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thetrilife Masters Programme – Month 1

Four weeks down. My thoughts?

Direction! I’ve got direction. It’s great to be training with purpose. I neeeeeeed direction and purpose. For the last six months I’ve been mostly sitting on the sofa, going for the occasional run and that’s about it. I decided to try and rediscover my triathlon dreams and I entered a couple of sprint tris but the occasional swim and bike is dull, boring and demotivating. Without a plan, everything comes under the umbrella ‘junk’. So here I am, at the end of my first four weeks of training on the TriLife Masters programme and not a junk mile or minute to my name. That feels so good. It gets me up in the morning and it’s ultimately comforting to know that whatever I’m doing is the right thing to do. I’m not worried that I should be doing hill sprints instead of an endurance run – or swim drills instead of 400s. What a great feeling that is.

In terms of training this month has revealed the effects of a few months off. At 50+ you lose fitness like everybody else, but you ALSO lose strength and power and it is very VERY difficult to get those back. To an extent, it’s not possible to get them back, but I can regain some with hard work and determination and I can definitely prevent my body losing any more.

So … RUNNING: The focus has been on stamina and cadence. Fascinating. My stamina is non-existent but this is something I CAN really work on – and love doing. Plenty hard work ahead. I’ve been trying really hard to get this higher cadence sorted – mostly by shortening my stride and concentrating on form. It’s working. It’s harder than it should be, but it’s getting there already. Parkrun after four weeks and I did nothing other than focus on maintaining steady cadence – and I still came in around my previous average. My hopes of a PB have gone out the window – that six months off has put paid to that – but that 5k result is still super-motivating.

SWIMMING: Breathing is better. Body ‘roll’ is better, my stroke is more even and I think my kick is improving. Still struggling with speed. I feel my 100s and 200s should be harder. I’m going for even pace but I think that pace should be consistently faster. That’s my problem … when I increase stroke rate I seem to lose pace so need to figure this out. Drills are paying off, I think – but only just done my first ‘test’ so too soon to know.

BIKING: She has a name: Polly. Not my choice of name; she was sort of named for me – but it’s stuck. Polly she is, then. She’s doing well. Once again, focus has been on cadence. Lighter gears and cadence. Long rides have been easy and enjoyable (lucky with weather) but I’m still – as always – worried about speed. Back to the ‘power’ question again. This is going to be a big battle. As a masters athlete I can’t increase it any more. What’s gone is gone, so the research dictates – so where am I going to find that power? I’m going to trust this programme 100% to show me where! THAT is exciting.

First sprint tri of the season in a couple of weeks. Actually looking forward to it.

Cadence, thetrilife.com, triathlon

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