Does Chocolate Count Towards My '5 a Day'?

I had to work hard this week as I knew, at the end of it, I would be stuffing chocolate down my face like my life depended on it!

After Mondays 14 mile run my quads and lower calves felt a tad sore, probably due to wearing a brand new pair of trainers, so Tuesday was just a swim sesh: 250m warm up and drills, then 10 x 250m with 30 secs rest, 250m cool down. As this was my only workout today I pushed quite hard.

Weds morn was an early turbo ride of about 45 mins. It was supposed to be longer but I slept in a bit...the alarm went off at 5am...I blinked, and it was 5:45! Doh!

That night I went to the pool for lots of drills and a bit of speed stuff; 10 x 25m at max effort/25m easy.

My legs finally felt less 'bruised' by Thursday. The old legs seem to be taking longer to heal these days but they are hanging in there, just!

Having been on earlies at work, I finished at half one so I opted for a bike/run brick. I hit the turbo for a 'up and down' sesh. This self titled workout simply involves keeping the same rpm for as long as poss whilst shifting up the gears every 10 mins. At the point of total leg and lung failure, I start shifting down again. This took an hour, then I slipped into my run shoes for an interval session of 7 x 3 min tempo/2 min easy. The whole workout lasted about 2 hours.

No work on Good Friday so it was an early 4 km swim and a tough turbo in the evening. I was hoping to get some hill efforts in but the weather was shocking so the turbo got another bashing. It was another interval sesh but I tried to simulate hills by raising the front wheel up quite high and pushing a hard gear for 2 mins with 3 min easy spin in in the lower cogs. In the hard gear I was just managing to make 60 rpm, so it was a flipping good leg burner!


Saturday was a long 'breakthrough' run. For the first time in a LOT of years I ran for over 2 hours, albeit only just! I've yet to check the distance but I reckon it was about 17 miles which I did in 2hr o4 mins. I'm chuffed with that time as I'm aiming for an Ironman marathon time of 3hr 30mins, so I'm on course for somewhere near that! Nutrition worked ok too; felt great on 2 Go gels...no nasty tummy problems!


3 hour ride on my race bike today...in the sunshine...no wind...bliss. Nutrition on the bike was an Eat Natural bar washed down with 750ml of Gatorade. I think I'm getting to grips with what food works for me too, so all in all, a pretty good week really!


Looking forward to the TriUK 'media launch' on Sat followed by my first tri of the season on Sunday at Skipton. I will be 'training through' this race though so not expecting any fast times!

Time for more chocolate! Train smart..Happy Easter...mmm chocolate...