June 2020 – Mrs Davison: Project 39

June should have been my goal race for the year, the big one, the time I finally got to stand on the start line of an ultra after nearly two and a half years of trying to get to that level of fitness injury free. It would also have been halfway through my Project 39 challenges – three marathon plus races done and heading into the cycle events. But alas, the world had other ideas and even though I’m finally in the kind of shape I need to be to run a double marathon, my ultra hopes were dashed once more.

I had been looking around for alternative challenges for my last year of thirties and in June Ultra Challenges kicked off Boost it June – you could select any distance from 50km – 500km which you could run and walk as you wanted to over the 30 days of June. I’m going to try to do something alternative to my original challenges each of June, July, August and September and this seemed like the perfect place to start. It was also another chance to boost my fundraising for Macmillan as I’m still a little down on what I had hoped to get for them over the six months of nonsense I did have planned. I picked the 300km and then rounded up to 200 miles, well just because I could really.

This was further than I’ve ever run/walked in a month, and despite a moment in Richmond Park last week where I sat on a bench and seriously questioned my life choices, I’ve loved it. I was delighted to be joined by Ellie, Tam and Clare for some of the miles (2 metres apart of course) and I’ve loved exploring more of what is on my door step.

I found a wild flower in Gunnersbury Park (I also sadly saw the final embers of the cafe there which was destroyed in a fire) and I’ve run oh so many more of the tracks in Richmond Park. Using my Stava heat map I’ve been trying to cover all of the paths in the park – finding at least one new one every run has been a delight. I’ve starting reading more about the history of the park too and it’s truly been my happy place through this chaos.

My heat map showing the paths I’ve covered in the park

My longest run was 30km which was a great confidence booster, it came complete with a phone conversation Hannah about bike racks while I puffed up Broomfield hill and listening the Twice the Health Girls on the Digme virtual run while I got lost on Wimbledon Common trying to avoid being hit by stray golf balls…

Running through the bracken in Richmond Park

I walked some of the kms in glorious Kew Gardens, including a few in the pouring rain. I walked some of them as work meetings – getting off zoom and onto audio calls and walking around Kew or along the river throwing around creative ideas has been one of the best things about extended working from home. (If you’ve not tried walking meetings, give them a go, I made a handy toolkit for the Federation of Small Businesses that you can use, shameless work plug – here).

A work meeting by phone in a soggy Kew Gardens

It’s been challenging but it also showed that if you just keep chipping away then you can achieve amazing things, some days I only managed 2-3km but everyday I managed a little bit more than I might have done without this challenge. That is definitely a lesson learned that I will be taking forward to the day when I finally get to run that ultra.

I split between walking and running to avoid bumping up my mileage too fast and I’ve stayed completely injury free through the whole challenge. Some dorky strava stats:

I spent 43 hours running and walking a total of 325km or 202 miles.
That’s an average of 86 minutes and 10.8km a day
I ran 250km for a total of 27 hours (not a bad ultra pace!)
I walked 75km for a total of 16 hours (at least 5 hours of which were meetings when I might otherwise have been sat at my desk)
My Garmin gave me the unicorn screen of ‘peaking’ on the final day of the challenge….

I’m joining Race to the Stones for my July challenge – when I’ll be running 100km in a week, this one scares me a bit but it’ll be a fun one. I’m planning to include a long day in Richmond Park on the Saturday so look out for the call out for virtual and real company.

If you’d like to donate to encourage my legs out of the door and over some more miles for the lovely folk at macmillan who need funds now more than ever, my fundraising page is here.

Over the last seven weeks I set myself a challenge to improve my cycling – I had two big cycling events in the calendar for later in the year which were part of my 2020 challenges. With lockdown restrictions in place I, like many, took to Zwift and seized the opportunity to work on my cycling fitness and power.

I used the Zwift six-week FTP builder training programme and thought I would share my thoughts on the programme.

When I started the programme, I planned to ride the 160km Ride London in August, and a 130km sportive from Vancouver to Whistler in September. One of my ultra runs has also been rearranged to September so despite a high chance that all of this would change, it was something to focus on.

What is the programme

Zwift has a number of built-in training programmes that you can follow, with different objectives and time commitments. This one is 4-5 sessions a week, with each session 60-90 minutes and the aim is to increase your power output.

What is FTP and why is it useful

FTP stands for ‘Functional Threshold Power’ and simply put, it is the average number of watts that a rider can consistently sustain over an hour. The most common way to test this involves going all out for 20 minutes and then taking 95% of your average watts – Zwift helpfully can do all of this for you.

It is useful for two things:

To be able to set effective workouts based on hitting different % of your FTP at intervals
To track your own improvement over time

Personally, I’m not that fussed on what the number is or how it compares to others – I was more interested in using it as a tangible measure of where I was, how much I had improved and to add some structure to my training.

Fitting the plan around my other training

Training for ultra-endurance events is time consuming and I wanted my cycling to sit alongside my running. My average week would look something like this:

4-5 cycle sessions (2 moderate, 2 hard and an optional recovery ride)
4 runs (around 45 – 65km a week)
2 strength sessions

Fitting in 10-11 sessions a week in total often meant that I was doing the cycle sessions on tired legs, which whilst good for my end goal of increased fitness and endurance was less good for hitting all the workout splits. I think if you take on a programme like this it’s good to be clear on what your overall goal is as it can stop you getting too disheartened when you can’t complete a specific split in a workout.

How was the plan

The plan gives you the workouts each week with a window of a few days each time to get them done. The plan structure starts on a Monday and you can’t change this – I found this slightly frustrating as the hardest session was always Fri – Sun, which didn’t work that well with the rest of my training / life; do bear that in mind if you take on one of their plans.

I sailed through the first two weeks without any problems until reality hit in the middle two weeks, I found the threshold workouts impossible and found myself unable to complete two of them in full. I felt a bit disheartened but persevered, until I had some kind of epiphany in the last two weeks where I suddenly found things much easier and could sail through intervals I couldn’t do only a week prior. This was a great feeling and made the tough days totally worth it.

I did swap or skip some of my sessions; I’m a big believer in not being a slave to a plan at the expense of missing things that you want to do; sometimes I would swap a session to do a virtual meet-up with friends or to ride outside with my husband – I tried to swap out the easier sessions and keep the hard ones in the plan.

Did it work?

Over the course of the six weeks I completed 20 workouts, totalling over 20 hours and covered more than 530km (plus the additional hours I rode in meet ups or outside). I did a FTP test at the start and the end – I gained 30 points between the two. Both my Strava and Garmin data is also showing a decent uptick in my overall fitness levels over the same period. I’m calling that a success and I definitely feel that this has been beneficial as part of my base building towards the longer endurance events. As someone who also has to be very cautious around running mileage increase due to previous injury, this felt like a really good way to increase my training without increasing impact.

Swapping a foundation session for an outdoor ride

I think if you like a bit of a structure then a Zwift programme is for you and I’m glad I took this one on. However, I would also say don’t be afraid to swap things around and be a bit flexible with it – don’t miss riding outdoors or getting involved in other fun things just because your session plan is going to disappear in the next 24 hours.

What next?

I won’t be jumping straight into another plan but I will be doing some of the key workouts within my training over the next few months and putting what I have learned about the sessions into good use. I’m also taking on a 300km running challenge in June so will back off the cycling intensity just a little to fit that in.

If you are not ready to commit to a programme I would definitely recommend trying some of the individual workouts – they are great fun.

My two cycle events have sadly now been cancelled. I still plan to ride the Vancouver to Whistler event in 2021 but the future of Ride London is looking very uncertain. However, I don’t believe this training is wasted at all – my overall fitness has improved, my running endurance has improved and I really enjoyed focusing on a specific area of improvement – I feel super proud of achieving something I could both feel and see as data. In the meantime, once national travel / staycation restrictions are eased in the UK later in the year I hope to get that 100-miler done with my husband somewhere in the UK by ourselves – watch this space!

Month: June 2020

200 miles in June – completed it mate.

Review: Zwift Training Plans