Test week is over and it’s not a pretty one, in all honesty I knew I wasn’t going to set the world or even my PB’s alight but I’m happy I’ve got a starting point of what I need to do to get where I want to.
I started Monday with a 5km time trial. I picked the exact same route I’ve always done and I gave it my best shot. My PB is 23:54 and I managed 25:33. I’ll take 90 seconds of my all-time record but definitely something to improve on over the next 6 weeks before my holiday.
Onto the bike I had my FTP test, I always dread this, far more than I do a 5k run, even though the time and zone is similar, it just seems so much harder mentally when I’m stuck on a turbo trainer looking at a screen. In honesty it was shocking, I knew I wasn’t as fit as my best but to do that poor, I was pretty shocked and annoyed with myself and know I need to make big improvements to even get up to my best 20 min power of 260w. This test I managed 221w resulting in an FTP of 211w.
Lastly I had my swim CSS test also this week. In all honesty I had no idea what to expect on this test, I was pretty tired and achy from the last two tests. I haven’t done any training for two weeks so to do two big efforts was taking its toll. I came into the swim feeling surprisingly good in the warm up so went out strong on the 400m test. By 250m I was pretty tired thinking I’ve gone out way to hard! I plugged on and came in with a 400m time of 6:43. I recovered and did some light swimming then went into the 200m with everything. I came in with a 200m time of 3:07.
So I’ve got my tests done, I know where I’m at. I know I need to work hard to even get back to my best. So let’s do this and start with 7 green sessions this week and hope the improvements come fast.
– Mike Catton
Check out last week’s article here:
All his previous blogs are stored below :-
http://www.coachray.nz/category/client-stories/mikes-middle-distance-magic/