09/12/07: Changing things up a bit

I decided to change things up a little since this is a recovery week, ending with a 1/2 IM on Sunday.

Last night was the usual swim, getting in 3000 yds:

wu: 200 swim, 200 kick, 200 pull, 50 easy swim

3x200 negative split

2x300, last 100 under 2"

Broken 200 (all are all out): 25, 10" rest; 25, 20" rest; 50, 30" rest; 100...4'15" total = 3'15" 200

2x (50 kick 50 swim)

broken 200: 3'14"

5x50 on 1'30"

broken 200: 3'15"...gotta love consistency

misc 100

Normally I'd run after the Tues swim, but since my legs were still tired from Sundays century and it's a recovery week, I gave myself permission to take the night off.

Tonight was an hour on the bike. There was a lot of lightening, and I had no desire to be on the trainer, so I hit a spin class for a change of pace. Although it's certainly not comparable to being on my bike out for a ride, it was a really good hour workout. Then I hopped on a treadmill for a 1/2 hour, getting in the workout I normally would have done Tuesday.

Tomorrow's another swim, and I'll at long last post a bit about last weekend's TI swim clinic....better late than never.....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

09/11/07: The Week in Review

Last week was another really big (read tiring) training week, the biggest so far....again....

Plan was for 14.75 hours
Actual was 14.60 hours

Swimming
Plan 4.5 hours
Actual 4.5 hours

Spent all of Saturday doing the Total Immersion clinic, where I learned exactly what I needed to get my swimming to the next level. I'll write more about that in a separate post. Good swimming week, including Benji's anaerobic sets on Thursday. I'm definitely still progressing.

Running
Plan 4 hours
Actual 3.22 hours, 20.48 miles

I moved my long run to Friday night becuase of the TI clinic on Sat, which worked out well, giving me somewhat fresh legs for Sunday's long ride. Unfortunately my planning sucked Sat night and I forgot to bring my running shoes with me on Sunday, so didn't run after my long ride.....such is life (Note to self: PLAN BETTER...Pack the night before)

Friday's long run went well, getting in a 17.5 mile run. Nothing too interesting to report. It was long...I got it in....enough said.....

Cycling
Plan 6.25 hours
Actual 6.88 hours, 122.44 miles

I did my first century ride on Sunday....it was LONG.....

Sunday was the annual watermelon ride. There were several hundred riders, most riding in groups, and it was great seeing a lot of friends out there.

I caught a draft here and there when some of the larger groups went by, although tried to stay out of the middle of the groups as much as possible...too many inexperienced riders = potential disaster....something I really didn't want to deal with.

I was much more comfortable hanging off the back of the groups, still getting a little bit of help from their draft, but able to hang out on my aero bars and enjoy the ride.

I took a 5 hour bottle of perpetuem with me which I alternated sipping with water every 10 minutes, plus some powerbar gels ~ every 45 minutes, plus 2 lava salts ~ every hour. Nutrition for the ride seemed right on target.

Total time for the century was just a bit over 5:40, which includes the couple of times I stopped to get more water or just to stretch a bit. That gave me a pace of 17.63 mph...which is probably a bit faster then I would have gone on my own since I did get to draft at least some of the time.

I'd say I enjoyed the first 4.75 hours...the last 45 minutes seemed to last forever and I was really ready to be off the bike!!

The week ahead is a recovery week, at only 12 hours. YAY!!!!

Just some light training and the usual swims midweek, then a local, unsupported 1/2 this weekend just for fun. Talk about a change in perspective....a half ironman for fun....Hmmmm....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure.....

09/08/07: A new countdown timer

If you're reading this, you probably already noticed the new countdown timer, the important one......countdown to baby :)

Last night was a 2.75 hour run. Covered 17.49 miles at an average HR of 144, giving me an average pace of 9.19 / min. Nothing too interesting to report, other than my garmin annoying the hell out of my by continuously losing my heart rate.....must be bad karma from my smartass comment to bigun.....

Off to the TI clinic

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

09/07/07: Anaerobic in the Pool

So Benji has this great idea for us to work on our swimming LT thresholds in the pool last night be doing lots of anaerobic sets. Fortunately Benji is a really good coach and knows what he's doing, and balanced the sprints with lots and lots and lots of rest in between. I ended up with 2550 yds:

Warmup: 200 swim, 100 kick, 100 pull

3x200 (175 easy, 25 sprint)

50 easy

6x50 sprint on 2'30" (sprints were 42-44" - see what I meant about lots of rest....)

50 easy

400 kick sprint on each 6th 25

50 easy

8x25 sprint on 1'15" (sprints were 20-21")

50 easy

5x50 breathe after 1 stroke, then 2, then 3, etc

CD: 200 swim

Actually turned out to be a pretty fun workout.

Lots of training coming up. Tonight is a 2.75 hour run, tomorrow is the TI swim clinic, and Sunday is 5 hours of riding fun.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

09/06/07: One More Must Read

There are many, many fantastic race reports, but some in particular stand out above the rest. This is one of them, in four parts:

Spanked by Kentucky

Run Part I

Run Part II

Wrap-Up

Congrats Iron Misty!!

If you have time, make sure to catch up on the rest of her blog too....great stuff

09/06/07: Another Big Week on Track

Before I get to training, good luck and best wishes to Angie & Dustin doing IM Moo this weekend....their first! They've trained hard and consistently and should have a great race. And of course, good luck to everyone else out there heading to WI. I hope that the weather is MUCH better than last year for you.

Hey Tea....I think you're the only one who does that.... :)

Like everyone else doing their first IM, my goal is finish in under 17 hours....With that said, using some relatively conservative paces based on my training, my goals are a 1:45 swim (2:43 / 100m), 6:30 ride (17.23 mph) and a 5 hr marathon (11:27 min / mi). Including some time for transitions, that puts me at a 13 something time....not that I would ever calculate such things ;-)

So far this weeks training is on track for my biggest week ever (14.75 hours), after last weeks biggest week ever. Monday was a day off as always, and Tuesday's swim went well, doing 2800 yds:

wu: 200 swim, 50 kick, 50 pull

2x500 negative split

100 easy

3x(200 kick on 5')

2x (200 on 4:15; 4x25 sprint on :45)

cd: 150 swim, 25 breast, 25 back

I was all set to do a couple of running laps around the bridges after swimming, except was missing the one thing I really needed: running shoes :(

After getting home I got in a 30 minute form workout, including 4 x 30" pickups

Wednesday morning biking, the rollers unfortunately won for the 30 minutes I was on them. Just when I thought I was making progress.....oh well....deal with it and move on (and repaint the walls in a couple of spots)...... :-(

Altough I had planned on doing my long run last night, I still wasn't fully recovered from last weekends workout, and wanted to spend some time with Lori, so I moved my long run to Fri night. That should work out well, since I'm doing the Total Immersion clinic on Saturday and my long ride on Sunday.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure.....

09/04/07: A big deposit in my IM training account

Last week was by far my biggest training week yet....

Plan was for 13.75 hours:

Actual was 13.58 hours

Swim: Plan 4.5 hours
Actual: 4 hours, 8600 yds

Thursdays practice got cut short by lightening about an hour into it; otherwise, it was a good swimming week. Given the warm weather we've been having, getting in the pool has actually been quite refreshing...especially in my pool at home where no laps were involved......

Run: Plan 3.75 hours
Actual: 4.08 hours, 26.8 miles

Since I went to the group swim Sat morning, I did Saturday's long run late Sat evening, starting at 7:45, a bit later than I would have liked.

The run was pretty uneventful, other than finishing a little after 10 PM. The downside was that I had to get up the next morning at 5:45 to get in my long ride and short run afterwards. More about the ride in a minute...

As far as the 30 minute run after the long ride....PURE HELL....It felt like the last few miles of a marathon, which on the upside is probably exactly what I need to experience during training, since the last few miles of the IM will feel that bad or worse I'm sure.....

Overall a good running week, going slightly over my planned hours by adding the 30 minute run to the end of my long ride.

Fortunately this week I'll be doing my long run on Wednesday so that I can fit in the Total Immersion Swim Clinic at UNF this weekend, which should leave my legs much fresher for Sunday's long ride.

Bike: Plan 5.5 hours
Actual: 5.5 hours, 99.58 miles

In addition to my planned workouts, I spent 5-10 minutes on the rollers a few times during the week to work on balance.

The weeks main bike workout was Sunday's long ride. After doing the long run late on Saturday, it was a good thing I was meeting someone to ride with, or I probably would have started MUCH later than 7 am and possibly gotten rained out.

I did two 40 miles loops. The first one felt great, especially since I had some company. Most of the second loop felt ok, alhough the last 1/2 hour or so got a bit tough. Running 15 miles the night before obviously took at lot out of me.

This week has a 5 hour ride scheduled, although I'm hoping the last part of it won't be quite as bad, since I won't be biking on such tired legs....Just have to wait and see....

So far, the 4 1/2 hour, 79.58 mile ride is my farthest to date.....more to follow this week with a plan of 14.75 hours.

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....