Leading up to the race I had my last week of tapering so on Sunday I did some easy biking, Monday some running at 8:20/mile pace for 5 miles to nail that down. Tuesday I ran 4 miles at the same pace. Wednesday I squeezed in a 17 mile bike ride in through the rest of what I had to do that day. Thursday was filled with driving 11 hours to get to Ottawa and get checked into our hotel. The city is amazing and I love how there are bike paths with a lot of people actually using them for running and cycling along almost all of the major roads! The traffic was pretty bad as we arrived at rush hour, but we eventually made it to our hotel. Friday I checked out the course some, but only rode on the bike path next to Colonel Bypass Drive where I would spend a long time on the next day. I ran through part of the run course and nothing real exciting to report.
The evening before the race I got checked in, went to the meeting and also ate my dinner which was spaghetti and meatballs. I probably took in an extra 250 grams of carbs throughout the day (not all at dinner) and kept hydrated with water during meals and gatorade between meals. I got to sleep around 8:30pm with a race time of 7:15am the next day. Woke up around 2am to use the bathroom and drank an Ensure to get some early calories in my system without hurting me by the time the race started. Alarm went off at 4am and I had a bagel with peanut butter with 16oz of water. On the way to the stadium I drank a gatorade bottle and ate another bagel with peanut butter. We arrived at 6am and set my bike up in transition, put my special needs bag for the run on the table (only had extra sunscreen in there but now I know what I really do need in there), and was ready to warm up. With the race length I only did about 1-1.5 miles of jogging to get my blood flowing and start the race ready. I turned on my watch with 5 minutes til the race and my heart rate was 120 while I was waiting for the start of the race.
My equipment:
Bike - 2003 Specialized Allez aluminum road bike converted to have bullhorns and aero bars
Shoes - Saucony Grid Profile shoes with 4mm drop
Me - Wore bibs the whole race with a race jersey
First run - 4k run plus T1 - 20:01
The weather was around 70 degrees at the start of the race and according to weather.com the humidity was 95% when the race started. It did feel humid, but my feelings were all over the place as I was anxious and nervous at the same time. We get a countdown and start from the finish line on the track of Terry Fox stadium. My plan is to run out at a 7 minute/mile pace and just hold that while not going too fast through the first run. There is one other competitor running that same pace so I just ran right behind him for about 1.1 miles until he sped up and that wasn't the pace I wanted to do. The first split was the 4k run and T1. In T1 I already had my biking gloves and sunglasses on so this was pretty basic. I changed my shoes, put on my helmet, put 4 gels in my biking jersey and started the quarter mile jog to mount my bike. Not sure of the exact distance, but this does not seem like an exaggeration.
180km bike - 5:50:39
The bike course goes up and down the same road that is closed off to traffic for a total of 12 laps that are 15km each. The race was set up so that different distances would start throughout the day so that it wouldn't just be the 11 of us doing the duathlon and the 32 people doing the triathlon version of the 226km race on the course all by ourselves. There was a super sprint, sprint, try a tri, olympic and half iron distances raced throughout the day. They were timed very well to where traffic was not bad at all. There was a night marathon that started at 5:30pm and half marathon at 7pm to liven up the run course as well.
I had a plan of taking the bike at an average heart rate of 130-140, but did not take into account that it is race day and I am also tapered, so it was a little tough to settle into the right heart rate. I rode the first lap, the course winds to the left and the right a little bit, but no sharp turns except the turnaround at the far end of the course and the turnaround at the beginning. It is right next to a river or creek so even when winds are low around there is some wind that you can usually feel and it didn't always seem to be in the same direction. The road had a lot of bumps on it where the road had cracked and my GPS had the course as about a quarter mile long, but every single competitor was on the same course, so I had to find my groove and go with it.
I did the first lap and my heart rate was steady around 145-150, but I was not pushing hard at all and riding right along at the pace I had planned. I knew my heart rate would be a little higher and with going by heart rate and speed as my only judges I made a decision and went for 140-150 heart rate and kept within that range, usually from 140-145 during the first 6 laps of the bike portion. I focused on drinking one bottle of water every 3 laps and taking two good drinks every lap of my nutrition bottle (1500 calories of powder gatorade, 180 calories of protein powder and 990mg of potassium). I followed that perfectly as planned. I took two gels, but my body did not feel right when I took them so I stopped after the second. After 6 laps I was at 2:48 for the bike leg and 3:08 accumulative race time. I started doing too many calculations and forgot to just keep pedalling, checking heart rate and knowing when to drink what. After my 9th lap my left foot started hurting on the ball of my foot. This is something I should have been able to find a solution to during training, but never did. All my long rides ended up with a sore left foot but it usually went away within a few minutes of finishing my ride.
Note to self - fix things that hurt during training.
I was still going along at a decent pace and during the second half of the bike I was going the same speed as the first half but my heart rate was around 130-135. With 1km left to go in the 10th lap I used the porta-potty just to give my foot a break. I took my shoe off while I used it and found out that I guess I really had to go. 3 minutes later I get back out there and finish my last two laps (plus 1km). My foot did feel a little better, but not great. I get off the bike, I am still doing alright with the exception of the ball of my left foot.
T2 - 4:44
I jog my bike back, go to my rack and someone's swimsuit and stuff is all over my section, but oh well. I racked my bike, but it took me a few tries to get it to stay (had to move the other person's swimsuit and it took the third time before I realized I needed to move it, lol). I took my helmet off, gloves in helmet, sunglasses in helmet, shoes off and put my running shoes on. Had some vaseline to lube back up and then put on some more sunscreen. I put 6 gels in my jersey and planned on taking one of them every 4 miles on the run and I was ready to go.
Note to self - when sweating a lot use less or you will look like a white ghost when putting on sunscreen. Also, 6 gels in the back of a biking jersey bounces too much while running.
42.2km run - 4:48:30
The run was 8 laps through the park in Ottawa by the Terry Fox stadium and then went along Riverside Drive to a road where it went down to the 2.67km turnaround point. There were aid stations right by the stadium, half way out and at the turnaround point. The aid station at the turnaround point had the salt tablets, coke, bananas, bagels, gels and chicken broth. All of them had gatorade and water.
So I started off my run wanting to do a 8:20/mile pace and hold it as long as possible with a slow fade. I started off the first mile right on pace. Miles 2 and 3 were 8:25/mile pace. Miles 4 and 5 were 8:35/mile pace, and things were going well. I took a gel and went to drink some water at the mid-way aid station and there were no more cups so that aid station was closed down. I stomached the gel and kept going until the aid station by the stadium and then I drank some water. I wanted coke, but they didn't have it. I then proceeded to freak out as this is where I thought they were supposed to be fully stocked with everything for the iron distance competitors. I threw a fit while jogging and was told it should all be at the turnaround point (oops).
Note to self - pay more attention at pre-race briefing.
I let that get to me and during my 3rd lap my pace dropped down and luckily my watch ran out of battery so I couldn't see how slow I was going. I spent too much effort worrying about things I shouldn't worry about and let myself start to slow. I dropped down to about a 9:00-10:00/mile pace here and then my foot really started hurting on the way back. At the end of the 3rd lap I went to use the restroom at the stadium locker room, went pee and gave my foot another break. After this for laps 4-6 it was just a disaster, I was running at a 11-12 minute/mile pace probably and just trying to get to the finish line. I did, during that time, figure out what works nutritionally for me though. Drinking 4 cups of gatorade (was pretty watered down) and 1 cup of coke every lap helped a lot. After lap 6 I came a little more back into my senses. I realized that I was still in 2nd place, and I wasn't hurting as bad as I thought. I did cramp a little in lap 6, but took a salt tablet and it went away. I then started taking 1-2 salt tablets per lap. Lap 7 I went from running 40 minutes per 3.275 miles to running 34 minutes for 3.275 miles which felt better. During lap 7 it was like a burst of energy that came out of nowhere after exercising for almost 10 full hours already. Then lap 8 came and I knew it was the home stretch, the pain came back but it was easier to run through it knowing this was the last lap. I came into the stadium with a full head of steam and just ran the last 100 meters through to the finish and got my 2nd place overall finish!
Final Time - 11:03:51
Overall, it was an amazing experience and wrapping it up with a morning breakfast the day after with awards was a great way to cap off a great event. The staff that works the event is great and with how the course is laid out you see a lot of the same people so many times that when you see them the next day it's kind of like you already know them. I do have some key takeaways from this race though:
1. Don't go in with a time in mind that you will finish in as the day is long and the weather/conditions play a bigger part in how you finish than in shorter races.
2. Don't freak out ... you need to be able to roll with whatever comes your way.
3. Fix your problems during training because they won't fix themselves in the race.
4. Be ready to change your plan.
5. Special needs bag is less about nutrition and more about comfort - it would have been a good idea for me to have an extra pair of dry socks or two, another pair of shoes if I change my mind on what shoes to wear, a towel and sunscreen.
6. Apply small amounts of sunscreen so you don't turn into a mess.
7. With aluminum you feel every bump over 112 miles.
8. My aero position on the bike isn't all that aero ... think it is time for a real tri/tt bike.
9. As my wife stated, I need to run more. :)
Race pictures and a video of the finish line here (first 4 pics are of someone else, not me)
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
Week 22 - Taper madness has begun!
This week I definitely felt a phantom injury on my ankle, another day my right thigh hurt but then everything was actually fine. I got feverish and sick feeling, but that cleared up with about 24-36 hours. Man, is this the reaction that my body gives when I drop my mileage down to taper? I tapered for a marathon before and had phantom injuries, but never phantom sickness, lol.
Sunday: easy ride, 20 miles on the bike trail and there were quite a few people as there are on most sundays so I just took it easy with a few race pace intervals.
Monday: 6.4 miles with cooldown practicing race pacing. Ran at exactly 8:20/mile for 6.1 miles and that is right where I want my body to remember what speed to run at. Very good workout today!
Tuesday: Total of 21 miles with warmup. Did two laps at the local time trial and each lap is supposed to be 8.4 miles. I did the first one in just over 21 minutes which was just under 24mph average. The second lap took me 3 minutes longer, but I added about 1.5 miles since I missed a turn as I blew by a group of 5 cyclists out for a group ride. I must have went by them where I was supposed to turn and didn't realize until I was about 3/4 of a mile down the road. The 2nd lap would have been even faster than the first since I went 9.9 miles in just over 24 minutes. Felt very good about this workout until I was driving home. Got real feverish and had to roll the windows down to cool off.
Wednesday: Rest day was supposed to be Thursday, but I left work early feeling sick and just rested at home the rest of the day. Is this taper madness or did I just eat something that didn't sit right? 24 hour flu? Who knows.
Thursday: Felt better, went for a run after work and did a total of 7.5 miles. 7.2 miles was done at ... you guessed it, 8:20/mile pace and then I did a short cooldown and stretch. NAILED IT!!!! Felt good to do that after how I felt Tuesday and also it was at the hottest point of the day which will also be when I am running my marathon portion of the race.
Friday: 32 miles on the bike, got stopped at more traffic lights than normal, hit two railroad crossings when a train was going through and even hit a spot where they were freshly paving the roads. Did manage to get some sweet spot intervals in there though.
Saturday: 4.5 miles at 8:20/mile pace, nailed it again.
Great week, feeling good about my race pacing of heart rate at 130-140 during bike, running the first run at 7:00/mile and the marathon starting at 8:20/mile and controlling the fade as much as possible so that I don't go over 9:00/mile. I have my nutrition plan in place for the race, I plan on taking a total of 10 gels, 4 on the bike and 6 while running (one every four miles). On the bike I will have a nutrition bottle mixed with 7 scoops of gatorade (1400 calories), 1.5 scoops of protein powder (180 calories), and 990mg of potassium powder. During the bike leg I will drink one bottle of water (20-24oz) every 45km, and during the last lap I will take a bottle of gatorade instead. During the run I can only drink about 4-6oz of gatorade every 30 minutes from previous efforts, but am able to take on gels without a problem. I am bringing my own so I use exactly what I am used to. I will alternate between water and gatorade at the aid stations and I will also bring a 16oz water bottle with flat coke in it that I will carry in my cycling jersey. Special needs bag will have bananas, clif bars and flat coke if I need them.
Before the race I plan on taking in about an extra 100 grams of carbs from normal on thursday and another 200 grams extra on friday. This will be in the form of spaghetti that has extra noodles and the same amount of spaghetti sauce/meatballs. On race day I plan on getting up at 4:15am and having an ensure and a bagel with peanut butter. I will drink water with that and then I will drink a 32oz gatorade on the way to the race site and when I am there. I will eat another peanut butter bagel about an hour before the 7:15am start time and finish my gatorade. No drinking or eating on the 2.5 mile run to start. I have a plan in place and the special needs bags will be for if my plan needs to change! Race is one week from Saturday, so now it is time to make use of all the training and to trust the training.
Sunday: easy ride, 20 miles on the bike trail and there were quite a few people as there are on most sundays so I just took it easy with a few race pace intervals.
Monday: 6.4 miles with cooldown practicing race pacing. Ran at exactly 8:20/mile for 6.1 miles and that is right where I want my body to remember what speed to run at. Very good workout today!
Tuesday: Total of 21 miles with warmup. Did two laps at the local time trial and each lap is supposed to be 8.4 miles. I did the first one in just over 21 minutes which was just under 24mph average. The second lap took me 3 minutes longer, but I added about 1.5 miles since I missed a turn as I blew by a group of 5 cyclists out for a group ride. I must have went by them where I was supposed to turn and didn't realize until I was about 3/4 of a mile down the road. The 2nd lap would have been even faster than the first since I went 9.9 miles in just over 24 minutes. Felt very good about this workout until I was driving home. Got real feverish and had to roll the windows down to cool off.
Wednesday: Rest day was supposed to be Thursday, but I left work early feeling sick and just rested at home the rest of the day. Is this taper madness or did I just eat something that didn't sit right? 24 hour flu? Who knows.
Thursday: Felt better, went for a run after work and did a total of 7.5 miles. 7.2 miles was done at ... you guessed it, 8:20/mile pace and then I did a short cooldown and stretch. NAILED IT!!!! Felt good to do that after how I felt Tuesday and also it was at the hottest point of the day which will also be when I am running my marathon portion of the race.
Friday: 32 miles on the bike, got stopped at more traffic lights than normal, hit two railroad crossings when a train was going through and even hit a spot where they were freshly paving the roads. Did manage to get some sweet spot intervals in there though.
Saturday: 4.5 miles at 8:20/mile pace, nailed it again.
Great week, feeling good about my race pacing of heart rate at 130-140 during bike, running the first run at 7:00/mile and the marathon starting at 8:20/mile and controlling the fade as much as possible so that I don't go over 9:00/mile. I have my nutrition plan in place for the race, I plan on taking a total of 10 gels, 4 on the bike and 6 while running (one every four miles). On the bike I will have a nutrition bottle mixed with 7 scoops of gatorade (1400 calories), 1.5 scoops of protein powder (180 calories), and 990mg of potassium powder. During the bike leg I will drink one bottle of water (20-24oz) every 45km, and during the last lap I will take a bottle of gatorade instead. During the run I can only drink about 4-6oz of gatorade every 30 minutes from previous efforts, but am able to take on gels without a problem. I am bringing my own so I use exactly what I am used to. I will alternate between water and gatorade at the aid stations and I will also bring a 16oz water bottle with flat coke in it that I will carry in my cycling jersey. Special needs bag will have bananas, clif bars and flat coke if I need them.
Before the race I plan on taking in about an extra 100 grams of carbs from normal on thursday and another 200 grams extra on friday. This will be in the form of spaghetti that has extra noodles and the same amount of spaghetti sauce/meatballs. On race day I plan on getting up at 4:15am and having an ensure and a bagel with peanut butter. I will drink water with that and then I will drink a 32oz gatorade on the way to the race site and when I am there. I will eat another peanut butter bagel about an hour before the 7:15am start time and finish my gatorade. No drinking or eating on the 2.5 mile run to start. I have a plan in place and the special needs bags will be for if my plan needs to change! Race is one week from Saturday, so now it is time to make use of all the training and to trust the training.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Week 21 done!!! Another race report too
Week started off with a race and then I didn't really hold back at all this week as it is the last real week of training before I start to taper. Only thing that I did back off from a little bit was running towards the middle/end of the week as a precaution.
Sunday: Sprint Duathlon (originally planned for July 14th, but got switched due to the park being closed on the 14th because of high water levels in the park). Distance was a 2 mile trail run / 17 mile bike / 3.1 mile trail run. I knew that I had one strong competitor against me and didn't really know much about the other 24 people (26 total in the race including me). Started off for the 2 miler and did what I considered a comfortably hard pace and finished that in 12:49, though I was 40 seconds behind first place. He had passed me about 1/4 the way through the run.
Transition 1 he added another 30 seconds to his lead on me as he does not change shoes and I do. So about 1:30 for my transition (kinda long transition area). Bike leg begins and my plan was to hammer it and gain as much time as I could. I am hammering along and about 1/3 the way through the course I see a person that looks like a spec in the distance. I had already seen the course before and planned on hammering the easy uphills to hold pace and the longer ones just taking it a little easier as to not burn myself out. Eventually that little spec gets bigger and bigger and my highly technical timing method of counting seconds I was narrowing from 40 seconds, to 30, to 15 and then eventually I passed him and took the lead. 17 miles in 42 minutes at a 23.7mph pace. Coming into T2 I was ahead by about 10 seconds (made up 1:20 on bike).
T2 comes and I am behind by about 20 seconds coming out of T2 and he throws the hammer down running the first mile in 5:40 of the 5k and mine is a 6:45, so I am behind by 1:30 now and don't gain anything the rest of the way. I ran a 23:04 on the 5k and felt that was good for a trail run. I wound up in second place by 2 and a half minutes, though I beat 3rd by about 4 minutes. Good race and can't wait for USAT rankings to update from my last two races.
Monday: Easy bike ride, no plan on how far I would go, but just wanted to keep legs fresh. I wound up going out for a 38 mile ride in 2 hours. Can't believe how fun riding my bike was the day after a race.
Tuesday: Last "long run" before my race on August 31st, and it was a 9.5 mile run in 1 hour, 26 minutes. Nice and easy, not to push too much but to get some more mileage in.
Wednesday: 16 mile bike in 40 minutes on gym bike, legs felt great! Did a VO2MAX test on bike machine and it showed my score as 57, this was 53 back in March when I last took one. Finished up the day with 40 minutes of strength training.
Thursday: Rest day that I totally nailed!
Friday: Fueled up real good the night before with a large spaghetti dinner and in the morning I had a bagel with peanut butter and some gatorade/pre-workout drink. I did 87 miles at an average pace of 20.9 on mainly rural roads and only a few traffic lights/stops. Took 4 hours and 10 minutes, heart rate was 131 (wanted to stay in the 130-140 range) with a max of 150. So I did good at keeping it steady and it is encouraging that 20.9mph is on the low end of where I want to be. I finished my 1300-1400 calories that I wanted to take in during the ride and remembered to drink plenty of water.
Saturday: Easy 5.5 mile run, though I wanted to do around 8:20/mi pace and wound up at 8:13/mi. That is good, but on race day 8:13/mi off the bike will lead to me slowing a lot more than 8:20/mi. Most of my runs from here on out will be focusing on getting my body used to 8:20-8:30/mi pace so that I try not to blow up on the run.
Mileage for the week wound up at 157 miles biking and 21 miles running. Total training time was 12 hours. I have been averaging around 10 hours/week for the past 21 weeks training for this which is not a lot compared to some hardcore people, but with a full time job, household care/maintenance and trying to be a good husband with a pregnant wife I think I have balanced them all well and gotten in some quality training. I really started a training schedule 6 weeks before that even and since then have really improved my biking and running paces. Taper is starting and now all the questions and phantom injuries will start to fill my head so I will have to ensure not to go mad. I will still be training 5-6 days the next two weeks, just with a much lower amount of volume/intensity to hopefully wind up race fresh on August 31st.
Sunday: Sprint Duathlon (originally planned for July 14th, but got switched due to the park being closed on the 14th because of high water levels in the park). Distance was a 2 mile trail run / 17 mile bike / 3.1 mile trail run. I knew that I had one strong competitor against me and didn't really know much about the other 24 people (26 total in the race including me). Started off for the 2 miler and did what I considered a comfortably hard pace and finished that in 12:49, though I was 40 seconds behind first place. He had passed me about 1/4 the way through the run.
Transition 1 he added another 30 seconds to his lead on me as he does not change shoes and I do. So about 1:30 for my transition (kinda long transition area). Bike leg begins and my plan was to hammer it and gain as much time as I could. I am hammering along and about 1/3 the way through the course I see a person that looks like a spec in the distance. I had already seen the course before and planned on hammering the easy uphills to hold pace and the longer ones just taking it a little easier as to not burn myself out. Eventually that little spec gets bigger and bigger and my highly technical timing method of counting seconds I was narrowing from 40 seconds, to 30, to 15 and then eventually I passed him and took the lead. 17 miles in 42 minutes at a 23.7mph pace. Coming into T2 I was ahead by about 10 seconds (made up 1:20 on bike).
T2 comes and I am behind by about 20 seconds coming out of T2 and he throws the hammer down running the first mile in 5:40 of the 5k and mine is a 6:45, so I am behind by 1:30 now and don't gain anything the rest of the way. I ran a 23:04 on the 5k and felt that was good for a trail run. I wound up in second place by 2 and a half minutes, though I beat 3rd by about 4 minutes. Good race and can't wait for USAT rankings to update from my last two races.
Monday: Easy bike ride, no plan on how far I would go, but just wanted to keep legs fresh. I wound up going out for a 38 mile ride in 2 hours. Can't believe how fun riding my bike was the day after a race.
Tuesday: Last "long run" before my race on August 31st, and it was a 9.5 mile run in 1 hour, 26 minutes. Nice and easy, not to push too much but to get some more mileage in.
Wednesday: 16 mile bike in 40 minutes on gym bike, legs felt great! Did a VO2MAX test on bike machine and it showed my score as 57, this was 53 back in March when I last took one. Finished up the day with 40 minutes of strength training.
Thursday: Rest day that I totally nailed!
Friday: Fueled up real good the night before with a large spaghetti dinner and in the morning I had a bagel with peanut butter and some gatorade/pre-workout drink. I did 87 miles at an average pace of 20.9 on mainly rural roads and only a few traffic lights/stops. Took 4 hours and 10 minutes, heart rate was 131 (wanted to stay in the 130-140 range) with a max of 150. So I did good at keeping it steady and it is encouraging that 20.9mph is on the low end of where I want to be. I finished my 1300-1400 calories that I wanted to take in during the ride and remembered to drink plenty of water.
Saturday: Easy 5.5 mile run, though I wanted to do around 8:20/mi pace and wound up at 8:13/mi. That is good, but on race day 8:13/mi off the bike will lead to me slowing a lot more than 8:20/mi. Most of my runs from here on out will be focusing on getting my body used to 8:20-8:30/mi pace so that I try not to blow up on the run.
Mileage for the week wound up at 157 miles biking and 21 miles running. Total training time was 12 hours. I have been averaging around 10 hours/week for the past 21 weeks training for this which is not a lot compared to some hardcore people, but with a full time job, household care/maintenance and trying to be a good husband with a pregnant wife I think I have balanced them all well and gotten in some quality training. I really started a training schedule 6 weeks before that even and since then have really improved my biking and running paces. Taper is starting and now all the questions and phantom injuries will start to fill my head so I will have to ensure not to go mad. I will still be training 5-6 days the next two weeks, just with a much lower amount of volume/intensity to hopefully wind up race fresh on August 31st.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Adding some life to this blog!
This is a picture of my right after my Olympic Duathlon a couple weekends ago.
Week 20 in the books, 3 weeks left!!!!
Week 20 is finished and wow, it is really getting close to race day. A lot of work has been put in and now is the time to get all the pacing and nutrition down so I don't waste all the work that I have been putting in for the last 20 weeks and base building before that. Foot started feeling better after I got some new work orthotics to replace the 7 year old ones I had before and this was an overnight win. I also bought a new pair of cycling insoles on Friday morning after realizing my left foot has a high arch and right foot is basically a normal arch. My old cycling inserts had lost their compression and may have been the wrong arch.
Sunday - went to the gym and did 25 miles cycling after work since my bike was still waiting for the front derailleur to come in. Was good to get some spinning in and just work on getting my legs moving while my ankle didn't have much stress on it.
Monday - I did nothing at all.
Tuesday - Cycling for 10 miles at the gym as my bike still wasn't ready, but wound up being ready around the time they closed at 8pm. I did the elliptical at the gym for 2 miles also and felt good. Busy day overall as I got up, did my workout, went to work at 11pm, did a local festival for work serving food, setting up a tent, tearing it down and we were out by 7pm, pickup the bike by 8pm, go shoot in pool league and win my match, in bed before 11pm.
Wednesday - been looking forward to this day and dreading it for a while now. My last big brick workout and longest of my entire training schedule. Wife set up an appointment for a guy to come out at 1pm to look at our gutters so I wouldn't have time for a 90 mile bike ride and 15 mile brick run. Instead I did a 2 mile warmup run, then I biked for 75 miles. During the biking section I was getting worried as I was only holding a 19-20mph pace consistently and sometimes over that. That was until I hit the gas station 37.5 miles out and turned around. I started coming back and was going 23-25mph consistently and realized that the wind was my limiter, lol. I did well on the bike portion, averaging 19.5mph on a ride on roads is normal for going around 21-22mph when I get some open ground. I got stuck at one light through two whole cycles because the guy wouldn't pull up to the sensor and there was too much traffic to go across. After that I did a 10 mile brick run and after about 9.5 miles I felt my first lactic twinge where if it were a race I would keep pushing and run through it but pay for it the next few days. This wasn't a race day so I stopped at that point and jogged at about a 10:00/mi pace the rest of the way home. Before that I started at a 8:13/mi pace and held that comfortably for 6 miles when I started to slow some and by the time I stopped I was still going 8:40/mi.
I had 1220 calories in my bottle (5.5 scoops of gatorade mix, 1 scoop of protein powder and 900mg of potassium) and used 2 gels while I did the bike portion. I finished all of that and while running I just had regular concentration gatorade and a couple gels so around 300 calories. The only thing I think I did wrong nutrition wise was not enough water on the bike portion. I need to be able to drink closer to 1oz of water per mile or at least 0.75oz per mile. I only had 40 ounces roughly over a 75 mile ride. That is why I cramped I believe. Race day I plan on bringing a 240 calorie clif bar with me and my nutrition bottle will be 7 scoops of gatorade mix, 1.5 scoops protein and 1000mg of potassium. I don't have a problem with the thickness of the mixture and there will be a bottle exchange every 15km so I should finish a bottle of water every 3 loops. During the run I have realized from past runs that I do well with water and gels primarily. I can handle gatorade every 5k or so.
Thursday - rest day, nailed it, did nothing but work.
Friday - Did a 3.3 mile run in the morning at recovery pace and a 14 mile ride on the bike trainer with a few intervals in the afternoon. Felt good!
Saturday - I felt great during today's jog and feel pretty well rested overall. Did a 3.3 mile run at an easy pace which started at 8:40/mi and ended with the last mile at 7:26 and it still felt easy. Stretched out well after the run and will be getting all my stuff ready for tomorrow. That way I can just get up, pump some air in my tires, eat and go basically. Less stuff to worry about on race morning.
Finished this week with 20.6 miles running (fine with that with how week started having tender ankle that healed wonderfully) and 124 miles biking which is fine also since I didn't have a bike for half the week and had to use gym bikes (uggggghhh).
Sunday - went to the gym and did 25 miles cycling after work since my bike was still waiting for the front derailleur to come in. Was good to get some spinning in and just work on getting my legs moving while my ankle didn't have much stress on it.
Monday - I did nothing at all.
Tuesday - Cycling for 10 miles at the gym as my bike still wasn't ready, but wound up being ready around the time they closed at 8pm. I did the elliptical at the gym for 2 miles also and felt good. Busy day overall as I got up, did my workout, went to work at 11pm, did a local festival for work serving food, setting up a tent, tearing it down and we were out by 7pm, pickup the bike by 8pm, go shoot in pool league and win my match, in bed before 11pm.
Wednesday - been looking forward to this day and dreading it for a while now. My last big brick workout and longest of my entire training schedule. Wife set up an appointment for a guy to come out at 1pm to look at our gutters so I wouldn't have time for a 90 mile bike ride and 15 mile brick run. Instead I did a 2 mile warmup run, then I biked for 75 miles. During the biking section I was getting worried as I was only holding a 19-20mph pace consistently and sometimes over that. That was until I hit the gas station 37.5 miles out and turned around. I started coming back and was going 23-25mph consistently and realized that the wind was my limiter, lol. I did well on the bike portion, averaging 19.5mph on a ride on roads is normal for going around 21-22mph when I get some open ground. I got stuck at one light through two whole cycles because the guy wouldn't pull up to the sensor and there was too much traffic to go across. After that I did a 10 mile brick run and after about 9.5 miles I felt my first lactic twinge where if it were a race I would keep pushing and run through it but pay for it the next few days. This wasn't a race day so I stopped at that point and jogged at about a 10:00/mi pace the rest of the way home. Before that I started at a 8:13/mi pace and held that comfortably for 6 miles when I started to slow some and by the time I stopped I was still going 8:40/mi.
I had 1220 calories in my bottle (5.5 scoops of gatorade mix, 1 scoop of protein powder and 900mg of potassium) and used 2 gels while I did the bike portion. I finished all of that and while running I just had regular concentration gatorade and a couple gels so around 300 calories. The only thing I think I did wrong nutrition wise was not enough water on the bike portion. I need to be able to drink closer to 1oz of water per mile or at least 0.75oz per mile. I only had 40 ounces roughly over a 75 mile ride. That is why I cramped I believe. Race day I plan on bringing a 240 calorie clif bar with me and my nutrition bottle will be 7 scoops of gatorade mix, 1.5 scoops protein and 1000mg of potassium. I don't have a problem with the thickness of the mixture and there will be a bottle exchange every 15km so I should finish a bottle of water every 3 loops. During the run I have realized from past runs that I do well with water and gels primarily. I can handle gatorade every 5k or so.
Thursday - rest day, nailed it, did nothing but work.
Friday - Did a 3.3 mile run in the morning at recovery pace and a 14 mile ride on the bike trainer with a few intervals in the afternoon. Felt good!
Saturday - I felt great during today's jog and feel pretty well rested overall. Did a 3.3 mile run at an easy pace which started at 8:40/mi and ended with the last mile at 7:26 and it still felt easy. Stretched out well after the run and will be getting all my stuff ready for tomorrow. That way I can just get up, pump some air in my tires, eat and go basically. Less stuff to worry about on race morning.
Finished this week with 20.6 miles running (fine with that with how week started having tender ankle that healed wonderfully) and 124 miles biking which is fine also since I didn't have a bike for half the week and had to use gym bikes (uggggghhh).
Friday, August 9, 2013
Week 6 (Capped off by Cap City Half Marathon)
This week was a major cutback on cycling as running is my main focus going into the half marathon. I may have been trying to hit my running paces too early and pushing too hard as I am not able to hold race pace on my training runs that are only half the distance of the actual race.
Sunday: 32 mile bike with 4x12 min at FTP. Very good workout!
Monday: 7.9 miles total with 5 miles at 7:01 pace for tempo run, still 9 seconds off of race pace to break 90 minutes for half marathon.
Tuesday: 4.3 mile run at easy pace.
Wednesday: 5 mile run and still at about 7:03 pace, starting to accept that 1:30 isn't going to happen this saturday.
Thursday: Rest day
Friday: Busy with work, packet pickup and everything else, might be best just to rest today as well.
Saturday: Race day and it feels great, did about 2 miles of warmup jogging with a couple pickups to remind my legs how to run faster than 7:00/mi. Started out way too fast, but quickly pulled that back and did the first mile in 6:47, ran the second mile at 6:50 and then proceeded closer to 7:00/mi for the first 4 miles. I realized by mile 5 that I wasn't going to be able to run the second half fast enough to make up the time, but my goal was to run my best race. I stayed consistent until mile 8 and ran 6:45 in the 8th mile. After that I couldn't break the 7 minute barrier and finished with some 7:20-7:30 miles. Final time was 1 hour, 35 minutes. A new personal best by over 26 minutes! I feel great about this time as my original goal was to get under 1 hour, 40 minutes.
Sunday: 32 mile bike with 4x12 min at FTP. Very good workout!
Monday: 7.9 miles total with 5 miles at 7:01 pace for tempo run, still 9 seconds off of race pace to break 90 minutes for half marathon.
Tuesday: 4.3 mile run at easy pace.
Wednesday: 5 mile run and still at about 7:03 pace, starting to accept that 1:30 isn't going to happen this saturday.
Thursday: Rest day
Friday: Busy with work, packet pickup and everything else, might be best just to rest today as well.
Saturday: Race day and it feels great, did about 2 miles of warmup jogging with a couple pickups to remind my legs how to run faster than 7:00/mi. Started out way too fast, but quickly pulled that back and did the first mile in 6:47, ran the second mile at 6:50 and then proceeded closer to 7:00/mi for the first 4 miles. I realized by mile 5 that I wasn't going to be able to run the second half fast enough to make up the time, but my goal was to run my best race. I stayed consistent until mile 8 and ran 6:45 in the 8th mile. After that I couldn't break the 7 minute barrier and finished with some 7:20-7:30 miles. Final time was 1 hour, 35 minutes. A new personal best by over 26 minutes! I feel great about this time as my original goal was to get under 1 hour, 40 minutes.
Week 19 - Olympic Duathlon this week
Sunday: Feels good to have a race since I haven't had a race for 8 weeks! Got up with just enough time to eat, make sure bike is ready, put air in the tires, get it on the car, eat my bagel with peanut butter and get a bottle of gatorade ready to drink on the way there. I had my bottle for my race already made the night before, so no worries there and brought a couple gels too. Got there about an hour and a half early (duathletes usually get the pleasure of starting last). Warmed up with a guy that races a lot and did about 2 miles of warmup jogging along with three 100 meter sprints to get the legs loose.
Started off the 3k run at a good pace and held it throughout and finished the first leg in 10:44, I was in 2nd place behind a guy that did 10:06 out of the 15 people doing the olympic. First transition was about 1:30 and that wasn't bad since it was a long transition area. On the bike I was tops by quite a bit over the field, it was a 40k bike leg that I did in 1:04. Had a sizable lead after that part of the race. Another 1:30 transition to the last run which I did the 10k run in 46:17. Started off the run at about a 7:45-8:00/mi pace. The first 5k was just over 24 minutes and I finished with the last 5k being 22 minutes flat. Probably had a little more in me on the run but I think I gave it pretty close to all I had fitness wise. I finished in first place by over 8 minutes and was proud of my performance.
Monday: easy 4 mile recovery run at 9:00/mile pace.
Tuesday: 45 minute strength workout hoping this will lead to a quicker post race recovery.
Wednesday: 1 hour bike ride where I only did 15.5 miles. Planned on an easy ride, but my front derailleur was stuck in the big chainring and I spent a lot of time trying to shift it by hand and figure out what was up. Turns out that the spring broke and I needed a new derailleur.
Thursday: Went to get a derailleur at a local bike shop and found out they install parts for free that you buy there so I left my bike and part should be in on Friday (didn't come in til the following week though). Did a 10.5 mile run in 1:35 earlier that day as a long run for the week.
Friday: Ankle was a little tender, not sure if it was Thursday's run, the race on Sunday or just fatigue in general. Took the day off and I didn't have to work that day either.
Saturday: Did an easy 4 mile run and some more strength. Still no bike back and wound up having to work 10 hours instead of the planned 4 hour day.
Overall it was a good week and was happy with my result on Sunday. Wound up buying a new pair of orthotics for work since it had been 7 years since I got the other ones. They are the ones for 49.95 that you get from taking the test on the Dr. Scholl's machine at some stores. Old ones were really beat up and were not helping my feet at all anymore. More to come next week!
Total miles were 29.5 running and 40.5 biking. Really low number for me, but better to make sure my body is ok and with only a month til my race it is best to make sure I don't get injured as my base is already set, most of my work is done and now pacing, sharpening and nutrition will be the keys to my success.
Started off the 3k run at a good pace and held it throughout and finished the first leg in 10:44, I was in 2nd place behind a guy that did 10:06 out of the 15 people doing the olympic. First transition was about 1:30 and that wasn't bad since it was a long transition area. On the bike I was tops by quite a bit over the field, it was a 40k bike leg that I did in 1:04. Had a sizable lead after that part of the race. Another 1:30 transition to the last run which I did the 10k run in 46:17. Started off the run at about a 7:45-8:00/mi pace. The first 5k was just over 24 minutes and I finished with the last 5k being 22 minutes flat. Probably had a little more in me on the run but I think I gave it pretty close to all I had fitness wise. I finished in first place by over 8 minutes and was proud of my performance.
Monday: easy 4 mile recovery run at 9:00/mile pace.
Tuesday: 45 minute strength workout hoping this will lead to a quicker post race recovery.
Wednesday: 1 hour bike ride where I only did 15.5 miles. Planned on an easy ride, but my front derailleur was stuck in the big chainring and I spent a lot of time trying to shift it by hand and figure out what was up. Turns out that the spring broke and I needed a new derailleur.
Thursday: Went to get a derailleur at a local bike shop and found out they install parts for free that you buy there so I left my bike and part should be in on Friday (didn't come in til the following week though). Did a 10.5 mile run in 1:35 earlier that day as a long run for the week.
Friday: Ankle was a little tender, not sure if it was Thursday's run, the race on Sunday or just fatigue in general. Took the day off and I didn't have to work that day either.
Saturday: Did an easy 4 mile run and some more strength. Still no bike back and wound up having to work 10 hours instead of the planned 4 hour day.
Overall it was a good week and was happy with my result on Sunday. Wound up buying a new pair of orthotics for work since it had been 7 years since I got the other ones. They are the ones for 49.95 that you get from taking the test on the Dr. Scholl's machine at some stores. Old ones were really beat up and were not helping my feet at all anymore. More to come next week!
Total miles were 29.5 running and 40.5 biking. Really low number for me, but better to make sure my body is ok and with only a month til my race it is best to make sure I don't get injured as my base is already set, most of my work is done and now pacing, sharpening and nutrition will be the keys to my success.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Week 18 - some good training plus a mini taper for Olympic Du this coming Sunday
Feeling good this week, temps starting to drop and last week's training in the heat and humidity should pay dividends in a few weeks. End of the week had to really pull it back as I wanted to go long and fast, had to go easy and short to mini tape for a race on Sunday the 28th (3k run / 40k bike / 10k run).
Sunday: 1 hour and 14 minute bike ride. Cruising through our bike trails and actually wound up having someone pass me on the trail right after I passed another person. It was a guy for the Ohio State cycling team and he was going around 23-24mph so I latched onto his wheel for a mile or so, then took the lead and let him latch onto my wheel for a mile or so. After that I was close to where I was going to turn off so I let him jump back in front so I could slow down and turn without hindering his ride. It was good overall and went a total of 24 miles.
Monday: 55 minute bike ride at a nice, slow and easy pace so only did 15 miles. It's always good to have an easy day here and there where you get into zone 1 and just stay there.
Tuesday: Ran 3.9 miles in 33 minutes on the treadmill this morning since I was going to the gym to do 45 minutes worth of strength training anyways. There was a new machine called "reACT" that floats around in a circle and you stand sideways on it. Goal is to keep your head level so it basically acts as doing squats and really hitting your glutes, quads and hamstrings. I did the machine for a total of 3 minutes, 30 seconds on beginner and 2:30 on advanced. Last 30 seconds were rough. Went through doing normal weight training after that but skipped the leg presses since that kinda acted like my leg presses. In the evening I did our local time trial series and did three 8.4 mile laps at a total time of 1:07. Last lap was a little over 23mph average so I am definitely getting better at figuring out my limits.
Wednesday: scheduled rest day and I totally nailed doing nothing again!
Thursday: "long run" this week is 1:28 for 10.7 miles. Last 0.2 miles were cooldown for 4 minutes. I was really hitting paces, going 7:40/mile downhill, 8:00/mi on flats and 8:15/mi on uphills. It was on the faster end of where I should be running for my fitness level so I kinda need to watch to make sure I don't do these runs too fast.
Friday: Just an easy bike and run with a practice transition as a part of my "mini taper". I did a 8.5 mile bike ride in 30 minutes and then it took 40 seconds to dismount, take off helmet, glasses and shoes, put on running shoes and hat, close garage and run out front door. Then I did 1.9 miles in 15 minutes as the rest of my easy day. Picked up my race packet for this weekend and looked at T1 along with the whole beach setup.
Saturday: I don't know if this counts as a run, but I did a 2 mile run at an easy pace with no watch so I have no idea if it was even two miles or how long it was. Just wanted to make sure that I got some sort of exercise in and also set up my shoes at T2 for this weekend with my hat. I got a good location as I can run up, I am first spot in the 6th row so I can change shoes and put my bike up rather quickly and head out without obstructions. All set for tomorrow's race.
Sunday: 1 hour and 14 minute bike ride. Cruising through our bike trails and actually wound up having someone pass me on the trail right after I passed another person. It was a guy for the Ohio State cycling team and he was going around 23-24mph so I latched onto his wheel for a mile or so, then took the lead and let him latch onto my wheel for a mile or so. After that I was close to where I was going to turn off so I let him jump back in front so I could slow down and turn without hindering his ride. It was good overall and went a total of 24 miles.
Monday: 55 minute bike ride at a nice, slow and easy pace so only did 15 miles. It's always good to have an easy day here and there where you get into zone 1 and just stay there.
Tuesday: Ran 3.9 miles in 33 minutes on the treadmill this morning since I was going to the gym to do 45 minutes worth of strength training anyways. There was a new machine called "reACT" that floats around in a circle and you stand sideways on it. Goal is to keep your head level so it basically acts as doing squats and really hitting your glutes, quads and hamstrings. I did the machine for a total of 3 minutes, 30 seconds on beginner and 2:30 on advanced. Last 30 seconds were rough. Went through doing normal weight training after that but skipped the leg presses since that kinda acted like my leg presses. In the evening I did our local time trial series and did three 8.4 mile laps at a total time of 1:07. Last lap was a little over 23mph average so I am definitely getting better at figuring out my limits.
Wednesday: scheduled rest day and I totally nailed doing nothing again!
Thursday: "long run" this week is 1:28 for 10.7 miles. Last 0.2 miles were cooldown for 4 minutes. I was really hitting paces, going 7:40/mile downhill, 8:00/mi on flats and 8:15/mi on uphills. It was on the faster end of where I should be running for my fitness level so I kinda need to watch to make sure I don't do these runs too fast.
Friday: Just an easy bike and run with a practice transition as a part of my "mini taper". I did a 8.5 mile bike ride in 30 minutes and then it took 40 seconds to dismount, take off helmet, glasses and shoes, put on running shoes and hat, close garage and run out front door. Then I did 1.9 miles in 15 minutes as the rest of my easy day. Picked up my race packet for this weekend and looked at T1 along with the whole beach setup.
Saturday: I don't know if this counts as a run, but I did a 2 mile run at an easy pace with no watch so I have no idea if it was even two miles or how long it was. Just wanted to make sure that I got some sort of exercise in and also set up my shoes at T2 for this weekend with my hat. I got a good location as I can run up, I am first spot in the 6th row so I can change shoes and put my bike up rather quickly and head out without obstructions. All set for tomorrow's race.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Week 17 in the books - 6 more weeks until the big race!!!!!
Week 17 was a hot, humid week which made it perfect for trying to push myself and getting in some quality work on a hot week. Really had a good week overall and put in some good training days as well. Did not do weights this week as it already had some good work put into it. Have really done well thus far in balancing work, life, pregnant wife and training altogether for the past 17 weeks (wife is 29 weeks right now). It is good to have a plan, have a backup plan and execute it.
Sunday: Was supposed to be a sprint duathlon today, but it was postponed due to the water levels in the park that caused the park to close. I had my race tires and race intertubes on my bike so I decided to go out and have some fun for 1.5 hours today. Did 30 miles and was hitting some really good paces throughout the ride. 20mph average with traffic, cruising speeds were 22-23mph.
Monday: Long run, planned to do 3 hours and it was about 92 degrees with a lot of humidity when I set out to run. Did two loops of 6.4 miles each in about 1:55 and I still felt fine even though I was drenched in sweat. I set out to do some more mileage and wound up only going about half a mile before my gut started acting up and I had to cut it short, jog back and use the bathroom. I overmixed my gatorade for running and should not have had that thick of concentration, lesson learned.
Tuesday: Regular bike, nothing special, 17 miles in 50 minutes.
Wednesday: day off
Thursday: Long bike ride, temps are supposed to be in the 90's with a heat index of 105 max so the sun came up at 6:18am and I left my house around 6:15am. Brought a little tube of sunscreen, 10 dollars, a bottle full of water, 3 gels and my nutrition bottle. Stopped at 3 gas stations, water at all of them, also got an energy drink at the second and a gatorade at the third. Stopped at 23 miles, 50 miles and 84 miles. I did a total of 105 miles in 5 hours, 19 minutes without stopping my watch (except when I stopped at the 50 mile gas station). Was able to keep a nice comfortable pace and got back with a lot left in the tank as well. This was a good sign and I went through my nutrition bottle which was 1320 calories (6 scoops of gatorade, 1 scoop protein and 990mg of potassium), 2 gels which were 100 each and a gatorade which was another 120 calories. Very good day.
Friday: 1 hour, 21 minute run with 3.5 miles downhill and 3.5 miles uphill for a total of 9.3 miles on the day with the first mile being a warmup and the last being a cooldown. Most of the mileage was done around a 8:18/mi pace. Really humid in the morning, came home drenched.
Saturday: easy 5 miler with 0.3 miles of cooldown, done at around 8:20/mi pace. Felt good.
Total mileage for the week is 152 miles biking and 28.3 miles running. Will be cutting back again next week so I can do a race on Sunday, July the 28th. I want to have a good finish time in the Olympic Duathlon that week and focus on great transitions as well as running off the bike after a harder bike effort. The bike leg actually has an net elevation drop of 25 or so feet since it is a point to point race so I will be going for about an hour bike leg on a 40k bike and run the final 10k at 7:30/mi pace as long as I can hold it.
Sunday: Was supposed to be a sprint duathlon today, but it was postponed due to the water levels in the park that caused the park to close. I had my race tires and race intertubes on my bike so I decided to go out and have some fun for 1.5 hours today. Did 30 miles and was hitting some really good paces throughout the ride. 20mph average with traffic, cruising speeds were 22-23mph.
Monday: Long run, planned to do 3 hours and it was about 92 degrees with a lot of humidity when I set out to run. Did two loops of 6.4 miles each in about 1:55 and I still felt fine even though I was drenched in sweat. I set out to do some more mileage and wound up only going about half a mile before my gut started acting up and I had to cut it short, jog back and use the bathroom. I overmixed my gatorade for running and should not have had that thick of concentration, lesson learned.
Tuesday: Regular bike, nothing special, 17 miles in 50 minutes.
Wednesday: day off
Thursday: Long bike ride, temps are supposed to be in the 90's with a heat index of 105 max so the sun came up at 6:18am and I left my house around 6:15am. Brought a little tube of sunscreen, 10 dollars, a bottle full of water, 3 gels and my nutrition bottle. Stopped at 3 gas stations, water at all of them, also got an energy drink at the second and a gatorade at the third. Stopped at 23 miles, 50 miles and 84 miles. I did a total of 105 miles in 5 hours, 19 minutes without stopping my watch (except when I stopped at the 50 mile gas station). Was able to keep a nice comfortable pace and got back with a lot left in the tank as well. This was a good sign and I went through my nutrition bottle which was 1320 calories (6 scoops of gatorade, 1 scoop protein and 990mg of potassium), 2 gels which were 100 each and a gatorade which was another 120 calories. Very good day.
Friday: 1 hour, 21 minute run with 3.5 miles downhill and 3.5 miles uphill for a total of 9.3 miles on the day with the first mile being a warmup and the last being a cooldown. Most of the mileage was done around a 8:18/mi pace. Really humid in the morning, came home drenched.
Saturday: easy 5 miler with 0.3 miles of cooldown, done at around 8:20/mi pace. Felt good.
Total mileage for the week is 152 miles biking and 28.3 miles running. Will be cutting back again next week so I can do a race on Sunday, July the 28th. I want to have a good finish time in the Olympic Duathlon that week and focus on great transitions as well as running off the bike after a harder bike effort. The bike leg actually has an net elevation drop of 25 or so feet since it is a point to point race so I will be going for about an hour bike leg on a 40k bike and run the final 10k at 7:30/mi pace as long as I can hold it.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Week 16 - cutback week
Cutting back this week to give my body a rest so I can do another big week next week. Also cutback weeks are when I see most of my gains.
Sunday: Doing a run instead of a bike since I was a day behind on the long ride last week. Just ran 30 minutes today at an easy pace and did 3.3 miles. Still feeling the high TSS bike day on the trainer from Saturday.
Monday: Rest and an hour at the gym doing strength work.
Tuesday: 7.4 mile run in an hour in the morning and did a FTP test on the trainer in the PM. Wound up getting my FTP set to 261 watts now so I guess my workouts will be harder now on the trainer. I am noticing higher speeds when biking outdoors so it is logical that the FTP is higher.
Wednesday: 9.7 mile run with 3.5 uphill and 3.5 downhill. This is my "long run" since it is a cutback week and it was all done at a conservative pace around 8:40 or so.
Thursday: Rest day.
Friday: Switched my tires to Continental GP 4000 S and got to take them for a spin today on the road. Bike ride after work of 42 miles in just over 2 hours and felt really good and strong, cutback weeks are fun! I did go out at about 19-20mph and came back at 23-25mph. Extra time was due to traffic and lights. Had a race planned for this Sunday, but got an email to say that the waters are too high and the park is closed so therefore it is rescheduled to August 11th.
Saturday: Was going to do a 2 mile race sharpener run with a half mile warmup and half mile cooldown, but with no race I did an easy 5 miler at a real conservative 9 min/mile pace.
Mileage was 63 miles biking this week and 25.5 miles running, so it has been a pretty easy week.
Sunday: Doing a run instead of a bike since I was a day behind on the long ride last week. Just ran 30 minutes today at an easy pace and did 3.3 miles. Still feeling the high TSS bike day on the trainer from Saturday.
Monday: Rest and an hour at the gym doing strength work.
Tuesday: 7.4 mile run in an hour in the morning and did a FTP test on the trainer in the PM. Wound up getting my FTP set to 261 watts now so I guess my workouts will be harder now on the trainer. I am noticing higher speeds when biking outdoors so it is logical that the FTP is higher.
Wednesday: 9.7 mile run with 3.5 uphill and 3.5 downhill. This is my "long run" since it is a cutback week and it was all done at a conservative pace around 8:40 or so.
Thursday: Rest day.
Friday: Switched my tires to Continental GP 4000 S and got to take them for a spin today on the road. Bike ride after work of 42 miles in just over 2 hours and felt really good and strong, cutback weeks are fun! I did go out at about 19-20mph and came back at 23-25mph. Extra time was due to traffic and lights. Had a race planned for this Sunday, but got an email to say that the waters are too high and the park is closed so therefore it is rescheduled to August 11th.
Saturday: Was going to do a 2 mile race sharpener run with a half mile warmup and half mile cooldown, but with no race I did an easy 5 miler at a real conservative 9 min/mile pace.
Mileage was 63 miles biking this week and 25.5 miles running, so it has been a pretty easy week.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Week 15 ... time to test my mental strength
Some would say that those training for an ironman are not right in the head to begin with. Those training for an ironman that has 12 loops on the bike course and 8 loops on the run are really not right in the head then, right? Well, after this week I am totally sure that I can and will be able to handle those little nuances of the race I decided to enter.
Sunday: raining outside so I did 1 hour, 30 minutes on the trainer with some intervals thrown in (Winchell on trainerroad.com software). Wound up with 33 miles for the day!
Monday: 1 hour and 7 miles of running on the treadmill. Did the first mile real slow as a warmup, did miles 3 and 6 at a 7 min/mile pace and did a cooldown for the last 0.3 miles for a total of 7 miles altogether. After that I went through my strength routine and did chest press, tricep pulldown, shoulder press, leg press, calf press, tibia work, hamstring leg curls and some side to sides to work on my obliques.
Tuesday: Raining again, 40 minutes on the trainer with 3 x 5 minute intervals at about 120% of FTP. Wound up with 14 miles total.
Wednesday: off today, doing long run tomorrow as I have work and then going out with my wife for the day before the 4th.
Thurssday: This is a workout I had circled on my training schedule all year. It was 2 hours and 15 minutes on a track running at LSD pace. I wound up running in 62 circles around the track and logged 15.5 miles at roughly a 8:43/mile pace. I don't run on the track much at all, but my toe was starting to give me problems so I called it a day then.
Friday: Took the day off to catch up on some housework and throw some Continental Grand Prix 4000 S tires on my bike so I can use them for the race next week, 2 weeks after that and then my goal race which is only 8 weeks away.
Saturday: amped up to do a long bike ride I open the garage and see rain. Oh well, I won't let that get me down. I threw on the training wheel, set up the bike in the family room and turned on the tour de france. I did Disaster on trainer road which is a 4 hour, 10 minute training session with 13 different intervals thrown in. Altogether I did 90 miles and it was and probably will be the hardest 4 hour, 10 minute workout I have ever done. I know it will have benefits, but I think tomorrow's run will be a nice and easy one. Planning on 5 x 1600m tomorrow but that may be at a 7 min/mile pace at best.
Great week, but not much running. Next week I will make up a little of the running mileage I missed out on this week with 137 miles biking and only 22.5 miles running.
Sunday: raining outside so I did 1 hour, 30 minutes on the trainer with some intervals thrown in (Winchell on trainerroad.com software). Wound up with 33 miles for the day!
Monday: 1 hour and 7 miles of running on the treadmill. Did the first mile real slow as a warmup, did miles 3 and 6 at a 7 min/mile pace and did a cooldown for the last 0.3 miles for a total of 7 miles altogether. After that I went through my strength routine and did chest press, tricep pulldown, shoulder press, leg press, calf press, tibia work, hamstring leg curls and some side to sides to work on my obliques.
Tuesday: Raining again, 40 minutes on the trainer with 3 x 5 minute intervals at about 120% of FTP. Wound up with 14 miles total.
Wednesday: off today, doing long run tomorrow as I have work and then going out with my wife for the day before the 4th.
Thurssday: This is a workout I had circled on my training schedule all year. It was 2 hours and 15 minutes on a track running at LSD pace. I wound up running in 62 circles around the track and logged 15.5 miles at roughly a 8:43/mile pace. I don't run on the track much at all, but my toe was starting to give me problems so I called it a day then.
Friday: Took the day off to catch up on some housework and throw some Continental Grand Prix 4000 S tires on my bike so I can use them for the race next week, 2 weeks after that and then my goal race which is only 8 weeks away.
Saturday: amped up to do a long bike ride I open the garage and see rain. Oh well, I won't let that get me down. I threw on the training wheel, set up the bike in the family room and turned on the tour de france. I did Disaster on trainer road which is a 4 hour, 10 minute training session with 13 different intervals thrown in. Altogether I did 90 miles and it was and probably will be the hardest 4 hour, 10 minute workout I have ever done. I know it will have benefits, but I think tomorrow's run will be a nice and easy one. Planning on 5 x 1600m tomorrow but that may be at a 7 min/mile pace at best.
Great week, but not much running. Next week I will make up a little of the running mileage I missed out on this week with 137 miles biking and only 22.5 miles running.
Week 14 of training
Week 13 is kind of where your family starts asking why you are spending so much time training for an event when you are not getting paid to do it. You also start to fall short on a house chore here or there and maybe you fall a little behind at work instead. Well, I stayed on track at work and fell behind on a house chore here or there this week, but it is all good and things are still fine at home. :)
Sunday: 20 mile bike ride through roads and bike path, took 1 hour, 7 minutes altogether. Actually ended up passing by some people that were doing the overnight Relay Around Columbus which is a 105 mile relay running race where you have a team of 3 or 6 people to run 3 or 6 legs of an 18 leg, 105 mile race. No pickups or pacing on this ride, just riding out the miles.
Monday: 2 x 20 minute tempo run in the heat, ended up doing 7.5 miles today and my two 20 minute tempos were 2.75 miles and 2.68 miles. Not bad considering it was around 90 degrees outside and humid.
Tuesday: 55 minutes and 19 miles today. Did some warming up and then did the local time trial series where I did 2 laps of 8.4 miles each. Has a fair amount of rolling hills in the course and I did the first loop at 21.8mph and the second at 22.2mph for an average around 22mph. Not bad for a rolling course, plan on continuing to try to improve here.
Wednesday: Long run was squeezed between a doctor appointment and work, so it wound up being 1 hour, 28 minutes for 10 miles instead of a planned 2 hour run, but I would make up the half hour on Saturday.
Thursday: Rest day, I totally rocked the rest day and did nothing at all. This is the one workout that I just nail all the time! lol
Friday: Long bike ride, did 101 miles today in 5 hours, 20 minutes. Not bad at all and after I got past the bike trails and out of the city into the rural roads it really is nice not to have to deal with anything but semi trucks and 2 lane roads. I felt great on this ride and practiced my nutrition. My original plan was to do a 35 mile out, 35 mile back, change bottles and then do another 30 miles but decided to just go 50 out and 50 back (which wound up being a mile over). Nutrition was fine with 1550 calories total (stopped at a gas station to get some more gatorade. Race day I think I will need closer to 2000 calories.
Saturday: Went 9.5 miles in 1 hour, 19 minutes and 30 seconds with about 3.5 miles of uphills and 3.5 miles of downhills. I felt suprisingly good after a long friday! This is good, right?
Feeling great this week and wound up with some good solid mileage of 140 miles biking and about 27 running.
Sunday: 20 mile bike ride through roads and bike path, took 1 hour, 7 minutes altogether. Actually ended up passing by some people that were doing the overnight Relay Around Columbus which is a 105 mile relay running race where you have a team of 3 or 6 people to run 3 or 6 legs of an 18 leg, 105 mile race. No pickups or pacing on this ride, just riding out the miles.
Monday: 2 x 20 minute tempo run in the heat, ended up doing 7.5 miles today and my two 20 minute tempos were 2.75 miles and 2.68 miles. Not bad considering it was around 90 degrees outside and humid.
Tuesday: 55 minutes and 19 miles today. Did some warming up and then did the local time trial series where I did 2 laps of 8.4 miles each. Has a fair amount of rolling hills in the course and I did the first loop at 21.8mph and the second at 22.2mph for an average around 22mph. Not bad for a rolling course, plan on continuing to try to improve here.
Wednesday: Long run was squeezed between a doctor appointment and work, so it wound up being 1 hour, 28 minutes for 10 miles instead of a planned 2 hour run, but I would make up the half hour on Saturday.
Thursday: Rest day, I totally rocked the rest day and did nothing at all. This is the one workout that I just nail all the time! lol
Friday: Long bike ride, did 101 miles today in 5 hours, 20 minutes. Not bad at all and after I got past the bike trails and out of the city into the rural roads it really is nice not to have to deal with anything but semi trucks and 2 lane roads. I felt great on this ride and practiced my nutrition. My original plan was to do a 35 mile out, 35 mile back, change bottles and then do another 30 miles but decided to just go 50 out and 50 back (which wound up being a mile over). Nutrition was fine with 1550 calories total (stopped at a gas station to get some more gatorade. Race day I think I will need closer to 2000 calories.
Saturday: Went 9.5 miles in 1 hour, 19 minutes and 30 seconds with about 3.5 miles of uphills and 3.5 miles of downhills. I felt suprisingly good after a long friday! This is good, right?
Feeling great this week and wound up with some good solid mileage of 140 miles biking and about 27 running.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Week 13 - Yep, I am training for an Ironman!!!
This week I felt like a beast, pounding my chest saying that I am not only training for an Ironman, but I want to go for the 226 Duathlon record in August at The Canadian 226.
Sunday: 30 mile bike ride in just under 1.5 hours. I felt great and unstoppable, going at about 22mph for most of the ride.
Monday: 7.8 miles total with 10x800 intervals. Did the first 8 at 3:20 to keep conservative, did the 9th at 3:08 and let loose on the last one doing it in 2:55. Strength training followed that.
Tuesday: 17.2 miles on the bike in 50 minutes and 30 seconds. Did the two loops that the time trial goes on, but since I was working that evening it was all on my own in the 87 degree heat. Felt great, this included the first part of the first lap being a warmup.
Wednesday: scheduled rest day as long run will be Friday as a big brick workout.
Thursday: 4.8 easy miles after work and before bagging lunch bags for the homeless.
Friday: First big test, did a 1 mile warmup in a little over 8 miles, then transitioned to my bike and went out for 60 miles at an average speed of about 19mph with one stop to get more water (had to wait for a few people buying energy drinks, subs and cigarettes first). Most of my ride was done around 21mph which was my main goal to keep that pace steadily. Transitioned from the bike to running in about 3 minutes with taking a piss break (at my house) and totally changing clothes. Then I did a 10 mile brick run without any of the dead leg feeling that one gets sometimes. I continued at a 8:20/mi pace and held steady all the way through the brick run with no fade at all. I was testing my pacing and nutrition so I checked heart rate and pace, neither faded. My nutrition on the bike was 900 calories of gatorade powder, 120 calories of protein powder and 594mg of potassium all in one 32 oz. bottle. On the run I think I mixed the gatorade too heavily and rather than doing a water bottle and a double gatorade bottle I should have just done two gatorade bottles and taken one gel right around the end of the bike. Great day overall.
Saturday: Oops! I worried so much about my nutrition during my workout that I forgot about nutrition AFTER my workout on Friday. I didn't drink any gatorade after, not enough water and didn't eat a whole lot. Saturday was horrible and even though my muscles were all great and I was running at an easy 8:35/mi pace I started to get dehydrated and called it a day after only 2.25 miles.
Week 13: Run 26 / Bike 105 .... learned a WHOLE lot this week and am looking forward to the last 10 weeks of training! Have 1 and maybe a 2nd race in between now and then, but plan on doing one more big brick workout being a 90 mile ride with a 15 mile run about 7 weeks from now.
Sunday: 30 mile bike ride in just under 1.5 hours. I felt great and unstoppable, going at about 22mph for most of the ride.
Monday: 7.8 miles total with 10x800 intervals. Did the first 8 at 3:20 to keep conservative, did the 9th at 3:08 and let loose on the last one doing it in 2:55. Strength training followed that.
Tuesday: 17.2 miles on the bike in 50 minutes and 30 seconds. Did the two loops that the time trial goes on, but since I was working that evening it was all on my own in the 87 degree heat. Felt great, this included the first part of the first lap being a warmup.
Wednesday: scheduled rest day as long run will be Friday as a big brick workout.
Thursday: 4.8 easy miles after work and before bagging lunch bags for the homeless.
Friday: First big test, did a 1 mile warmup in a little over 8 miles, then transitioned to my bike and went out for 60 miles at an average speed of about 19mph with one stop to get more water (had to wait for a few people buying energy drinks, subs and cigarettes first). Most of my ride was done around 21mph which was my main goal to keep that pace steadily. Transitioned from the bike to running in about 3 minutes with taking a piss break (at my house) and totally changing clothes. Then I did a 10 mile brick run without any of the dead leg feeling that one gets sometimes. I continued at a 8:20/mi pace and held steady all the way through the brick run with no fade at all. I was testing my pacing and nutrition so I checked heart rate and pace, neither faded. My nutrition on the bike was 900 calories of gatorade powder, 120 calories of protein powder and 594mg of potassium all in one 32 oz. bottle. On the run I think I mixed the gatorade too heavily and rather than doing a water bottle and a double gatorade bottle I should have just done two gatorade bottles and taken one gel right around the end of the bike. Great day overall.
Saturday: Oops! I worried so much about my nutrition during my workout that I forgot about nutrition AFTER my workout on Friday. I didn't drink any gatorade after, not enough water and didn't eat a whole lot. Saturday was horrible and even though my muscles were all great and I was running at an easy 8:35/mi pace I started to get dehydrated and called it a day after only 2.25 miles.
Week 13: Run 26 / Bike 105 .... learned a WHOLE lot this week and am looking forward to the last 10 weeks of training! Have 1 and maybe a 2nd race in between now and then, but plan on doing one more big brick workout being a 90 mile ride with a 15 mile run about 7 weeks from now.
Week 12 - Post racing week training
Back to the regular training routine with an extra rest day after the big ride saturday.
Sunday: rest
Monday: 45 minutes of strength training and an easy 5.5 mile run.
Tuesday: 16.5 miles in 54 minutes on the roads and bike paths.
Wednesday: Longest run to date, 3 hours and 20.25 miles, then another half a mile as cooldown. It was a warm day that started around low 70's and was mid 80's and humid by the end of the run. Last hour was a little slower than the first two, but the weather really jumped during that last hour.
Thursday: 3.3 easy miles
Friday: Long bike ride after work, 43.2 miles in rush hour traffic at 2 hours and 20 minutes. Great ride, just more slow traffic and trains than usual.
Saturday: 5.5 miles with hills and held a good pace up and down the hills, not too fast and not slow.
Week 12: Run 34 / Bike 60.2
It is not generally recommended to run a long run that is over 50% of your weekly mileage so this may not work for a lot of individuals, but I tend to do this whenever I do a long run over 20 miles and haven't had any bad consequences thus far.
Sunday: rest
Monday: 45 minutes of strength training and an easy 5.5 mile run.
Tuesday: 16.5 miles in 54 minutes on the roads and bike paths.
Wednesday: Longest run to date, 3 hours and 20.25 miles, then another half a mile as cooldown. It was a warm day that started around low 70's and was mid 80's and humid by the end of the run. Last hour was a little slower than the first two, but the weather really jumped during that last hour.
Thursday: 3.3 easy miles
Friday: Long bike ride after work, 43.2 miles in rush hour traffic at 2 hours and 20 minutes. Great ride, just more slow traffic and trains than usual.
Saturday: 5.5 miles with hills and held a good pace up and down the hills, not too fast and not slow.
Week 12: Run 34 / Bike 60.2
It is not generally recommended to run a long run that is over 50% of your weekly mileage so this may not work for a lot of individuals, but I tend to do this whenever I do a long run over 20 miles and haven't had any bad consequences thus far.
Week 11 - racing is fun!
This was a packed week and I have no idea how I worked, did my training and my racing, but it was a blast and nothing suffered.
Sunday: Sprint duathlon, warmed up with about 2 miles worth of jogging and also ensuring I flushed my system. The race started right on time and we were out, the first mile went by quickly and my pace was pretty close to right on. First 5k run was 20:34 with pretty even splits, 2nd overall out of 33 people at that point. Had about a minute for transition and then it was onto the bike. This was the first race where I tried having my shoes already clipped in and this turned out to be a bad idea as I didn't know how to do it correctly. I wound up unclipping the shoes off to the side, putting them on and then getting back onto the bike. Based on my splits I lost about 2 minutes doing this. My 20k bike wound up being 36 minutes and I definitely could have ridden a little harder and also shaved off the 2 minutes from making a rookie mistake in my second season of duathlons. I came off the bike in 5th place and had about a 1 minute transition to go running. I wanted to pace the second run around 7:45/mi and did a little faster than that finishing the last 5k in 23:24. I probably could have done this a little quicker too, but a total time of 1 hour, 23 minutes and 4 seconds was good enough for 4th overall out of 33 people and first in my 35-39 age group.
Monday: easy 4.6 miles at recovery pace.
Tuesday: 14 miles on the bike in 35 minutes to show myself I am not slow, lol. Kind of an ego thing.
Wednesday: 2.5 hour long run and took it at a real easy 8:50/mi pace doing 16 miles. No reason at this point to try and push my running too hard, long slow miles will prove effective in the months to come.
Thursday: ran 3.5 miles with my dog and did 14 miles in 40 minutes on the trainer as it started to rain later in the day. Did some 3 x 5 minute intervals at 105-120% FTP in there too. Good day.
Friday: rest
Saturday: Charity bike ride for American Diabetes Association. Century route was 103.6 miles with 5,265 feet of elevation gain. First 40 miles are pretty smooth and then from 40-80 it is pretty hilly. Got with a group of 9 people to start the ride and that number went down to 4 of us very quickly as the others fell off our pace. The 4 of us held together until about mile 42 when one person fell off the back. We skipped the first rest stop at 30 miles, but stopped at 55 miles to use the bathroom, refill bottles and wait for the 4th guy to get back with us. Going forward he fell back off a few miles back on the road and the rest of us rode together the rest of the way back, stopping quickly for more gatorade/water at 82 miles. Our total time was 5:14 for 103.6 miles, so it was a really good day. Weather was great too, sunny with a high in the 70's.
Week 11: Run 32.3 / Bike 145
Sunday: Sprint duathlon, warmed up with about 2 miles worth of jogging and also ensuring I flushed my system. The race started right on time and we were out, the first mile went by quickly and my pace was pretty close to right on. First 5k run was 20:34 with pretty even splits, 2nd overall out of 33 people at that point. Had about a minute for transition and then it was onto the bike. This was the first race where I tried having my shoes already clipped in and this turned out to be a bad idea as I didn't know how to do it correctly. I wound up unclipping the shoes off to the side, putting them on and then getting back onto the bike. Based on my splits I lost about 2 minutes doing this. My 20k bike wound up being 36 minutes and I definitely could have ridden a little harder and also shaved off the 2 minutes from making a rookie mistake in my second season of duathlons. I came off the bike in 5th place and had about a 1 minute transition to go running. I wanted to pace the second run around 7:45/mi and did a little faster than that finishing the last 5k in 23:24. I probably could have done this a little quicker too, but a total time of 1 hour, 23 minutes and 4 seconds was good enough for 4th overall out of 33 people and first in my 35-39 age group.
Monday: easy 4.6 miles at recovery pace.
Tuesday: 14 miles on the bike in 35 minutes to show myself I am not slow, lol. Kind of an ego thing.
Wednesday: 2.5 hour long run and took it at a real easy 8:50/mi pace doing 16 miles. No reason at this point to try and push my running too hard, long slow miles will prove effective in the months to come.
Thursday: ran 3.5 miles with my dog and did 14 miles in 40 minutes on the trainer as it started to rain later in the day. Did some 3 x 5 minute intervals at 105-120% FTP in there too. Good day.
Friday: rest
Saturday: Charity bike ride for American Diabetes Association. Century route was 103.6 miles with 5,265 feet of elevation gain. First 40 miles are pretty smooth and then from 40-80 it is pretty hilly. Got with a group of 9 people to start the ride and that number went down to 4 of us very quickly as the others fell off our pace. The 4 of us held together until about mile 42 when one person fell off the back. We skipped the first rest stop at 30 miles, but stopped at 55 miles to use the bathroom, refill bottles and wait for the 4th guy to get back with us. Going forward he fell back off a few miles back on the road and the rest of us rode together the rest of the way back, stopping quickly for more gatorade/water at 82 miles. Our total time was 5:14 for 103.6 miles, so it was a really good day. Weather was great too, sunny with a high in the 70's.
Week 11: Run 32.3 / Bike 145
Week 10 - return of speedwork
Speedwork kind of took a back seat with recovery from half marathon and bike speedwork was all in week 8 combined with endurance. Getting back to speed and getting ready for my first duathlon of the year in the beginning of week 11 (sprint duathlon of 5k run / 20k bike / 5k run).
Sunday: 1 hour, 15 minutes and 24 miles of outdoor riding, great weather for a change!
Monday: 2x20 minute tempo running at about 6:45/mi pace on the treadmill. Did a total of 7.4 miles running and then did an hour of strength training. Great day overall.
Tuesday: Time Trial tuesdays (every other tuesday) in the evenings. Worked in the morning, came home, packed up my bike and went out. The course is a little hilly and windy, but not too much. I did two 8.4 mile loops and on each loop my chain came off when I flipped to the top ring on a downhill (I only use my big ring if I am going over 28mph). Still wound up with 21.4mph on each loop, so even splits on an evening after work is good for my first time doing the local time trial series.
Wednesday: 2 hour long run of 14 miles. Nothing great to report, but more importantly nothing bad.
Thursday: 34 mile bike in an hour and 40 minutes. Biking is feeling good right now and that's probably due to some big biking mileage.
Friday and Saturday: Working and had to do some house work, planned on taking one of these days off but wound up getting two days of rest before my race on Sunday!
Week 10: Run 21.4 miles / Bike 74 miles
Sunday: 1 hour, 15 minutes and 24 miles of outdoor riding, great weather for a change!
Monday: 2x20 minute tempo running at about 6:45/mi pace on the treadmill. Did a total of 7.4 miles running and then did an hour of strength training. Great day overall.
Tuesday: Time Trial tuesdays (every other tuesday) in the evenings. Worked in the morning, came home, packed up my bike and went out. The course is a little hilly and windy, but not too much. I did two 8.4 mile loops and on each loop my chain came off when I flipped to the top ring on a downhill (I only use my big ring if I am going over 28mph). Still wound up with 21.4mph on each loop, so even splits on an evening after work is good for my first time doing the local time trial series.
Wednesday: 2 hour long run of 14 miles. Nothing great to report, but more importantly nothing bad.
Thursday: 34 mile bike in an hour and 40 minutes. Biking is feeling good right now and that's probably due to some big biking mileage.
Friday and Saturday: Working and had to do some house work, planned on taking one of these days off but wound up getting two days of rest before my race on Sunday!
Week 10: Run 21.4 miles / Bike 74 miles
Week 9 - back to balance
Well, we are done with the big running block and then followed that up with some recovery for my running legs while I logged my biggest week ever for biking.
Sunday: rest
Monday: total of 5.1 miles running with 6 x 800m intervals at 3:20 each. Legs felt good and great to be back running. Went out for a bike ride outside in the afternoon of 19 miles in 1 hour, 2 minutes. Just some basic riding, a couple hills, mainly zone 2 training. Also did 50 minutes of strength training today to help remain injury free.
Tuesday: rest, got today's workout done yesterday since today was going to be busy with work and other duties.
Wednesday: 10 mile run in 1 hour, 25 minutes. Legs felt great, weather was nice, so great to be running outdoors.
Thursday: 3.5 easy miles to keep legs fresh.
Friday: Rain on my long bike day, oh well. 4 hours on the trainer and 84 miles! Stunk up the whole family room and had a great time doing it while clearing out the DVR, lol. Great day, just hope that the rain clears up sometime so I can do a long bike outdoors for a change.
Saturday: 3 easy miles, was going to be 6, but fell down on the sidewalk on a raised piece of concrete and skinned my knee up while damaging my long compression pants. I went home just in case, but luckily didn't really hurt anything, just a bruise.
So far my weekly totals are as follows for running / biking
Week 1: R 28 / B 72
Week 2: R32 / B 89.5
Week 3: R 36 / B 84
Week 4: R 26 / B 111.5
Week 5: R 22.4 / B 36
Week 6: R 32.5 / B 32
Week 7: R 14 / B 94.5
Week 8: R 0 / B 203
Week 9: R 21.5 / B 113
Sunday: rest
Monday: total of 5.1 miles running with 6 x 800m intervals at 3:20 each. Legs felt good and great to be back running. Went out for a bike ride outside in the afternoon of 19 miles in 1 hour, 2 minutes. Just some basic riding, a couple hills, mainly zone 2 training. Also did 50 minutes of strength training today to help remain injury free.
Tuesday: rest, got today's workout done yesterday since today was going to be busy with work and other duties.
Wednesday: 10 mile run in 1 hour, 25 minutes. Legs felt great, weather was nice, so great to be running outdoors.
Thursday: 3.5 easy miles to keep legs fresh.
Friday: Rain on my long bike day, oh well. 4 hours on the trainer and 84 miles! Stunk up the whole family room and had a great time doing it while clearing out the DVR, lol. Great day, just hope that the rain clears up sometime so I can do a long bike outdoors for a change.
Saturday: 3 easy miles, was going to be 6, but fell down on the sidewalk on a raised piece of concrete and skinned my knee up while damaging my long compression pants. I went home just in case, but luckily didn't really hurt anything, just a bruise.
So far my weekly totals are as follows for running / biking
Week 1: R 28 / B 72
Week 2: R32 / B 89.5
Week 3: R 36 / B 84
Week 4: R 26 / B 111.5
Week 5: R 22.4 / B 36
Week 6: R 32.5 / B 32
Week 7: R 14 / B 94.5
Week 8: R 0 / B 203
Week 9: R 21.5 / B 113
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Week 8 (Tour de California)
So happy that Trainer Road did this tour simulation on this week.
Really got me to rest my running legs and get some much needed cycling
practice in. Kind of like periodization where you make progress in one
discipline while another takes the back seat for a little while. I
really enjoyed this and by the end of the week I was in the top 5 for
cycling miles on slowtwitch's training log. Only time I have ever been
there! All biking miles this week.
Sunday: Stage 1, 29 miles in just under 1.5 hours.
Monday: Stage 2, 28 miles
Tuesday: Stage 3, 26.5 miles
Wednesday: Stage 4, 19 miles
Thursday: Stage 5, 24 miles ... can't believe I am still holding this strong!
Friday: Stages 6 and 7, 55 miles total today. Why would I do a hilly stage and a time trial all in one day? Wow, today hurt, but in a good, sadistic way.
Saturday: Stage 8, 21 miles and their simulation of going in loops with turns was very good. I actually felt like I was hitting a turn while I was sitting stationary on a trainer.
203 miles total this week! Woohoo!
Sunday: Stage 1, 29 miles in just under 1.5 hours.
Monday: Stage 2, 28 miles
Tuesday: Stage 3, 26.5 miles
Wednesday: Stage 4, 19 miles
Thursday: Stage 5, 24 miles ... can't believe I am still holding this strong!
Friday: Stages 6 and 7, 55 miles total today. Why would I do a hilly stage and a time trial all in one day? Wow, today hurt, but in a good, sadistic way.
Saturday: Stage 8, 21 miles and their simulation of going in loops with turns was very good. I actually felt like I was hitting a turn while I was sitting stationary on a trainer.
203 miles total this week! Woohoo!
Week 7
Coming off of my half marathon and working back into a normal routine. Working the day after going all out may not have been a good idea as I had to wear a wrap around my right knee and put a brace on my right ankle this week. I am not hurting where I can't run at all, just hurting enough to take caution.
Sunday: rest
Monday: Easy 2.4 miles to start getting back into it.
Tuesday: More rest.
Wednesday: 22 mile bike ride on trainer, good session and I feel like I am recovered.
Thursday: 7 mile run and pacing strong, feeling great until after the run. Still enough to keep a bandage on my knee.
Friday: Longest bike ride of the year, did 72.5 miles on my trainer. I must be weird as I don't mind staring at the TV and riding in the same spot for 3.5 hours! If that's what it takes to hit my goals, that's what I will do!
Saturday: 4.5 mile easy run ... going to take a week off of running and focus on cycling. Tour de California starts tomorrow and Trainer Road is doing a simulation that is about 1/4 of the time that the pros ride so I think I will focus on that next week!
Sunday: rest
Monday: Easy 2.4 miles to start getting back into it.
Tuesday: More rest.
Wednesday: 22 mile bike ride on trainer, good session and I feel like I am recovered.
Thursday: 7 mile run and pacing strong, feeling great until after the run. Still enough to keep a bandage on my knee.
Friday: Longest bike ride of the year, did 72.5 miles on my trainer. I must be weird as I don't mind staring at the TV and riding in the same spot for 3.5 hours! If that's what it takes to hit my goals, that's what I will do!
Saturday: 4.5 mile easy run ... going to take a week off of running and focus on cycling. Tour de California starts tomorrow and Trainer Road is doing a simulation that is about 1/4 of the time that the pros ride so I think I will focus on that next week!
Week 5 down
Sorry I didn't update for a while, but I will update week by week from what I missed.
Week five was good for running as that was more of my focus at this stage. Everything is going as planned and my running was lacking more than biking coming into training, so I have been making a big focus on getting better running results early so that I could see where I stand.
Sunday: 20 miles in one hour biking. Intervals on the trainer using Trainer Road software.
Monday: Intervals at the gym on the treadmill and hit some pretty good times doing 8x800 meter intervals at 3:00 a piece with 3 minutes of walking at 3.5mph between each interval. 6.9 total miles today. No weights this week.
Tuesday: 16 miles on an easy day outside. Enjoyed the weather and took a training day at zone 1.
Wednesday: 7.4 miles today in 59 minutes. Working on my race pace and was unable to hit it today, wanted to go at 6:52 for 45 minutes, but wound up doing closer to a 7:03 pace.
Thursday: ran 4.7 miles easy. Did a workout on this day because my brother's wedding is on Saturday!
Friday: Rest, did some swimming at the hotel pool, but nothing to really call a great workout or anything.
Saturday: Ran 4.5 miles on the hotel treadmill at an easy pace as a wakeup before my brother's big day!
Week five was good for running as that was more of my focus at this stage. Everything is going as planned and my running was lacking more than biking coming into training, so I have been making a big focus on getting better running results early so that I could see where I stand.
Sunday: 20 miles in one hour biking. Intervals on the trainer using Trainer Road software.
Monday: Intervals at the gym on the treadmill and hit some pretty good times doing 8x800 meter intervals at 3:00 a piece with 3 minutes of walking at 3.5mph between each interval. 6.9 total miles today. No weights this week.
Tuesday: 16 miles on an easy day outside. Enjoyed the weather and took a training day at zone 1.
Wednesday: 7.4 miles today in 59 minutes. Working on my race pace and was unable to hit it today, wanted to go at 6:52 for 45 minutes, but wound up doing closer to a 7:03 pace.
Thursday: ran 4.7 miles easy. Did a workout on this day because my brother's wedding is on Saturday!
Friday: Rest, did some swimming at the hotel pool, but nothing to really call a great workout or anything.
Saturday: Ran 4.5 miles on the hotel treadmill at an easy pace as a wakeup before my brother's big day!
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Week 4 in the books!
Week 4 was a cut back week for running, but with schedule last weekend biking was an increase. I have a half marathon on May 4th that I am treating like an A race, so biking will cut back next week while I focus on half marathon pace. Goals for this week were just to hit bike paces and get a few quality runs in. My week went as follows:
Sunday: Sunday afternoon biking on the trainer. 1:30 ride with a total of 27 one minute burst intervals where I hit 25 of them. Total of 30.5 miles and an overall good session.
Monday: Easy pace, 7.5 miles at 8:00/mile pace for an uneventful run. Hit the weights afterwards for strength training and did the whole cycle of chest press, shoulder press, rows, leg press, calf raises, adductors, and abdominal twists.
Tuesday: One hour session with a lot of 6 second bursts during intervals slightly above FTP. This workout really got my legs firing, but made it through with a total of 20 miles logged.
Wednesday: Long run that I wanted to do at a faster pace to get myself more ready for half marathon. Ran 12.5 miles in 1:33 at a pace of 7:26/mile. Pleased with this run, but did first half in 46:00 and second half in 47:00. Shows that I need to do some pacing work over the next 2.5 weeks. Total of 13.3 miles today.
Thursday: Rest day where I did absolutely nothing! :)
Friday: First 3 hour ride of the year and it was raining and below 50 degrees so it was done on a trainer. Guess it is my biggest mental training ride then too, wound up with 61 miles logged with 2.5 hours at close to 80% FTP. At 2:33 mark felt a little niggle on my right inner thigh. Cut it back for 5 minutes and then slowly picked pace back up. Was fine after ride and after the 5 minute slowdown. I think I need more nutrition since I only took in 600 calories during the ride and spent around 2100 calories (based on watch). No run today.
Saturday: Goal was to do 6.55 miles at 6:52/mile pace which is going to be my half marathon pace. Did a 1.28 mile warmup, then hit my pacing for the whole 6.55 miles. After about 2 miles I wasn't feeling it, but pushed through and found out that it was all in my head. Glad that I stuck it out as this will help me know my limits and my limiters a little better. Wound up with a total of 8.1 miles after cooldown.
Total mileage this week was 29 miles running and 111.5 mile biking. I haven't emphasized the importance of stretching, but after every single session I do at least 10 minutes of stretching with Fridays being more like 30 minutes of stretching. I always take in nutrition within 30 minutes of my workout (usually right after stretching) which consists of one or more of the following: Ensure (350 calories 4:1 carb:protein ratio), chocolate milk (also 4:1 ratio) or Clif bar (4.3:1 ratio). So far this has helped me to have quicker recoveries so far this year compared to last year while getting more quality training in. Last year I still needed to build base though.
Sunday: Sunday afternoon biking on the trainer. 1:30 ride with a total of 27 one minute burst intervals where I hit 25 of them. Total of 30.5 miles and an overall good session.
Monday: Easy pace, 7.5 miles at 8:00/mile pace for an uneventful run. Hit the weights afterwards for strength training and did the whole cycle of chest press, shoulder press, rows, leg press, calf raises, adductors, and abdominal twists.
Tuesday: One hour session with a lot of 6 second bursts during intervals slightly above FTP. This workout really got my legs firing, but made it through with a total of 20 miles logged.
Wednesday: Long run that I wanted to do at a faster pace to get myself more ready for half marathon. Ran 12.5 miles in 1:33 at a pace of 7:26/mile. Pleased with this run, but did first half in 46:00 and second half in 47:00. Shows that I need to do some pacing work over the next 2.5 weeks. Total of 13.3 miles today.
Thursday: Rest day where I did absolutely nothing! :)
Friday: First 3 hour ride of the year and it was raining and below 50 degrees so it was done on a trainer. Guess it is my biggest mental training ride then too, wound up with 61 miles logged with 2.5 hours at close to 80% FTP. At 2:33 mark felt a little niggle on my right inner thigh. Cut it back for 5 minutes and then slowly picked pace back up. Was fine after ride and after the 5 minute slowdown. I think I need more nutrition since I only took in 600 calories during the ride and spent around 2100 calories (based on watch). No run today.
Saturday: Goal was to do 6.55 miles at 6:52/mile pace which is going to be my half marathon pace. Did a 1.28 mile warmup, then hit my pacing for the whole 6.55 miles. After about 2 miles I wasn't feeling it, but pushed through and found out that it was all in my head. Glad that I stuck it out as this will help me know my limits and my limiters a little better. Wound up with a total of 8.1 miles after cooldown.
Total mileage this week was 29 miles running and 111.5 mile biking. I haven't emphasized the importance of stretching, but after every single session I do at least 10 minutes of stretching with Fridays being more like 30 minutes of stretching. I always take in nutrition within 30 minutes of my workout (usually right after stretching) which consists of one or more of the following: Ensure (350 calories 4:1 carb:protein ratio), chocolate milk (also 4:1 ratio) or Clif bar (4.3:1 ratio). So far this has helped me to have quicker recoveries so far this year compared to last year while getting more quality training in. Last year I still needed to build base though.
Week 3 was a doozy for running
Week 3 was my highest mileage week I will have in running until week 11 or 12. My week was challenging, but I felt suprisingly well throughout the week and woke up on Wednesday energized to do my long run. Thursday was a much needed rest day and Friday I had a few other things going on with work and a friend's wedding. The week went as follows:
Sunday: 21.5 mile bike ride with intervals .. woke up at 4:30am to get this ride in before working 7-4 that day. Hit my marks well and set a new 60 minute record for me in wattage - 172 watts.
Monday: Intervals at 6x800. Each interval was 3:09 except the last one which was 3:00 flat. Rest between intervals was 2:51 at 3.5mph. All was done on the treadmill and total mileage was 5.7 miles.
Tuesday: Nice weather outside, kept around zone 2 through the ride and went 21.5 miles outdoors. Cruising pace is around 21mph, but with traffic, lights, bike path and everything my overall average speed was only 18.4mph. Did give me some handling practice since my bike was converted to a tri setup with bullhorns and aero bar end shifters over the winter.
Wednesday: Best long run to date. Last year during marathon training my 20 mile runs were 3:30 for total time. Today was 18 miles in 2:25 with a 1 mile cooldown at 10 minutes for a total of 19 miles in 2:35. Felt good afterwards, worked for 4 hours and the went to a Tour de Cure kickoff party for charity bike ride in June. Did a 3 minute challenge and crushed it on the bike to represent my company and get an extra 25 dollar donation for American Diabetes Association. Did 1.44 miles in 3 minutes on their Cycleops Fluid 2 trainer with a Giant bike (do not know model but it had the Di2 shifters).
Thursday: Much needed rest day, quads a little sore from bike and running Wednesday, but did absolutely nothing today.
Friday: Long ride was only 2 hours with 41 miles (80% of FTP for 1:30) logged due to time constraints. Went for an afternoon run at easy pace for 4 miles at 8:15/mi pace.
Saturday: Finished the week off with a warmup, then a 10k on the treadmill with hills ranging from 0.0 incline to 6.4 incline and about 1200 feet of total elevation gain. Did that in 50 minutes flat and ran 7.3 miles altogether today.
Overall for the week I finished with 36 miles running and 84 miles on the bike. Good week overall with some great runs that will provide some good gains to be seen in a few weeks I believe. Especially the runs on Wednesday and Saturday.
Sunday: 21.5 mile bike ride with intervals .. woke up at 4:30am to get this ride in before working 7-4 that day. Hit my marks well and set a new 60 minute record for me in wattage - 172 watts.
Monday: Intervals at 6x800. Each interval was 3:09 except the last one which was 3:00 flat. Rest between intervals was 2:51 at 3.5mph. All was done on the treadmill and total mileage was 5.7 miles.
Tuesday: Nice weather outside, kept around zone 2 through the ride and went 21.5 miles outdoors. Cruising pace is around 21mph, but with traffic, lights, bike path and everything my overall average speed was only 18.4mph. Did give me some handling practice since my bike was converted to a tri setup with bullhorns and aero bar end shifters over the winter.
Wednesday: Best long run to date. Last year during marathon training my 20 mile runs were 3:30 for total time. Today was 18 miles in 2:25 with a 1 mile cooldown at 10 minutes for a total of 19 miles in 2:35. Felt good afterwards, worked for 4 hours and the went to a Tour de Cure kickoff party for charity bike ride in June. Did a 3 minute challenge and crushed it on the bike to represent my company and get an extra 25 dollar donation for American Diabetes Association. Did 1.44 miles in 3 minutes on their Cycleops Fluid 2 trainer with a Giant bike (do not know model but it had the Di2 shifters).
Thursday: Much needed rest day, quads a little sore from bike and running Wednesday, but did absolutely nothing today.
Friday: Long ride was only 2 hours with 41 miles (80% of FTP for 1:30) logged due to time constraints. Went for an afternoon run at easy pace for 4 miles at 8:15/mi pace.
Saturday: Finished the week off with a warmup, then a 10k on the treadmill with hills ranging from 0.0 incline to 6.4 incline and about 1200 feet of total elevation gain. Did that in 50 minutes flat and ran 7.3 miles altogether today.
Overall for the week I finished with 36 miles running and 84 miles on the bike. Good week overall with some great runs that will provide some good gains to be seen in a few weeks I believe. Especially the runs on Wednesday and Saturday.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Week 2 Complete!!
Started out on Sunday with a solid hour long workout. Had a glitch with my computer, so training session didn't go as planned, but I just put on a video from youtube and did an hour with some 3-5 minute sweet spot intervals mixed in to do a good 20 miles.
Monday was speedwork day and planned on doing two 20 minute intervals and basically wound up doing a mile warmup where I gradually increased the pace from 5.5mph to 10mph. Then I did a 20 minute 5k, 2 minute rest and another 20 minute 5k. Awesome day and felt good afterwards.
Tuesday I was back on the bike and computer software was all working properly. Hit all my marks on another hour long ride that was around 20 minutes with intervals anywhere from 15 seconds to 45 seconds with 15 second rest between bursts. Anyone who doesn't use trainerroad, is serious about competing and does not own a power meter, GET THIS PROGRAM!!! It is only 10 bucks a month and is like having a coach in your basement.
Wednesday was my long run day, I woke up feeling awesome! I was ready to go outside and bang out this 2 hour run, until I noticed it was only 26 degrees outside in the morning and this was a training run, not race day. So I packed up and went to the gym to do 2 hours on the treadmill. I hit my speeds, kept pushing through, focused on the TV's, the music, and everything to keep myself tough mentally. Did 15 miles in 2 hours on the 'mill! Went to work later that day and still felt great.
Thursday I had some minor foot pain on the balls of my feet. No biggie, it was my rest day anyways so I just relaxed and took it really easy.
Friday I woke up and feel great again, ready for my 2.5 hour bike and brick run. I made a custom program to try and keep myself in check. It is set to 80% of my FTP so that I know if I am overdoing it. This should be enough for me to know what will happen if I push too hard, but with about 20-30 minutes left in my 2 hours of race pace effort I started to feel my first quad twinge from pushing it too hard. I backed off for 5 minutes at that point before slowly bringing my speed back up. While I was slowed down I counted SEVEN TIMES that I went over that 80% mark and know why I had to back off. Wound up doing 49.5 miles and since I took it a little easy towards the end I was able to bang out a 25 minute 5k afterwards. Then it was 30 minutes of stretching!
Saturday I did an easy run around the neighborhood and basically did a 50 minute 10k! First mile was definitely slower and last mile was definitely faster. Felt great afterwards like I could easily do a 20k after I finished.
For the week I logged 32 miles running and 91 miles cycling!
Monday was speedwork day and planned on doing two 20 minute intervals and basically wound up doing a mile warmup where I gradually increased the pace from 5.5mph to 10mph. Then I did a 20 minute 5k, 2 minute rest and another 20 minute 5k. Awesome day and felt good afterwards.
Tuesday I was back on the bike and computer software was all working properly. Hit all my marks on another hour long ride that was around 20 minutes with intervals anywhere from 15 seconds to 45 seconds with 15 second rest between bursts. Anyone who doesn't use trainerroad, is serious about competing and does not own a power meter, GET THIS PROGRAM!!! It is only 10 bucks a month and is like having a coach in your basement.
Wednesday was my long run day, I woke up feeling awesome! I was ready to go outside and bang out this 2 hour run, until I noticed it was only 26 degrees outside in the morning and this was a training run, not race day. So I packed up and went to the gym to do 2 hours on the treadmill. I hit my speeds, kept pushing through, focused on the TV's, the music, and everything to keep myself tough mentally. Did 15 miles in 2 hours on the 'mill! Went to work later that day and still felt great.
Thursday I had some minor foot pain on the balls of my feet. No biggie, it was my rest day anyways so I just relaxed and took it really easy.
Friday I woke up and feel great again, ready for my 2.5 hour bike and brick run. I made a custom program to try and keep myself in check. It is set to 80% of my FTP so that I know if I am overdoing it. This should be enough for me to know what will happen if I push too hard, but with about 20-30 minutes left in my 2 hours of race pace effort I started to feel my first quad twinge from pushing it too hard. I backed off for 5 minutes at that point before slowly bringing my speed back up. While I was slowed down I counted SEVEN TIMES that I went over that 80% mark and know why I had to back off. Wound up doing 49.5 miles and since I took it a little easy towards the end I was able to bang out a 25 minute 5k afterwards. Then it was 30 minutes of stretching!
Saturday I did an easy run around the neighborhood and basically did a 50 minute 10k! First mile was definitely slower and last mile was definitely faster. Felt great afterwards like I could easily do a 20k after I finished.
For the week I logged 32 miles running and 91 miles cycling!
Saturday, March 30, 2013
NOW it feels like I'm training for an Ironman!!!
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 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!
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.
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