Spring is, springing, I guess

It's mid-March, the weather is warming up, a nice high pressure over the UK is going to give us  abalmy weekend.  Time to turn my thoughts to the veggie patch for this year.

So, after the usual Saturday chores of taking Serena to ballet and doing the shopping etc, then lunch, I went out into the garden.

First things first, get the bonsai out of their winter quarters in teh greenhouse.  They all look like they've survived pretty well, and two that I was worried about last year look lilke they've come back strongly after a rest.  I'll try and post some photos during the year.

After that, Serena helped me plant some of the seeds for this year.  I got her helping me at first so she could see where the food came from and hopefully help her over her aversion to new and different food as she can taste them as fresh as they get after having grown them herself. Now I think she actually enjoys helping me.

We planted direct into the ground

• Jerusalem artichokes
• parsnips
• broad beans
• purple carrots
• leeks
• lettuces
• climbing French beans and
• swiss chard

In the greenhouse we're propogating round Italian courgettes, tomatoes and chillies.  The courgette seeds are courtesy of an Italian colleague of mine.  I sent her some parsnip seeds as she can't get those in Italy, I asked for the round courgettes in exchange as I can't find them here.

Just the cavolo nero to be sewn in May/June and a few herbs along the way.

Training has also been reasonably good this week.  I've started putting a bit more detail to the plan for the Grim Reaper 70 in July, with March mapped out now, plus a few other post Grimsthorpe races identified.

Last Sunday was a major contrast to today in terms of weather, with rain from 8am, then turning to snow later on.  So instead of my planned long run, I spent 75 minutes on the turbo trainer.  That's my mental limit rather than physical for that piece of torture equipment. 

It was a great session though with an average HR 140, Max 148 and average power output at 220W, which is a good 10-15W better than I've been achieving so far since September.  I think the decision to up the intensity on the shorter workouts and throw in some intervals was a good one so far.

Otherwise this week has been slightly down on volume but up on intensity.

Two 10km runs, nothing remarkable about either
A hot yoga session - great for flexibility, but my HR didn't get above 140.

Two higher intensity sessions, one a 5km timed run for a little monthly league on another forum.
1) 4:07.5 / A 154 / M166 
2) 4:00.1 / A 164 / M168 
3) 4:06.2 / A170 / M173 
4) 3:58.4 / A170 / M173 
5) 3:56.8 / A 174 / M 176
Total 22:09 at 4:02/km
Run in huaraches and socks, not all out as I wasn't quite sure how fast I could go in them.

Tonight, upping the ante on the bike ahead of April's TT season opener.  Tonight went from 2 x 20 minutes to a single 25 minute piece.  About the duration of a ten mile TT for me.

Warm up - 10 minutes at 208W
25 minutes - Average 272W, Max 288, AHR 159, MHR 166
cool down 5 mins at 190W

This was hard, and it was a struggle, but it was meant to be.  As usual it was my musculoskeletal system that suffered more than the CV, with the legs burning from about ten minutes into it.  I need to read up some more on the central governor theory.