One Hundred Push Ups

You may have noticed in my training updates that I quite often refer to the 100 push up challenge, and a number of people have asked me what its about so here is a brief explanation: -

The 100 push up challenge is all about getting to a point where you can do 100 non-stop good form push ups from whatever your staring point (try googling 100 pushups). It is a six week program and comprises of a number of workouts each week based on test results. With test carried out at the start and at set periods during the program.

Although it is meant to be a 6 week program, you also have the option to repeat a week if you feel you have not reached the required level to move on.

I am now just starting week 3 and the reason I am doing this is northing more than it’s a good challenge to do in the off season … I am currently crap at pushups …

Go on … have a go!

W/E 15/10/2010

A solid weeks training, for me this week with 11 hours of training, this week saw me pick up a thigh injury that meant some changing of plans then come down with a cold .. so no swimming at all this week, I am not overly worried about my lack of swimming at the moment but need to keep an eye on things.

SAT	__	__	Rest Day
SUN	AM	01:40	RUN: Easy multi terrain run
MON	AM	00:10	100 push up challenge 2:1
MON	PM	01:30	BIKE: Structured session (Brick Pt1)
MON	PM	00:22	RUN: including 6x45sec hill sprints (Brick Pt2)
TUE	AM	00:55	STRENGTH: Session from PT
TUE	PM	02:21	BIKE: Lower end LT session
WED	PM	01:35	RUN: Hard Intervals
THU	AM	01:00	STRENGTH: PT Session
FRI	AM	01:07	BIKE: MTB (Brick Pt1)
FRI	AM	00:10	RUN: (Brick Pt2)
FRI	PM	00:10	100 push up challenge 2:2

SWIM	00:00
BIKE	04:58
RUN	03:47
STRENGTH	02:15
TOTAL	11:00

GEAR REVIEW: Petzl MYO XP

The winter, as the nights draw in, normally pushes evening onto the roads and more well lit routes that are normally suffer from being boring, choked with fumes from traffic or clogged with pedestrians, Well this year I wanted it to be different .. I wanted to embrace winter wild running, to be able to continue to enjoy runs along the river banks and through woods and parks, so to this end I decided to look at head touches as a means of lighting my way.

After quite a bit research, I new what I wanted, something light that took regular batteries, had a good burn time and most importantly was bright. There were a couple in the running a model from Lennser and another from Petzl … and, by default, since I could not find anyone with the Lenser in stock I ended up by the Petzl.

The model I purchased was the Petzl MYO XP and off I went for an evening run on the heath.

I originally had reservations about the battery pack on the rear of the strap, but once I had but the Petzl on I found it adjusted easily and was comfortable to wear; I used it on maximum power for about the last hour of a hard interval run, during which the light stayed in place and did not irritate.

The light was bright enough for me to see comfortable, meaning I was able to push myself during the session without fear of tripping over an unseen obstruction and its adjustability meant it shone exactly where needed.

I will definitely be using the Petzl MYO XP to allow me to continue running off road this winter and as a supplemental light while out on my bike … you can never be too safe out there

RATING 9/10

Features

• Shines up to 97metres (boost mode)
• 86 lumens (maximum level)
• 150 lumens (boost mode)
• 3 lighting levels (maximum, optimum, economic)
• Wide angle lens allows to quickly switch from flood beam proximity lighting to focused long distance lighting in a single movement
• Boost mode increases power if needed while optimizing energy consumption and weight (175g with batteries)
• 180 hour light duration at economic level (80h on maximum)
• Battery charge indicator light warns when batteries are 70% and then 90% discharged
• Head Band includes top strap.
• 3 year warranty

Specification

• Dark grey, black headband with grey graphics
• Water resistant for all weather use
• Polycarbonate wide angle lens
• Operates on 3 AA/LR6 batteries (included)

Intervals on the Heath

I had planned to do cycling hill reps tonight but I have a slight niggle still in my upper thigh so thought I better not put it under the stress of hill work.

So instead I thought I'd run, intervals to be specific on the local heath its flat and off road (on grass) so easier on the injury. I totalled just over 10.5 mile in the 1:35, which looked like : -

• Warm up
• 10 x 2mins @ 87%+mhr | 2min active recovery
• 10min steady
• 10 x 1min @ 90%+mhr | 90secs active recovery
• Warm Down

AHR = 76% MHR
MHR = 95% MHR

It was a good session and I got to try out my new head torch, which I will be providing a review of later.

Cycling Physiological Assessment (Part 2)

Interpreting the results …

Having all that data is one thing but understanding what it means and how to make use of it is another, the output from the assessment was a personalised 13 page report, which took a few days to prepare, that combined my results with my sporting aims (endurance as opposed to sprint) but briefly here are some points that came form the report …

Firstly my training zones: -

ZONE	HR	GUIDELINES
1	to 112bpm	Used for recovery purposes. Early winter training, or as a training zone if you build up extensive miles (6 hours/day)
2	114bpm -147bpm	Foundation of endurance training. Develops lactate removal capabilities and extensive overload on the mechanisms of aerobic respiration. The level where training induces performance improvements.
3	148bpm -162bpm	This is intensive training. This will bring your form forward to a peak. It is probably easier to do this type of training in an interval format, as it is simply difficult to maintain this intensity for long periods without the ‘racing’ motivation. The level three training sessions will be quite short.
4	162bpm +	Intensive intervals to top your form off. Monitoring of heart rate is usually not needed. Can be developed to enhance sprinting and time trialling.

Next my weight, as can be seen I an quite a bit heavier than the elite or age grouper (although taller) so I could do with dropping some weight, this will not improve my cycling but will help improve my power to weight ratio (currently 3.06W/kg) my aim is to drop about 6kg which by itself will help me realise a .25W/kg improvement and help with my climbing (which has always a problem)

Improving maximum power and oxygen consumption (and helping push up my VO2max) will be a case of training mid to longer training sessions in Zone 2 with mid (upper mid) zone having the most benefit and save most of the Zone 3+ work until after base training. To ensure control over this factor the use of turbo / spinning bike will be adopted in the off season

My strength is not very good (283w max power) so that is another area I need to work on during the off season and this needs to be both cycling specific and generic.  The cycling specific work will be taking the form of hill reps and be complicated with some off season gym work focusing on strength endurance this will help me push up my wattage and therefore improve my cycling weight to strength ratio.

So that is what my plan is based on at the moment and I will be going back to get retested in the new year to see what effect my training is having and this will co-inside with me commencing a specific Ironman training program.

Cycling Physiological Assessment (Part 1)

I have always said that the bike is my weakest discipline and no mater what I have tried I have always struggled to make improvements, well lately I have decided to have a scientific look at my weakness and have it quantified and develop a training plan based on this.

To this end I took part in a Cycling Physiological Assessment at Canterbury Christ Church Universities sports science department. This involved cycling on a bike that measured my power output, while my heart rate, oxygen consumption were recoded along with taking regular blood samples to measure my blood lactic saturations.

The aim of the assessment was primarily to: -

1. Highlight specific strengths and weaknesses of your fitness profile in relation to your sport,
2. Provide a scientific basis for any training guidance we may offer, and
3. Enable regular monitoring of any changes in the components assessed

The tests last between 60 and 90mins and take the form of riding up a couple of hills that just keep getting steeper and steeper

So the following table is the output from the tests and show how poor I actually am on the bike: -

NAME	XXXXXXXX	Hogarth	XXXXXXXX
CATEGORY	Local Age Grouper	Triathlete	Elite Triathlete
AGE	38 years	44 years	25 years
HEIGHT	1.79 m	1.86 m	1.78 m
MASS	75.9 kg	92.4 kg	70.2 kg
BODY FAT %	-	-	10.40%
FAT MASS	-	-	7.3 kg
LEAN MASS	-	-	62.9 kg
HAEMATOCRIT	-	-	-
HAEMOGLOBIN	-	-	-
MAXIMUM HEART RATE	170 beats.min-1	174 beats.min-1	188 beats.min-1
MAXIMUM MINUTE POWER	338 W	283 W	385 W
POWER:WEIGHT RATIO	4.45 W.kg-1	3.06 W.kg-1	5.47 W.kg-1
POWER:WEIGHT (0.32)	84.6 W.kg -(0.32)	66.5 W.kg -(0.32)	98.8 W.kg -(0.32)
POWER:WEIGHT (0.67)	18.6 W.kg- (0.67)	13.6 W.kg- (0.67)	22.3 W.kg- (0.67)
MAXIMAL OXYGEN CONSUMPTION (Absolute)	3.95 L.min-1	3.89 L.min-1	5.21 L.min-1
MAXIMAL OXYGEN CONSUMPTION (Relative)	52.0 mL.kg-1.min-1	42.1 mL.kg-1.min-1	74.3 mL.kg-1.min-1
GROSS EFFICIENCY (POWER)	21.2 % (250 watts)	19.5 % (200 watts)	20.9 % (310 watts)
LACTATE THRESHOLD (LT) POWER (Absolute)	175 W	125 W	230 W
LACTATE THRESHOLD (LT) POWER (kg)	2.31 W.kg-1	1.35 W.kg-1	3.28 W.kg-1
LACTATE THRESHOLD (LT) VAO2 (Absolute)	2.50 L.min-1	1.98 L.min-1	3.36 L.min-1
LACTATE THRESHOLD (LT) VAO2 (kg)	32.9 mL.kg-1.min-1	21.4 mL.kg-1.min-1	47.9 mL.kg-1.min-1
THRESHOLD HEART RATE (LT)	120 beats.min-1	112 beats.min-1	-
LACTATE THRESHOLD (OBLA) POWER (Absolute)	236 W	202 W	323 W
LACTATE THRESHOLD (OBLA) POWER (kg)	3.11 W.kg-1	2.19 W.kg-1	4.60 W.kg-1
LACTATE THRESHOLD (OBLA) VAO2 (Absolute)	3.19 L.min-1	2.99 L.min-1	4.37 L.min-1
LACTATE THRESHOLD (OBLA) VAO2 (kg)	42.0 mL.kg-1.min-1	32.3 mL.kg-1.min-1	62.3 mL.kg-1.min-1
THRESHOLD HEART RATE (OBLA)	140 beats.min-1	147 beats.min-1	-
ISOCAPNIC BUFFERING PHASE (W)	65 W	65 W	93 W
ISOCAPNIC BUFFERING PHASE (VAO2 kg)	8.9 mL.kg-1.min-1	8.1 mL.kg-1.min-1	14.3 mL.kg-1.min-1
HYPOCAPNIC HYPERVENTILATION (W)	60 W	54 W	62 W
HPOCAPNIC HYPERVENTILATION (VAO2 kg)	7.1 mL.kg-1.min-1	7.2 mL.kg-1.min-1	12.0 mL.kg-1.min-1
RELATIVE BUFFERING (W)	23.30%	28.40%	28.80%
PREDICTED 40km PERFORMANCE TIME (HH:MM:SS)	01:02:27	01:05:03	54:49:00

W/E 08/10/2001

A good solid week of 10hrs  but very little swimming

SAT	AM	00:25	RUN: Easy 2miles
SUN	PM	00:10	100 push up challenge 1:1
MON	PM	01:45	BIKE: 35miles at 90% OBLA
MON	PM	00:38	RUN: 4.5miles tempo (in 5c45sec hill sprints)
TUE	AM	00:35	SWIM: 1600m as 4x400m
TUE	PM	00:10	100 push up challenge 1:2
TUE	PM	01:45	BIKE: 33miles intervals
WED	PM	01:30	BIKE: 22miles hill reps
THU	PM	01:12	Strength: PT Session
FRI	AM	01:01	RUN: 6.8mile Trails
FRI	AM	00:11	100 push up challenge 1:3
FRI	PM	00:37	RUN:3.1Mile Trails and paths

Back Again ... Again ... Again

Hi all

I am going to have another go at Blogging my progress towards an Ironman, this year Ironman Regensburg. The reason last years blogging came to an end was fact i have gone self employed and my life has been chaos.

Last year turned out o be a complete shambles as far as my training progressed, working away from home and not being able to get my head focused resulted in the worst IM time so far IM Germany 2010 = 14:51

Training was all over the place with a lot of weeks only being 3 sessions and only 2 long rides all together

This year I will again try and get my backside into gear and go for another Ironman with a target of under 13hrs ... Ironman Regensburg here I come ...

Life, Flu and the lack of training

Just a quick update as I haven’t done much training over the last 3 weeks ... spending a couple of the weeks running round the country trying to win a new contract so I can pay my bills ... followed by a week of man flu .. so All i’ve done is a total of 4 runs of about 7 mile average   ... hopefully i’ll get back into things next week

W/E : 31/01/2009 (Week 4)

The end of another week and the end of my first month back in training, and its been both a good week and a good month as I look back, with last week going to plan, it was aimed to be a bit of a recovery week and that’s how it panned out with just short of 9hrs training.

The month ended up with just short of 41hrs training, which for me is a good month and I’ve lost 13lbs since the new year.

Last weeks stats look like this: -

MON	__	__	REST DAY
TUE	AM	01:12:00	BIKE: 21Mile - Spinning (RPM39)
TUE	PM	00:20:00	RUN: 2Mile - Easy run to the pool
TUE	PM	01:12:00	SWIM: 2800m - 7 x 400 : RI 60secs
TUE	PM	00:15:00	RUN: 2Mile - Tempo run back from pool
WED	AM	01:08:00	RUN: 8Mile - Farlek sesson with Dog
WED	PM	01:07:00	SWIM: 2500m - Sructured set
THU	AM	01:20:00	BIKE: 27Mile - Brick session
THU	AM	00:40:00	RUN: 4Mile - Brick session
FRI	AM	01:00:00	BIKE: 15.5Mile - Spinning (RPM36)
FRI	PM	00:40:00	RUN: 4Mile - hilly run
SAT	__	__	REST DAY
SUN	__	__	REST DAY

SWIM:	02:19
BIKE:	03:32
RUN:	03:03
TOTAL	08:54