Old Enemy

So, last night I headed up to the gym to renew my acquaintance with the Jacob's Ladder machine, aka hill-climber or stepper. I used this device extensively during my BGR training last year and hate the thing with a passion, however it's effectiveness is indisputable and it helped me build the leg strength required to even stand a chance at a successful round. Anyhow, my usual session on this is 30 minutes broken down into 3 x 10m segments, at the end of every segment I coast down to the ground and towel off, quick drink and stretch, then back on - so maybe 20 seconds of recovery. When I first started I maintained around 80 feet of climb per minute, however as time went on and I matched it to aerobic heart rates I upped that to 90 feet per min and that was my target yesterday, the goal being to climb 2,700ft minimum. All went well to start off with, heart rate was nicely below my threshold and I felt like I was moving well, however by the third segment I was starting to feel it and was struggling to keep the 90ft cadence going while maintaining a sub-143 HR (or 75% WHR). It crept up inexorably and so I decided to just to hold the cadence and see how I finished .... it was ugly. Sweat was dripping off my face in torrents and my legs were crying for mercy, I just held on to the end before collapsing in a snotty heap on the floor. Final figure was 2,835ft in 30m, but I allowed my HR to get up to lactate threshold in the final segment and that won't do at all. I intend to work at this and get some leg strength back, I could do with rebuilding my "guns" a bit anyhow! It's all a far cry from last year when I clobbered the gym record with 3,000ft in 29.17m, that's an average cadence of 102ft/m. I won't be troubling that again methinks.

Good swim session this morning. My swim partner Emma has been selfishly absent for the past few weeks (away on courses and recovering from a couple of 50-mile ultras. Pffft), so it was nice to have some focus today. A good hour in the water and some very telling drills, I think I've identified some significant weaknesses in my stroke and we'll be working on that. A few more like that and I'll be well happy.