Had an awesome workout on Friday where I did roughly 40 miles on the bike trainer, immediately followed by a 3.1 mile run outside! Transition took a little long since it was about 40 degrees outside so I had a few extra clothes to put on, but realized the importance of a good towel. Bike felt good, 10 minutes where I warm up, then 10 minutes at about 40% of threshold power, then a 1.5 hour block at 75-80% of my threshold with the last ten minutes slower. When I got off the bike and ran it did not hurt as I expected of my first brick run of the year. One thing I learned last year is to ease off at the beginning and end of the bike segment so that I am more fresh when I get off the bike. Overall a great workout and I got that feeling of "NOW it feels like I'm training for an Ironman!"
Saturday was incline work on the treadmill. I did a 10k with about 1200 feet of elevation gain at an easy pace. I kept my heart rate in the middle of zone 2. Hamstrings felt it a little bit, but running inclines never really feels great ... though the benefits from running inclines feels awesome, so knowing that gets me through the workout.
Great weather should be just around the corner and I cannot wait for it. Nothing beats running and riding in the sun on late spring/early summer days!
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Training has started!!!
Monday was my first day of training after the 6 week build and two days of rest. During the build I averaged 27 miles per week running and 75 miles per week biking. Biking has improved a good bit, but my running has improved immensely since last year. I did 1 day of speedwork and 1 day of inclines every week (on average, some weeks 2 and some weeks zero as I had no set schedule during the offseason).
So Monday's workout was intervals, I did the following running:
1 mile warmup
400 meters - 1:30
800 meters - 3:05
1200 meters - 4:40
1200 meters - 4:40
800 meters - 3:05
400 meters - 1:30
0.4 mile cooldown
Total mileage 5.3 miles.
After running I did weight training; adductors, leg curls, leg press, rows, bench press, incline press, and side to sides (no clue what the name of this exercise is but I sit on a decline bench and twist side to side with a 25 pounds weight in my hand - 100 reps). Stretched and drank an ensure after that.
Tuesday I was on the bike and did an hour and a half on the trainer using trainerroad.com software. The ride for today was called Junction. It is two sets of 3x5 minutes at threshold with a 15 sec burst at the beginning of each set. Then there were three 16x 15 sec on/15 sec off bursts. So basically you do 150% of your threshold power for 15 seconds, then down to 40% for 15 seconds. Now repeat 16 times and do three sets of that. I did good overall but kind of faded towards the last on/off set and did 10 of the 16 bursts. Total riding of 32 miles Tuesday.
Wednesday I did my long run. First mile was warmup at 9:00, then I went to a 7:30/mile pace for the next 8 miles. At that point I bumped it up to my half marathon race pace of 6:52/mile and did 1.6 miles at that pace before ending at 10.6 miles in 80 minutes total. Then proceeded to cool down for the next 0.4 miles.
Thursday will be my rest day!
So Monday's workout was intervals, I did the following running:
1 mile warmup
400 meters - 1:30
800 meters - 3:05
1200 meters - 4:40
1200 meters - 4:40
800 meters - 3:05
400 meters - 1:30
0.4 mile cooldown
Total mileage 5.3 miles.
After running I did weight training; adductors, leg curls, leg press, rows, bench press, incline press, and side to sides (no clue what the name of this exercise is but I sit on a decline bench and twist side to side with a 25 pounds weight in my hand - 100 reps). Stretched and drank an ensure after that.
Tuesday I was on the bike and did an hour and a half on the trainer using trainerroad.com software. The ride for today was called Junction. It is two sets of 3x5 minutes at threshold with a 15 sec burst at the beginning of each set. Then there were three 16x 15 sec on/15 sec off bursts. So basically you do 150% of your threshold power for 15 seconds, then down to 40% for 15 seconds. Now repeat 16 times and do three sets of that. I did good overall but kind of faded towards the last on/off set and did 10 of the 16 bursts. Total riding of 32 miles Tuesday.
Wednesday I did my long run. First mile was warmup at 9:00, then I went to a 7:30/mile pace for the next 8 miles. At that point I bumped it up to my half marathon race pace of 6:52/mile and did 1.6 miles at that pace before ending at 10.6 miles in 80 minutes total. Then proceeded to cool down for the next 0.4 miles.
Thursday will be my rest day!
Friday, March 22, 2013
New PR on 10k!!
Well, I was sick last weekend, so I wound up just resting, eating, drinking OJ, water, taking airborne and only medicine was robitussin DM and generic version of Mucinex. I guess the rest helped out since my 10k to start the year was on Sunday. I made sure to get some good sleep and went to bed around 10:30pm on Saturday night to be ready for a 10am race on Sunday.
Sunday morning I woke up at 7:30am, and within the next hour I had a whole wheat bagel with peanut butter, a half a bottle of Gatorade and some water. I didn't take any medicine because I already knew that race day helps clear a chest cold better than any medicine. I left the house at 8:30 to get there, takes a little over 30 minutes and drank my favorite preworkout while on my way. It is way cheaper and is basically some sugar, caffeine and a few amino acids. Muscletech Pre Workout and the cost is about a third of others I have seen. After I got there, I got registered (wow, small event, smallest I have ever been in, only 15 people!). It was 32 degrees outside and I ran about 1.2-1.5 miles of a warmup, then I took off my jacket and extra pair of mesh pants. Still had on 2 pairs of gloves, a beanie cap, long sleeve compression shirt, compression pants, shorts and a technical T.
Started off in the lead straight from the gun and had another guy pretty close behind me through the first half of the course. My goal was to keep my heartrate in the 160-170 range based on my LTHR. I kept it at the low end for the first half, I cut it a little too close though, 160 average at the half way point and I did the first half in 20:00 exactly. My goal was to finish in 42 minutes and doing this well in the first half while not pushing was very motivating. So I hit the turnaround and see that the guy is still about 5-10 seconds behind so pretty darn close. I picked up the pace a little to get my HR up above 165 and below 170 at that point. About half a mile on the way back he passed me and started leaving me. I was able to keep him at about 15 seconds ahead of me with me hitting 170 for my HR and kept that pace until the last 0.2 miles where I tried to close the gap. I closed, but then he picked it up and held me off by 3 seconds. My finishing time was 39:18, so I negative split the second half and blew my goal out of the water. Stretched, drank some water, ate a banana and drove home to relax and try to get rid of chest cold.
Monday - Did 4.5 miles of easy running, nothing special.
Tuesday - 35 minutes of biking with 15 seconds on/15 seconds off intervals. Killed my lungs, but I lived.
Wednesday - 90 minute long run, 11.4 miles, stayed in zone 2. Treadmill, still cold outside
Thursday - 41 minutes of biking with some 15 second intervals and then 4 minutes at 105%. Lungs feeling a little better. Swimming lessons in the evening and then some rest.
Today is Friday and I will be doing 5 miles at a comfortable pace, but with hills or inclines today. Just remember, hills don't feel great while you are doing them, but they pay HUGE dividends!
Sunday morning I woke up at 7:30am, and within the next hour I had a whole wheat bagel with peanut butter, a half a bottle of Gatorade and some water. I didn't take any medicine because I already knew that race day helps clear a chest cold better than any medicine. I left the house at 8:30 to get there, takes a little over 30 minutes and drank my favorite preworkout while on my way. It is way cheaper and is basically some sugar, caffeine and a few amino acids. Muscletech Pre Workout and the cost is about a third of others I have seen. After I got there, I got registered (wow, small event, smallest I have ever been in, only 15 people!). It was 32 degrees outside and I ran about 1.2-1.5 miles of a warmup, then I took off my jacket and extra pair of mesh pants. Still had on 2 pairs of gloves, a beanie cap, long sleeve compression shirt, compression pants, shorts and a technical T.
Started off in the lead straight from the gun and had another guy pretty close behind me through the first half of the course. My goal was to keep my heartrate in the 160-170 range based on my LTHR. I kept it at the low end for the first half, I cut it a little too close though, 160 average at the half way point and I did the first half in 20:00 exactly. My goal was to finish in 42 minutes and doing this well in the first half while not pushing was very motivating. So I hit the turnaround and see that the guy is still about 5-10 seconds behind so pretty darn close. I picked up the pace a little to get my HR up above 165 and below 170 at that point. About half a mile on the way back he passed me and started leaving me. I was able to keep him at about 15 seconds ahead of me with me hitting 170 for my HR and kept that pace until the last 0.2 miles where I tried to close the gap. I closed, but then he picked it up and held me off by 3 seconds. My finishing time was 39:18, so I negative split the second half and blew my goal out of the water. Stretched, drank some water, ate a banana and drove home to relax and try to get rid of chest cold.
Monday - Did 4.5 miles of easy running, nothing special.
Tuesday - 35 minutes of biking with 15 seconds on/15 seconds off intervals. Killed my lungs, but I lived.
Wednesday - 90 minute long run, 11.4 miles, stayed in zone 2. Treadmill, still cold outside
Thursday - 41 minutes of biking with some 15 second intervals and then 4 minutes at 105%. Lungs feeling a little better. Swimming lessons in the evening and then some rest.
Today is Friday and I will be doing 5 miles at a comfortable pace, but with hills or inclines today. Just remember, hills don't feel great while you are doing them, but they pay HUGE dividends!
Friday, March 15, 2013
Building my running base before starting training on March 24th, so I have cut down to 2 days of cycling instead of 3 for last week and this week.
Saturday I did a 4.5 mile recovery run, nice and easy pace. Took dog for a walk in the afternoon which turned into a 1 mile run at 6:00/mile pace.
Sunday I did a 1 hour ride on the trainer and went 23 miles, did three 9 minute sets around FTP (functional threshold power) which for me is 210 watts right now.
Monday I ran 5.2 miles and did 6x800 meter intervals at my planned 10k pace of 6:40/mile. After that I did some weight lifting, about 40% of my max weight and 20-30 reps per exercise.
Tuesday I did a trainer ride in the morning, only finished 3 of 5 ten minute sets strong, faded bad on the 4th one. Usually I eat an english muffin or bagel with peanut butter in the morning and skipped that today. I won't do that again, but I did do 27 miles in 1 hour, 16 minutes. In the afternoon I ran outside since the weather was over 40 and did 3.6 miles in 26:20, felt like an easy pace too.
Wednesday I woke up with an itchy throat, but I took a couple mucinex and went to the gym to do my workout. Ran 1 hour, 30 minutes on the treadmill and went 11.85 miles. Didn't have enough gas to pick up the pace on the last mile, but that time is right where I need to be 7.5 weeks away from my half marathon. Later in the day I felt a little sluggish and out of it.
Thursday I woke up and my body felt good, but throat was hurting worse. After work I did an easy 3.6 mile recovery jog and went to swimming lessons in the evening.
Friday (today), was my planned rest day, but I woke up sniffling, sneezing, blowing my nose and basically have everything except a fever. I had to call off work and am just sitting at home today resting. 10k race on Sunday, hopefully I will feel better for that. Any time I have been sick on race day adrenaline seems to be able to kick in and get me through the day feeling fine.
Saturday I did a 4.5 mile recovery run, nice and easy pace. Took dog for a walk in the afternoon which turned into a 1 mile run at 6:00/mile pace.
Sunday I did a 1 hour ride on the trainer and went 23 miles, did three 9 minute sets around FTP (functional threshold power) which for me is 210 watts right now.
Monday I ran 5.2 miles and did 6x800 meter intervals at my planned 10k pace of 6:40/mile. After that I did some weight lifting, about 40% of my max weight and 20-30 reps per exercise.
Tuesday I did a trainer ride in the morning, only finished 3 of 5 ten minute sets strong, faded bad on the 4th one. Usually I eat an english muffin or bagel with peanut butter in the morning and skipped that today. I won't do that again, but I did do 27 miles in 1 hour, 16 minutes. In the afternoon I ran outside since the weather was over 40 and did 3.6 miles in 26:20, felt like an easy pace too.
Wednesday I woke up with an itchy throat, but I took a couple mucinex and went to the gym to do my workout. Ran 1 hour, 30 minutes on the treadmill and went 11.85 miles. Didn't have enough gas to pick up the pace on the last mile, but that time is right where I need to be 7.5 weeks away from my half marathon. Later in the day I felt a little sluggish and out of it.
Thursday I woke up and my body felt good, but throat was hurting worse. After work I did an easy 3.6 mile recovery jog and went to swimming lessons in the evening.
Friday (today), was my planned rest day, but I woke up sniffling, sneezing, blowing my nose and basically have everything except a fever. I had to call off work and am just sitting at home today resting. 10k race on Sunday, hopefully I will feel better for that. Any time I have been sick on race day adrenaline seems to be able to kick in and get me through the day feeling fine.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Introduction
Hi, I was a smoker for many years and quit smoking 5.5 years ago. I went back to exercising to ensure I didn't gain 35 pounds like I did the first time I quit smoking. Ran 1.2 miles and was barely able to finish it a couple months after smoking and was coughing up my whole lungs it felt like. After that I continued to make use of my gym membership and did the basic cardio equipment, weights, supplements, protein, and all that fun gym stuff. In 2011 I decided to test myself and do a half marathon. I trained very poorly for it and finished in 2 hours and 2 minutes. I was totally wiped out afterwards and vowed to never run far distances again. Well, in 2012 I ran another half marathon that I poorly trained for again with a similar result, 2 hours and 1 minute, but this time I wasn't as wiped out. That's when my journey started.
I challenged myself to do a 100-mile charity bike ride 5 weeks after my half marathon, which I thought was a tough goal. I was able to finish that in about 6.5 hours with around 1-1.5 hours worth of break time. I later did an Olympic duathlon which was a blast and then a half ironman distance duathlon (5k run/90k bike/21.1k run) and found out what running through pain felt like. I caught a cold two days before the race, woke up race day with congestion, but for 5 and a half hours all my symptoms just went away while the race went on. I finished up 2012 with my first full marathon that I trained to do in under 4 hours and finished in 3:59:29. Since then I ramped up my off season training.
I plan on doing a full distance duathlon (4k run/180k bike/42.2k run) in the end of August 2013. I did a lot of reading and base training during November-February in order to get myself ready to give a full go at training for a duathlon of this distance. There isn't really any sort of formal training plans for this, so I decided to take what I learned from reading in triathlon plans and making my own duathlon training program. I have a calendar of all of my training runs/rides and rest days on the side of my refrigerator that takes me from February 10th all the way through August 31st and then beyond if I choose to do the local marathon in October.
I have much higher goals this year and thus, I have more drive and determination. My plan is basically as follows starting March 24th, after my 6 week build:
Sundays - 60-90 minutes bike with intervals
Mondays - running speedwork (alternating between tempo and intervals with some easy runs every 4-6 weeks) and easy weights with high reps (30-40 minutes)
Tuesdays - 60-90 minutes bike with intervals
Wednesdays - long run (starting at 60 minutes, longest of 180 minutes)
Thursdays - off
Fridays - long bike ride (starting at 120 minutes, longest of 390 minutes) with a short brick run and 30 minutes of stretching
Saturdays - alternate between easy runs and easy runs with hills
After every day's workout I will stretch for at least 10 minutes and refuel within 20 minutes of my workout. I have gotten into this habit during my base building. I will update my workouts and progress starting March 24th, as well as all the races I plan on doing in between. Here is my race schedule for the year:
10k on March 17th
Half Marathon on May 4th
Sprint duathlon on June 1st (maybe)
100-mile Tour de Cure on June 8th
Olympic duathlon on July 28th
Iron 226 Duathlon on August 31st
Columbus Marathon on October 20th (maybe)
I may add some more races, but this is the schedule I have already planned my training around.
I challenged myself to do a 100-mile charity bike ride 5 weeks after my half marathon, which I thought was a tough goal. I was able to finish that in about 6.5 hours with around 1-1.5 hours worth of break time. I later did an Olympic duathlon which was a blast and then a half ironman distance duathlon (5k run/90k bike/21.1k run) and found out what running through pain felt like. I caught a cold two days before the race, woke up race day with congestion, but for 5 and a half hours all my symptoms just went away while the race went on. I finished up 2012 with my first full marathon that I trained to do in under 4 hours and finished in 3:59:29. Since then I ramped up my off season training.
I plan on doing a full distance duathlon (4k run/180k bike/42.2k run) in the end of August 2013. I did a lot of reading and base training during November-February in order to get myself ready to give a full go at training for a duathlon of this distance. There isn't really any sort of formal training plans for this, so I decided to take what I learned from reading in triathlon plans and making my own duathlon training program. I have a calendar of all of my training runs/rides and rest days on the side of my refrigerator that takes me from February 10th all the way through August 31st and then beyond if I choose to do the local marathon in October.
I have much higher goals this year and thus, I have more drive and determination. My plan is basically as follows starting March 24th, after my 6 week build:
Sundays - 60-90 minutes bike with intervals
Mondays - running speedwork (alternating between tempo and intervals with some easy runs every 4-6 weeks) and easy weights with high reps (30-40 minutes)
Tuesdays - 60-90 minutes bike with intervals
Wednesdays - long run (starting at 60 minutes, longest of 180 minutes)
Thursdays - off
Fridays - long bike ride (starting at 120 minutes, longest of 390 minutes) with a short brick run and 30 minutes of stretching
Saturdays - alternate between easy runs and easy runs with hills
After every day's workout I will stretch for at least 10 minutes and refuel within 20 minutes of my workout. I have gotten into this habit during my base building. I will update my workouts and progress starting March 24th, as well as all the races I plan on doing in between. Here is my race schedule for the year:
10k on March 17th
Half Marathon on May 4th
Sprint duathlon on June 1st (maybe)
100-mile Tour de Cure on June 8th
Olympic duathlon on July 28th
Iron 226 Duathlon on August 31st
Columbus Marathon on October 20th (maybe)
I may add some more races, but this is the schedule I have already planned my training around.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)