Clermont Training Camp Day 6
The Road to Tokyo Journal
Apologies for posting this late. I had it typed up and ready to go but then fell asleep before I could post it. Then it slid to the back burner. But I’m doing my best to get back on track.
Just a Splash Around
Today kicked off with a pretty mellow swim. Our standard Soy Latte Warm Up (400 swim, 300 pull, 200 kick, 100 swim) then 4×100 build or locomotive 400. I chose to do the locomotive just to change it up. Then the main set was 3 times through 100, 75, 50, 25 with 50% rest between reps and full recovery between sets. We were supposed to go race effort to start the 100 and increase intensity for the 75, 50 and 25. This helped open us up to go nice and hard tomorrow.
I felt pretty sluggish during the warm up but really opened up and felt stronger as the swim went on. I finished with an easy 150 to cool down which brought me to an even 2300yd for the day. Then it was back to the hotel where I met with Sally—our dietician—to do some skin fold and tape measurements to see where I was in regards to lean body mass. In short, I could lean out quite a bit. My weight was 187lb (85kg). My 8 point skin fold measurements totaled 61.6, up from 59 when I last measured in August. I need to get more disciplined with food choices and portion control.
After finishing up with body measurements I took it easy and started reading Killian Jornet’s book, Above the Clouds. Jornet’s considered the greatest mountain runner of this generation. He’s set numerous records for speed ascents and distance runs. I love the mountains and love endurance racing and training. I have tons to learn and reading Jornet’s experiences can certainly help me in that learning process.
Zack came by the room to swap out the stem and adjust his bike position. So much for not doing anything new on race day. Somehow in the midst of doing all this a wire got messed up and in the midst of trying to fix it a band that held the receiver for the electronic shifting to the bike snapped, then the other band snapped. I was definitely frustrated. What was wrong with the previous bike position? Mess with the bike position when we’re in the wind tunnel next week. We’re riding fast with the current position. Now because we tried to tamper we have to find a temporary fix.
Fortunately we found a temporary solution and everything seemed to work just fine.
We finally finished everything up, packed the van and hit the hay.
Tomorrow was race day!