Hot water and track work

The pool was lava hot on Monday. There had been a pool party Friday night movie – I think they showed Pretty in Pink (breast cancer awareness) in the natatorium. They must have bumped the temperature of the water – it was 88 degrees on Monday morning at 5:30AM. It was just too hot. We still got a good session in but we did not push it.


At lunch I failed again and let play get in the way. Racquet ball took play twice this week – and it is only Tuesday. I have decided that this game is truly getting in the way. Although it is not super taxing it does nothing for speed. However, it is enough actively to negatively impact my recovery. Damn. So I played Monday at lunch and got beat – all games. I then play a couple of games on Tuesday – I won the first and got beat the next two. I did cut it short and hit the weights for a good number of upper body exercises.

After work I met up with several of the Pine belt Pacers for Tuesday track work. This is really what I need. Since I am tapering for my half marathon race this weekend I need to drop the volume (if that is possible) and keep the intensity up. We ran 5 800’s. This pace was comfortable for me so I sprinted the last 100 yards of each. However, we also did 8 200’s. This is shorter and faster than almost anything that I run. It was very challenging. I did end up being very consistent. The first was 28 seconds and all other except for the second to the last were 37. The second from the last was 36 seconds.

The packing is just about done. I am on the fence about bringing my cycling shoes and pedals. I just don’t know the availability of bicycles in Australia. I really would enjoy going on some rides. I would love to see the Sydney on foot and the outlying areas by bike!

My stuff on the left - stuff for my sister on the right.

FTP, Speed work and abs

I really enjoyed the BQ dialog in the comments.  I wonder - would the race fill just as fast regardless of the qualifying times?  I bet there are 25,000 people that could qualify at almost any time.  How many people qualify for the New York City Marathon?

I was exhausted after the weekend. 4:30AM Monday morning felt like it came early. I woke up in time for Adult Swim but I 86’d the session. I just don’t think I could have mustered a good performance. I got an extra 2 hours of sleep. I did not regret this decision.


At lunch I did jump in the pool. I did a warm up and cool down but in between I did 5 x 200 yards at a hard effort. I was trying to see if I was indeed faster than before. I thought back to my first 200 yard time trial – damn I smoked that thing. I remember that Raland was in the next lane and I was trying as hard as I could. Well, I was not able to beat that 2:44 from the very first time trial. I had a couple in the high 2:40’s and all were under 3:00 but I did not beat the initial swim time trial. Fitness wise I would say that I have progressed – I mean I was able to complete 5 efforts at close to my maximum but I did not edge the time lower.

After the swim I headed upstairs for a strength training session. I don’t think I have hit the weights since the Pump and Run (if you remember I was on the bench press a couple of times a week). I did not have a format but I have always loved chin ups (palms facing towards you). I remember when I was heaver and I could not even do one. The exercise was a challenge but I enjoyed the fact that you could do more and more whether you got stronger or lost weight. I still like the exercise. Anyway, I did 7 or 8 sets of chin ups – each to failure. I then played around with some machine rows and other such back work.

Pump and Run

Monday night was another get together – I went to the monthly Poker Night. There was homemade lasagna and garlic bread and leftovers from the runner club meeting. I lost a couple of dollars and had a lot of fun.

I started anew on the training front for Tuesday. I woke up early and jumped on the trainer. I dialed in a single 20 minute effort at 10 watts higher than my previous best. I killed it like it was standing still. It was no problem. The effort was solid.

At lunch I planned on doing some intervals. It has been a couple of months since I have done structured speed work. I dragged Chad out with me to the trace. We dialed in 12 x quarter miles with 1:30 rest. All efforts should be at 1:30 (6 minutes per mile pace). This was achieved with several efforts in the low 1:20’s (like 1:21). The weather was cooler and the session was solid. I am not sure how we did these things when the temperature was 20 degrees warmer.

All Tuesday night my arms and abs and lats were killing me from the chin ups. I expected the lats to burn and even the arms to ache a little bit – but the abs? I know that we use our stabilized muscles all the time and especially in something like a chin up. However, I was surprised at the abdominal workout. I mean I am pretty damn active with the run, bike, swim and all the other stuff. I can’t believe that my abdominal strength deteriorated so easily without dedicated core workouts.

38. BFD.

I had a package on my door step. My father had told me that it had stuff that I would not purchase for myself. This peeked my interest. In the box were all kinds of ironman goodness. It had all things IM Louisville – socks, stickers and bandanas. It was pretty neat stuff; my father was right – I would not have purchased the items myself but I will definitely wear them. In fact the ‘head sweats’ IM thing is simply awesome under my helmet. No more sweat dripping in the eyes!

Jodie got me a new unitard but it was too big. She also got me a lot of stuff for organization. I have been complaining that I want to be more productive and now I have a lot of the tools to make this happen.

38. BFD. - not photoshopped

On the exercise front I sent an email out to the crew to for a cycling Time Trial for Tuesday morning. When I woke up but my legs were dead tired. I looked at the alarm clock and it was already 5:30 AM – I had about 5 minutes to be out the door. Oh yeah, there was also a light drizzle. I did not make the ride. I did however jump on the trainer for a recovery ride. This was an easy 45 minutes while watching yesterdays Tour de France finish.  The legs did not want to go even at the easy pace.  After about 15 minutes they felt better.  I was glad I did the trainer ride.

At lunch I met up with the running crew and did intervals. Even if my legs are tired I can always get them to perform while running. We knocked out 6 quarters, 3 1000’s and 6 200’s. These were all solid.

Treadmill Fartleks?

Quick note - there is a great sunscreen give away over at MISSZIPPY.  Check it out.

Monday was back in the pool. I did 250 yard repeats and was out pretty quick. The legs were tired from the weekend. The hills from the bike on Saturday and the hard (but not fast) effort on the super hot Sunday run took a little bit out of me. Plus, I probably did not recover as well as I could have. I went to a World Cup party on Saturday and a Beer Club meeting on Sunday – not excessive but I am sure it did not help the recovery.

Tuesday brought another morning group ride. There were a couple of guys that wanted to do the 22 mile out and back solo at a solid tempo pace. I simply can’t recover from so many hard efforts so I grabbed the fastest wheels and held on. This was a good strategy for me. I got a good workout and I never pushed it into the red. The 'group ride' portion - me hanging off a wheel - averaged over 23 MPH for the 22 miles.  The total miles with commute checked in at about 28 miles.

For lunch I was planning on using some of my new LTHR numbers to push the tempo pace. It is still blistering here in Mississippi so I opted for the treadmill. I actually enjoy the treadmill for heart rate workouts. The machine can take out all of the guess work - I just have to run. I did an easy 10 minute warm up at 10 minutes per mile. In the past I did not use any warm ups and when I did they were too fast. I have found with the treadmill that the warm up is beneficial for both me and the machine.

After the ten minutes I pushed the pace to a comfortably hard level. These numbers are not really comparable to the real world but I punched the treadmill up to 9.5 MPH (6:18 pace). This was too easy for the first 10 minutes or so but my heart rate slow increased to the prescribed range. If you remember, my Zone 4 heart rate range for running is now 175 – 184. I actually think this range is a little high – I am going to have to push hard to get into this range. I have experienced, in training, that my hard heart rate number is right at 172 BPM. If I push much harder I get into the red zone. I have some workouts planned that should help increase my LTHR – like 5 minutes at 172 followed by a couple of minutes at 175 and then back to 172 – repeat as necessary – but those workout are for another day.

Today’s work out was going to be 10 minutes x 3 at ~170 BPM with 3 minutes recovery at an easy pace. With warm up and cool down it would be 56 minutes (10 + 10 + 3 + 10 + 3 + 10 + 10). Now this is where self coaching fails. I was feeling great at the 10 minute mark and decided to change the workout on the fly. Why? I don’t know. I was feeling strong.  Anyway I decided to do 15 minutes x 2 with a short recovery. This is where the workout fell apart. However, it was not my fault this time!

At just about 13 minutes the treadmill gave up the ghost. I was running along at my comfortably hard pace feeling good – which means, yeah I wanted to stop but I did not have to stop. So the treadmill just starts slowing down. I have crippled one of these before (they are getting long in the tooth – almost 4 years old). So I hit the emergency stop button because I know it will shut down the machine and reset quicker. I lost maybe 30 – 40 seconds and I was back at my full speed again. I just did not know how long this ‘interval’ would last.

It lasted about 6 minutes. I went through the emergency shutdown procedure again and fired it back up. The next one lasted nearly 8 minutes. It kind of became a game – I did not know how long each segment would last. I just knew that I was not going to fail before the machine stopped. It was like a coach was there watching you run and they would tell you when to stop. It made the treadmill work out interesting - almost exciting.

So the workout was not what I had prescribed for myself but it was a victory. All in all it was a good day ‘at the office.’ 28 on the bike in the morning, 45 minutes (about 33 of it at effort) on the run and another 6 home on the bike.

On a side note -
I had a couple of great comments recently asking about what training plans I follow. I have adapted several training plans that I have gleaned from books and the internet.  I generally end up writing my own or altering them greatly.  I so the annual training plan and then write the works a month at a time for periodization.  I also change them up all the time - not the smartest thing to do but - go figure.

Last year was all about volume – ironman training will do that for you. After Louisville I switched gears and decided to train for a Boston Qualifying marathon run (this would be my first marathon).  I completely changed my training from lots of volume and started to include a lot of hard runs done completely by pace. These hard runs were actually a number of races of increasing length.  I used these races adjust my paces at increasingly longer distances. I had worked up to many long runs in my ironman training I just did not do any of them fast.

I checked a book out from the library and I remember starting the FIRST training plan from Run Less, Run Fasterand thinking that I could not even complete the first day of the program. Well that program brought me though the marathon and then some.  I started with the basic 3 day a week training program for a 3:20 marathon and then altered the program quite a bit.  I ended up running the Mardi Gras Marathon in a 3:08:44 - and evenly split it to boot (1:34:00 / 1:34:44).  However, training for the marathon I neglected the bike and the swim.

Now I am working on increasing my LTHR on the run and the bike. I am still attempting to play off of this big ironman base from last year. I do plan on posting about the workouts that I will use the achieve this. Stay tuned

Workout recap.

The following is a quick recap of my recent training. Well, as you know I did not do the Crawfishman (well no one did) so I had a good day on the Saturday before. The weather was still raining so I jumped on the trainer. For what ever reason it was unbearable!


I only rode for 30 minutes and decided to brave the mists out of doors. I ran a conservative pace for 8 miles. I was soaked the entire run but I did enjoy it. As soon as I got home I had a message about an open water swim.

I prepared a recovery shake and headed out the door. I had wanted to get an accurate measurement of our secret swimming lake. I bagged my GPS watch in a sandwich bad (I actually doubled bagged it) and put it under my swim cap. You have to remember which way you oriented the watch so that you can hit the right buttons to start and stop the watch. But once I started the watch it recorded my speed and distance just fine. I would say that it is accurate and it looks like I actually swam fairly straight!  The swim is 0.25 miles each way.  We have been doing it twice for a mile of OWS.

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Secret training lake!

Today I was in the pool and did a lot of 100’s. I seemed to be getting a little faster. It was a good swim but I definitely need to be more consistent with the swim. After the swim I tested the bench press again for the pump and run challenge.

I think that I have refined my technique. I have been altering my grip placement on the bar. Obviously the closer the grip the more it works my triceps and the further out the more it works my chest. I am trying to find a balance that allows me to get the most repetitions. In addition, I am now aware that the bench press is actually a skill – not just brawn!

After work I jumped on the trainer for a much feared 6 minutes all out power test! Man I hate these. I warmed up for 15 minutes and then I started the 6 minutes of fury. This all out test is so dang painful. I had some techno music cranked up and I was suffering. I am sure that I was making primordial grunting and moaning noises. When I finished I just had to sit still for a few seconds. My legs were on fire, It has been months since I have done that test and I am happy to say that my wattage increased by 8 percent. This number also reflects not just power but performing the test better. Still, I will take an improvement any day!

Tuesday will be a group ride in the morning and a group running interval session at lunch!

Treadmill intervals are easier than bike trainer intervals

Wednesday was another morning recovery ride. I once again just churned away on the trainer.


At lunch I put together a solid swim effort. I am still keeping the stroke count low. Counting the strokes seemed to slow me down a little bit but the speed is coming back – and now with a better stroke count. I can’t complain.

Then after work I had another long night. I did not get very much sleep. When I got up I jumped on the trainer for what was supposed to be a hard interval session. I aborted the workout early on and did an easier workout. After the trainer ride I switched to the road bike and commuted to work. I really enjoyed the 6 mile ride. I was not pushing the pace and I was able to enjoy the outside.

I dialed in another timed interval session on the treadmill at lunch. This workout was farther out of my comfort zone. I seem to be able to push the running envelope much easier than the cycling envelope. I did an easy warm up then ramped up the pace. Last week I started with 3 x 3:00 with 3:00 recovery at 9.9 MPH. This was not challenging enough. So today I decided to up the ante to 3 x 4:00 with 2:00 recovery at 10.1 MPH. I was able to complete this first series but my heart rate was sky high. The next series should have been easier – it was just 3 x 3:00 with 2:00 recovery at the same 10.1 MPH. I was overly fatigued from the first series and had to dial the intensity way back to 9.2 MPH. I had blown up! I believe part of that was from the lack of sleep the night before.

After the treadmill I was excited about putting up a good bench press number. Two weeks ago my 1 set max of 70% body weight was 32. Then last Thursday it was 36. I was hoping to improve upon this number. The weight room was busy and I worked in with some guys. I told them what I was doing and I altered the weights to my range. I said I was looking for 40 reps. As soon as I lifted the bar it was heavy. I started putting up the numbers and I actually started to fatigue at around 10 reps. I persevered and topped out at 22 reps. I was a demoralized. I could not believe that I came up so short. I tried again and I only got 10 reps. Vic then tried to lift the weight. He also thought it was heavy. Vic wanted 30 reps but he died at 29. We started to walk back away and call it a day. We were thinking up excuses. The run was hard and the bench press from Tuesday was demanding. Then we suddenly realized that I had put the wrong weights on the bar. I was lifting 135 pounds (87% body weight) and not the 110 pounds (70% body weight). That explained a lot about the workout. I loaded the bar to the appropriate weight and was still only able to eek out 24 reps – but I was majorly fatigued at this point. I would have liked to have known where I was at 70% but there is always next week.

The commute home was great. I tried to push a big gear the entire 6 miles home. About half of this was standing out of the saddle. Once again the outside just felt great.

With the long Easter weekend I plan on getting a lot of volume.

FAST and STRONG

I have been having success after being away during spring break. After the high volume cycling over the weekend I did a recovery trainer ride Monday morning and then biked to work. It was cold in the morning but the temperature climbed into the 70’s later in the day. At lunch I swam with Sam and he pushed and gave me form tips. I always swim better and faster when someone is watching. It an easy 500 warm up followed by 10 x 100 on 1:45. I never do them that fast – I always give myself more time to recover than necessary. These were some of the best 100’s that I have ever swum! I did some abs after the swim.
The commute home was nice. The sun was out but it was straight into the wind. I needed the ride home – it cleared my head. I have been having a little bit of apprehension with my sister and her family moving to Australia – maybe even some jealousy thrown in. I am going to miss them but on the bright side I will be travelling to Sydney in the very near future!
Tuesday brought about an interval session on the bike trainer. I have been struggling with the tempo trainer rides so I dialed in a moderately hard interval session – and I nailed it. I felt strong! The legs were recovered from the volume over the weekend and had bounced back. The cycling is coming along.
STADIUMS were on hand at lunch and we took 10 seconds off of the recovery. Once again the working set was 15 seconds but the time to get across and back down was now 1:25. The first 3 or 4 reps were hard on the legs but they some came back and the session was maintainable. We were all successful. My heart rate was much lower than the same session last year. After the STADIUMS we did 2 reps at the back of the Cochran building. This is very demanding. I would like to add a rep of these each week until it just kills us! That might only be 3 reps – we will have to see.
Back at the gym there was the bench press. I have actually been enjoying the strength training. I loaded up the same weight as last Tuesday – just 2 45’s – approximately 87% of my body weight. Last week I did 4 sets with very little recovery as 15 / 15 / 15 / 12. I was determined to improve upon this!

I started off and felt strong again. I owned this workout and was able to put up the following: 16 / 16 / 16 / 14 / 15! I am not sure where the strength is coming from but I will definitely take it.

Treadmill Intervals and bench press

I tried the bike trainer again on Wednesday morning. My legs have been dead all week. I am actually not sure why they have been like lead. When they are tired I can almost always pick them up for a run – they can and do respond – but on the bike it is a different story. I dialed in a workout on the trainer that I thought I could handle. I got about half way through it and I just had to dial it back. I am not sure if this is a mental or physical failure. Anyway, I got 40 minutes on the bike trainer.

 

At lunch I hit the pool. I was concentrating on my stroke count and the swim came along well. I started with a 500 WU and then 10 x 100 with 20 seconds recovery followed by another 500 cool down. I was not focused on the speed but just the form and stroke count. I think I was a few seconds slower but I was pleased with the effort. Stroke count was right at 17 per 25 yards.

 

On Thursday morning I 86’ed the bike workout. I just did not need another failed training session. The legs needed a break from the bike. But lunch would bring a new running workout.

 

Like I said, my legs are tired but they almost always seem to be able to “bring it” when I ask. I was looking at a 10k interval training session on the internet and I charted out a couple of sets. After a short warm up I would do 3 times each of the following:

 

3 minutes on / 3 minutes recovery
2 minutes on / 2 minutes recovery
1 minutes on / 1 minutes recovery

 

The intensities would be a little faster than 10k pace (actually quite a bit faster than 10k pace). I had been doing those Yasso 800’s a month ago and I was successful at a 6:00 minute pace (give or take a second or two). So I decided to do these intervals at 9.9 MPH (6:03 minutes per mile). Why 9.9 – it is just easier to type it in on the treadmill. The sets of 3 minutes on / off went by pretty quick and they were not as challenging as I had hoped. I played it conservatively and only increased the 2 minute sets to 10.1 MPH (5:56 minutes per mile). My heart rate was still dropping nicely with the 2 minute recovery. On the 1 minute sets I increased the rate again to 10.3 MPH (5:49 minutes per mile). The 1 minute recovery was not sufficient to reduce my heart rate but I was able to complete the entire workout of treadmill intervals.

 

Soaked in sweat I headed to the bench press. I am still trying to add a few reps to my 70% body weight max rep lift. My arms were a little bit sore from Tuesday’s workout but I decided to see how many reps I could get. Success again – I was able to press out 36 at my 70% body weight cold – no warm up. This is an increase of 4 reps from the last time I attempted the lift – or 80 seconds off of my total pump and run time! I did two more sets with only 60 seconds recovery and completed another 15 followed by 14. 65 total reps with 60 seconds recovery between sets. My goal is 40 reps by mid-May.

Strength to weight bench marks!

I jumped back into P90X again and did the chest and back workout on Monday morning. As you know, it is a lot of body weight exercises. I really like the workout.


At lunch, to continue to rest the legs – I have no kick after all – I swam 3000 yards in the pool. This was an easy swim with just 2 x 1500. My times were a little off from my best (less than a minute) but the swim felt good. I need to get in the pool on a more regular basis and pick my swim up. I am ready to get in the open water!

Tuesday I did my last speed session before the marathon and I did it on the treadmill. I had done a similar workout a few weeks ago and this one seemed better. After an easy mile warm-up I did 6 repeats of quarter miles at a 5:42 minute per mile pace (10.5 MPH). Now, the treadmill takes a second or two to get up to speed and a second or two to come back down but it was a solid workout. The recovery consisted of quarter miles at an 8:00 minute per mile pace. The total was 5 miles in 40 minutes with 3 of those mile taking 20 minutes.

After the speed session I did my pull ups.

About 8 years ago I set a goal for myself. At the time I could not do ANY pull ups. I had just started to embrace fitness and a healthy lifestyle. I laid down the gauntlet and wanted to be able to do 30 pull ups (I quickly revised the goal to be 30 pull ups in 3 sets). I used to run around this park that had a jungle gym and I would stop on many of my laps and try to crank out as many as I could. I would then walk a short path for about a minute and crank out some more. I tried all variations of the number of repetitions. Once I was able to get 10 pull ups in a row I add a few more. Maybe a combination of 12 / 10 / 8 would be the secret or maybe 14 / 10 / 6. Nothing worked. I remember the first time I was able to get 20 reps and then 22. I was stuck for a long time.

About 3 years ago I finally achieved my goal. I got my 30 reps in 3 sets. Now that has become my bench mark for my strength to weight ratio. I started doing them again this past month. Eight pounds ago I was topping out in the high twenties.

Twice this past week I have had success -2 out of 2 actually. The first time was 15 / 9 / 6 and then yesterday after my speed work I got the 10 / 10 / 10 (and then added 5 more in a fourth set).

It might be time to try the 40 in 4 – I love a challenge!

Race ready!

After work I actually got on the bike trainer. The hour of power if you will – well the 45 minutes of warm up / cool down and 7 intervals. But the HOUR OF POWER sounds so much better. It is so hard for me to get motivated to do a session in the evening. It is something that I really need to work on – I would like to make some time for a few quality sessions in the evening. As always, I felt better for having done the workout.


On Thursday morning I went to the gym for a tempo run on the treadmill. Once again you have to take the treadmill with a grain of salt. I don’t really know how fast the belt is moving or the equivalent pace. I do, however, always try to use the same machine. My training plan, the FIRST plan that I have been roughly following, only called for a 6 mile run. It would be a good warm up / cool down with the working set being 3 miles at a 6:45 minute pace. If you remember I ran 8 miles on the treadmill last week with the working set consisting of 6 miles at a 6:40 minute pace. So today’s workout did not seem sufficient. I know that this is part of the taper but – come on – this is where I prefer to work harder. And just to justify my working harder - the FIRST workout plan that I am following is for a 3:15 marathon time – I am going to try to be quicker than that!

So I did my easy 1 mile warm up at 10 minutes per mile and then cranked the treadmill up to a 6:40 pace. The first mile was easy so I decided to increase the pace each mile for a total of 4 miles in this working set. I increased the speed by 0.2 MPH and the splits came out as follows (mile number / time / Ave HR):

Mile - 01 Time - 00:09:58 Ave HR - 129
Mile - 02 Time - 00:06:40 Ave HR - 158
Mile - 03 Time - 00:06:28 Ave HR - 168 
Mile - 04 Time - 00:06:20 Ave HR - 175
Mile - 05 Time - 00:06:13 Ave HR - 181
Mile - 06 Time - 00:09:51 Ave HR - 145

Although the paces did indeed quicken, I continued to feel strong. The 6:40 pace was as if I could go forever (forever being about 10 miles - maybe a little longer). The 6:28 wasn’t much harder. The 6:20 could have been a solid 5 mile effort. At the 6:13 pace it got harder although I could have pulled this off for a 5K – and who knows, with a kick at the end I might have had a new 5K PR’d. After the 4 working miles I shut it down. I think I could have held the 6:13 for another mile (but my average heart rate was creeping up – 181 was what I averaged for a 12K – 7.5 mile – run back on New Year’s day – so I know I have a little more top end). But I played it smart. I know that I will not gain any speed or physical fitness these last couple of days before the marathon. This is the time that you are more likely to mess something up!

I never got out of my hard comfort zone. The intensity was up but the recovery should be quick and easy. I am not going to push too hard this late in the game. I am ready for the race!

This weekend I am running 10 miles at race pace.

Speed work tapering

Giving the legs a break I did another P90X Chest and Back DVD on Monday morning. I decide to wear one of my racing unitards for the P90X session. You know what? I actually liked working out in this outfit. I hate doing pushups when your shirts dragging the ground. In addition, some of these workout sessions involve a lot of jumping around and such – the unitard works great.


During lunch I did an easy swim. I started with a warm up and then cranked out 10 x 100 yards. It felt pretty good. My first few repeats were quicker than average but quickly leveled off.

No workout on Tuesday morning.

During this taper I am trying to cut my volume substantially while maintaining my intensity. The idea is to have my body recover from all of the training during the last 2 months while also not losing any of my fitness. Therefore I continued speed work this week. Due to the Mardi Gras Track on Tap on Tuesday night I had to fit my speed work in during lunch. This was not a problem because there were no classes on Monday or Tuesday – that’s right, there are no college classes for Mardi Gras.

I did the indoor track at the Payne Center. It is an eighth of a mile track and the turns are pretty tight. I warmed up with 1 minute per lap (8 minute miles) for 1 mile and then did 800’s. I clicked off 6 of these 800’s – all less than 3:00 minutes. It was a good workout and I never left my comfort zone. There is only one conclusion. The track is short. These were too easy. I am going to borrow the distance wheel from the pacers and measure this track. I am not being modest – the track is short…

The track on tap was a lot of fun but there were no actives going on for Mardi Gras. The town was dead. We started at the Keg and Barrel and then hit downtown. We all had our masks on and were decked out in beads but there was no one to throw them to. There was a beer wagon and a stage for a band but nothing was going on at 7PM. We were not going to stand around in the cold for a couple of hours waiting. We ended up running only about 3 miles. Oh well, we all still had a good time.

I did a P90X abs workout on Wednesday morning and plan on doing the bike trainer thing tonight.

Confidence boosting tempos

The start of the taper is tough on me. I feel like I am not doing enough. I have said before that I use exercise not just for the physiological aspect but for the psychological as well. On top of all of this I am trying to maintain my weight and the reduced activity does not help.


I did a swim on Tuesday morning and then some treadmill intervals that evening. The intervals were not too hard – but I did cut them short. I was on the treadmill and I planned on doing 10 x ¼ miles at faster than 6 minute miles. I started the intervals with the treadmill set at 10.5 miles per hour (5:43 minutes per mile). I did five intervals and they were not a problem. However, my evening hard running gastrointestinal pain returned. Having a belly full of food (from eating throughout the day) really starts to jostle around. The discomfort was not unbearable but that was all that it took to call it a day. If someone would have been playing racquetball or another game I doubt I would have given up.

On Wednesday I only got a morning swim in – but it was a great swim. Not because it was terribly long or that it was astonishingly quick. It was just a solid swim that I enjoyed. It was a good pace and a good distance. I did a ladder up and down. It was not as structured as I have done in the past. The paces were about the same for all of the legs so I did not get the full benefit. I did 100 / 200 / 300 / 400 / 500 and then down back to 100. A total of 2500 yards – the longest since ironman. I was not over extended. Once again it felt solid.

That was it for the day. I had hoped to get some time on the bike trainer but it just did not happen.

Thursday morning brought a tempo run. It has turned cold here in Mississippi and I headed to the gym. Funny how a little bit of rest and the legs are no longer tired. I do not have the crazy legs that I sometimes get – my legs were just just there. Not roaring to go – not fatigued – just legs. That is a funny feeling.

Although I know that the treadmills are all over the place when I t comes to pace I have to believe that they are fairly close. I remember when I used to run with my Polar footpod that the treadmills were close. I do not remember the pluses and minuses but it was close. There is also no wind on the treadmill. I do however, always set the incline to 1 (whatever that means) to simulate the outside.

I did an easy warm up for a mile and then I decided to run the tempo. I was not sure of the pace I wanted to go. I did not want a super hard work out where I might blow up – I did not want the frustration. At the same time I wanted a challenging workout. I turned the treadmill to a 6:40 minute per mile pace. This is the pace that I ran the Steam Whistle 12K at the beginning of the year. That was a hard 7.45 miles. That was the ‘hardest’ race that I had run up to that point. I was pleased with the results. My heart rate averaged 181 beats per minute. I remember pushing hard for most of the race.

So this should be a solid workout – pushing hard. I did the warm up nice and easy and just set the treadmill and motored though. The workout felt easy for the first few miles. Well, not easy but definitely not hard. I was able to click off 6 miles at the 6:40 minute per mile pace without ever having to push to redline. This was a real boost to my confidence (which had deteriorated the last couple of days). I also cooled down for a mile and finished the 8 mile run in just under an hour. The average pace for the working set was 6 miles in 39:48 @ 6:38 pace with an average heart rate of 168 beats per minute. I have really increased my LT level these past 2 months!

Summary 0:59:33 @ 156 beats per minute

- - - - Time- - HR Ave
01 - 0:09:49 115
02  - 0:06:40 154
03  - 0:06:38 165
04  - 0:06:37 168
05 - 0:06:37 172
06 - 0:06:37 174
07 - 0:06:39 175
08 - 0:09:52 149

Swim, Bike, Run, Recovery

I went to the track on Tuesday evening – just as I have for the past 6 weeks. My training plan called for 10 x quarter miles at 1:27. I am faster than this but the 10 seemed daunting. I started warming up by myself and my legs were tired. My legs have been tired every track night. After the first interval they loosen up some. I am sure that this would have been the case. As more pacers started to show up I walked, ran and talked with them. Charles showed up and he said no speed work for him!


It was easy to talk me out of the speed session. I decided to let the legs recoup. Charles and I ran a couple of miles on and around the track. Low and behold, Jim showed up. He ran with us for a couple of more miles. It was a fun run and I am very glad that I did not blow off the entire night just because I was not feeling speed work. I ended up with about 7 and half miles of easy running finishing the run at an all out sprint with Jim. We decided to do one last lap hard – well I decided to do one last lap hard. Jim came with me – he is quicker than me and had fresher legs. I increased the speed three times during the sprint. Jim was on my shoulder the entire time. I think he could have overtaken me but just let me run. At the last push to the finish line we were deep in the 5’s (the watch had deep in the 4’s – but you know how that current pace thing works on the GPS). The last 100 yards was all out and it felt great.

Wednesday would be early swim work. I am getting back into the groove of the pool and I actually extended my planned workout some. My nose was all stopped up and, I know this is gross, but the swim always clears me out – if you know what I mean. I alternated sets of 250 yards with and without paddles. With the paddles I can really feel the muscles in my back. This is so different from when I first started swimming. My arms used to get so tired with the swim. Anyway, I only swam 1750 yards but it felt good. I still would like to do the masters swim thing but I may have missed my winter window. Before too long I will be back on the bike in the mornings.

I had planned on hitting the trainer after work on Wednesday but I was under the weather. The nose was stopped up again and I was going through tissues like it was nobody’s business. I scrapped the trainer ride.

If you remember my trainer ride was also compromised on Tuesday due to a flat tire. Well, I did change that tire when I discovered it so the bike was ready to go on Thursday morning. I loaded the new interval training plan. Last week the intervals were 1 on / 2 off times 7. I changed the ratio some so that it is now 1:15 on / 1:45 off – a small change – increasing the working set by 25 percent. This was a solid workout. I was drenched when I completed it! The trainer is a solid workout but I am ready to get back outside.

Clockwork mornings

Tuesday morning I hopped on the trainer. I had a bright idea to start adding some intensity. I plotted out a workout that would involve a warm up followed by 7 – 1 minute intervals at very hard intensity with 2 minutes of easy recovery. I stopped after the first interval. I just do not have the intensity on the bike right now (or the tired legs – or whatever). This is where my training has always suffered. How do you fit 3 hard bike workouts while doing 3 hard run workouts? Which follows which? I am still working on that – I can do either hard bike workouts or hard run workouts – it just breaks down when I want to do both.


I had class at lunch and I was planning on doing some run intervals at the track after work. I was not looking forward to the track but I knew that once I got there it would be cool. And it was. I decided on the fly that I was going to run a couple 1200’s and call it an easy day. I ran a mile or two with Charles and the crew and then started the intervals. These would be challenging but obtainable. I wanted to round the track every 1:35 – this would put me at a slower 6:20 minutes per mile or 4:45 for each 1200 interval. I was a little bit fast the first two at 4:39 (6:12 pace). These were feeling easy – well not easy but not all out either. I felt good. Then it hit – “IT” has hit me the last 3 times at the track. Major GI distress. This is simply not like me. I have a cast iron stomach. Nothing much bothers me. But when I have been running hard in the evening (and only when I have been running hard in the evening) I feel like I am going to crap my pants. This is not much fun. So I completed the third 1200 and feeling like a deer in headlights I headed towards my vehicle. Charles and the crew asked me if I was done and wanted to run a few cool down laps – NOPE – I headed towards the elementary school – it looked like there was an open house or something – maybe I could slip in and do my damage. While walking towards the school – in just a minute or two - everything was better – no, I did not go into the school – the pain and discomfort subsided. I think that since I am a morning type of guy – between first and second cup of coffee – like clockwork – when running hard in the evening, the food that I eat all day just gets jostled around. I have been eating a pound plus of carrots during the day. I have only ran on afternoon / evening race in the last year and that race was not a problem (5KPR 19:09). I wished that I would have gotten one more 1200 but I have given myself a pass.

I hit the gym on Wednesday morning feeling great. I ran around the indoor track with Jodie for a few laps warming up and just chatting. I then made it to the treadmill where I wanted to do a set of Tabata Intervals. If you remember, these are 8 sets of 20 seconds on / 10 seconds off. The on is at an all out / break neck pace. Getting all 8 sets is hard. I set the treadmill and the stopwatch up and prepared with a little more warm up running. I started at 8 minutes per mile – this was easy stuff. I inched the speed up to a 6:18 minute per mile pace. This also was not too hard. I was feeling good. I set the treadmill for 12 MPH (5:00 minutes per mile pace) and began the Tabata Intervals. I completed all 8 sets without problem – sure they got harder but this was the easiest that they have ever been. Afterwards, feeling pumped, I hit the weights. But still feeling strong, I ran some fast straight-aways on the 200 meter indoor track. I had a great workout!

More Yasso's

Monday was a ‘recovery day’. I got in the pool for lunch and did an easy 1500 yards (3 x 500). This was much better than last week. I did not time any of the repeats but the swim is coming back. It has still been cold at work so I took it real easy and jumped in the sauna for about 10 minutes. It felt awesome.

Tuesday was back to the plan. I woke up and the legs were tired. Trying to get back into the routine following the holiday – I jumped on the bike trainer for a 45 minute spin. As I said, the legs were tired but I was glad that I did it.

Lunch time was going to be another easy workout. I was either going to jump in the pool again or do easy spinning on the exerbike (read a book). However, I ended up playing racquetball for 30 minutes. After the racquet sports I headed upstairs for just a little bit of strength training. This would be easy stuff. I have not worked out with weights in a while and wanted to take it easy so that I am not so sore that it affects my running. I did three sets of the bench press and then a couple sets of stiff legged dead lifts. Nothing heavy but I did feel it – and I am sure I will continue to feel it for the next couple of days.

The real workout for the day was right after work – at the track. I wanted to increase the Yasso 800’s by two. I completed 6 sets last week with an average time of 3:05 for the 800 meters. I met Charles and Jim at the track and we worked out the details for the 25K race this Sunday. It looks like we will be driving down the morning of the race. The temperature should be much better than last week’s race – more like 40 degrees. This will be perfect weather. This race is along a levy near New Orleans – the wind could be a factor. Looking at the McMillan Running Calculator (turn down your speakers) my times are falling into line. It indicates that my 25K pace time should be 6:56 minutes per mile – and on top of that my marathon time is now projected at 3:08:41 at a 7:12 minute per mile pace – we will see about that!

Back to the track workout– I wanted to complete 8 of the 800 meter repeats at 3:05. I started out too fast, as usual, and completed the first set at just under 3:00 minutes. These were hard but achievable. I tried to keep the pace up. My times were as follows:

WU - 800 repeats
1. 2:59
2. 2:58
3. 2:59
4. 2:59
5. 3:01
6. 3:02
7. 3:00
8. 2:59
CD

Bike trainer and long run fun.

Having ran a pretty good tempo run on Friday morning I just did some easy reading on the exerbike at the gym for lunch. I needed to finish up a Lance Armstrong book – Lance: The Making of the World’s Greatest Champion. I did not really care for the book. As with all of the Lance books they are completely one sided. You have books like this one by John Wilcockson, who has been following and interviewing Lance for almost his entire career who really thinks that Lance can do no wrong. In the other camp is David Walsh, L. A. Confidentiel and From Lance to Landis, who presents circumstantial evidence and then draws conclusions. I actually like the latter books a bit better but, to be fair, I am not the biggest Lance Armstrong fan. Anyway, I had an easy spin on Friday afternoon – I was planning a long run on Saturday morning.

That Saturday run just did not happen – no fault of my own mind you. The temperature was in the low forties and the rain was pounding. It was miserable conditions here in Southern Mississippi. With it raining outside I jumped on my bike trainer and put on a DVD. Forty five minutes later I was drenched. With school being officially out the gym has restricted hours. I arrived just after 2PM. I hopped on the treadmill with no real workout in mind – I just knew that this was not going to be the 12 – 15 mile run that I wanted – I can’t do that on the treadmill. I warmed up slow for about ¾ of a mile and then I decided to run mile repeats followed by ¼ mile recovery runs – not sure why but I guess to make the best use of the available time. I ended up with 5 miles at just less than 40 minutes. Three of those miles were at 6:30 pace.

The holiday / December running club meeting was at my house on Saturday night. Most of the usuals showed up and we did our officer elections. I scored big with the Dirty Santa by procuring a set of Yanks, running gloves, sunglasses and a couple of gels – not too shabby. However, there was way too much food and drink (actually I drank very little and I did not over indulge too badly on the food). But, the next day my weight was up by over 5 pounds. It tends to do that! – I know that it is water weight from salty food – but still.

The weather had changed by Sunday. Still some rain but much warmer. I got up and did the bike trainer again. I have been enjoying the trainer more than I ever have. I have been doing pretty easy base work but the computer will record all of my stats. I like to compare workout to workout and see my heart rate average, cadence and power averages for the sessions. The computer then spits put a ‘performance’ number. It is average watts compared to average heart rate. The number is not perfect but comparing the same workouts session is fun.

I met up with Charles on the trace on Sunday afternoon. We would try to put together a good long run. I ran 3 miles to meet him just past Clyde station. I ran those miles between 8:15 – 8:30 pace. Charles was running fast also – about his half marathon race pace – 9 minute miles. I slowed to his pace and he never let up. He stung together between 13 – 15 miles at right at 9 minutes per mile. He killed it.

I got about 13 miles at just over 2 hours – there were a couple of long breaks – I got to chew the fat and congratulate Steve (the postman) on his Ironman Arizona. I finished the last two miles of my run at a 7:30 minute pace. It was tough but not race tough. My legs were a little sore after the run – not race sore but…– so I took it easy the rest of the day. I actually skipped the December Beer Club meeting. I really was not in the mood for winter warmers with the outside being 68 degrees – in addition, I did not want to hamper my recovery.

The coming weekend is another half marathon in New Orleans – The Old Man River. The race is on Sunday with the Saints playing the Cowboys on Saturday night. New Orleans will be on fire.

Marathon Training - throwing down the gauntlet

After last weekend’s PR half marathon run on less than idea training and race conditions I have decide to try and put together a fast half and full marathon run. Maybe I can actually run a full-all-out half run this next weekend – I have signed up for the Ole Man River Half in New Orleans. This race is Sunday, December 20th. That is only two weeks since the last half in Baton Rouge and I do not expect to make great gains in running speed but I have more speed in me. I only hope to be able to run the entire race with race intensity (not lollygag and talk and stuff) and see where the time falls. Looking at the race calculators, according to my fastest ever 5K time I should be running these half’s nearly 10 minutes faster than I am. I think that calculator is pushing it but I would like to see how close I can get.


So the goals for the first quarter of the year are set – they will be running goals with cycling base building in between. Yes I still want to push the pace on the bike. I have read many articles that state a fall marathon will not help an ironman time. And I can only image that a spring marathon will in no way whatsoever help sprint and Olympic triathlons. That being said I am finally pumped about my training!

Jim and I met up at campus on Wednesday morning for mile repeats. The weather was warm and humid. We did a campus run with a 1 mile warm-up and cool down with the 4 one mile runs in the middle. We were not killing ourselves but clicked off the following – the rest interval was 3 minutes:

1. 6:42
2. 6:54
3. 7:05
4. 6:52

This was a good effort but the times will be dropping in the coming weeks. At lunch I did the STADIUMS. It was getting cooler and there was a strong wind. Having done the mile repeats I decided to be a follower and just kind of go through the motions. I still felt strong and performed well but I was not giving it everything I had. We pulled up short on the STADIUMS (10 X on 1:45) because I had a new challenge in mind. There is a LARGE staircase on the back of the Thad Cochran building. No one uses this stair case – it is like 3-4 flights of stairs – this is longer than the STADIUMS. So after 10 sets of STADIUMS we went to the back of the Coch. I had wanted to try out 5 sets on 2 minutes. The first set took 22 seconds up and a full 40 seconds to run down/recover. This was a damn hard workout – at the bottom we rested 1 minute. Vic and Richard were with me for the next two but were sucking wind at that point. I did just one more set at intensity and called it a day with 4 x the back of the Coch. This is tough stuff - when the heat hits it will be EPIC.

I had an exam on Thursday morning so I studied instead of exercising. I would have rather rode the trainer and watch a movie but… priorities. At lunch I played around in the racquetball courts to let the legs rest a bit. But after work it was back on the bike trainer. I got a good 45 minutes in a sweat-fest.

On Friday morning Jim was supposed to meet me at the campus for a tempo run. Something came up and I ran alone. It was a good run in the cold. It showed that I am not in position to meet my running goals at this point. I am going to need some solid training to run the paces that I want. I love a challenge.

TEMPO run:

1. 8:29 Warm up
2. 6:41
3. 7:02
4. 6:51
5. 6:57
6. 7:48 Cool down

I have been working on which races I will do next year and I have put together a list.  This is not set in stone (except for the races up to the Mardi Gras Marathon).

Tentative Race Schedule (first half of 2010):

12/20-Ole Man River Half – New Orleans
01/01-Stream Whistle 12k – Hattiesburg (on the trace)
01/17-Louisiana State 25K Championship – New Orleans
01/31-"The WALL" Louisiana State 30K Championship – New Orleans
02/XX-Run for Love 5K
02/28-Mardi Gras Marathon – New Orleans
03/19-St Thomas 5K
04/18-Ironman 70.3 New Orleans
06/05-Heatwave Classic Triathlon
07/XX-Sunfish Summer Triathlon
07/24-Heart O’Dixie Triathlon

Eating on the Swim / Bike / Run

I slept late on Tuesday and skipped the group ride. My legs were tired from the trail run the night before. At lunch I went to the trace with Vic and Adam and we decided to run intervals. 10 x ¼ miles with 90 rest sounded good. As always, they started out hard, but manageable and then just got harder. I was able to finish all of the intervals in the high-high 120’s. In the spring I was running these in the low 120’s but I was not as consistent. It was a good effort. My rump was a little sore from the bike tip-over the night before.

On Saturday’s epic training day I looked at the amount of calories that I consumed:

PRE-SWIM
400 CALS - 2 POP TART S
PRE-BIKE
400 CALS – 2 POP TARTS
BIKE
400 CALS – 2 POP TARTS
500 CALS – 2 PEACAN LOGS (MINI)
400 CALS – 2 SPORTS DRINKS
200 CALS – 2 GELS
PRE-RUN
400 CALS – 2 POP TARTS
500 CALS – 2 PEANUT BUTTER CRACKER PACKAGES
100 CALS – ½ SPORTS DRINK
RUN
200 CALS – GELS
POST RUN
100 CALS – ½ SPORTS DRINK
100 CALS – LIGHT BEER


TOTAL = 3700 calories

Fast swimming intervals and even faster running intervals

Monday was an off day – that is right Friday was off and Monday was off. That is what the scheduled called for – it also called for a long bike on Saturday but I did the race instead. There was another race I wanted to do at the end of this month but I have decided to pass. Even though I really enjoy the races they just take too much away from the long endurance days. I think a 4 – 5 hour bike is going to help me more than a 1:30 hour sprint triathlon. If the races were closer I might be able to do them but with the travel it is just not possible.

I got a good swim in on Tuesday morning at the gym. The plan called for a lot of shorter intervals with decreasing rest. The session wrapped up with all out 25 yard sprints with a long rest interval. This started out pretty easy but by the time I got to the last few it was challenging – I did a total of 16 of these sprints.

At lunch I did some treadmill intervals. I was scheduled for only 30 minutes so I wanted it to be intense. Intense it was – I have felt that I have not been going fast enough on the intervals and since I was only going to be able to do 4 x ½ mile I adjusted the pace. I did an easy ½ mile warm up and then dialed in the treadmill to a 6 minute / mile pace for the intervals. Recovery was for 1 minute (0.1 miles). I still had a little bit of time so I tried to do a 5th interval and I failed. It was not on the plan and I was not mentally prepared. I gave up.

INTERVALS 4 x ½ mile at 6:00 minute /mile pace.
01 – 2:59 – HEART RATE AVE – 157
02 – 2:56 – HEART RATE AVE – 165
03 – 3:01 – HEART RATE AVE – 170
04 – 2:59 – HEART RATE AVE – 176
05 – FAIL

Heat Wave Analysis - 2009

On Monday I completed a good swim in the pool at the university. A reverse ladder ( 600/500/400/300/200/100 ) with increasing intensity. I also swam 200 yards in between sets as a cool down - 3000 yards including warm up and cool down.

Lunch called for another 8 x 1/2 mile intervals with 60 seconds recovery. Two weeks ago I did this work out at 9.2 MPH on the treadmill - I upped it to 9.3 MPH - just a tiny bit faster. On the last interval my heart rate average was about 4 beats less than 2 weeks ago. I am seeing progress.

So yesterday was the race report - today is the stats - the nitty gritty.


******SWIM**T1***BIKE***AVE***T2***RUN**AVE**TOTAL
2008 14:33 1:20 1:10:31 21.1 0:52 47:24 7:47 2:14:39
2009 17:31 1:02 1:04:31 23.1 1:16 45:26 7:27 2:09:44

I improved by 3.8% including the 3 minutes for the swim. I did, infact improve in the swim - just the distances were not the same. Last year I was about 2 1/2 minutes behind my friend Mike - this year only 30 seconds. And I was 4 minutes behind my friend Chris and this year only 2 minutes - Chris is very fast - like 24.9 MPH on the bike fast.

Mike was 16% faster than me last year and only 2.6% faster this year while Chris was 38% faster than me last year and only 12% faster this year. My swim was much improved.

If you remove the swim than the inprovment for the bike, run and transitions was 7%.

On to the bike - well 6 minutes improvement on the dot - a 9.3% improvement from last year - 2 MPH!!! - and I did not feel drained or spent when I dismounted. On the contrary I wished that I could have pushed harder.

On the run I was 1:58 minutes faster - this was a 4.3% improvement. This is also where I lost the most ground. I really need to work on the mental side of this equation and push myself harder. I have never had trouble in this area - I am not sure what gives. I get to test myself again this weekend!

Speaking of Chris - here is a picture of him from a race last year - You do not want to get in his way - he is an animal!