or metal in the mouth.

This weekend the order from Master Lladó was Road bike Saturday and time trial test for Sunday. With two long trail runs (19km and 22km with around 500m+ altitude) on Tuesday & Thursday, my legs we´re already pretty much worn out, but here we go:

Saturday:
With a pretty large group (15-20) of experienced riders we headed straight over the mountains and towards the national park around the Montserrat mountain, which always means long and hefty climbs. There was a whole lot of battling going on between the strongest riders, who kept attacking and defending the whole day. It´s really stressful with tempo-changes and bikes moving all the time, but the training is excellent as you need to push hard all the time to keep up.

Big, big respect to at least two gentlemen in their mid-fifties (Javier & El Moracho) who both dropped me and several other young riders on every climb. I will never stop admiring people who keep themselves in this kind of shape through-out the whole life - a great inspiration!
Summarizing 110km with 1800m+ of climbing in 4h15m

Sunday - TT test:
After a good warm-up we hit the industrial area just before Martorell, a 6km flat stretch through smelly metal-factories which ends up in a 100m hill-climb, which was the scenery for today´s time-trial test. A lot of fun between the 6 A18-Mafia riders on their E-112 and E-114 - and straws we´re drawn to determine the order of the day. I went first with the disadvantage of having no reference in front of me (no complaints, as I am by far the slowest in this pack) and the remainders came after me with 90 seconds intervals.

My aim was to keep my HR steady on the flat (160 BPM) and also on the small, but tough climb (170 BPM). You can see the result on my HR and altitude below, so I stuck pretty well to the strategy, but lost around 2 mins to e.g. Guillermo - I still have much to learn on this kind of test.

This was very close to a Functional Threshold test and my HR was 165 over the 47.5 minutes, avg. speed was 34.7 km/h, which is OK with 200m climb over the 30km course. Total volume was 90km in around 3hours.



After the test I continued straight into a brick-run of 12km with a bit of climbing. I was surprised that I fairly easy maintained 4:20 min/km, which is much faster that the bricks I did before Challenge Copenhagen (around 5:00 min/km), so hey - maybe all this training and celibacy is actually working ;)

Cheers - Thomas

Badly Overworked - But that´´s OK!

So - as you´ve seen from my latest posts - we have really stepped it up since New Years. With 3 months to go to Ironman St. George we´re hitting a period of long and hard work, under the regime of Guillermo and his mighty team of tough and experienced bikers. Every Saturday and Sunday during January we have been going harder and harder - and longer and longer. Putting this on top of the long trainings we did in Lanzarote quickly left my body in a state of shock. Compare it to try to jump on a carousel in motion - head first. You just gotta hold on really hard, or you´ll be kicked off. Apart from a bit over normal leg soreness, I have experienced nauseousness, tunnel-vision (seriously), almost vomited and just the feel of being in the back of the pack ALL the fucking time is just another mental test. To the level where Guillermo said "Eres una niña" ... you´re a little girl - and he was right!!!

Mondays and Tuesdays I have been walking like an old man, eating like a maniac (totally carb overload) - to be honest, I have never been pushed so hard. People ask "but you must feel you are getting stronger" - yeah maybe, but that´s really hard to spot through the feeling of pain, just walking down a 3-step staircase.

So definitely a bit over-trained and that´s good. Yesterday was a great day - we had 18 degrees, blazing sun and was bound for 160 km through Catalan Wine country - and almost 1500m of climbing - only Guillermo, myself and our trusted steeds - the Argon18 E114s.

Check below today's training with the whole crew - a video made to demonstrate how training without drafting is just a bit tougher, both physically and mentally:

Happiness is a ressource

Its been a while since I last shared my experiences regarding my training for Challenge Copenhagen. Time flies when you are having fun and life treats you good!

Overall my trainings are still full of energy – I always look forward to them – even when the clock says 6 in the morning. Actually – those trainings are the best. Because once they are over – I feel fantastic, and have put ”hours in the bank” – so the rest of the remaining day have a hard time to convince me that it should’nt be a great day!! Body and mind all set for the workday challenges. Actually. That’s my point.

At the Friday morning bike class, the very good instructor said: All this training sometimes seem to be too much. But remember. Happiness is a ressource – do things, that makes you happy – and you will suddenly have a lot more profits to other things in your life.

For me the trainings are a drug now – its not difficult to put happiness into them. They move my body and mind.

The biggest move for me right now is my swimming. Since our little swim team teamed up with Mark Vogel, swimming suddenly moved from ”safe area – restitution” to big time challenges and kick ass trainings! Its great – and it was certainly time for me to expose the skills …

And those skills …. Hmm. I sure have gained a lot of bad habbits during my own trainings. But since I am such a newbie in swimming, I had prepared for some hardcore correction instructions – all focusing on making me stronger and expecially tecnical better.

The first challenge was getting rid of the pool buoy. I miss it! But I must agree – it was artificial respiration…. My challenges are huge, swimming without it. 100 m and my lungs are on fire! A bit hard for my confidence putting my skills back in line – but hey – then I remember how it all started. I hated pools, poolwater, and all that followed. Now I enjoy every stroke, every lane – because I get better everytime I do it. Over and over again.

Thanks to all the lovely people who helps me ... :-)

Btw -I am also proud of telling that I have got 2 sponsors for my Challenge Copenhagen. The ad agency Sunrise where I work, and Wib-byg also supports me heading for my big dream. Thank you! – I am very happy and grateful :-)

Love Louise