Andy Loughran

Tag: Training

  • From disappointment to a solid start.

    The year didn’t quite start as I’d hoped it would.

    Instead of being able to do the fourth seasonal parkrun on New Years day – I was in bed with a bit of a head cold.

    Having got my exercise plan all laid out in TrainingPeaks, it was a bit disappointing to have to start 2025 in bed, resting up. I had to convince myself to take a long-term perspective and make sure I got over this illness before I started training.

    Well a few days later, the illness passed, and I got out to do my runs. The second week in Jan allowed me to hit 7/7 active days – 3 runs, 3 weight training sessions and a wonderful 7k walk with my dog Django yesterday.

    I do have a Garmin training plan telling me I should run; but it’s -1*C here today; my weekly mileage needs building up slowly – and this morning on the dog walk I saw a runner stack it on some ice (on trail, rather than tarmac). Today’s going to be a rest day, a bit of reflection – and I’ll pick up my training tomorrow.

  • Training begins..

    In about 16 weeks time, I’ll be participating in the ‘Castle-to-coast’ half-ironman distance triathlon.

    I’d not been well over the Easter weekend, and ended up on the sofa reading a few of the “Foundation” series novels by Asimov. I found them quite enthralling, and managed to get through nearly 1,000 pages of novel; which is quite an achievement for me.

    That said, my plan for this weekend was to do a FTP test and baseline myself for the triathlon training that I’ve got coming up. As that didn’t seem sensible given how poor I was feeling, I instead spent the weekend resting.

    On Monday, feeling a bit better; I managed to get myself off the sofa and onto finally doing some tri sports. Focusing instead on technique and enjoyment, I headed to London Fields for a few lengths of the lido in the sunshine. It was glorious.

    We then went for a 7k target run at 10k race pace read for a planned 10k in two weeks time. That went really well and I felt great during it. The bounce was back in my step and my breathing felt great. Looking forward to getting back on it, and will see whether the Strava plugin for wordpress products some prettyness to these posts.