Friday and Saturday's training:
I was becoming slightly aware that the last few posts have been a bit moany and negative, which is probably not great for a) you, b) me...so I'm gonna try and be a bit more positve today!
I had a doctor's appointment in East Sheen early (8am) yesterday, so as I was up there anyway, I decided to throw in a few 'endurance' zone laps of Richmond Park. It was nice getting back at 10.30 having already done 30 miles or so and having the rest of the day to myself. It was lucky I'd got out so early though, because in the last half hour or so it was starting to get very wet and cold which would have made training any later in the day a bit miserable.
This morning I did a bit more of what I think I really need at the moment - strength work. I did just over an hour on the turbo trainer - with 48 minutes of that being a series of threshold 'intervals': 4 mins at heart rate 162-172, followed by 4 mins recovery - all repeated 4 times.
For the first interval I was trying to keep my cadence up at my 'normal' level - 85-90. However, I realised that of course the point of these intervals is to replicate hill climbing when my cadence will be lower and the power I have to put through the pedals will be higher.
As a result, in the remaining intervals, I gradually decreased my cadence to 70, 65 and 60, which
meant I was working in a higher gear. Encouragingly, I wasn't 'struggling' at any of those levels, and felt like I could have done longer stints at each of those levels. Hopefully this should help to get a bit more power back into my legs. I'll need to do a couple more of those sessions to try and build up my muscle strength for the climbs in the Dragon Ride next week.
I've pretty much decided that I'm not going to do the Highclere Sportive tomorrow. The weather's supposed to be really miserable and I think I'll probably get more use out of a bit more 'structured' training.
I also have to try and 'manage' the pain in my knee. So far, the regime of frequent ice packs and iliotibial band stretching seems to be going ok. Whilst the knee's always sore, it's not like I'm in agony, so I think I'm just gonna have to continue along those lines. If the weather's not too bad around here, I could always do the TCC club run, which shouldn't put too much stress on the offending tendon.
Edit: Hmm, after doing a bit more research, it turns out IT band friction syndrome can cause permanent damage. I'm seeing the doctor on Wednesday about it, so I guess I'll see what she says. The photos are of my 'management regime'.
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