Week ending Jan 5 2014

For the last two weeks I've been doing a pretty good job of training and I'm happy where I'm at right now.

Swim:

I've been in the pool 3 to 4 times a week consistently with only one hiccup in the last month.  I hurt my elbow somehow two Mondays ago, I think it's from working on EVF (early vertical forearm).  That day had some really hard pull sets and I ripped them off pretty hard for me and that's when it revealed itself.  I did do some dryland work with my friend Brian G but I was very light on that workout and don't think that it contributed at all to the problem.  This is very unusual for me since I rarely get hurt and with swimming it's normally my shoulders that will have an issue.

Despite that, I have gotten stronger in the pool, I really wanted to work on some dryland stuff but this is going to put it off for at least another week, maybe two.  I can see myself being back to normal in a few weeks.

I'm starting to change some thoughts on swimming...instead of just searching for lower drag I've got to work on pulling harder too, I don't think there is any other way around it.  I've stopped using my paddles as much as I had been doing but am going to put them back into my training starting next week.

Biking is still in maintenance mode, if I get two moderate rides in a week I'll be happy with that for the month of January.  I started using my Computrainer, I'm not impressed.  I actually like riding with the Kurt Kinetic better.  Having to change efforts without warning is unappealing, I like to be in control of my efforts and the CT rides I've been doing seem unpredictable.  On the contrary, Karen seems to like doing her rides on hers, that good :)

Running has been going well, I just finished week 8 of my run plan and will continue with the 24 week schedule as planned.  I'm actually 3 weeks ahead of the plan ending on Triple T weekend, this is because I'm going to take a week down from running to make a bike focus week in late February, another week in late March and a third week in early May.

Goals for January is to keep building run volume while following my run plan, keep swimming 3 to 4 days a week and ride the bike two times a week for another three weeks and then start building that volume with easy riding to prep myself for harder training in February.

Week ending 12/15/13

It's cold here in SE Michigan :(

No outdoor training this week at all mainly cuz I'm a cold weather weenie.

Swim:  In the pool 3 days this week with the last one being cut short.  Our normal pool wasn't open on Saturday so we swam in the small warm pool.  I could take about 40 minutes of that then I got out.  Good sessions on Monday and Wednesday while Saturday was not so good.

Bike:  I did not ride at all this week but did work on my mountain bike fork. I found out why there was no dampening in it, the seal was bad on the bottom of the dampening tube and all of the oil leaked out and into the lower.  I need to find a new seal and that may be difficult with such a cheap fork.  I've been looking for a new fork and have found that I can get a Fox Float for around $400.  My origional budget was $300 but I can get so much more for that extra $100.  I'm looking around to make sure I can find rebuild kits for the forks I'm interested in.  If and when I can find that I'll probably make a purchase in late January or into February.

Run:  I ran 7 days this week which were all indoors.  4 days on the treadmill and 3 on the indoor track.  I was getting bored on the treadmill so I did a faster workout on Wednesday where I took a Q2 workout from Daniels Marathon A program and adjusted the speed down just a little.  I may do that this week too just to get past the boredom.

Plans for this week:  Swim 3 to 4 days again.  Get on the bike 2 times at whatever pace I feel like doing.  Run 7 days again, maybe double on one of the days if I'm free.  The 100/100 challenge started again on Slowtwitch so I'll be logging my stuff there too.

2013 in review

I started of the year with a large running block.  I was running 50+ miles per week until late January when I started riding seriously again.  Unlike previous years I did not take any time off after my last race in 2012, I got right back to work after LCN in Oklahoma.

That running block had me running 8 times a week with key workouts on Wednesday and Sunday.  Wednesday was normally faster intervals, sometimes threshold, sometimes faster.  Sunday was a long run in the morning then a 4 mile run later in the day.  The second run really wasn't that hard to do but when monday came I was normally pretty tired.  All other days I was running easy, normally just half hour runs.

Schedule went like this:
Mon 6 miles
Tue 4 miles
Wed 8 miles
Thu 4 miles
Fri 6 miles
Sat 4 miles
Sun 14+4 miles
(I'm writing this from memory so I may have goofed a little)

In early March I made a trip to Georgia to ride in the mountains with my late friend Shawn Tyrrell.  We did the 3 Gaps out of Helen one day, a flat ride the next and 3 Gaps out of Dahlonega on the last day.  Riding was fun but visiting with friends was better.  It was colder than usual there, I expected 45+ degrees but wound up with low 30's :(  Still I got my riding in.

After a few more weeks of riding I made another trip to Georgia again only this time I was riding with the HFP guys.  During that week we rode about 320 miles, ran 5 days (1 long, all others short) and swam 4 days.  It was a pretty epic week.

It took about 10 days to recover from that week of training and it really helped me.  Unlike last year I was much stronger compared to the same group of people, instead of getting dropped by the second group I stayed with them.  When I got home it was apparent that I gained a lot of fitness from that week by comparing myself to my training partners.

A few weeks went by and I went down to Portsmouth OH during the Triple T since Karen was racing the AB and I already had the cabin.  We stayed the weekend so I could do some more hill training, I felt strong and just put in miles.  It was nice to be there and be able to ride the courses comfortably.

In a couple more weeks it was time for Long Course Worlds, I'd never been to Europe before.  I had a good time, I'll write a report about it.  In short I did about as good as I expected to do.  Since the swim was canceled it was turned into a duathlon so I was put at a disadvantage since I'm a better swimmer than a runner.  Karen and I spent 5 more days in Switzerland and had a good time.

After a few weeks of recovery I was ready for racing.  I did the Sprint race at Maumee Bay, a race that I've done the Olympic distance 3 times.  The swim went OK, the bike was fairly fast but my run was better than expected.  I think I ran a 20:30 which is faster than I've ever gone before, I was pleasantly surprised.

The next race was the Half at Caseville.  It was a smaller race so I expected to do OK, the swim went OK, the bike was pretty fast then the run was slower than normal but there was 7 miles of running on sand so a 1:48 was OK with me.  We got to spend some time with JD and Noah in Tawas so it was another fun weekend.

In August I did the Sprint in Sylvania, it was another race that I have done before.  I have done the Olympic several times and the Sprint once.  In fact the sprint race was my third race I'd ever done back in 2003.  Again I was happy with the result, I had a strong swim, a very fast bike ride at 25.4 mph and a fairly strong run for me at 21:07

In September I was at Rev3 Cedar Point, this was supposed to be my "A" race of the year and trained exclusively for it.  Swim was really rough on the NE side of the Point so they moved it to the SW side.  We swam through the harbor then outside of the breakwall.  Swim went well, Bike went according to plan then the run was within my expectations.  Finished a 4:53 and 3rd in AG (33 OA), that was the best I have done at a bigger event.

I origionally planned to go to Rev3 Anderson but the people I was going with bailed on me and I was looking for another race.  I decided to go to Rev3 Florida instead.

That turned out to be a very good choice.  First we had mild weather in October that allowed me to train on the bike.  Next we have friends that have a house down there that they allowed us to stay in for free.  Third the weather was really nice there for the race as well as the short vacation, and lastly, the race was put on really well.

As for the race, I did better than expected since this really couldn't be called an "A" race, the best I could catagorize it would be a "BB".  The swim was really smooth on race morning and I came out of the water in pretty good shape, 33 min is a decent swim for me.  The bike was really smooth and flat, it was the fastest 56 mile ride I've ever done (2:21).  The run was OK, a little slower than expected but it was fairly warm and this was a "BB" race.  Still 1:50 is OK for me and a 4:48 HIM, 2nd in AG, is my best result in a few years.

So it was really a pretty good season with Long Course Worlds, 2 sprints and 3 HIM's (70.3).  I didn't die at any of the races, I had good training and didn't get hurt.  I felt that the season progressed well with short races to work on skills and enough time between the big races to do well at them.

Now it's time to start getting back to work for next season.  It's been 4 weeks of doing whatever I wanted to do and I need get going again.  I've got 17 weeks until HFP training camp and 23 weeks until Triple T.  That gives me a little more than three training cycles before camp and four cycles before Triple T.

Week ending 12/8/13

Got a little behind on the running this week.

Ran 5 days for about 30 minutes at a time.  All of it was easy, a couple days outside but the rest inside on the treadmill.  Next week starts the 100/100 challenge on ST so I'll be up for that when the time comes.

Goals for next week is 7 runs with one being about an hour long.

I was in the pool 3 days this week but all pretty decent swims.  Monday 2X200 SKIPS (Swim,Kick,IM,Pull,Swim) so 2000 yds.  Wednesday masters 2800 yds, Friday masters 4300 yds

I was on the bike twice this week, once on the road and once on the Computrainer.  It was my first real workout on the Computrainer, it was OK, I was only on it for an hour.

I think I have the road bike fitting better, I found a stem that is a 120 -17°.  The bars are up slightly higher and out front a little better.  I moved the hoods a little higher after the ride on Wednesday and they feel better.  I think that's the last adjustment for a while.  Now all I need is a new seat, I'm actively looking for a Fizik Arione on Ebay, when the deal comes in the color I like I'll take it.

Week ending 12/1/13

Gotten to part of my goal:
Ran 6 days and swam 4 days, it was the most swimming I've done in quite a while.

Just a half hour for all the runs except for today where I ran an hour.  With the exception of the Turkey Trot on Thursday I ran easy for all of them.

At the Turkey Trot I ran a 21:00 for the 5K.  I'm pretty happy with that right now since I haven't been running much.  It's short of what I ran last summer but it was expected.  With that time I have some paces to work with
Easy 8:39
Marathon 7:41
Threshold 7:12
10K 7:03
5K 6:46
Interval 6:36
Repetition 6:11

I haven't done any testing in swimming yet, I may do a swim meet soon but not in the next few weeks.  I still know what I can do in practice and will use that as a guide for now.

No biking yet cuz I really don't want to.  I did some work on my road bike and mountain bike recently.  I replaced the bars on my road bike to something shallower, I need to find a different stem to raise them just a little bit.  I have a 120mm -30° and want to go to a 120mm -18°.

On the Mountain bike I replaced the rear shifter (right) with one I got on Ebay.  I didn't like the way the original one shifted so I found a M770 shifter (Deore XT 3X9).  This one has a little shorter throw to make a shift.  When I get it on the trail I'll see how it works.  I also removed the top headset spacer and mounted the stem right on top of the bearing.  I'm going to have someone at work make me a new one that is much smaller.

Getting Consistent (ramble, ramble thoughts)

I've had the last 3 weeks off doing basically whatever I want to do and now I need to get back to some consistent but easy plan.

I'm going to spend the next 6 weeks doing short/easy workouts just to get back to training.  Plans are:

Run at least 30 minutes each day

Bike up to an hour 3 days a week

Swim at least 4 days a week.

That should take me into the second week of January where I will still have a few weeks before I get serious on the bike again.  By then I will have decided what to do with my running plan.  Right now I'm leaning towards a Daniels type plan and I'll be a few weeks ahead so that if anything happens I'll be able to back it down for a week and recover.

I would like to get back to bigger run milage like I did last year.  Then I started running a lot in early November and was running 50 to 55 miles a week.  It will take me more than 6 weeks from now to get there so I don't hurt myself.  Realistically I will be able to hold that volume of running until late February/early March when it should be warm enough to ride outside again.  When that happens I'll bring my running volume down to 40 miles a week.

I'm still really undecided on my swimming.  I want to swim faster but the return on the time invested is low compared to running.  I can see myself swimming 4 days a week for a while which normally gets me some improvement but in order to get much better I'm going to need 5 days and some instruction.  I don't know if I'm capable of doing that while running a lot again.

Since I'm planning on going to USAT Nationals swimming is a bigger part of that race.  The best I've done in an Olympic distance race is a 2:10 and I need to go under 2:05 to have a shot at making Team USA.  I think with good swim training I could drop a minute off of my 1500 time and with good run training I could drop 2 minutes off of my 10K time.  That still leaves me 2 minutes short of my goal as I don't think I can ride much faster than a 59 minute 40K and still be able to run effectively afterwards.

Looking at the results from last year 20th place went 2:05, I think 2014 will be faster but just using that as a target I'm probably need to go something like:

22 swim

59 bike

42 run

1:30 in transitions

That is the best that I think I could realistically go in the best possible circumstances.

What do I need to get there:

Swim:  I need consistent training, I'm probably already there but if I got better that would take some tension off of the other sports.

Bike:  I'm already capable of that speed on a flat course.  I've done 1:00:30 at Maumee Bay in 2012 and I'm a stronger biker now than I was then.  Still I will need to be consistent in bike training and not able to slack off.

Run:  This is where I need the most work but have the most room for improvement.  The best I've run in an Olympic distance triathlon is a 43:30 a few years ago, recently a 44:00.  That means the run would have to go from a 7:05 mile to a 6:46 mile or a drop of ~:20 per mile.  Last year I ran a low 20 min 5K so that indicates I was a little better runner but still have a lot of work to do.

Going out on my own

Well I've broken away from my long time coach Mike Plumb after 4 terrific triathlon seasons.  During that time I've gone to Long Course Nationals twice, Triple T 4 times, Xterra USA Championships, local series races and a few Rev3 races.  I've also made USAT All American 3 times, I don't know about this year yet.

Just this year I've done particularly well with an expected mid-pack finish at Long Course World Championships, a 1st in AG at the Sprint at Maumee Bay, 1st in AG and 4th OA at Caseville Half, 1st in AG and 6th OA at Sylvania Sprint, 3rd in AG at Rev3 Cedar Point Half and 2nd in AG at Rev3 Florida Half.  This is mostly do to the coaching that I got from Mike Plumb at Tripower.org.

Now I'm moving on to do somehting a little different that having a coach wouldn't let me do.

Number one thing is that I'm going to work with my tri club FAST (swimfasttrifast.com) to put together a team of people to compete at USAT Nationals.  This is for anyone and everyone in the club regardless of their abilities.  I just want people to go and do the very best that they can.  In doing that I want to put together a few weekend camps at a local park where we can concentrate on triathlon all weekend.  I'm looking to do one in May, June and July.  Along with that I would like to put together a few single workouts to help people doing Long Course Nationals.

Personal goals for 2014 are to do the best that I can at Triple T in May, USAT Short Course Nationals in August and Xterra Nationals in Late September.

In route to doing that and being competitive I need to increase my run speed, I think I have plenty of endurance just lack the ability to run fast for short periods of time.  My current abiltiy to run a 44:00 10K in an Olympic distance triathlon is just not fast enough to be competitive on a national level.  I can only do so much with a fast bike ride and decent swim.  In the following posts I hope to document my improvements.  I've 46 years old and can't expect to keep getting faster for much longer, I think the next few years will be my fastest yet.

2012 Felt F5 that I purchased last summer

Bike Room

Joule

picts

Fwd: New Message

Me and some HFP friends

Shoe laces

I can't upload picts on Slowtwitch during the day so I'm sending them directly to you.  If you would like to post them there that would be fine with me.

This is the way I did my laces last year.  These are my Fuji Racers that I used at Battle of Watterloo last August.

On this particular pair of shoes I used the top 3 sets of holes unlike my road race shoes that I used the top 2 sets.

I like to use a heavy bungee cord type of stretchy lace on top (I think they were Yankz) and then the normal shoe lace on the bottom

In a few days it will be 10 years since I started this crazy lifestyle, as I remember it was December 23, 2002.

To the best of recollection, this is the chain of events that happened in that time period:

December 2002 I weighed 195 lbs, wanted to be a better hockey player and lose some weight.  I thought that 165 lbs would be a realistic goal for me and it was for that time.

I started running 1 mile every other day doing my best to keep my HR at 145bpm.  From everything I read back then that was the HR I was supposed to run at to get started.  The day after running I hurt so bad that I could barely walk, my friends at work laughed at me, said I wouldn't keep it up but I did.  After a few weeks the soreness went away and I was running 2 miles at a time.

To keep a HR of 145 I remember running about 13 minute miles, that would be painfully slow today but evidently I was in pretty bad shape back then.  I remember when I broke 10 minute miles consistently on training runs, I was pretty happy, I think that was in May of 2003.

By June of 2003 I was about 160 lbs, a remarkable weight loss I thought (still do) and felt so much better.  I was playing hockey much stronger and had my first race in June.  The race was the Seahorse Triathlon, I did the sprint which was 500 yard swim, 12.4 mile bike and 3.1 mile run.  I have the results somewhere but I remember finishing near last in my AG with a horrible swim, decent bike and just under 30 minutes for the 5K run.  I was actually pretty happy with that.

Swimming was difficult for me to learn on my own.  In hindsight I should have found someone to teach me but I didn't know anyone that swam so I learned from books.  Total Imersion was the first one I read, it was good to get me going and I did the drills religiously.  I started swimming in January of 2003 and it took me until April to be able to stroke and breathe together...I wasn't good at it.  I found a wetsuit on Ebay that fit OK but wound up buying one at Bikesport a few weeks before the race, it was a good thing I did cuz I really needed it.  The first race I was scared and slow, I backstroked a lot of it, by the second race a month later I was just slow.

Biking had come easy to me, I had been doing it for a long time and was confident in my ability.  Riding in the aerobars was comfortable and fun, I really liked it.

I'll finish more thoughts later

Wells Fargo Morgantown Mountaineer Triathlon

Another points race done and I've got two weeks off from racing so I can get more work done.  I've been ~750 TSS for the last two weeks which has kept me fairly fresh for racing but not too light that I'd be losing fitness.  Now I'm planning on holding myself near 800 to 850 until I get about ten weeks out from Redman.

This race went pretty well, I've never been to this venue before and didn't really know what to expect.  It's funny how much better I can do at a race I've been to before, this one was a little suprising.

The swim was slightly long, not a bad thing since I swim OK, I was 6th out of the water at 29:55. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/192511766 Normally I'm a 22-23 min wetsuit swimmer so this was probably pushing 1800 meters.  Since I swam at the front so this was fairly uneventfull.  I found a pair of feet to follow early and it was a good fit for me but I lost him on the second loop while swimming through the people starting the Half and appear to have lost about a minute to him.  The only incident that I had was after passing someone that was doing the half, that person swam inside of my turn bouy (he had to go out a little further) and I ran him over after making my turn.  Not a dunk or anything, I just went over his back, really didn't mean it I just didn't see him as I was breathing to my right at that time.

The bike was a bit hilly and I calculated that it would take me about 1:15 to do it, I was close at 1:18:46. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/192511781 Since I wanted to have a good run I had to have a good bike plan and that was to ride up the hills near 240-250 watts and bomb the downhills.  I'm good at bombing downhills and this course made that easy since it was so straight.  The plan went really well but there was this lady driving a white Intrepid that passed me then waited behind some slower bikers and wouldn't pass them even when the road was clear to do so.  Then she would pass them and wait behind someone else.  This happed four times on the second loop, finally after passing her the fourth time I just rode out a little from the shoulder of the road so she wouldn't pass me again.  The downhills were fast.  I got up over 53mph, I think that's the fastest I've ever gone on a bike.  After getting back to transition I was wondering if I should have gone harder.

The run went pretty good for me and I think it was the best pace I've done in quite a while, I came in at 44:56 (6.27 miles). http://connect.garmin.com/activity/192511797  I averaged 7:10's for the run (which was slightly long but that's OK).  The last two races I went out really hard and tried to hold it, this time I wanted to start a little easier and keep the pace near goal pace which was 7:05 to 7:10.  That seemed to work much better as I wasn't winded at the start like I had been at Deer Creek and Maumee Bay and I never struggled to hold pace either.  The Garmin link shows a bit of an elevation change but I really didn't think it went up and down that much, it was a lot like running on Hines drive, very very gently rolling, I suppose it could have though.  The double out and back 10K was nice for spectators and the trail was a really nice run.  It was probably one of the nicest run venues that I've been to.

So overall a 2:35:23 which was good enough to get me 1st in AG and 9th overall.  Swim 6th, bike 10th and run 14th which is a little out of character for me on the bike, that's why I was thinking I should have gone a little harder on the bike.

Maumee Bay Olympic distance Triathlon

Raced last weekend again and had a pretty good race.
Race went well 2:10:30 something, fastest I've ever gone in an Olympic Tri

Swim http://connect.garmin.com/activity/190009146
Swim went well, It was a wetsuit swim, I was surprisingly quick from the start, 22:3X.  Nobody wanted to line up in front so I did and got to clear water quickly.  Something about HFP races is that your time starts when you run over the timing mat so instead of 100 people getting on line and starting next to eachother it's spread out a little.  A weaker swimmer that wants to start in back isn't losing time by starting 30 seconds later and staying out of the scrum.  I think it makes for a safer swim.

Anywho, the swim was uneventful and was over quickly, mid 22's with a wetsuit seems normal for me so it was not exceptional in any way.

Bike http://connect.garmin.com/activity/190009153
Bike was completely flat and was a PR course, I was really trying to go under an hour but missed it by a little bit 1:00:50, might have tried a little too hard.  Power was a little high in the beginning and I had to dial it down a little.  There wasn't much wind at all, maybe 5 to 10 mph, so I was ~24 with the wind and 27 with the wind.  Flat courses tend to favor me and it appears that this one did.

Run http://connect.garmin.com/activity/190009165
Run was almost a carbon copy from the last race, I could be dissapointed but it was in the high 80's this time so about 15 degrees warmer than Deer Creek. Better/Same kind of hard to tell but I didn't leave anything out on the course. I was kind of winded from the start, sagged a little in the middle then picked it up. 45:11. A race PR on a tough training week I'm happy with.
Finished 9th overall and 2nd in AG about a minute behind first place. Competition was a little weak like Deer Creek but the Elite Masters didn't go much faster.

A few picts from Deer Creek

Me on the left

My feet are in my shoes so it's probably at the bike turnaround for the second loop

I race the Olympic distance triathlon at Deer Creek yesterday and was somewhat pleased with the results. I still don’t feel like I’m back to 100% after racing Triple T and didn’t have high expectations for this race because of that.
This race is the first one of a series of Olympic distance races that HFP puts on. I’ve never done this particular race before but I have done the HIM in September a few times so I am familiar with the course. It’s not a particularly fast course in my opinion but still one that suits me well.

First the swim was very choppy, not 1 foot wave choppy but like 6 or 8 inch choppy that was very irregular. I got bounced around a little bit but I can swim in conditions like that without issue unlike many people there that popped their head up every 5th stroke or so. I really didn’t expect that but I think it made it the swim a stronger event for me. The results are not up yet but according to my watch I was 26:25 into transition, that’s not great but OK considering the conditions.

One mistake I made was that normally I will run out of the water a ways before I take my wetsuit top off (Desoto pullover), I did that this time but while doing so I had to run up some steps and couldn’t do both at the same time. I may have lost 10 second or so because of that.

I was into transition fairly quickly and off on the bike. It was a long transition area and busy so I didn’t click off my watch when I exited, I remembered about a mile down the road. The bike was fairly flat and windy, I think it’s been windy every time I’ve been there for the half and this was no different. Fortunately a windy course suits me very well as I’m very small on the bike. I had a goal of riding just over 200 watts and did just that. I wasn’t holding back but wasn’t really pushing it tremendously hard either. I passed a lot of people out there, some of who would pass me back on the run. There were two hard spots on each loop of the course, one 90 foot climb and one 80 foot climb. They weren’t killer hills or anything but they were big enough to disrupt the rhythm and slow me down maybe 2 minutes or so.

Bike Course http://connect.garmin.com/activity/185313336

I came into the park probably a little too easy but I was trying to get my last gel in and take my feet out of my shoes at the same time. I was also going a little too fast at the dismount line for my liking and almost tripped up, it was kind of funny to me but I don’t think anyone else noticed, it was really a perfect dismount.

I had a fairly quick transition again and off on the run where I started off chasing some young guy but eventually he ran away from me. I was winded from the start but ran through it and kept a steady pace throughout the run. On the turn-around I saw someone I knew and wanted to beat and that motivated me to go as hard as I could, because of that I wound up negative splitting the run by ~20 seconds on what I thought was a so-so run for me. In hindsight, after going through my previous race results I found that it was actually my second fastest Olympic distance run I’ve ever done so I have to be happy with that since I went into the race feeling like I was about 90%.

Run Course http://connect.garmin.com/activity/185313355

So overall I was 2:16.xx and that’s a normal race result for me, good enough for 2nd place in AG for the day and some points in the series. The first guy went 1:57.xx so he was way out front.

Triple T race report
Another good race at the American Triple T this year. Some bad stuff happened but mostly good stuff resulted :)
Race 1

The warm water was nice as I could wear my sleeveless wetsuit but not be too warm. The water temp was ~73° F so it was a change from the past few years of high 50’s and low 60’s.
The swim went well, I was fairly fast and comfortable, no problems. The swim exit was closer to transition this year which was nice, but I didn’t have much time to take my wetsuit top off before the entrance to T1. I still had it off in time but had to hurry.
On the bike I felt pretty good, mounting went well and rode up the hill pretty strong. Descending the hill was fast and had a quick transition to the run.

On the run I was a bit winded as normal, I’m not a fast runner but I’ll take a 7:02 for a 1.05 mile run.

The only bad thing about this race was that I hurt my heel on the long run into transition and it slowed my down just a little near the end of the run. I was also a little worried that it was be a problem on Saturday and Sunday.

Race 2

This is where it starts getting interesting. The swim went very well, I was happy with the effort and it was uneventful. I came out of the water in good shape, had a fast transition and was off on the bike. I had one little hiccup on the bike where I dropped my chain to the outside and then wrapped it around my crank. I had to stop and fix it so I did not tear it up. Because of that I lost about 45 seconds which was reflected in my final results. With that behind me I ran fairly quickly and on schedule for my run. I was about 49 minutes for the run which was just a little faster than last year. Overall I was 2:27:55 which was almost 2 minutes slower than last year. I can attribute that to a longer swim and the bike issue.

Race 3

This race was nearly a carbon copy of last year. 2:32:55 this year and 2:32:30 last year. The bike I felt strong on but rode conservative, the swim was strong despite the longer course and the run was just a little faster than last year. All I really wanted to do was set myself up for the Half on the next day so I didn’t push it that hard. Statistically I normally do better in this race than all of the others but that wasn’t the case this year. The only issue on this race was that I got kicked on the swim and had a little bit of a black eye because of it.

Race 4

This is where the race starts. I had to hold back just enough on Saturday to put down a decent race and place well on the overall. My primary goal was to do at least as well as last year and the secondary goal was to beat 5:35 so I could use it as a qualifying race for the USAT Long course nationals. Going under 5:35 is normally not a problem but this is one of the hardest half’s in the country and I did 3 races in the 2 day prior. It didn’t start off too good…

First of all I was sick to my stomach on Saturday night and had to force myself to eat, it was not pleasant. I figured that I would feel better in the morning, which I did, a little bit.

In the morning I got up as planned, had everything ready to go but still felt a little sick. My normal breakfast includes Pop tarts because they are easy to eat and have a lot of calories, I had to force myself to eat two of them. How bad do you have to feel when eating Pop tarts is difficult?

Anywho, after eating them I rolled down to transition and put down a bottle of Infinit hot weather mix and felt a little better. That normally does the trick but still I only had about 650 calories by then which was about 400 short of where I wanted to be.

I had to get the job done so I put down my two gels before the start (30 min and 15 min beforehand) and was off. Like normal I felt better after about 200 yards of swimming and had a fairly uneventful swim except that I almost threw up near the swim exit. I came out of the water near 27:45 so I knew the swim was short. That was good cuz it gave me a little breathing room for the qualifying time.

After another fast transition (they were good all weekend) I was off on the bike with the goal of riding a 3:06 or better. I really wanted to ride something like a 1:34 then a 1:32 like I did two years ago so I started off conservative. I know these courses pretty well so I know where to go hard and where to coast downhill, that worked out pretty well as I came in from the first loop at 1:32 still fairly fresh. On the second loop I road just a little bit more aggressive on the hills and came in ~1:30:30 so together I rode about 3.5 minutes faster than last year. Doing math in my head I figured I needed to run something like a 2:02 to be under the 5:35 goal which shouldn’t have been any problem.

The nutrition on the bike went well. I started with a gel 15 minutes in and then one every 30 minutes until 2 hours where I ate one early and stayed on the 30 minute cycle. To drink I had one bottle of Infinit on the first loop followed by a second bottle on the second loop. Unlike previous years I only carried one bottle at a time, I just felt I didn’t need more and I was right.

After riding well I was into T2, which was probably my slowest transition at 1:39, and off to a good run. The first half I ran in 55:40 but had some rocks stuck in my shoe so I dug them out at the turn around. That took me about 30 seconds and I was off on my second loop. I felt pretty good but wanted to run conservative so I short stepped the first mile and a half and felt surprisingly well. I got up the hills pretty good, down the backside and then back up in good shape. When I got to the top and knew it was all downhill from there, I picked up the pace, a little too fast at first then settled in at a good clip. I ran strong for the last mile which took me into a 1:52:07 finish, a good run there for me.

So with the combination of a slightly short swim, good bike ride and a strong run I was 5:24:40 for the half which is my best there by about 6 minutes and got me my qualifying time. Now I just need to make my final decision about going to Nationals.

The shoes that carried me through Triple T

I have a lot of shoes, most are the ladies model because I like a narrow shoe.  Here are the ones that carried through the winter and got me through Triple T.

Mizuno Wave Rider 14
I put a lot of miles on these shoes...Just under 700 according to my log.  They are my do all shoes, I can run easy, fast, tempo, intervals, indoor, outdoor, trails and just about everywhere else.  They are light enough to make my feet fast yet protect me from road shock.  While they are not a high performance shoe, they still can perform in a pinch.  The only reason I replaced them is because I was getting holes inside of them.

Asics Cumulus 13
I bought these to replace the Riders but really don't like them.  I had a pair before and they rolled well but for some reason these don't.  I've got about 200 miles in them and I'm going to relegate them to every day duty.  They are very good quality shoes, it's just the feel isn't quite right with them.

Saucony Fastwitch 4
These have been my go to shoe for fast running for quite some time now.  This particular pair only has about 100 miles on them but this is my 5th pair and I still like them.  They are suprisingly spongy but light and fast.  The pair before these I did all but one of my Xterra races in as well as Battle of Waterloo and a few road races.  They protect my feet from small debris and are fairly grippy but they don't do so well on small rocks.  The small rocks seem to poke through and hurt my feet so they don't work on gravel roads.  Single track trails and road running are just fine.

Saucony A4
These are fast shoes, very light and let air flow through them.  They work well for really fast training but I don't like to run much more than 6 miles in them unless I'm racing and that should be on some pretty good pavement.  I did my best 10K in them and did the prolouge at the Triple T in them.  I like them but the road has to be right for them.

Asics DS Racer
These are the only men's running shoes that I have, all of the others are ladies shoes cuz I like a narrower shoe.  These are fairly new shoes to me and I bought them strictly for Triple T.  The Fastwitch don't have enough protection in them for the rocky road but these do.  Like the Fastwitch and the A4 they have holes in the soles to let water out so my feet stay dryer.  They just don't feel as fast as the Fastwitch but are another great shoe.  I suppose the fact that I did my fastest run at the half at Triple T on them could make someone say otherwise but if I could have worn a different shoe I would have.  Maybe when I get some more miles in them I'll like them more, right now they will be my tuesday night brick shoe until I run them out.

Mizuno Wave Rider 15
Brand new today, I ran about 6 miles in them and they feel great.  I got them to replace the Asics Cumulus.

Sidi T2.6 Carbon
Last but not least...My bike shoes, two years old now, I still think Sidi is the best despite their price.  These like the pair before them, I got a great deal on so I keep on riding with them.  With any luck I'll find a great deal on my next pair.  Stiff and comfortable they fit my feet perfect, I don't think I've every had a better pair of bike shoes.

Plans for the rest of the season

I am going to do the HFP Olympic distance series again in Ohio like I did in 2009, I've already paid for it.  I'll miss one race to do Battle of Waterloo in August.  I may also do the He tried, She tried sprint distance with Karen it timing works out, I think that is in July.

The one big change I'm debating on is instead of doing the half at Cedar Point I'm thinking of going to Long Course Nationals again.  I was pretty ticked off the last time I went because the swim was cancelled but it appears that that was a blessing in disguise...The swim was cancelled at ITU Long Course Worlds too.  Here is my short post about it LINK

This year Long Course Nationals is in Oklahoma (Redman) qualifying for Worlds in 2013 in France.  I've never been to Europe before and this may be a good time to go.  I age up to 45-49 this year and I think it's my best opportunity to make Team USA.  What I need to do is get a qualifying race to get into Nationals, since I did Xterra last year I don't have a later season Half on the books.  I need a 5:35 to get in and I'm pretty sure I can do that at Triple T, I've done better than that the last two years.  If I don't then I'll have to find a flat local race to qualify at, it shouldn't be any problem.

After Triple T I'll make my decision but I'm really leaning toward Nationals again.

Oops...I forgot about my swimming

Well, swimming is going OK.  I came off of state meet fitness going into HFP camp and was swimming really well.  Now I've cut my swim volume to about 2 swims a week with the occasional 3rd.  I've noticed about a 5 sec/100 drop in times but I've also been really tired going into all of the swims.

I feel that when I'm rested I'll be able to swim nearly as fast as I was just after state meet in March but right now the biggest focus is on the bike and next is the run.

Starting the taper for Triple T

According to WKO+ I'm at least 6 weeks ahead in training volume compared to last year which was a few weeks ahead of the year before it. Is that good? I'll see next sunday if more training volume equals better fitness and/or better racing.

Here is why I'm so far ahead of last year:

There are a few factors why I'm ahead of last year, First the weather was much milder this winter and allowed me to train outside earlier than expected. I planned to put more time into running this year like I did last year but got derailed a few times. Still with all those issues I was still running stronger than last year.

Second, I signed up for a training camp with HFP in late March and had to prep for it. (3/26 to 4/1) I knew that the camp was going to be hard and got more bike time in beforehand, the milder weather helped but knowing I had to prepare made me start earlier this season. About the Camp...It was hard...much harder than I anticipated, here is a note I sent to my coach 2 weeks after the camp: _____________________________________________

The camp down in Georgia really shattered me, while I was able to do most things you gave me for the following week I was really tired for all of them and was sleeping 10 hours a day to recover.

I took last saturday off cuz I had some personal business and did a longer run, bike, run workout on sunday. It really wasn't until yesterday (thursday) that I started to feel better and back to normal.

Anywho, the camp was too much volume for me, there were 3 guys there that were much stronger riders than me, 2 that were a little better and everyone else was way behind me. Most all of the climbs I had to settle in near threshold power to save myself for the next climb and the next day. Some were so steep that I could barely turn the pedals over while standing (15-20%), most were comfortably hard (~5-7%) if I kept the power reasonable. I could decend with the faster guys with no problem even though I've never been in the mountains on a road bike before. On the runs, I was always at the front of the groups and there was nobody there that could swim with me (3 pool sessions).

Last week I kind of just went through the motions of the workouts, I skipped monday and wednesday's swims, friday and saturday didn't go well. Sunday I did a 5 mile run, 2 hour bike and then 5 mile run. I felt OK but struggeled to go faster on the second run.

This week has been much better, Wednesday was OK but the new shoes I have don't run very fast, it seems that I run 10-15 sec a mile slower in them (asics cumulus, I normally wear Mizuno Riders) I really don't like them. Yesterday I ran in my flats and felt so much faster. Tuedsay and Thursday bike rides went well.

Today's run went OK for an easy run and I might ride long today since there is supposed to be quite a bit of rain this weekend and I want to get the bike time in. I'll send data on sunday after the long run. jaretj _______________________________________________

As you can see I was blasted from the camp and really thought that I had made a mistake in going. The biking was so hard there was no way I could stay with the leaders, I road at threshold (3.6 W/Kg) up all of the climbs, some were several miles long and the leaders just road away, yes they were working hard but I would have probably had to be over 4 W/Kg to stay with them. All I could do was go as hard as I could and follow Mark L (if I could) cuz he was riding smart and just above my level. We road 315 miles in 5 days with over 30,000 feet of climbing. I'm going to try to make a seperate post about the camp.

Now the swimming and running were a bit different...On the runs I just stayed with the leaders, not expelling too much energy because I knew we had a lot of riding to do. They weren't running that hard anyway and it was nice not to be killing myself trying to stay with them. On the swims I just went through the motions and stayed even with the faster swimmers. I couldn't believe that most of them wore fins during the swim but I could still stay with them without any extra effort. (That's why I said there was nobody there that could swim with me)

Now the last reason why I'm ahead of last year is that I was really prepped for my Triple T camp and road that strong. I knew all of the courses and concentrated on riding the hills hard. Karen and I (and Curt) went down there on thursday evening and were able to get in 2 good rides on Friday and Saturday with a very strong ride on Sunday too. I didn't blast myself because I kept down the run volume that weekend and wound up staying near 1000 TSS points (in WKO).

So it took me about 10 days to feel like I was back to training well after the HFP camp in Georgia. Since then my longer tempo intervals have been +/- a few seconds off 7 min/mile and my biking has been a lot stronger. In the past I would have a very difficult time running under 7 min/mile while deep in training, now it's difficult but I have been able to do 40 minutes worth of tempo work on wednesdays.

On the bike I tested 225 watts for 20 minutes back in February (FTP 215), just last tuesday I did 3X15'(2') at 229,228,228 so there is a definit improvement there. It's at a point now that I may call my FTP 230 watts even before I test for it, previously I've only been as high as 225 at the end of the last two seasons and it's only May :)

So now going into the last 10 days before Triple T I feel strong and have a lighter training weekend waiting for me. As long as I don't do something and hurt myself I should do as well as last year.

The weather is starting to get better :)

I need more bike time!!!

Going to camp in a few weeks and I would really like to be on the bike 7 to 8 hours per week for the two weeks leading up to the camp. The last 3 weeks have been 5+ hours and I feel pretty good but I haven't had any rides longer than 35 miles yet. The weather looks like it will finally allow me to go longer this week :)

Swimming has been a little low cuz I've been tired on Monday's after running long on Sunday but I got back into the groove this week.

Running is going well, 37 miles this week with some hard tempo intervals on wednesday. I need to keep up on that so I don't lose what I have.

Still things are going well, 3 solid week behind me with a few more to go until I go down to Georgia for a week with the HFP guys.

Swim
While still not a big focus I am swimming better than last year (which happened to be my best so far). I'm not a great swimmer but do OK. A week ago Karen and I went to a start and turn clinic at a local YMCA, I knew my turns were pretty good but it's the starts that I really needed help with. I know part of what I'm doing wrong but there is a lot I don't know about how to get off the blocks.

Probably the number one thing I do wrong is that I bend my legs while going into the water. I know I do it, I concentrate on not doing it but it still happens about 80% of the time. Another problem is that I don't bend at the hips enough to go into the water in really straight, I do more of a shallow dive and make a big hole in the water and I think that really slows me down.

Other than that I can get in the water without losing my goggles and something like a half sec behind my competition, maybe a full second behind someone that is really good.

The training has going well, there has been a swim meet at my local pool for the last two weekends so I haven't been able to swim on friday, that's OK since I've used that time to get another bike session.

Bike
I've been increasing bike time slowely but it's hard to get in extra time while on the trainer. I've gotten 4.75, 4.75 and 5.2 hours on the bike for the last 3 weeks, all but one ride on the trainer. The weather is supposed to be getting better this week and hopefully I can get some time on the road.

I did a FTP test two weeks ago and while I didn't do as well as I'd hoped I did do what I figured I'd do. 225 watts for the 20 minute period which puts my FTP ~215 watts. So It appears normal for this time of year and I kind of expected it while only riding ~3.5 hours a week for an extended period of time. I've gotten an extra ride in on the last two fridays and I think that will help me out some.

Run
A lot of work is going into this right now, the last 3 weeks have been at 36.5, 38 and 41 miles. It appears I'm done with VO2 intervals for now and into tempo intervals. While I'm able to do them they are a different kind of hard running. A lot of running in the low 7's is quick for me but I know doing them will help me out a lot. A big focus on Olympic distance this summer is probably why my coach is giving them to me.

Most of my running has been inside on a treadmill or on the track at LRC but with the weather getting better I'm hoping to do more running on the road now. :)

Everything is getting back on track

I got a little cold two weekends ago, most likely cuz I have been getting little sleep. Not because I couldn't I just was staying up and watching TV too late. Since I get up for work at 430am I really need to be in bed by 830 to get enough effective sleep.

I missed a few swims and swam two events in a swim meet while sick but am back on track now.

Swim meet at Brighton High School:
Our club "FAST" hosted a masters' swim meet on Feb 5th, Superbowl Sunday, and I had to be there to help run the timing system. I was already signed up for the meet so since I was there I swam my events as scheduled and just kept the option open to bail out if I felt too bad.

I swam the 1500 and the 400 free and while I didn't expect to do my best I did put down some good times for me at this time of year. The best I have ever swam the 1500 is 23:54, I seeded myself at 23:45 and came in at 23:45.57 so I was happy with that being sick and all.
The 400 went pretty well, I swam 5:58.16 which is about a half second slower than my best from 2008. While I'm not the fastest swimmer I did have a strategy...swim the first 100 strong, keep a good pace for the second 100, try to make the third 100 the fastest I could go and do my best to hold the pace for the last 100. I went according to plan and it appeared to work well for me.

Anywho, back to training stuff:
Swmming: Going OK, nothing new, I've been able to bring my pull sets in at 1:15/100 and leave on 1:30 pretty consistantly but swimming without them has been nearly the same. This week I seemed more tired than usual but probably just as fast as I've ever gone.

Biking is going OK, nothing new either. I've been basing my interval effort on 225 watts but that is probably a little high right now since I've been riding just under 4 hours a week. Last week I was just under 5 hours cuz I was able to ride outside on friday. I got my road bike finished and rode it for the first time on friday but only for about an hour.

Running going well, the last two weeks have been ~36 miles with short intervals on wednesday and longer intervals on sunday's long run.

So all together I'm doing well but I want to get more time on the bike so I may cut my friday swim and start riding on that day. I've got 5 weeks before my Camp with HFP down in Georgia and I don't want to go there unprepared to ride the distances on the schedule. Ideally I would like to be near 7 hours for 3 week before the camp.

Jan 31 2012 - 56° outside :)

I got to bike and run outside today

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/146241386

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/146241391

week ending 1/29/12

Training went well except I was a little tired at the end of the week from going to bed too late.

I missed the swim on monday because I was out of town but I did get a good run in on the Rec center track in the evening. I also missed the short swim on friday cuz I was very sleepy. The wed and sat swim I felt fairly strong.

Tues, Thurs, Sat bike went as planned and felt OK during those sessions. Not strong or weak, just kind of in the middle.

Running went well...Wednesday's intervals started conservative but ended as planned, Sunday's intervals in the long run went well too. Junk mile days were OK...I was tired on friday.

I've lost a little bit of weight, I've been 143 lbs 3 times last week so ~3 lbs in 2 weeks by adjusting my diet and bringing my run back up to where I was at before.

So nothing out of the ordinary other than my leg feeling better, today I'm a bit tired but that's normal for monday.

Report on wednesday's intervals

Wednesday's intervals have come and gone and I still feel pretty good. I'm just about back from the hamstring problem.

7 miles including 5X4' hard 3' easy with warm up and cool down.

Started cautiously at 6:50 then progressed a bit quicker to 6:40, 6:29, 6:22, 6:19. The target was 6:20 to 6:30 so I got there in the last 3 intervals.

Looking back at why I had a problem, here is the chain of events that preceded the issue:

I had been running really strong for several weeks (~35 mpw) and had hit all of my goals in the intervals.

Most of my interval sessions were on a treadmill where I could set the speed exactly where I wanted to.

I was on the holiday break from work so I didn't have the same treadmill available.

My exercise patterns were slightly disrupted.

I was running on the track at the Livonia Rec center on that particular day.

I didn't feel particularly strong that day, most likely cuz I had just woken up ~3 hours before and had been fairly inactive.

I didn't feel warmed up that day but had done my normal amount of warm up at 15min.

I struggled to meet the speed required for the intervals on the first two of 5X4'(2')

I just ran the next two as hard as I could even though they were slower than prescribed.

I noticed a slight pain in the back of my right leg after the second interval, kind of ignored it cuz intervals hurt anyway.

I jogged the last one cuz I couldn't make the pace.

Cooled down normally and still had the pain in my right leg.

Just a note on how I know the pace...I have a Garmin 310xt and the footpod that goes with it. That gives me run speed while indoors but on the track it reads kind of funny depending on which way we run around the track and how I'm running that day. Since it's only on one foot it appears to record the distance of that one leg and assumes the other leg is taking about the same size step, that's not necessarily true all of the time.

The way I adjust the pace for that inconsistency is that I know the track is 10 laps to a mile, on warm up I look at how the watch tracks to the number of laps, that day it was reading low, I don't really know why. With the interval function of the watch it doesn't count out miles and I was doing 15 min warm up and didn't really pay attention to how it tracked that day, it could have been 1.9 miles and only counted 1.8 miles which would put it way off for that day.

I started the intervals very aggressively mainly cuz I had done them quite a bit with good success (this is the hardest of the VO2 interval sets) but should have eased into them a little bit. Combined with the watch being slightly off and me not really warmed up I probably started off way to fast, maybe as fast as 6:10 which is really too fast for me.

With that in mind it's apparent the I didn't warm up enough, started off too hard, and ran much too fast that day. Those things were what I was trying to avoid yesterday and it appears I did a much better job.

Right leg is still feeling good

My hamstring is still feeling good. I ran a little faster today on the treadmill but still stayed cautious. 6 miles averaged 8:00 min/mile.

To keep it interesting I built the speed up to 7.2 mph then went up every .25 miles until I got to 7.5 then back down to 7.2. It passed the time quicker.

Good news!

Today is the first day of running with any kind of speedwork. My coach Mike Plumb allowed me to adjust my effort according to how my hamstring responds so I started out cautiously.

Workout is Run 6 miles include 4X4' hard 3' easy. I normally use Daniels I pace for hard and that is a 6:27 min/mile.

I ran on a treadmill and started easy at a 7:40 pace, after that I increased the pace ~20 sec/mile for the next 2 then a just a little bit for the last one. I wound up with 7:38, 7:23, 7:02, 6:53.

So far everything feels good, I got through the workout with no issues but am still going to be cautious for the next week or two.

Week ending 1/15/2012

Right leg is feeling better, I ran 6 days this week, just a little bit of pain. Ran 6 miles twice this week and ~4 miles every other day. I'm going to put a little speed in the comming wednesday.

Biking is going good, rode outside on tuesday but had to ride the trainer on thursday and saturday.

Swimming went very good this week. Swam strong on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Swam short on Saturday and swam a swim meet on Sunday.

A few new personal best times during this meet.

1000 free 13:41 which is 20 seconds faster than before. This was the first swim of the day so I was pretty fresh for it. I actually negative split the swim with a 6:52 then a 6:49.

200 free 2:26.X I wasn't going to swim this but Karen made me feel guilty about skipping it to stay fresh for the 500. Maddie said I would swim 2:25 but I let her down :( I can remember seen a 1:12.x for the first 100 so the second must have been a 1:13.x

100 free was a 1:06.4 I had a decent start and swam strong. I was actually surprised to see that.

The other race was the 500 free 6:46 which was 3 seconds off of my best. I really wanted to beat by pace from the 1000 and this was the last race of the day. I was kind of tired from swimming the 200 free and in the 4X100 relay back to back but did well anyway.

Update 1/12/12

The last few weeks have been interesting, most important is the run.

During the holidays I hurt my right hamstring during some track intervals (12/28). Things started off slow, I've been doing these for quite a while and know what I'm capable of, I appeared to struggle to hold the disired pace (<6:30) and developed a little pain in the back of my right leg.

Now this has happened before, I was running hard and expected to have some pain but this one stayed with me. When I got to the 5th rep I decided I was too tired to complete it so I just ran it out at an easier pace and completed the milage for the day. Afterwards I had the nagging pain that wouldn't go away.

I tried to run thursday with the option of bagging the run and I did. I walked about half a mile and then ran a half mile then quit. I took friday off from running.

Saturday I ran about 30 minutes and have been doing so up until last sunday (1/8) where I did 6 miles. It was feeling OK but not 100%. Monday and tuesday were 4 miles, yesterday was 6 miles and it's feeling much better. I started stretching it last sunday and putting a heating pad on it while watching TV. The reason I didn't start stretching it earlier is because I believed part of the muscle was damaged or torn, I did not want to stretch a torn muscle and tear it some more. Sunday I felt that it was time to start lengthing the muscle again so I started stretching.

Today I feel pretty good and plan to continue running easy for another week.

On the bike I've been fairly strong, not as good as before the Christmas holiday but still good, I've met all of my goal on the workouts except for last saturday where I rode outside and it was too cold for me. I came home, put the bike on the trainer and couldn't really get any motivation to finish the workout. On another note, The compact crank on that bike (with 650's) doesn't have enough gear to do zone 4 intervals with a slight tailwind and with the cadence I like to pedal at. It will not be a good choice for me to train or race with on the road.

I was able to get out on the road last tuesday too, it was a little warmer and dry. I rode the P2 for the right gearing since it has a standard crank on it.

Swimming has been going very well, it appears with my drop in run volume I'm much stronger for swimming and have been really strong in the pool. I've been consistantly bringing in 100's in 1:20 and 200's well under 2:50 so I'm pretty happy with the training.

I'm swimming a meet at EMU this weekend. I've signed up for the 1000, 500, 200 and 100 free but I really want a good 1000 and 500 time.

Yay!!! It was warm enough for me to run outside

I'm working a lot of half days this week so I'm not running on the treadmill. Today it was almost 50°F so I ran on Hines drive :)

Swim went well too, don't know why but I swam pretty strong today. I got in the pool a little later than normal so I had to split the lane with others :(

Week ending 12/18/11

Legs feeling much better this week, I did all of my easy runs easier than before. Instead of building the speed through the runs I kept the treadmill down at 8:10 to 8:20 on monday, tuesday and friday.

I did have a run issue during the week...I didn't eat very much on tuesday night which left me unable to complete my intervals on wednesday morning. I got through two of the intervals and then bagged the rest of the workout. I was completely out of energy that day. I completed the intervals as planned on thursday morning.

Swimming is going OK, I bagged wednesday's swim and swam longer on friday to make up the yards. I'm still able to come in low 1:20's on 100's, a lot of this week's workouts will be on a 1:35 send off so It will be a little harder.

Biking is going well, I'm still doing ~1:10 per workout and trying to keep in the highest part of each training zone. Saturday I had several 2 min Zone 5 intervals which I have not done well on in the past, I was able to start at the low end and finish them at the higher end of the zone. I'm really hoping to bring my FTP up well over 230 this summer which should get me near 3.7 watts/Kg. Ideally I would like to be closer to 4.0 but that may still be a year or two away. If I can get those 10 watts I think I will be able to get closer to 3 hrs at the Little Smokies on the bike and still have a good run.

The only real concern I have now is my weight again. I'm a little heavier than expected and have started my food log again (not the online one) to help me realize how much I'm eating.

Legs feeling better now

My legs have been pretty sore for the last two weeks despite my reduced off-season volume. I have been pretty consistent with running 6 days a week but have recently started biking a bit harder.

Because of that I think I've not been able to recover. Starting this week I decided to run my junk mile days easier like I probably should be. Instead of pushing monday and tuesday to mid 7 min/miles on the treadmill I've kept it in the low 8's.

Today I felt much better on the bike and now afterwards I'm not nearly as sore. Hopefully this is the solution to that problem.

With the 100/100 challenge starting on ST in 2 days I might actually bump up to 7 days. Most likely I will only be running 30 min on saturday in addition to what I'm doing now but that also depends on how I feel.

What I'm working on now

Like last winter I'm spending a lot of my time working on my running. I can run a long time but not really that fast so I'm doing something about it.

The recent 10K of 42:28 shows that the work has been paying off. I probably won't get another 10K in until the spring when it gets warmer. I'm been debating on a goal but instead of that I might just going to work on speed and whatever I get is whatever I get. I would like to be under 40 min but I'm not sure if that attainable. I'm going to need to drop from 6:51 to 6:27 or ~24 seconds per mile. I'm thinking that's a pretty tall order and maybe going under 41 min would be a better goal, that would be running 6:35's.

Ultimately I need to go as fast as I can in triathlon so without goals I won't be disappointed or held back. Since paces are set by recent results all of my speed work stimulate improvement.

My basic running week goes like this:
Mon run 4 miles
Tue run 5 miles
Wed run 6 miles with VO2 intervals
Thu run 4 miles
Fri run 6 miles
Sat off from running
Sun run long (12 miles now)

Running during the week is mostly on the easy side. I run a little easier on monday and thursday to help recover from the hard workouts, the other runs are a little quicker pace but not quite fast. I'll run as fast as 7:30's on tuesday and friday but no faster.

I'm doing this while still training on the bike and in the water. Swimming is still going well. When I get the workouts for this week I may change the paces depending on how I feel.

On the bike I'm riding pretty hard and only doing the prescribed workout, I am not addding any extra so I can kill the intervals. I'm using 225 for an FTP and am hitting the top of the zones so I'll keep them there for now. They are hard but I'm not ready to raise them yet.

I plan to keep the volume of the swim and bike the same until it's time to get ready for Triple T which happens to be ~23 weeks away. When I get closer I would really like to get 10+ hours on the bike for ~10 weeks while keeping the swimming the same.

Week ending 12/11/11

Pretty good week with 6 days of running 3 days of swimming and 3 days of biking.

Swimming:
Made all of my intervals but had to swim at Schoolcraft on saturday because of a swim meet going on at the Rec Center. Water was normally warm but still a decent workout. Dropped some of my send off times to 1:35.

Biking:
3 days, made the top of all the intervals everything going well. A little twitch in my left quad had me a little worried but I've been training through it. It's not really unexpected since I've been going harder on the bike.

Running:
All indoors on the treadmill and the LRC track. Wednesday's intervals went as planned although they were tough. I had a little twitch in my left calf as well but like in my quad, I'm training through it as well.

165 Cranks

I forgot to mention that Last tuesday (11/29) I started riding with 165mm cranks on my Felt S32 which is on my trainer right now. I don't know if they are better for me or not but I have been putting out slightly more power in the last week.

It could be that I'm fairly well focused on bike training right now or it could be that they work better for me. After about 6 weeks (mid January 2012) I'll change back to the 170's and see if there is a difference.

Thoughts on week ending 12/4/11

Swim
I Felt tired on Monday, swam about 1000 yards and then got out, don’t know why.
Wednesday swim went well, felt strong in the water despite the hard run earlier in the day. I skipped Friday’s short swim because I had stuff to do.
Saturday swim went well despite feeling tired; I made or beat all of my intervals. Finished the week with 8000 yards

Bike
Since I was on the trainer all week I just wanted to get the work done so I did not try to extend any of the rides for junk miles. When starting I warmed up until I felt my muscles burning slightly, turned on the fan and rode another 5 minutes. After that I went into the planned workout. All of them went well. Finished the week with 3:40 on the bike.

Run
Still working on speed
Mon 4 miles on Treadmill
Tue 5 miles on Treadmill
Wed 6 miles with intervals on Treadmill
Thu 3.7 miles (30 minutes) on Treadmill
Fri 6 miles and was able to run outside
Sun 12 miles on LRC track
Felt OK all week, Wednesday’s intervals were good mainly because they were short, Sunday I felt strong and negative split the run by a few minutes.

2012 race schedule

I’ve planned most of my schedule for next year and have paid for some of it early to save some money.

Races/Events for next year (2012) include:

HFP training Camp from 3/26 to 4/1 (paid)
Dooby Du on 4/15 (maybe)
Triple T Camp from 5/4 to 5/6
Triple T Ohio 5/18 to 5/20 (A race) (paid)
The HFP racing series including (paid)
---Deer Creek 6/3
---Maumee Bay 6/17
---Mountaineer 6/24
---Caesar Creek 7/15
---East Fork 8/5 (maybe)
---Portage Lake 9/16
He tried She tried sprint partner race 7/22 (maybe)
Battle of Waterloo 8/19 (paid)
Allen’s elite race 9/15 (maybe)
Rev 3 Cedar Point Half 9/9 (A race)

And depending on how things go and how I feel I may go to Long Course Nationals again, this time it’s at the Redman Tri in Oklahoma City

I think I’m going to get away from facebook and start putting my thoughts here again.

I was looking at an update I did on November 5th 2010 and wanted to report on how things went.

Swimming did go very well, I had the best State Meet to date. I PR’d in the 1650, 1000, 500 and did OK in the shorter events. I even found out that eating Jimmy Johns before the 500 helps me swim better. I don’t know why but I swim well on a half full stomach.

Base time is on the brink of changing from 1:40 to 1:35 and I’m still killing the intervals. My shoulders feel good and I’m normally enthused about swimming. Most of the time I’m swimming ~ 2400 yds on Monday and Wednesday, short on Friday and longer on Saturday.

I was on the Mountain Bike a lot last summer, mostly 2 to 3 times a week getting ready for Xterra races, I got a lot better at it. I was on the road at least one time a week for the Tuesday brick where I did intervals with Gary and Jim during the bike portion. Despite not being on the road that much I still got faster there as well. In fact after losing muscle mass in my legs in the winter of 2009/10 I appear to have gained it back last summer and am currently holding in the lower 140’s instead of the upper 130’s.

Biking is kind of on the back burner right now since I’m seriously working on my 10K run speed. I will be 3 hours a week for a few months now, will probably build back up in February.

Running is where it’s at for me right now. I’ve been consistently getting in 35+ miles per week and getting faster. I did very well last summer but because of poor race execution in a few of my Xterra races it didn’t show like it should have.

Races with good running in them last year include the Martian Half Marathon 1:36:30, Dooby Duathlon where I run under 7:00 pace for all of the legs, Waterloo tri where I finished 5th OA, Battle of Waterloo where I finished 7th OA, Xterra Wild’s where I ran really strong on the trails and the Ann Arbor Turkey trot 10K where I ran a 42:28. I’m going to continue to work on run speed until it’s time to get back to triple-t training.

Xterra races I did this year:
Xterra Ft Yargo that I crashed out of.
Xterra Torn Shirt was a good race for me
Xterra Dino Versailles was really hot and didn’t go well
Xterra Sugar Bottom was a good race but poorly executed by me
Xterra Wild’s was a good race well executed
Xterra USA Championships was OK but did poorly on the bike, could be many reasons why but I probably had too high of expectations for the bike.

Another good week

I only swam two times cuz the pool was closed on friday and saturday. There was a big swim meet going on during the weekend. I had to work saturday morning so I couldn't swim with some friends that offered me a free pass :( I'm still feeling strong in the pool. I was able to get under 1:20 for a few 100's and well under 2:50 for some 200's.

Biking is going as usual...3 hours of various intervals. I feel strong but really want to get back outside. Power zones still feel good. I'm at the top of them most of the time.

Running was a little bit higher this week cuz I ran two times on friday. Since the pool was closed I did a 30 min run in it's place. Wednesday's run had tempo intervals in it which I like a lot better than fast intervals. The long run was just a straight run and fairly boring.

New Pict on top

This is from Triple T North Carolina Saturday PM race (Race 3 of 4)

I know that cuz I'm not wearing arm warmers from the morning races and I have a big water bottle for doing an Olympic dist race in the warm, dry weather.

I really had a good time at that race. 3rd in Masters is a good result for me especially since the weekend before I was 27th at Nationals. My buddy Gavin said I looked stronger at Triple T than I did at Nationals :)

An update

Just a note to remind myself how I'm doing.

Swimming is going very well. I decided to ease back on the swim volume this winter and focus on running so I've been swimming 3 days a week between 2500 and 3000 yards at a time.

Things that I've noticed are:
My shoulders don't hurt anymore
I don't dread going to the pool
I get right in and kill the intervals
I'm noticeably faster now that I've ever been before

I think the reduced volume has allowed me to swim harder since I won't be going as far. It's not uncommon for me to bring 100's in under 1:20 and 200's under 2:50 when I need to. For the last few years I struggled to bring them in under 1:30 and 3:00. I swam 23:54 in a 1500 at a local swim meet, my previous best was a 24:07 :)

Biking seems to be going well too. While looking over last year's data I noticed that I'm 10 to 15 watts higher this year for the same type of intervals. I'm only doing 3 hours a week now, when the weather breaks I'll get longer rides in. Hopefully the trails will dry out quickly so I can get back on my Mountain bike too.

Running appears to be going well too. I've been consistently running 40 miles per week for the last 3 weeks and have only missed 3 days of running this year. This was cuz I hurt my ribs while snowboarding :(

The fast intervals age getting more comfortable and the tempo intervals are getting to be more fun than work. I enjoy running 7:20's (tempo) much more than before and hopefully this will translate quicker times in my short course racing and Xterra.

Speaking of Xterra, races I've planned for this season include:
Xterra Ft Yargo (Atlanta GA)
Xterra Torn Shirt (Brighton MI)
Xterra Dino Versailles (Versailles IN)
Xterra Appalachia (Indiana PA)
Xterra USA Championships (Ogden Utah) hopefully I can qualify

Other Xterra races I'm interested in but probably won't do are:
Xterra Last Stand (MI) interferes with Triple T Ohio
Xterra Scales Lake (IN) If I could ride with someone I'd go.
Xterra Sugar Bottom (IA) Long drive
Xterra DINO Logansport (IN) interferes with Battle of Waterloo on 8/14/11
Xterra Dairyland (Sheboygan WI) If I could ride with someone I'd go too.

I got my new mountain bike on tuesday :)

Specialized Rockhopper Expert 29er

Screw long-course triathlon...I'm going to Xterra next season

I was just informed today that I did not make the roll down for ITU worlds at Long course nationals. I missed it by 2:19, and got beat by a bunch of runners that got lucky from a cancelled swim :(

Going to focus on shorter stuff next season...mainly Xterra. When the official schedule comes out I'll put up my plans but unofficialy I'll be doing up to 6 off-road races.

Long Course Nationals

I'm offically signed up for the 2010 TriSports.com Halfmax National Championship at the Myrtle Beach Triathlon on October 2, 2010.

With any luck I'll be able to qualify for the 2011 ITU Long Distance Triathlon World Championships in Las Vegas on Nov 5 2011. I need to score a top 20 in my age group to make it in.