07/30/07: The week in review

Plan was for a nice break this week of only 8.5 hours, consisting of 3 hours swimming, 3.5 hours cycling, and 2 hours running.

I ended up at 3.5 hours of swimming, 2.42 hours of cycling, and 2 hours of running.

Swimming
Total 3.5 hours, 4.06 miles
Thursday's practice got cut short because of lightening and I only got in 45 minutes. Even though swimming wasn't on the schedule for the weekend of the recovery week, I wanted to get some distance in with the ocean marathon swim coming up, so I added an hour swim. Not a problem as far as overall training hours went, since I skipped Friday's hour recovery ride due to lightening, and a total lack of motivation to be on the trainer for an hour on a perfectly good friday.

Cycling
Total 2.42 hours, 42.46 miles.
Significantly fewer miles than last week - Ahhhh...recovery time....Already mentioned skipping Friday's recover ride. Saturday's 2 hour ride was okay at best....I just never felt quite right. Did the usual perpetuem and gels. I think I was probably a bit dehydrated from Saturday's indulgence in food and wine, and starting the day of with too much coffee and not enough water. Can't wait to get fitted on and pick up my new bike this coming Saturday...I just hope I have enough energy to enjoy it after the ocean swim.

Running: Total 2 hours, 12.02 miles
The hour run as part of yesterday's brick was a miserable disaster. A normal brick run for me should be at a 9 something pace. This was at almost 12. The good news....at least I finished it, even if I did have to walk for almost half the time. Some days are good, some aren't...this one definitely wasn't.

Overall an mediocre training week. I felt very tired and worn out for most of it, which has continued today. Hopefully in the next few days my body will catch up, in time for this coming weeks 12.75 hours of training....

That's a good point about sleep Johhny - thanks. I forgot to add that after yesterday's ride I got home and slept...and slept...and slept.....What was planned as a one hour nap ended up being a three hour nap.....hmmm.....New goal for this week - be in bed no later than 10:30 every night!

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

07/30/07: Indulgence, a long swim, and a brutal brick

The last couple of months I've been swimming almost entirely with the masters group and made great progress, but have gotten in very little long distance work. Since Thursday's swim got cut short because of lightening and I skipped Friday's ride for the same reason, Saturday seemed perfect for a long swim, even though this was a recovery week.

I headed over to UNF and after a quick 600 warmup (200xswim, kick, pull), I swam for an hour (1:01 to be exact), getting in 2600 yds. Not only was I able to swim constantly for an hour, I used ZERO effort. In fact, I wasn't even breathing hard when I got out of the pool. YEA. Overall, that translates to a 2:33/100m pace, which would put me at a ~1:40 ironman swim: PERFECT. I'll find out how well I can hold that pace in the ocean this coming Saturday.

Saturday night was indulgence time,as Lori and I went to Opus 39 in St Augustine for dinner. There's just something about a chef's tasting menu that makes my mouth water...In this case, there were 5 courses to make my mouth water. Thanks to Christine and Chef Michael for their fantastic culinary creations. We got to enjoy such things as foie gras, scallops, salmon, swordfish, veal, tenderloin, and too many other things to mention. YUMMY!

Funny thing about a 5 course tasting menu. When the food comes out, I look at the portions and think there's no way that it's going to be enough for my ironman sized appetite. By the time we finished with the chocolate truffles - which Michael sent out AFTER dessert - I was begging them to stop bringing food!

Unfortunately Saturday night's pleasure was followed by Sunday's pain - although totally unrelated. Sunday was a three hour brick: two hour bike ride followed by an hour run. The bike ride was supposed to be 80 minutes in zone 2 and 40 minutes in zone 3, followed by the run anywhere in zones 1-3. Of course, I also had to trade the previous nights wonderful culinary delights for Perpetuem and gels (and of course uncrustables).

Since low tide was at 2 PM, I started the ride at 10, so I could run on the beach afterwards. BIG MISTAKE. The ride went okay, and I did stay in zone 2 for the first 80 minutes and zone three for the last 40, but never felt quite right on the ride. Maybe because I was on my old bike after enjoying last week's nice smooth ride on the new carbon fiber Kuota?

In any case, when I got off the bike it was HOT....REALLY HOT....the ocean breeze helped a bit, but I was miserable. Usually for an hour run I'd do 30 minutes out and back. Since I was suffering a bit (actually massively), I did 15 minutes down and back and stopped by my car for some water. At this point, although my heart rate was reasonable (mid zone 3), I had nothing left. Now it was a question of calling it quits, or walking through the rest of the workout.

Well...there's nothing easy about an ironman....so I kept pushing through. Over the next 30 minutes I'd jog for a minute or two, and walk for a couple of minutes. I managed to finish the hour run, getting in just over 5 miles. REALLY slow pace for me, but I'm proud of myself for pushing through the misery and finishing the workout.

So much for a nice, easy recovery week......

07/27/07: What Not to Do

Ever driven into your garage and heard a loud crunch? Well....I just did

Note to self: Don't drive the car into the garage with the bike on top!

Bad news: The garage won. My car's roof rack went bye bye, and being that it's a Lexus, it'll probably cost more than a new American car to get it fixed (no offense intended, just humor)

Good news: 1. It was my old bike (aluminum) and the bike seems fine. If it was the new bike (carbon fiber), the bike probably wouldn't have survived; 2. Insurance covers stupidity.....

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

07/26/07: Someone forgot....

to tell my body it's recovery week. Although my brain in fully aware, my body seems oblivious to the fact. Woke up, checked my hr: 50 - perfect. Enough sleep? check. Eating enough? Trust me - that's NEVER a problem.

In any case, I woke up feeling woefully apathetic. Oh well,such is life....can't go at 100% everyday right - I guess that's why training periodization works so well. So I did what any totally committed ironman in training would do - went back to sleep.

Today is a 30 minute form workout on the bike and a group swim. Since the bike workout is so short, I'll do it after swimming practice. The odd thing is I'm actually looking forward to swimming tonight. Uh oh, now I know something is really wrong....

There's been a lot of talk lately that it's our running shoes that cause a lot of our running problems: plantar fasciatis, stress fractures, shin splints, it band issues. Some theories say that our bodies are designed to run without shoes and because our feet are so protected, we never have a chance to build the strength needed to support us in running. There's even a barefoot running org Running barefoot. Not sure I'm buying it, but one of the form workouts in the Triathletes Training Bible is to do barefoot pickups (20 second sprints at near maximum effort), why not give it a try.

Last night I did a 30 minute zone 2 barefoot run on the beach and threw in 4 pickups in the middle. It's definitely a different workout. It supposedly strengthens the muscles, tendons and ligaments in the feet and I could certainly feel a difference. I can see doing more of these workouts on the beach. It felt particularly freeing, and since it wasn't low tide, it was nice to be able to run though the water without worrying about ruining my new $90 running shoes......

Live with purpose....Enjoy the Adventure....

07/25/07: Group Swim and a Lower Resting Heartrate

One thought that came to mind this morning is how much time, money and flexibility training for an IM takes; so, for the record, I'm extremely grateful that I have a job, girlfriend, family, friends and overall lifestyle that allows me to pursue this crazy goal.

When I started training for my first marathon last year I checked my resting heartrate most mornings, with the theory that if it jumps up more than 5 or so bpm, somethings going on, e.g. overtraining, getting sick, stressed....At the time it was in the low to mid 50's. For some reason I got away from this habit. The last couple of days I started checking my morning resting hr again, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it's now down around 47.

Resting HR down in the 40's, running lactate threshold up in the 180's.....hmmm...maybe all of this aerobic training stuff really does work.....My god....imagine what I could accomplish with some blood doping.....Sorry, couldn't resist after the latest Tour de France fiasco....

Last night was another great workout with Coach Carrie. We once again worked quite a bit on form, while still getting in 2400m. Last nights form thoughts:

1. Hands shouldn't cross the center line - pay particular attention to this while breathing.

2. Hand enters index finger first, and should feel like reaching over to grab a rope. Catch and hold the water through the rest of the stroke.

Hmmm....so that's what the catch feels like.....I think I've now graduated to having the swimming ability of a half decent 7 year old......

Last night's set was:

400 wu: 300 swim, 100 kick (was supposed to be 200 swim, 200 kick, 200 pull)

2x200 swim with 100 kick in between (the lane was doing im's - thankfully Carrie gave me the option to swim freestyle instead, although I did throw in a little bit of breastroke for variety)

100 easy swim

8x100 on 2:30 (the lane was going on a 2:15 interval - I was able to keep up for one...so I slowed down to a 2:20/100m pace, with 10 sec rest)

400 drill: 25 1 arm, 25 swim (the lane did 600 with fins = 400 for me w/o fins)

cd: 200 swim

My zoomer fins, which I got based on Carrie's recommendation should be arriving today



Since this is recovery week, and I'm only scheduled for a 30 min form run, I'm going to head out to the beach tonight for some barefoot running.....

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

07/24/07: Congrats and the Start of Recovery Week

Let's start off recovery week with congratulations to Minya for overcoming cramps and finishing her 1st sprint (8/30 in the novice group) - GREAT JOB! Thanks for the race report - looks like in addition to finishing your first race you learned quite a bit. Also, way to go Kellie, going 11:56:18 at Lake Placid, which is one of the most challenging and hilly courses anywhere!! Not only that, she placed 519 overall and had the fastest run split in her age group. YOU ROCK!

Also, congrats to all of my blogging peeps on their races over the weekend. I saw LOTS of PRs, and will leave comments on your posts, instead of trying to list everyone here, since I'll undoubtedly forget someone.

Carrie, the new saddle definitely made a huge difference, although I obviously can't address this from a female point of view. There was absolutely 0 pressure in some not so wanted places....my "sit" bones were a bit sore, as expected. I followed the advice from my bike shop and double shorted, to help out a bit. They told me that it takes 2-8 rides to be completely used to the new saddle. The way I see it, after riding for 60+ miles I'm going to suffer - at least now I can choose where I suffer :) Putting in a 3.5 hour ride on a new saddle wasn't the brightest idea, but it worked out really well and I couldn't be happier making the switch. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

Recovery week started off with a not so easy 30 minute zone 2 run. On some runs I'm definitely feeling like my cardio fitness is outpacing my muscular fitness. To keep my hr in zone 2 I was running a sub-8 minute pace for most of the run. Gotta love getting faster.

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

07/23/07: A Run, A Ride, and The Week in Review...

I would have liked to have kept up-to-date on my workouts throughout the weekend....but I didn't.....so this will be a bit long.....

On Friday I had a 30 minute recovery ride scheduled....Since it was going to take me longer than that to change clothes after work and drive to a good spot for a ride, I decided to skip it....No guilt, since I give myself permission to skip Friday's zone 1 recovery rides as I see fit :)

I find it interesting that I'm up earlier on the weekends than I am during the week. Kind of makes Mondays a bit more bearable, knowing I get to sleep in. Saturday I was up at 5:30 so I could be running on the beach at sunup - one of my favorite things. Unfortunately it was cloudy and the sunrise was rather uninspiring.

Regardless of the sunrise, it's nice to get a long run done early, before it's ridiculously hot, especially when it's a slightly harder zone 3 workout. I ran for 2 hours at low tide, an hour out and back, with the clouds keeping the temps in check. Total distance: 13.56 miles, averaging 8.50 / mile with a heart rate of 161.

Not an easy run by any stretch of the imagination, although I felt pretty good when I was done. Nothing like running slightly more than a 1/2 marathon on tired legs.....

Sunday's plan was for a 3.5 hour ride, and I knew I'd be miserable on the saddle that was currently on my bike, so opted for trying something new. I had been reading some great reviews about the new adamo saddles. With nothing in the middle, there's no pressure in certain places where pressure isn't exactly wanted. The intelligent thing to do would have been to try out the saddle on some short rides, but what fun would that be?

My plan was going to be to test out the new saddle on my old bike. Lucky for me, Drew at Bike Fitters was kind enough to let me test out the new saddle on what's going to be my new bike (minus the $2200 race wheels in the picture) Those guys really went WAY above and beyond setting up the bike for me, transferring all of my measurements from my fitting and putting on the speedplay pedals, computer, saddle, etc.

I'm really glad they did, since it made Sunday's ride much more bearable. Speaking of, on Sunday it was once again up at 5 something....

I had planned on joining a 7:00 "B" ride, yet accidentally ended up with the "A" ride. The difference between a 20-22 mph ride and a 22-25 hr ride is significant. As it turns out, I'm glad I joined the A group, even though I knew I would get dropped at some point, which I did.

I really enjoyed the first hour of the ride with the group, where we kept a pace of 23-25. Then we got to the Palm Valley Bridge...That's where I got dropped and the group went bye bye....I made a half hearted attempt to catch back up, but one triathlete has very little chance of catching a group very strong dedicated cyclists. At first I was a bit pissed that no one came back to pull me back into the group.

The reality is I'm glad they didn't, since I could now hang out on my aero-bars for the next couple of hours. Riding in a group at 25 is very different then spinning in an aero position, and this was a perfect chance to see how the bike would perform in it's more "natural" environment.

I'm happy to report that it performed flawlessly. On flat roads before the wind picked up I was cruising along at 21-23. The new seat was great, putting pressure in much different, and much less uncomfortable spots. The last 45 minutes or so I was riding straight into a pretty strong wind, and went from 22 mph down to 14 in some spots, giving me a good chance to stay aero and spin through the wind. All in all, I had a great opportunity to put the bike through several different conditions and it was great.

On my old bike I would have been completely miserable after 3 1/2 hours; on the new bike I definitely could have kept pedalling for quite a while longer. I'm sure biking nutrition helped a bit was well.

I had mixed a pretty strong bottle of Perpetuem (1000 calories), went through 3 gels, and two Uncrustables (YUMMY) Gotta love a buffet on the bike.


Unfortunately the same wind the gave me a much more challenging workout on the bike was enough to cancel the ocean swim. Lori & I took Kramer to the beach anyway and found out very quickly why the swim was cancelled: the waves were HUGE!!! Even the surfers were getting beat to hell. Speaking of, I have to admit to enjoying watching stupidity at its finest. There was a guy trying to swim out with a sea kayak, getting absolutely pummelled by the waves. FUNNY!!!

What would a weekend of hard and long running and riding be without a bit of indulgence? We wrapped up the weekend at THE place to indulge....that's right....The Cheesecake Factory....On the menu? Avocado eggrolls, a shrimp and bacon club, and Dolce du Lece Cheesecake.....YUMMY. I know, it wasn't quite Ucrustables, but you gotta have some variety in life......

Ok...the week in review.......

Plan was for 13.75 hours, made up of 4.5 swimming, 5.5 cycling, 3.75 running.

Totals were 11.22: 2.75 swimming, 4.72 cycling, 3.75 running.

Swimming: Swimming got cut short by the masters group meeting to discuss a new coach, the UNF pool being closed for a swim meet on Saturday, and the ocean swim getting cancelled by the wind and waves. I had planned on doing a 2500m continuous swim over the weekend. Even though UNF was closed, I could have gone to another pool....Knowing I have the 2.5 mile ocean swim coming up I really should have found a way to get in the swim.....oh well......

Cycling: Cycling was a little short because of skipping the 30 minute Friday recovery ride - not a problem......

Running: Right on target.

Over the course of the week I swam 3.08 miles, rode 85.35 and ran 25.75. Today's really good news? THIS IS THE START OF RECOVERY WEEK. YEA.

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