Do you feel EPIC?

In a word – NO.

I moved my training around this week to better accommodate my schedule. My training plan consistently has a Saturday swim which is just not happening. This left Wednesday with only a swim – this would take place in the lake after work. I am still feeling run down so I decided to skip EPIC DAY. This is very hard for me. With my ironman training these additional days are just pushing me over the edge.

Vic and I both successfully completed another day of the 100 pushup challenge. These are getting harder – more sets (8) and less rest (45 seconds).

So for lunch there would be no EPIC DAY. So, foolish me, I decided to do a little running on the treadmill. I thought to myself -why not a 3 or 4 mile run at LT – a hard and fast tempo run – maybe even a 5k PR. What am I thinking? I warmed up for half a mile and then adjusted the speed to a 6:30 pace. I ran a quarter mile. My heart rate was staying low – I increased the rate to a 6:00 minute / mile pace. My heart rate slowly started to respond and get into the appropriate range. This was hard. Why was I doing this again? Oh, that’s right – there was no purpose behind this session. I just wanted to prove to myself that I was still fast – that my fitness has not suffered. I stopped the work out after 1 mile. I did an ego check and this time I won!

A little dejected but happy that I made the decision to scrap the run I headed towards the stadium to cheer on the EPIC DAY participates. I did not run the stairs or lunge the bleachers, instead I did a bucket load of crunches out on the field. As the guys were finishing up in the stands I jogged a few football field lengths with them. I was not feeling fast and I was still a little tired. For this lunch session – I just went through the paces.

I still had my swim after work. I was tired all afternoon and was thinking about blowing this swim off. I knew that I would regret this decision. I got to the lake and JD and Jen were already there. The wind was blowing right at us and there was a considerable chop on the water. These were rough conditions – this would be a good test. Lance, his friend Todd and Terry soon arrived. Then Robin came running up. The water temperature had really dropped in the last week. We have had some cooler days and nights recently. The water felt cold but we soon warmed up. There would be no sprinting today. I just wanted some endurance swimming and the rough conditions just made the session that much better. I swam out to the second buoy – the chop was on my left side – my non-breathing side. I swam into the wind – it was coming at me at about 10 o’clock. I would have thought that the wind would have pushed me right but I have a natural tendency to drift left – the wind could not overcome this drift. I rounded the buoy and headed back to the dock. I traded off between which side I was breathing. Breathing to my left feels awkward and I feel slower. I switched back to my dominate side and was able to time my strokes. Even with the chop breaking into my breathing side this was still preferable. Back at the dock I turned around again and was going to do a second out and back loop. When I got to the first buoy there were several swimmers hanging around. Shawn was there – I am not sure when he pulled up. We chewed the fat for a bit and talked about upcoming races – I think he has talked me into the Dragonfly. I set out towards the second buoy and rounded it home. I ended up with a mile swim with never touching bottom or resting. I did tread water for a bit but it was for the most part a straight swim in rough conditions. I believe that these types of swims will pay the highest dividends.

Lance and JD were still planning on the group ride in the morning. I told them that I did not think I would make it – I am going to take some rest time – better now before the training really builds. I have read so many times that most people train too hard and do not let themselves recover. I am going to be smart this year and swallow my pride when necessary.

EPIC DAY – WEEK 2

EPIC DAY – WEEK 2

Tuesday night it was thundering and lightening and the rain was fierce. Being proactive and not willing to chance missing an early morning ride I hooked the race bike up to the trainer (or drainer as some might call it). The trainer is not fun. I applauded people that can ride the device for hours on end. I do not care what you are watching – the trainer gets old quick.

Anyway, that being said, I do believe that the trainer has a place in my workout routine. You can take all of the variables out of the bike and just look at the cold hard data – are you improving or not? That was not my early morning workout this week. I jumped on the trainer with the only objective of doing a nice 20 mile recovery ride. The legs have been tired and an easy spin would do them well. Two and a half episodes of The Simpsons later and I was done (wow – this show is getting a little stale). It did not matter that I had a fan inches from me – the sweat was pouring off. The bike portion of the day was done.

Lunch would bring another EPIC DAY. Word has spread like wildfire! We had 3 new members show up for the festivities. In addition to the ‘REGULARS – Vic, Chad, Richard (sometimes) and me’ – first week Adam, Ryan (from across campus) and Keith (Thursday group ride) showed up. Not to mix it up too much and I was not very organized we headed towards the stadium (THE ROCK). Today would be 20 sets of stadium bleacher lunges (stepping on each seat and walking the entire height of the stadium (forty something bleaches) superset with alternating sets of 10 pushups / 10 squats. This would be more of a strength time exercise with endurance thrown in for good measure. The heat and humidity of Southern Mississippi was upon us – so much humidity that there was a misting rain at times. This was hard work – not insurmountable but hard work.

Once complete with the first leg we hit the field for a round of 250 crunches (anyway / anyhow) as fast as you can. This will have to be changed up for the next EPIC DAY – this has already become too easy!

Several 100 yard dashed with left / right grapevines with little to no rest were next – there were some more dashes with skipping and then we ran the length of the field backwards. We were exhausted at this point and headed back to the gym. This EPIC DAY stuff is becoming viral – Lance already said that he was sorry that he missed it and Jim is showing interest – I said BRING IT next week.

After work would be the Open Water Swimming. The water has become warm enough that wetsuits are definitely not needed. I hooked up with Jen and she came out to test the waters. She will be doing her first triathlon this weekend and was anxious for the open water swimming experience. Terry also came back after a challenging swim last week. Both Jen and Terry swam out to the farthest buoy and did great! Jen downright loved the lake swim. As far as my swimming, not much racing this week – we would concentrate a little more on endurance. I felt good in the lake – a little slower without the wetsuit but comfortable. There were no water demons on this day. I was not pushing the pace but swimming and just breathing every stroke per normal. At this slower pace I thought I might be ready to practice breathing every other stroke and bilaterally – not yet. Just a few strokes and I switched back to my normal breathing. It is coming but it needs more work.

EPIC DAY – WEEK 2 is in the books!

Epic Day!

I listen to a lot of podcast. Mostly they are running, biking or triathlon. I really like IM talk with Bevan James Eyles and Coach John Newsom. Another podcast, which Bevan does, is Forever Fitness with Ish and Bevan. They are a couple of cheeky Kiwi’s and they provide fresh training ideas. A couple of weeks ago I was listening to episode 55 – EPIC TRAINING DAY. The gist of the show was to take it up a notch.

I had been thinking of this and got some buy in from the lunch crew. Wednesday’s are STADIUM days and yesterday was to be the first of the EPIC DAYS!

We hit the stadium steps – we generally do 30 reps of steps or 20 reps of bleacher lunges. Today we decide to do 20 reps of steps (alternating single and double steps) while adding 10 push ups at the end of each repetition. This was challenging. This kicked up butts (and legs and chest – 10 push ups start to add up).

Next it was on the football field with some ab work – 250 reps of crunches (regular or oblique with a few bicycles thrown in) as fast as you could. This seemed so much harder than the usual Swiss ball, medicine ball, planks and such that we normally do. Oh yeah, we did add a plank at the end – just until you could not do it anymore.

Next came 100 yard dashes across the football field with 10 seconds rest. These were close to all out and exhausting – I think we got 4 reps. The last rep we got about 30 seconds rest before giving it out all. Vic led this last one out with a very surprising burst of speed and beat me by about 5 yards. Tough stuff.

A nice quick run back to the gym because we were not done yet. We finished off with 30 pull ups / chin ups any grip as fast as you can. I busted out a solid 10 and then with a few seconds recovery tried to add 5 more each time. Once I got over 20 I was only adding 1 or 2 per effort. My upper body was toast from the push ups (did I mention that we have also been doing the 100 push up challenge thingy).

By the time that we completed everything we were spent – done – used up – game over – satisfied.

After work I was meeting some guys out at the lake for what would be an EPIC SWIM. It was only epic to me. This will be the last time to wear the wetsuit this year! We swam out to the first buoy which is about a 1/8th of a mile from shore. We then proceeded to race each other to the next buoy – only about 150 yards away. For me this was full on – no holds barred – full attack swimming. I won all of these mini races (no doubt the wetsuit helped me immensely). I am sure that I was red in the fast after each sprint. About half of us had wetsuits on and half did not – one of the guys without the wetsuit was holding onto the buoy for dear life as we recovered from the intense effort. I’m not very good at treading water – I was glad I was in the wetsuit. These sprint efforts, although they only lasted about 1:40 were intense! Hard stuff! Loved it! This was an overall good and fast swim – total mileage was about 1 mile.

Last night and this morning my body was feeling the effects of EPIC DAY. Thursday is the fast group ride and I have been feeling slow. Last year I was able to hang and lead quite a bit – this year it is a different story. I think, due to the volume of ironman training, I have lost a half step or so. It is frustrating but I think my endurance has increased just the max speed is down - especially in the last month or so following the 1/2 ironman, century ride and the cold that I had). Anyway, we have been smacking the ride – we beat last weeks by about a minute and a half – I only did a short pull there and back – the legs were dead from EPIC DAY! Total group ride was 22 miles in 59:15 (22.28 MPH).

Today is an easy day – just a little swimming at lunch.