Trains, Travels

While patches of blue sky are on display none of them match the sunny days I enjoyed in Lanzarote. There is little chance I’ll be spending the afternoon relaxing on a sun lounger, slowly catching up with my long reading list. The UK has a damper tone that makes me wish I’d booked another week in Puerto del Carmen, but the training camp is over and it’s back to reality as I attempt to structure training that builds on the previous fortnight around the work that went on hold. I can be content that I achieved my aim: I returned from camp fit and healthy. The question is whether I did ‘just enough’.

The core Lanzarote training day included swim, bike and run, I completed it five times. I never took a full day off, but I didn’t train as heavily as on previous trips either – the first week over twenty hours and the second in its teens. Shorter sessions with bursts of higher intensity when I attacked hills offered a different stimulus to the long steady-state rides of past seasons. Daily training load – the cumulative work done – was lower, but when I worked, I worked hard. I could have done more, I possibly should have; with Ironman Lanzarote less than three weeks away I feel unprepared, perhaps I went too far in my desire not to do too much.

The ‘enough’ debate remained open the entire fortnight and I found myself arguing for less. Not specifically for myself – I could handle more, but my hard efforts were sufficient – but Gill’s need to hit a volume didn’t always match her ability to handle the load. On occasions we crossed the line: an extra rep up the Donkey Trail that left both our legs sore or over-extending (and under-eating) a ride and limping home; not the most productive uses of our time. I felt those sessions in my daily run, compromising pace to ensure I would complete my thirty days of running challenge. More can be good, but not when it sees you abandoning other workouts or struggling to complete a session with reasonable form.

Sometimes we got it right; four Donkey Trail reps for me to Gill’s three proving a decent workout on an easier day. Despite the overall lighter load it was enough to leave me feeling tired, to wake with aching legs and a desire to sleep more. There was never an exact answer to the question of ‘just enough’, that manageable sense of fatigue was my guideline and I erred on the side of caution. The balance wasn’t perfect. I hoped to push both bike and run further than I did, but the interplay between the two, and the obvious impact on my legs, never allowed it. Gill would have benefited from running more, a better compromise with riding could have been achieved. But the result is we’ve returned home fitter and without the need for a recovery week.

The fortnight comfortable bridged training camp and holiday, delivering on both fronts. When I wasn’t training – which was a lot of the time – I relaxed, I lounged under warm, sunny skies a fully loaded Kindle and review copy of The Art of Running Faster to hand, it’s been a while since I’ve taken a break like that. I can’t regret training less because I’ve come back refreshed and motivated.

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The alarm goes off at seven and I wait to see if either of us will commit to a sea swim; odds are I won’t, but if Gill moves, then the day starts with a swim. After that breakfast, identical to the day before – some meat, some eggs, a little bread, a couple of bowls of coffee and maybe – almost certainly – a piece of cake. A momentary pause to allow it to partially digest before changing into bike kit and heading out for a ride. A few hours later we’re back, a quick snack from the fridge and then relax, anything that involves sitting down. Just before dinner, a run along the seafront tracing the path of the Ironman. Then ease down – eat, an early evening stroll dodging the touts hoping to lure us into their bars and finally back to the room with enough time for a couple of episodes of Battlestar Galactica before bed. This is the pattern of life on Lanzarote.

A good pattern is often the basis of successful training, a routine that works – that leads to progression in fitness and performance. While these routines share common ground, they equally possess subtle differences, unique patterns tailored to our individual needs. I have examined my routines in many different ways – charts and analyses that attempt to model the impact of my training, abstracting swim, bike and run to numbers. I know that for many unfamiliar with the system and tools I use it can be confusing and doesn’t give a strong sense of what I am doing; the pattern of training isn’t clear. So I’ve tried a different approach, considering only one variable, duration, and focusing on it’s pattern over time. We’re revisiting four years of Ironman training data, but this time in a much simpler way

All you need to understand is the following: in the charts above each square represents a single day and the darker the square the more training I did on that day. You can pick any square and immediately see how it stands in comparison with any other: 2009, week 35, day 4 was a moderate training day, consisting of (you’ll need to open the full-size image to pick out details) a swim, bike and run. It’s at the larger scale I find the heat maps more interesting – you can clearly see distinct blocks of training, patterns of volume relating to my focus at the time.

The pattern of a working athlete in early 2008, low volume in the week paired with busy weekends. Then dense, dark periods preceding big races, followed by pale patches of recovery as I solely train through 2009 and into 2010. A shift in 2011, less darkness, but frequency, many more moderates volume days, consistent over a longer period of time (excuse the swim record, it’s inaccurate, I honestly did swim more than that). Leading to an uncertain 2012, slowly finding its feet along similar lines to the year before.

In the hunt for a ‘good’ pattern, what do I find? Unsurprisingly those periods where I densely train – where few light squares appear – are the most productive. The big days – those dark squares – can be beneficial, but too many tend to break up those dense blocks of training; a scattering seems to work well. A different, pictorial, approach leads to much the same conclusion as more complex routes. Train regularly, sometimes train long, beware of doing too much.

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“It isn’t always like this.” I tried to sound reassuring and authoritative, but I wasn’t sure if it was unusually windy or I’d already forgotten how windy Lanzarote is. It had only been two months since my last visit, it hadn’t felt as difficult then, and the year before, I didn’t recall many days being quite so tough. One day into our two week trip to Lanzarote, Gill’s first time on the island, and the weather was playing contrary to my pre-trip claims about the lack of rain, the warmth and the extent of the wind. At least if we could both cope with thirty mile per hour gales, anything else the island offered would seem comparatively tame; fortunately it isn’t always like that – yesterday’s cool, overcast battle into a gale turns into today’s warm, sunny fight with strong gusts.

The wind has been one of the constant features of my many trips to Lanzarote and while it remains ever present this time round there are changes. The days still start with a swim, after a large breakfast a bike and finish with a pre-dinner run, but beyond this my spartan approach to training camps has been abandoned. Two of us in an apartment that has previously held three, now I’m upgraded to a real bed, the sofa a place to sit, reading or working with a glass of red wine on the table in front of me. The larder is well stocked – ample food to tide us over between training sessions and of course the aforementioned wine. I’m attempting – unsuccessfully – to keep our lounge uncluttered, a place to relax after the day’s efforts, but already discarded kit (my own) is making its presence known. After dinner we stroll along the beach front browsing tourist shops, we seem to have created a strange union of training camp and holiday.

Beyond these superficial changes, I am abandoning the ethos that ‘more is better’, and instead hoping to do ‘just enough’. I want to return from this camp fit and healthy, I don’t want the post-camp slump that has often followed. To that end rather than attempting to simply accumulate training until I crack I aim to complete a manageable volume every day with two easier days to help absorb the load. Perhaps I can stretch myself enough without breaking.

Some things remain the same. Rules. Over breakfast Gill and I discuss how we will eat in a bid to shed a little unneeded weight. Plans are formulated to allow treats, effectively access to desserts or alcohol on the basis of daily performance, a certain amount of work needs to be done to contemplate these items. And further rules define our days – we will get up each morning and swim, at least thirty minutes, but preferably sixty; we will bike on all, but one easy day and three to four hours should be the minimum; I of course will be running at least thirty minutes a day as part of my thirty days of running, unfortunately Gill strained her ankle the day before we left so we wait to see what she can manage. Differences in speed necessitate a system for riding together – waiting at major turns, hill climbs become reps for me, I accept a certain slowing of pace knowing I will work that much harder elsewhere.

But I remain struck by how things change. A few principles remain, but the practice is very different. It feels positive, I am striking a better balance between training and enjoying that training. I am relaxed in my approach. It is a pleasure to not stress about how many hours I’ve achieved or how hard I’ve gone (though I remain acutely aware of the potential Strava records). I could get used to this training camp-holiday hybrid, should I avoid that post-camp slump I will be sold.

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